Alistar Rework Suggestions

Oh, Alistar... what is there to be said about Alistar...

Well, a lot. Obviously.

I love this champion to death, but he's not quite... amazing. He seems to have a similar problem to pre-rework Sion, he's in a sort of identity crisis. He's a support, yeah, but no one really knows what build is best for him. Do you build, AD, AP, Support, Top lane, jungle... no one really knows. Many people say, "he was made to be a support and works as a support, so he is a support." But the problem is that many champs do that job better.

Well, I shouldn't say that. Alistar is unique from other supports and requires some skill to get the most out of his abilities. I'll confess to not having mastered him, but I have a good idea of how he works. The problem is that other supports can give similar result for less trouble. Supports like Blitzcrank or Thresh are often preferred because if you land the hook, you've got a good chance of getting a kill. I compare Alistar to them because their best moves deal a lot with displacement. One of the biggest points of Alistar is his headbutt. It pushes people all around, really good for a support to have. The only problem is that it's tricky to use. You have to get in position to get the most out of it, using flash, ghost, tricky of your own making, etc. Because of this, many people use the dreaded e-q combo, that spends tons of mana and is much less effective; you might as well have just used flash q instead. I only compare him to thresh and blitz because they do similar things; their best ability is their displace, and Alistar's is a bit hard to use by comparison.

I guess the biggest problem is that he got nerfed recently, with his absolutely horrible cooldowns. Not to mention that his abilities suck down mana if you aren't careful. You could argue that that makes him balanced, but the players by and large think that it makes him a pain to play. Anywhere you put him, either you have to work hard to be "evenly matched" with an enemy laner that has a different champion playing the same role, or you're pretty underpowered.

If you play him as a top lane bruiser, he can build some serious tankiness, but even loaded up with AD and his ult, he's not a very strong choice. Not to say that it can't work, it's just tough going. Any ranged top counter-pick really hurts him, unless he uses his e as a flash and q to keep them from getting away. Even then, you probably won't kill them because your abilities don't have damage because of their massive cc, and they scale off AP, which you're probably not building. Your heal is much less effective when you've got a lot of HP, because again, it scales off AP, and since it's an aoe heal, you can't make it too strong or it would be so op, like having an immortal minion wave or team in a teamfight.

As a jungler... he actually is very functional, surprisingly, but his camp clear sucks, and he's really reliant on early-game ganks. So, if your team won't cooperate and fall back under turret and let them push, you're probably not going to be successful because, again, his camp clear is very slow compared to other junglers. It also doesn't work if your enemy wards well enough or plays passively instead of blindly pushing so they can go roam or take a tower or something.

All of this comes together to make Alistar a very "meh" champion. The people who are good with him have to play really risky, usually having to loop around the jungle, come out under turret, and then smack them around. He's very reliant on positioning, but has slow movement speed; it's one of those champions that sorely needs mobi boots, or he really falls off.

So, I do have a solution in mind, otherwise this would just be a pointless rant, with the ever vague suggestion of "give him a rework."

Firstly, we have to decide where we want him now. I'm assuming that we want to keep him a support, with maybe some potential on top lane. One solution I have is to change his passive.

I love the concept of his passive; it aligns with his character. But that doesn't mean it actually does anything. Since you don't usually build AP, all of Alistar's abilities are almost exclusively used for the cc. With high costs and high cooldowns, you really need to commit to a kill or disengage when using them. So, what I'm thinking is that we could change his passive to solve a bunch of his problems.

Allow me to introduce the concept of "Rampage." Somewhat inspired by Yasuo's flow meter, Alistar could have an alternate resource called rampage. He gains rampage by moving further distances, for instance, to position himself. The more rampage he has, the faster he moves, capping at 100. At maybe 50 or 75 rampage, he could proc trample, allowing him to move past the minion wave, or knock minions and small jungle creatures aside. At 100 rampage, all of his abilities gain additional effects, or change how they work, consuming all of his rampage bar. You lose rampage when you stop moving, and cannot gain it by just running in circles.

For his q, you could increase its range and possibly increase its damage or hang time with the knock up. For his w, increase the distance a little, or maybe the damage; the real bonus to this ability is the movement speed allowing you to get into position, not really the buffs from rampage. For his e, maybe it could also have a very short fear effect on enemies, and root Alistar in place for a second, like he was so pumped he had to stand still and let out his rage for a second. For his ult... I got nothing. It's pretty strong as is, with 70% damage reduction. Again, all of this ability change stuff isn't really necessary, because again, the movement speed buff is the main benefit to Alistar.

You could possibly change out his heal for something else, because his heal is a point of contention among Alistar players... is it worth it, is it any good, is it a waste of mana, etc, etc. I also want to address that his wq combo is bad. Like, people shouldn't resort to that; it wastes a ton of mana for very little payoff, not using the abilities for what the were meant to do. Now, with this system, the abilities can keep their long cool downs, maybe make them a bit longer, but cost no mana. I always thought that it didn't make sense for his abilities to scale off AP (they seem very physical, not really like they would deal magic damage).

This is just a suggestion I have, because I know you guys like to keep champions in rotation (just look what you did for Sion; without that rework, no one would play him. Like ever). Alistar is sorta in the same boat. There are a decent number of people that support with him, and I know they'd like to see him get reworked in a way that would make him more valid in ranked. I tried to keep him as a "linebacker" as you might say, in this build, and I know keeping champions' identity intact is something else you guys find important. Whatever you decide to do with him, one thing's for sure, Alistar could use some attention.