kitty

Lich Bane is a good item as it gives you two main stats that are good for tanks: movement speed and magic resistance. However, the MR is a little low, but combined with say, Banshee's Veil, the combined MR should be sufficient. The mana and 80 ap is good but are really just small bonuses. I'd definitely recommend this over a Rabadon's for AP Alistar. Combine this with a Zhonya's, Abyssal Sceptor, and/or a Rylai's and you got yourself some armor and MR with the AP that you're looking for. The best part of Lich Bane is the passive that adds your AP to your next physical attack. A W+Q+auto attack combo will deal quite a thump to your target. Compared to Sheen, I think it's better for AP Alistar. The main downside is that Lich Bane costs so much, just under 200g less than a Rabadon's. That downside is offset by replacing Rabadon's in your build. Sure you lose a little bit of AP, but Alistar's ratios suck but you probably gain more damage overall by switching to Lich Bane. tl;dr yes

I see what you mean, and you're right, it is used efficiently across multiple targets. I just think that while Alistar can fill that role of a pusher, he's not a great choice when you need to sacrifice some of your tankiness to do so. I guess I'm just used to the meta game. Support/tanks are supposed to let their ad carry partners do all the pushing and all the CS. Even at 1250 elo which is pretty much average, I see people get pissed at their tanks/support for taking a few creep kills.

You should be getting Shurelya's pretty much asap. It's a core item on Alistar and alleviates your problems of initiating and running away. It also helps your team out as it's an aoe effect. Additionally, you should know that you can chain Alistar's w and q, in that order, if you time your key presses correctly. If you time it correctly, you'll charge toward the enemy target and they will be knocked into the air but not away from you. It's a great way to initiate a fight near a tower because most teams group up under them. Also it's a nice solution to your <50hp dilemma. Finally, I think AP Alistar is a lost cause, his AP ratios were nerfed to half of what they were on his q and something similar on his w. As a tank, you should not be trying to output damage and instead you should be concentrating on positioning enemy champions to be bursted, get them peeled from their teammates, interrupting enemy ults, etc. etc. By building a Rabadon's, when you have no other large AP items, you are gimping yourself considerably. If you want to kill people as an AP champ but still be tanky, play Swain or Cho'gath. Alistar was specifically nerfed to not be able to do what you are trying to do. But hey, if you find it fun, just ignore me and have fun.

Again, I disagree. Deathfire Grasp is usually only worth it on support champs and maybe tanks. For AP carries, the AP loss you take with Deathfire in comparison to Zhonya's or Rabadon's is too high for "30%" damage which is affected by MR. Tanks will hurt from it, but their high MR will negate a great portion of the damage. Used on anyone else, I'd rather have a Zhonya's or Rabadon's. That said, you're not even supposed to be targeting tanks in the first place.

I think it's more on the "bad" side of items. It's not very cost efficient for the stats you get, but on the flipside does provide an unique combination of stats. CDR is fairly easy to come by - 9% from masteries alone - and almost 6% from full CDR blue runes. Tanks should, in my opinion, be building Frozen Heart almost 100% of their games, which gives an additional 20%, bringing CDR to 35%. This lets you get Merc treads for the tenacity without sacrificing the full CDR from Ionian boots. Shurelya's gives another 15% which is a core item on Alistar. Even if you don't have full masteries, that's at least 35% of CDR without Morello's Evil Tome. You can build much better "tank" AP items like Rylai's or Rod of Ages to fill in for AP with the health which is critical in tanks, as noted by Brad. Mana regen would be taken care of by Shurelya's and masteries. Even at summoner level 15 you can get 3% from the offense tree; 6% at level 20 in utility. If you buy a Doran's Ring, you'll get health, 5 mana regen, and 15 ap. That's just missing the 10% CDR and 2 mana regen from the Fiendish Codex but with bonus health at almost 1/3 of the cost. Your early game will be much better off with a D-Ring than trying to rush Morello's. tl;dr you end up with much higher combined stats by not getting Morello's

"Solo" queue is actually 1 or 2 people. As such your stats for playing with a friend are still saved under solo queue stats. And, as you've noted, there are 5v5s. EDIT: Oh and one of those games our fifth chose Ashe after we already had a Kog, which prompted our GP jungle to leave at the start of the match, which further caused our LeBlanc mid to afk in the fountain; and after 6 minutes our terrible Ashe who missed two volleys (didn't hit ANYTHING) also afk'd in the fountain and me and my friend were literally 2v5. What made that even worse was the enemy team didn't kill the nexus until after 20 minutes. EDIT2: On an unrelated note, I'm hoping/predicting sinful succulence Morgana will be in the next sale. Or at least soonish...

Welp after a win streak in ranked I dual queue with my 1500 buddy and lose 8 out of 10 ranked games. Now we're both stuck in ELO hell. =(

I'd play with you Tensei but I hardly see you on. Anyway, I play Summoner's Rift more often because Dominion stresses me out a little too much. As far as Dominion goes, I think it's fun to an extent. I also think that comparing it to Battlefield is like comparing apples and oranges. MOBA mechanics on a capture points game setting is a lot different than FPS capture points. And finally, Tensei, your response here is a perfect example of why people think you troll. You're overly sarcastic and present your opiniona as "fact" when in reality they're not.

Yeah, still not thinking Heimer is any good in Dominion. After winning ~85% of my dominion games I'm p sure he's garbage because he's been stomped into the ground every time I've met him. That or he just sucks against all our team comps. Also haven't seen effective usage of either new summoner skills consistently. Garrison has potential in certain situations but I'd rather run Exhaust/Ghost. My team also likes super try harding with two CVs for total map "control."

I do know. I think he's an awesome champ on summoner's rift but terrible in dominion.

I have to disagree with the comment on Heimer. Every time I've met him he's been melted and his turrets disappear. He has never been a threat and most matches were lost because of him not being able to do anything.

You won as Heimer? How? Oh wait, I see, no tanky dps on the other team cept for Panth.

I refuse to play Morde but I should because I still have no idea what his skills are like and what they do exactly.

Because TF/Panth/Noc are all not Eve.

Uhhh Shen is really good in a 1v1 top. Like harass and CS all day.

Lowest elo picks last in ranked. It's random to some extent in normal.

A variation could be enchanting/controlling a non-neutral target creep. When you enchant them or w/e you'll buff them in the process. Would make laning rather interesting methinks.

My assumption was that Zircon was stating than in fully built items, whatever they may be, 1v1 head on battle between the two would result in Corki winning. And yeah of course each individual fight and each individual player would factor in but it is in my opinion, in the case of Cho vs. Corki, given what I took as Zircon's assumptions listed above, that Cho would win out more often than Corki. Winning doesn't necessarily entail killing. This is the general starting point, or template, of deciding when to engage, chase, run, or stall. You stress unique details in every fight. They indeed are important, in combination with generalizations. Humans use heuristics and shortcuts to make decisions and use the small details to fill in the gaps. My general thinking is that I can win in a fight versus Corki.

Cho would destroy Corki if both were build complete.

Simple solution: Don't let it get to very late game.

Oh hi, my name is Ryze, I have an AA, and 5 RoAs. Good-bye.

Soooo I preordered from Amazon. How do I redeem my preorder code? Or any preorder, say from Gamestop, for that matter?

Pubs get worse as you gain higher summoner level. Also, up til a few days ago I basically had no other runes than flat armor.

What OverCoat said. Basically having that hands-on experience sealed the deal for me. I preordered the Augmented edition because I was that impressed.

Yeah that poster is in Pritchard's (computer security guy) office.