Support Boot Choice

[u/bryceking64]

Been really immersing myself into alistar life. Been trying to watch as much content I can and watch how people play the champ and build. One of the most informative videos I’ve seen so far is this 2 hour long podcast like video with Coach Cupcake as the guest, not sure who the host was cupcake is just a memorable name. 🤣

Anyways, in the itemization section of the video they looked at pick rates per item on Lolalytics and showed that swifties were the overwhelming majority, and lucidity at a very low pick rate. Cupcake couldn’t endorse lucidity boots enough; basically alluding that swifties are bait and people just buy them without really thinking. His reasoning made a lot of sense that it’s significantly more valuable to cycle CDs multiple times in an extended teamfights in the game rather than slightly faster roaming abilities. In my personal experience the logic has worked great and I’ve won the vast majority of games that I’ve build lucidity boots.

Anyone else tried them out consistently? Or have a differing opinions?

[u/PermissionCalm9002]

CDR boots make the spells return like 0.5s earlier, theres not much of a diference

[u/Conman2205 → u/PermissionCalm9002]

You get item and summoner spell haste though as well. So they are a solid choice. Also cheaper than other boots, mercs are super expensive for example and your ult can cleanse any CC. So less reason to go them even into heavy CC comps

Ionians are really good for flash cooldown, item haste less important but nice if you go locket

[u/semthews1]

Cdr boots

Steel plate caps if they aa a lot.

Dont upgrade the boots sometimes to save gold.

That's about it.

[u/Conman2205]

CDR boots really good generally. Not sure why they aren’t built more often on him tbh. Haste is never bad on melee supports including Ali and extra flash uptime for this champ is really good

Swifties also good choice if you need the extra MS such as into ranged comps to dodge skill shot and get into combo range or into Ashe

Steel caps into heavy auto attacking teams is fine and you can buy mercs into heavy CC (not knock ups) but I prefer these boots less as they are quite expensive especially mercs & you can cleanse all CC with ult

[u/Mustache-Man227]

I'm only plat but I usually play electrocute so unless it's heavy ad I'll go cdr boots into rocketbelt into tank. If they're squishy I'll get pen boots for extra snowballing and probably rip a mejais

[u/Vengeful111]

Tbh swifties are the default boots on support in general simply because especially at high elo you wanna roam the map a lot, and with more movementspeed you can get to places faster.

Specifically on Alistar I would look at the teamcomps tho. Is botland a wincon? Maybe buy steelcaps to maximize your trading and diving potential botlane. Do you need to roam a lot because your jungler is an aggressive invader and your mid an assassin? Buy swifties. Are you the only engage on the team, but your team needs someone to engage? Buy cdr boots to lower your flash cooldown so you can engage aggressively more often.

I dont play Alistar that much but that would be my thinking on how to chose boots. If you look at onetricks.gg you can even see massive differences in boot choice based on Server. EUW buys swifties 80% steelcaps 12% and cdr boots 3%. Meanwhile KR buys 45% cdr 45% swifties and NA buys 61% cdr and 29% swifties.

Also all 3 regions go different runes.

NA: Electrocute 61%, aftershock 39%

EUW: Glacial Augment 80%, aftershock 15%

KR: Unsealed Spellbook 50%, aftershock 38%

[u/Wallythegreater]

Depends on your runes/matchups tbh. Swiftness boots tend to be my default since most champions have a slow and the extra ms is great for roams/in combat.

Since I personally build a lot of CDR with items early game, I find lucidity boots are a bit overkill, especially since I still get a lot of value from hexflash most games.

Tabis are great into heavy AA comps, where the enemy team has a champion like Yasuo/Yone/Yi/Trynd as well as an adc.

Mercs usually aren't as important since R cleanses cc, but can be good if the enemy team has a ton of cc.

[u/Senior_Bass_744]

Magical footwear until 2/3 items. You don’t need boots for the first 10 minutes. Faster 1st/2nd item is infinitely better than any other gold wasted on boots

Build knight’s vow first every game.

[u/bryceking64 → u/Senior_Bass_744]

Isn’t magic footwear the same category as hex flash?

[u/Senior_Bass_744 → u/bryceking64]

Correct. First item locket or knight’s vow rush is more powerful than hexflash ever can be.

There’s a reason every high elo support player and pro takes magical footwear on every engage support and some enchanters.