The (currently testing) changes to Alistar W

I'm a fan of the cow and a fan of the trimming down of the targeted spells Riot's been doing recently but I honestly do NOT like these alistar changes shown in the video above. does get a few things out of this. 1) An escape 2) Extra gap closer, can W then Q to initiate long range 3) Waveclear I guess 4) Small aoe

I don't believe these benefits help alistar that much though. 1) Alistar has relatively little need for an escape, he can knock back/knock up the jungler when they gank. Additionally he is super tanky post 6. 2) This is the single best thing about the w change. No argument here, although I personally would rather pick up a Righteous Glory/shurelias to initiate with the whole team rather than one cow 3) The waveclear itself is rather minimal... 4) The aoe as seen in moobeat's video is painfully small and appears to be somewhat unreliable. I would hope for something that's more in line with his Q aoe in size.

However, we lose a lot as well, mostly in the area of mobility due to the first-champion-hit nature of the new spell. Alistar can no longer choose his target effectively. This applies both to offensive and defensive situations.

Say that there's a low health adc bot lane and I want to W-Q initiate. The support can block my initiation. This also applies to teamfights - Alistar can no longer dive the back line without getting blocked. In defensive situations it's a little less bad although, again, you can get blocked by the enemy if you want to W back to peel off the jax whomping your ADC. Additionally the loss of ability to travel over walls, while less significant, still hurts alistar.

I can see where riot's trying to go with the changes and I applaud them. They're trying to make a non-point and click initiation that is interactable for BOTH teams (the support . I would understand if it were happening to a dominating point-and-click champion like akali or ryze. However, Alistar is dominating neither solo queue nor competitive currently. He's an initiation support in a peel heavy meta where Janna, Thresh, and Braum are top tier and is also sitting at the fifth lowest win rate - 43%.

Maybe Riot plans to buff him now that his W is not point and click - perhaps work with the numbers so he can return to grazing in the top lane. However, I do not like how this current iteration cuts back on his mobility and target selection and seems to be an utter nerf to his support role. If the ability remains as is I'd hope for some sort of buff in the form of numbers or a wider knockback ratio if possible. I love this cow Riot and you know you do too :(