My proposal to fix alistar. -a support main
Why alistar? I haven't seen Alistar in a very long time and I am never in a situation where Alistar is the best pick. He has a 47.69% win rate and 7.39 playrate (other popular supports have twice that playrate). His current niche is to be a tanky support that will make initiating onto be dangerous. A blitzcrank or leona would NOT want to pull/zenith blade onto an alistar.
His entire kit is wq knockup intiate or using q and w to peel. His e is so weak and his ult after the nerf isnt all that great. Its useful for maybe tower diving and tanking more. The point is, he has terrible versatility compared to other tanks like Leona who can peel and initiate both easily or Thresh whos job is to reposition and catch enemies. These two are both tanks and they do alistar's job but better. The only advantage alistar has over these two is that his initiate is point click.
My proposal My proposal is to change his niche to counter these supports whos niches are to kill utility supports like nami or sona.
Passive: Essentially only useful for procing thunderlords. lategame this passive is so trash compared to Nami's ms boost or leona's damage buff. How about bringing back a dumbed down version of old alistar passive with a little tenacity? Scaling %damage reduction with tenacity per point in ult? Q+W: His entire kit. The idea of him charging into the enemy and knocking everyone up is his character, and can't be changed but the idea of needing two abilities activated to achieve this makes him useless for the duration of the cooldown. How about combining the abilities into w, and changing it so it works like a skillshot? Similar to a faster version of sion ult. Dashing forward and aoe knocking up whoever he bumps into.
If his q and w get combined, then that would leave his Q free to further add versatility and characterization. I propose, upon activating q, alistar smashes the ground and, all enemies inside the circular radius are knocked away from the center (think gragas ult) INCLUDING allies being knocked back a little less than enemies would. The reason for this proposal is simple: His niche would be to counter initiating supports, and this q does this exactly. *Alistar cannot knock allys or enemies over walls, they'll just smack into the wall.
I'd change alistar's e extremely slightly. Alistar's character is a really reckless, powerful, and boisterous one, so to change his E, i'd suggest: everyone within the E range is grounded for like a second. (including allies). Also, the E can be activated at any time. It does not have a cast time and it does not queue with his other abilities. He is a crazy, reckless, and arrogant bull that even intimidates his allies!
Thematically Like i said before, he is a crazy, reckless, and arrogant bull. Alistair may accidently knock his adc into a bad spot with his q and he may charge in, miss, and run off to who knows where. With these changes, fights against him will literally feel like he is pushing you around, toying with you, just as a bull should (kind of like those rodeos where cowboys attempt to ride a bull while the bull thrashes around and throws the cowboy around).
Scenarios Some scenarios in mind to show his versatility, how his niche would look and how recklessness could be his downfall. Scenarios 1: Leona initiates on your squishy kogmaw but you q to separate kogmaw and leona. Afterward, alistar uses his w to go in and knock up leona. Scenario 2: Your jungler is coming so you initiate onto a blitzcrank caitlyn but w'ing in, knocking them up, and walking behind them to use q to knock them both into your jungler and adc. (You would NOT want to do this without a jungler because after using w and q, you have no abilities and the enemy will be able to engage onto your adc essentially killing your adc) Scenario 3: You are against nami. You charge in using w but get bubbled and your combo is canceled. In result, nami ults and initaites onto your adc and since you have no knockups anymore, you lose the trade because you used your only peeling abilities to initiate. Scenario 4: You are against sona. You charge in using w but sona uses her MS boost to avoid w (remember his w is like sion's ult) and she ults your adc and her and her adc kills your adc. Scenario 5: A teamfight has broken out at bot, and your team initiates. Alistar goes in too, and uses his q. You accidently send your frontline tank and 2 enemy damage dealers away toward their tower. Simultaneously, you knock an enemy tank and your adc toward YOUR tower. Now, you have to choose whether to dive with your tank or peel your adc. Scenario 6: A zed ults Alistar's adc. Once he appears after his ult, Alistar uses his q, knocking both your adc and zed in the same direction. Immediately after using q, Alistar uses his w so that as zed is being knocked back from Alistar's q, alistar is following him with his w, guaranteeing a hit since knockbacks are linear. (this concept is similar to gragas ulting and bodyslamming the enemy as they are flying. The difference would be that for alistar, its harder to perform this peel combo if the enemy is not directly on top of alistar.)
Possible problems&Conclusion With these changes, Alistair will maintain his tanky knockup and knockback tanky-initiator-counter niche, but just taking it to the next level. His damage output would probably be weaker or way stronger depending on the numbers that Riot decides to implement and his difficulty would be a lot higher, not to mention the possibility of supports trolling but you know, as certainlyT believes, if you never try anything new, you will never step forward.
