Alistar

Alistar isn't trying to win a trade, he's deciding where the fight takes place. Headbutt and Pulverize are cast on a designated target, with no skillshot to land: nobody sidesteps them. Chain the two in the right order and you drag anyone back under your turret, airborne, without their feet touching the ground in between.

The price is steep. His mana bar melts, and two abilities are enough to empty it early. Past the first few levels he deals almost nothing: what he brings is control and a body that refuses to fall, thanks to Unbreakable Will. If you want kills on your own name, pick a different support.

Both of his lockdowns are targeted, so both are guaranteed. No support on this roster can cancel an Alistar engage by simply walking sideways, which makes him the most reliable threat in the bottom lane. Unbreakable Will clears the crowd control on him and cuts the damage he takes: it's the game's best answer to a team that planned to chain him down. And Trample, triggered by any ability, also hits turrets, which often turns a successful dive into a plate.

Against that, his mana cost forces him to pick his moments, and a failed engage leaves him alone among five enemies. Headbutt can also rescue your victim by shoving them out of your carry's range if you cast it out of sequence. And a spell shield on the target cancels your whole chain.

Level two is the real moment of the lane. As soon as you have both Headbutt and Pulverize you can commit: get behind your opponent, charge them toward your carry, and cast Pulverize while the charge is still travelling so they land straight into the second lockdown. Without that execution you've handed your target a free repositioning.

The rest of the time you hold the lane with Triumphant Roar: it heals the area around you and its cooldown shortens when enemies die nearby, so stand close to the wave during trades rather than behind it. Never auto attack for fun. Mana is your only engage resource, and a lane without mana is a lane without Alistar.

Level two, then level six. The first gives you the full sequence, the second gives you Unbreakable Will, and that ability changes what the champion is: you go from a support who engages to a support who dives under a turret and walks back out. A two-man dive at level six onto a damaged botlane is the pattern that wins the most games with him.

His second spike comes from items rather than levels. Once you stack health and resistances, the time you survive inside the enemy formation exceeds the duration of your own crowd control, and that's exactly the threshold to reach. Alistar has no reason to buy ability power: he buys time spent standing in the wrong place for the enemy.

You engage, or you peel, never both. Decide before the fight starts: either you go extract a priority target from their formation, or you stay on your carry. Your sequence spends both lockdowns at once, so trying to do both means doing neither.

Peeling reads completely differently: Headbutt pushes away whoever jumps your carry, and Pulverize only comes out when several enemies have bunched around you. Activate Unbreakable Will before you enter, not once you're already in trouble: it frees you from whatever is holding you and lets you walk through a whole front line. Throughout, Trample keeps hitting everything around you, structures included.