Some decent tier lists have been posted..

[Hoax]

Trouble?

Every single game ever has that.  Every CCG has only a handful of deck builds that represent 95% of the entrants to serious tournaments.

Table top gaming has certain units which are considered must buy for some armylists and other units/wargear that is considered overvalued and bad choices.

fps games have certain weapons that are acknowledged as being the best.  I think there are only like 5 guns in all of MW2 that see high level play according to something someone mentioned to me.  Not sure because MW2 is balls.  CS had this though.

High level play is at its core partly, spending enough time thinking about the game and playing it to recognize what works and doesn't and going with what works.

CM is godlike because there isn't a teambuild in the world that isn't better with him in it.  But you can't just fill with Twitch, Sivir, Fiddle + X that is too squishy and there are teams that can take serious advantage of that kind of build.  All Riot needs to do is add a counter here and there to whatever is fotm and the metagame will react to that.  Nidalee hasn't even caught on fully yet but she is beast.  The reason blind pick without bans is considered lame is because yeah, the teams are going to be 80% the same in most games.  That is high level.  In MOBA they get around it in a variety of ways.  Once Riot adds it we can all go play random pick if we want the challenge.

[Samprimary]

this is a problem circumstantial to the matchmaking system not having choices and the fact that regular games are limited to all pick all the time.

people I know are just not playing anymore cause they can't get a random game or a random draft or champion pick mode. It would be tight if we could get champ pick in this game because it would immediately entail a categorical ban on whichever characters are crazy nuts this iteration (bye, Twisted Fate!) and there would be some more semblance of diversity.

[Thrawn]

people I know are just not playing anymore cause they can't get a random game or a random draft or champion pick mode. It would be tight if we could get champ pick in this game because it would immediately entail a categorical ban on whichever characters are crazy nuts this iteration (bye, Twisted Fate!) and there would be some more semblance of diversity.

It isn't just people you know, it's a large part of LoL I'm assuming.  Riot has a good thing going but if they don't get their ass in gear regarding that stuff I really believe they are going to lose a lot of potential players.

[Thrawn]

Fiddle is for sure my new main, won my last 10 normal games.    (something like 17 of my last 20)

[schild]

I will not be playing tonight, but this Nidalee build definitely moves her up a tier from the lists in the OP. Grats to HotShotGG for actually figuring out how to build her (our playstyles were already the same, his build is just vastly superior to mine which relied on Frozen Mallet instead of Infinity Edge late game).

[Prospero]

Fiddle is amazing. Last night it finally clicked, and I went from getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis to spanking any fucker that looks at me sideways.

[Kageh]

Last night I dinged 13 with my summoner (yeah I'm a newb) and I went from a 2-3:1 win/loss ratio to constantly getting my ass handed to me, as I read about someone else here too. It was unbelievable. All of a sudden I'm fighting level 25-28 guys with set teams who steamroll everything.

I'm kind of giving up on TF in solo games. I can do my thing on my own in the middle lane and hold the other guy off just to witness the enemy team constantly pushing forward on the lanes. Due to coordinated/skilled players the potential for gank kills and surprise destiny/gate combos is also very low, and usually they play with a fully built tank (seen lots of Nunus, Mundos and Sions, and surprisingly enough very few Alistars) which is often unstoppable no matter what I spam.

So I started learning Alistar from the tier lists Hoax posted - wanting a decent tank - and I'm finding him very slow (especially compared to Nunu for example). He's a lot more item dependant do be dangerous at start, unless you manage to headbutt enemies into your towers early game, and if the game goes bad early (like you facing a competent ranged harrasser) you're starved for gold and not advancing anywhere. I'm using this guide so far, and when the team is decent, it works out okay - still losing a lot though. Does anyone have some good alternative strategies what to do early game with Alistar if your team is obviously not dominating?

I'm usually going for Chalice and then Sheen or Glacial Shroud->Frozen Heart, and Glacial Shroud already is too big an invest if money is not rolling in.

[schild]

Twisted Fate is a laughably bad soloer against anyone that knows how to play against him. I'll just say that solo laning is a generally hard thing to do unless you spent hundreds of games getting the dance down. I started early beta and ended up solo laning due to he heroes I'd pick and it took me a good while before I would even trust myself in there. Expect to lose... a lot more.

Tanks are slow, buy boots. Alister is better than Nunu. Generally picking up a Guardian Angel early is a better investment if your team can at least sometime get together. Tanks are hard in general, I suck at them nearly every time I try.

[Kageh]

You are right, forgot the boots in there, I usually just get the cheap ones and then forego mobility for armor. Guardian angel is an interesting option early, I build for that too, but usually at a later stage - which might diminish the proc usefulness given the 5 min CD.

Best mid soloers I've seen so far were (in no particular order): Tristana/Teemo/Corki and then after a noticeable gap TF/Ashe and even Heimer, although Heimer falls behind after mid-game.

Alistar definitely has some fun potential with juggling/stunning/headbutting though. I just have to find out if it is worth the bother!

[schild]

I did not mean to say Guardian Angel. Rather, build an Aegis early.

Edit: On that note, you can tell what level you're playing at by your list of best mid soloers. In no particular order, the best mid soloers are Karthus, Nidalee, and Sivir. An amazing Heimer or Cho'Gath can solo mid, but I'd rather not let them (there's almost no such thing as an amazing Heimer or Cho'Gath).

If you're on later tonight I'll group up with you and go pubstomping. That's always fun. But only me, if I bring someone else, odds are you'll be the one getting pubstomped due to the ELO bump.

Edit: At your level I'd also be waiting on Frozen Heart as the last item you build. Your goal as a tank should be to initiate and not die. Especially as Alister. Get in the habit of building that Sheen though.

[Prospero]

Here's my Alistar build that I find to be very successful:

-Mana crystal and 2 helath pots to start

You'll need to be a little more careful with your mana, but getting sheen earlier makes it all worthwhile

- Sheen

I go back as soon as I get the money I need for this. Once you get sheen you can do 500 points of damage against a champ. Pulverize -> punch -> headbutt -> punch -> roar -> punch. It's not uncommon for me to get first blood with this combo. Sheen is also your money maker; roar to charge sheen and then punch 1/3 health creeps.

- Boots -> Boots of swiftness

Generally I get boots of swiftness. Boots of mobility are pretty sweet for getting around the map, but I find the time when I need the speed most is when I'm in combat. You can always grab teleport if you need to travel faster. A big part of playing Alistar is headbutting people back to your team, and for that you need speed. Of course if they are running against an all stun team you should grab mercury treads.

- A defense item

At this point I grab my one piece of defensive gear. Usually I get Aegis because it covers both magic and physical damage and it provides that benefit to your team, but sometimes I grab Frozen Heart or Banshee's.

- Trinity Force

Start grabbing all the pieces for Trinity. If you need a bit more survivability go Phage first, otherwise Zeal. This will make you a killing machine.

For skills I generally level whatever I seem to need most at the time. Generally I level pulverize first, then headbutt, and then roar. Roar is a fantastic skill, but any more than 2 levels isn't necessary. Level 2 is pretty effective and you want to keep the mana costs low so you can charge sheen/tri.

For spells I take flash, and either ghost or clairvoyance. Smite is good for making extra gold and nuking Heim turrets. Rally is darn handy for pushing towers. I wouldn't advise Clarity; you should have plenty of mana. Most spells are useful for Alistar in some fashion.

For masteries I run 4/0/21. The extra XP, move speed, and various cooldown reductions make life much easier. My runes are flat cooldown so I can pulverize more often, armor penetration so I can last hit better, scaling magic resist because spellcasters hurt, and move speed quints so I can chase people down.

The big thing to remember about Alistar, and tanking in general, is that if your team sucks there isn't a whole lot you can do. You're not a carry. You'll get a few odd kills here and there, but generally your job is to make sure your carries can do theirs. When I have a crappy team I generally attach myself to the most competent person on my team and work to keep them alive and fed. Feeding your carries is a big part of being an awesome Alistar. You'll get plenty of money from assists, so try to let your carry get the kills.

If you are laning against decent ranged champs, level roar to two, grab level one headbutt, and then just level pulverize. Level 2 roar will let you shrug off most of their attacks. Hang next to your tower and punish them if they get too close. When a group of minions are close to death walk out and pulverize them to harvest them. Getting pinned isn't very satisfying, but you can keep your tower alive a long, long time as Alistar.

To make money use pulverize and sheen. With pulverize you can take most minions down to half health. You can either walk in, stun them, and then proceed to last hit them one by one, or if your minions are damaging a bunch at once, just walk in at the end and harvest them with pulverize. If you can stun a champ in the process, so much the better.

If you have any questions let me know. Alistar is my main, and from what I've seen watching some of the top Alistar's play, I'm getting closer to their level of play.

[Kageh]

I'd love to group, but sadly I'm stuck on the euro GOA servers :(

If anyone is on the euro side or wants to get a game going, I'd gladly group, my summoner nick is Orlandeau. Usually playing at 10-11pm CET my time (4-5pm EST). I might even screw my euro invest and get on the US servers at some point, although I'm not much good for anyone playing there due to time zones.

Yes, and I'm still somewhere in newbie-land! I haven't seen many Nidalees at all so far, and Karthus only a few times. I think out of about 80 matches played I've seen 3 Nidalees in total, no kidding.

My usual build for Alistair so far is Chalice -> Boots of Speed -> Glacial Shroud or Sheen -> Boot upgrade (Tabi or Swiftness) -> Sheen/Glacial (whichever I did not pick) -> Frozen Heart and then Guardian Angel. I'm currently experimenting with moving Guardian Angel to earlier and picking Aegis at soome point when I see my team can work together. I'm skipping Haunting Guise, which most people suggest for stun spamming, because I hardly ever get the money for latter items  

Thanks for the comprehensive guide, Prospero, appreciate it! I reckon I need to switch to some more offensive item building, and to maximize Sheen usage. At the stages I was usually getting it, it wasn't that much of an advantage. And the mana thing, it drives me nuts. Couple pulverizes/bit of healspam and I'm OOM.

EDIT: Now that I look at Trinity Force, it's an interesting item, quite offense minded, while I was usually just focusing on defense, I'll try that out!

[schild]

Move to the US servers. Koreans play with very little lag and frankly, you're going to want to be there when ranking and leagues and such kick in. It's also where ALL the top end players play. Not to mention, GOA sucks.

That's really the best advice I can give for your particular situation.

[Prospero]

At your level an offense-oriented Alistar should clean house. They won't know what the hell to do. The key with Alistar is your ult is pretty much all the defense you need. He naturally has insane HP, so that plus the ult and you're off to the races. Also remember your ult can clear stuns. I don't want to admit how long it took for me to notice the icon was still active while I was stunned. 

[Kageh]

Schild is probably correct with his assessment of GOA, so I thought, heck why not, not like I'd use that much money. I paid more for games I got less fun out of ;)

If anyone needs a referral in the US, PM me a referral link and I'll make a new account on the US servers.

[Kageh]

Thanks for the link Prospero! I made an account with your referral, but I noticed I actually had King Rammus skin from my beta testing days unlocked on my old account, so being the collector junkie that I am I'll play that one for a start.

Summoner nick is Orlandeau.

[Prospero]

Rammus is another fun tank to play. Once you get how to play Alistar, Rammus is really easy to pick up. I played him for the first time last night and had a blast. There's nothing quite like forcing Yi to kill himself on you. 

[Thrawn]

Gave Sivir my first try ever today.  Went.....uniquely.

[schild]

Feeding does not even begin to describe what I see here.

[Prospero]

Buffet?

[Der Helm]

I have gotten semi-good with Evelyn in random games, but if I understand the tier lists correct, she becomes useless later on. I just hit Lvl 20 and have finally started to win more games than I lose. In which context is Evelyn usable later on ?

[Thrawn]

In which context is Evelyn usable later on ?

She's not.  She's one of those characters where she is ONLY good if they are bad and feed her early on.  Sad fact is some characters are just not good once you get beyond pub-stomp ELO levels.

[Hoax]

Yeah she isn't at all.  If you are in love with being a stealth champ you must learn Twitch or Shaco with Shaco being more of a gank and run style to Eve.  It will take time to learn either of them though.

The thing is, champs can be good at everything but a highly organized 5v5 team fight and that means they aren't good.  Eve is even less usable then that because just playing against people willing to buy oracles can fuck so much of her game up.

You really don't need to worry about any of this too much but I recommend you play around with the free champs (pick two each rotation and try them) so that when you get to that level where Eve can't compete and people don't want to see her on a team you will have already been testing the waters for a replacement champ to main.

Good luck and if you need more advice yell at me in-game.

[Hoax]

L0CUST's new tier list for 5-man premade blind pick MM games on SR (left to right within rows):

Superior: Ezreal, Fiddlesticks, Janna, Ashe, Jax
Cardinal: Soraka, Sivir, Nasus, Shen, Annie, Twisted Fate, Alistar, Corki, Nidalee
Strong: Morgana, Amumu, Zilean, Tristana, Warwick, Katarina, Udyr, Gragas, Twitch, Kayle
Formidable: Malphite, Anivia, Poppy, Dr. Mundo, Kassadin, Singed, Rammus, Ryze
Circumstantial: Nunu, Cho'Gath, Karthus, Akali, Shaco, Blitzcrank, Gangplank

Overshadowed: Master Yi, Heimerdinger, Sion, Teemo, Kennen, Veigar, Garen, Taric, Pantheon, Mordekaiser, Tryndamere, Evelynn

He's obviously seeing heal teams as the strongest build out there right now.  I think this is post Ashe buff but not sure if this is accounting for the Teemo buffs which are more difficult to predict.

[LK]

Adjective descriptors are much better than that number system from before.

[Thrawn]

Taric is bad now? Wow.

Also I'm looking forward to Schild's comments about Ashe being rated as better than Nidalee. 

[Astorax]

Hoax, I think (I could be wrong) that he put that list out before the resist/penetration changes were scrapped, so tanks are getting adjusted down much harder than they should be (Sion, Taric, etc).

[schild]

Ashe's ult is still ridiculous. Better than Nidalee though? Good luck. I'd call Ashe circumstantial, can the asshat in control hit her ult? Yes? Better than Nid. Does he miss? Yes? Doesn't seem to appear on the list at that point.

[Astorax]

Ashe's ult is still ridiculous. Better than Nidalee though? Good luck. I'd call Ashe circumstantial, can the asshat in control hit her ult? Yes? Better than Nid. Does he miss? Yes? Doesn't seem to appear on the list at that point.

Ashe moved that far up not because of her ult, but because of the map control her new E ability gives.  Having an extra Clairavoyance on the team without having to take a summoner spell for it is amazing.  That COMBINED with her ult makes her absurdly dangerous as an assassin that doesn't even have to be near you to hit you for a 4 second stun that does decent dmg.

[schild]

Oh right, the new ability. Yea, that helps.

Current Ashe - until the patch - still falls under precisely what I just said. I'm surprised Teemo didn't move up due to his new passive too.

[Astorax]

Oh right, the new ability. Yea, that helps.

Current Ashe - until the patch - still falls under precisely what I just said. I'm surprised Teemo didn't move up due to his new passive too.

Oh for sure, Ashe is useless if you can't land her ult right now. :)

[Hoax]

Considering we literally lost a game because of 3 arrow hits on our carry all of which would have taken a really hard on reaction to avoid and that was before she came with built in claire I would say yeah she's fucking good.  Not better than Nid by a large margin but that is mostly because Nid can cover lots of ground and handle a 2v1 lane a lot better than Ashe + she has a heal.

Ashe just adds so much more though w/ all her slowing abilities and the ult then nid does w/ her 0 cc of any kind. 

As for that list which proposed changes its taking into account and which are not taken into account is confusing as fuck so I'll try to get the proper list after the patch is released and he updates.

[Hoax]

Elementz has made changes based on this patch, I think its still way too early to be doing much beyond guessing but I like his list. So bumping this thread and putting it in the first post.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=109533

[Thrawn]

Hmm, I disagree with a lot of that list.  Maybe I'm just not in high enough tier games or something.

[Kail]

Hmm, I disagree with a lot of that list.  Maybe I'm just not in high enough tier games or something.

Yeah, ditto.  I'm currently riding my Elo like it's the last act of Doctor Strangelove, so maybe someone else can explain some of this to me:

- Ezreal at #1?  I mean, I don't think he's gimpy (unless you're trying an AP build), but the single best character in the game?  How so?  He's got excellent range and decent sustained damage, but aside from that, his burst is mediocre, he's got no CC, and his support ability is gimp now, too.  Hard to kill, yes, but doesn't seem to bring much to the team when he's standing in the back except an attack speed buff and Q spam.

- Amumu is #2?  I play him a lot, too, I just don't see it.  CC is his thing, he does it pretty well, but aside from his ult (which is nice, but on a crazy long cooldown) I don't see anything that makes him better than most other tanks.

- Taric is tier 1?  His heal is nice, I'll grant him that, but does he have something else I don't know about?  His CC is kind of crap, and his buffs don't really seem game altering.  Then again, I can't even remember the last time I saw a Taric.

- Vlad seems a bit high, to me, too.  He's virtually unkillable, and a farming machine, but at the end of the day, he doesn't contribute much until he's decked out with a ton of gear, and his early game efficiency was just nerfed with his Q being shortened.

- Kennen seemed awfully high to me.  I haven't played him since the patch, but I'm skeptical of it being that big of a buff.  His ult is now not completely useless, and the skills he can't spam for damage were increased in damage, in return for which his stuns were nerfed into a crater.  Was that really a great change for him?

- Blitzcrank way down in tier 4 seemed odd.  Rocket Grab is basically a free kill almost every time it connects.  On top of that, he's got a decent knock up, and solid survivability with Mana Shield, I don't know what exactly is supposed to be wrong with him.

- Trynd seemed awfully low.  He's useless at early game, I admit, but late game he's an absolute beast if you can avoid feeding.  I don't know that I'd call him OP, but he is definitely game changing in that if the game goes on for long enough, he will trump almost any other champ.

- Fiddlesticks at tier 4?  I haven't really been paying attention to him for the last three months or so, has he really been nerfed that hard?  He used to dominate, as I recall.