LoL Alistar Jungle Guide

LoL Alistar Jungle Guide by MomentOfXen

Howdy everyone. I’m here to bring back S2’s cancer to the main stage. Welcome back Jungle Alistar, there may be more optimum picks, but you know what? Here’s the cow.

Runes:

AS Reds – AR Yellows – 5% CDR Blues, Scaling MR Blues – 1 AR Quint – 2 MS Quints

Note: I would bet scaling CDR would be better, I sadly do not have these yet.

Masteries:

4/23/3 – CDR and MS from Off/Sup

Skill Max Order:

R>Q>W>E (Take E at lv2)

Build:

Machete, HP Pots – Rangers Cinderhulk

-Balanced: Cinderhulk, Spirit Visage, Thornmail, Righteous Glory, Warmogs

-AD Heavy: Cinderhulk, Thornmail, Warmogs, Righteous Glory, Situational

-AP Heavy: Cinderhulk, Spirit Visage, Warmogs, Righteous Glory, Randuin’s Omen

For damage items, I do not recommend them, but anything with Spellblade is useful.

Clear:

-Smiteless Leash – Blue, Gromp^s, Red^s, Gank Mid

-Regular Leash – Gromp^s, Blue, Red^s, Gank Mid

-Keep gromp buff up whenever possible, Alistar benefits highly from blue buff and will likely need at least the first two. During his first clear, Q, AA twice then kite back inbetween AAs, spacing out your E to make use of your passive.

Strengths:

-Terrifying ganks starting at lv3

-Great teamfight engages, peels

-Jungle sustain after rangers

-One of the best pure tanks in the game

Weaknesses:

-Vulnerable to invasion on first clear

-Can be counterjungled fairly easily

-CD reliant

-Cannot solo dragon (easily)

Tips ‘n Tricks:

The WQ – Work it out in a bot game, once you pull it off a few times you should be able to pull it off near 100% of the time. A Malphite ultimate that is available to you at level 3. Only usable when accompanied by other teammates, you have little followup.

Q Flash W – You can flash during his Q to reposition it (you also can just Flash Q W), then pick whoever you want from the group and Ali-oop them into your team.

W – Can be used to escape over walls to jungle monsters or escape in lane to a minion, punt someone over a wall to remove them from the fight, punt someone over the wall into your team, be creative!

E – When ganking, using it for the small heal is OK, more often using it to trigger Ali’s passive ignore unit collision is usually more helpful.

R – Don’t use at the very beginning of a fight, also do not hold it until you are super low in health. Generally trigger it around 60-70% HP as they begin to try and whittle you down. After using it, begin auto attacking either the biggest threat to your carries, or the squishy with the least amount of armor, you get a huge AD steroid.

Turrets – Alistar is arguably the best champion at fighting near turrets. Between his tankiness to allow dives and his ability to reposition the enemy you can remove people from their turret range or bring them into yours easily.

B-b-but:

Why not use Sejuani or Gragas? Shouldn’t Alistar be support?

Honestly? For a change of pace. But for a real answer the strength Alistar has over those two would be his ganks in the early to mid game. This is what you get out of Alistar Jungle that you don’t get out of Alistar Support.

Isn’t his clear awful?

It honestly isn’t that bad. I gank a lot and still usually keep up with the enemy Gragas in CS. I usually am at 50-60% HP after my first clear depending on the leash and that is definitely enough to gank a lane or two.

How has it been going?

Recent match history. That last one was getting out of hand hence the Rod of Ages and early surrender time. Otherwise in teambuilder I’m still experimenting with things, the above recommendations are based on what currently is best, but maybe not the most fun.

What about AP Alistar?

It is possible but I probably wouldn’t advise it at the moment. With more testing I might be able to, we’ll see.

tl;dr Mooooooooooooooooooooo

Looking for additional tips, tweaks, etc. to improve everything. I’m by no means a terrific player, but Alistar Jungle is the most fun I’ve had in a while and I thought I’d share this.