Countering Shyvana as a ranged

Question

Ooof, Shyvana seems to be a bit overpowered compared to the rest of the champions. Or, at least if you believe the complaints from all opposing players anyway :D

Typically I play a ranged character, such as Ashe. I attempt to harass her, yet she manages to keep up and overtake me as I run away, even with speed buffs.

What are some typical methods of dealing with such a character? I have even tried circling a turret in Dominion, yet still manage to get drained of health nearly instantly.

Answer

I played her, and I believe she is OP indeed. Very good farming abilities and a dragon form nearly always available.

However :

• She hasn't got any dash, so you see her coming (except for dragon form)
• She has no CC (no slow, no stun, no snare...)
• She has no native life steal
• Except for her "E", she hasn't got any ranged dps
• You can see when her dragon form is up

Classic

• You shouldn't be laning 1v1 vs Shivana with Ashe because she should solo top when ashe should be the carry AD on bot lane with a support.
• What I would simply do is "not push" and fight by tower to get your farm and xp without her killing you. When you can stay at tower range and hit her, do so, but else concentrate on farm. (Plus, if lane is pushed for her, easier for your jungler to come and gank)
• If she keeps up with you even with speed buffs, its because her "Z" gives her (30/35/40/45/50%) speed bonus. When playing her, the typical problem is that enemies just use a speed buff and run away, you aren't able to slow them (this is why frozen mallet is a recommended item) or dash to them, you only rely on your "z" to catch them, but they get to tower to fast and you have to abandon pursuit.

Dominion

• You shouldn't be fighting alone vs Shivana either. Ashe is not the bot lane pusher.
• Stay at max range, if you harass her, apply your slow so she can't run to you
• When dragon form is up, don't be aggressive Take extra caution and stay back, fight only near a tower that is yours.
• Ask your teammates for help to push / gank, a ranged carry shouldn't be wasted on solo laning unless for a gank.

Conclusion

In general, ranged AD carry shouldn't be solo laning versus fighters. If they however do so, they should be extra cautious, stay near a tower or have an escape plan ready and keep mana needed to throw all offensive spells when ally comes for gank.

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Why is it safe to leave Hellions close to creep?

Question

In TvZ videos from day9 I saw the following a few times: Terran scouted Zerg base and scouted some spine crawlers. But doesn't try to go inside of the base, instead sitting outside and waiting. He scouts zerglings, banelings and actually doesn't move his hellions away but wait just where the creep ends.

From my perspective, Zerg can easily surround those hellions with some zerlings and kill them. Terran should constantly keep an eye on these hellions to pull them back and micro to keep them alive.

I don't think even PRO players constantly watching the mini-map. They need do other stuff and they risk to loose those hellions.

Question: What is a proper way to keep scouts on the front of opponent base and watch them constantly?

Answer

Actually, that is all that they're doing. Basically constantly looking at the hellions.

Nobody really watches them constantly - but you look at them every couple of milliseconds, which is usually enough since zerglings are only slightly faster than hellions on creep.

As for a "proper way" of doing it: Simply learn to watch the minimap constantly. Force yourself to constantly do it, and after a while you will notice moving enemy forces easily. As a bonus, play around with the color options and set it so that you are always blue and your enemy is always red, this will make things easier to spot.

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Shot rotation for WoW Beast Master Hunter

Question

I want to know which shot rotations are good for a Beast Master Hunter in World of Warcraft.

If it matters, I'm level 80 and I play in a non PvP server, so I want the shot rotation for dungeons basically.

Answer

What you want to aim for is: Focus Fire -> Kill Shot (if available) -> Kill Command -> Arcane Shot -> Cobra Shot.

I would also recommend not going BM for levelling. The Marksman talent tree (along with a few talents from BM) will allow you to DPS non-stop while in dungeons.

Hope that helps.

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Can you manually change your health as a disguised spy?

Question

I just got the Dead Ringer, and one of its effects is that you cannot cloak on demand.

What I like to do to get behind enemy lines and start backstabbing my way forward is to run screaming medic, in an effort to justify my returning from the other team side.

I know that you can toggle which weapon your disguise is holding (by pressing B), so I was wondering if you could also lower your health in some fashion as to make this tactic seem more believable (screaming for medic when you're at full health is not)

Answer

Health cannot be set manually.

When you disguise, what happens depends on certain factors:

1. If the team you're disguising as has a person playing that class:
   • You take on one of their names
   • You take on that player's current health, including any overheal, or 100% health if they're dead (this is most noticable when using the YER)
   • You take on that player's weapon loadout
     • Exceptions: Bonk! Atomic Punch or Crit-a-Cola show as Pistol, Mantreads or Gunboats show as Shotgun, Ali Baba's Wee Booties show as Grenade Launcher, Chargin' Targe or Splendid Screen show as Stickybomb Launcher, and Razorback or Darwin's Danger Shield show as SMG).
     • There is also a bug where you will sometimes appear to have a stock weapon even when the person you're disguised as has a non-stock weapon. This appears to be random. I've personally run into it with the Persian Persuader (as the bottle) and Machina (as Sniper Rifle), while other times they appear correctly on my disguise.
2. If the team you're disguising as does not have a person playing that class:
   • You take on a random name from that team
   • You take on a random amount of health
   • You take on that class's stock weapons.

Note: It takes a few seconds for the game to update what classes players are playing, so it is possible to disguise as a class that has players, but still get a random name, health, and stock weapons. Disguising again will fix this problem. This is most obvious when disguising as your own team in spawn.

You can recharge your fake health via medkits, Medic, or dispensers (this was added earlier this year), but not the Resupply Cabinet.

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Which gems are most useful in traps in Gemcraft (Chapter 0)?

Question

In Gemcraft Chapter 0, which of the 8 gem colors are the most useful in traps? Are there some colors that are only worth it to put in towers?

Answer

Well, this depends on your playing style, but generally, any gem that has a long-lasting effect (i.e. Slowing and Poison) are better, because their Effect is enhanced.

Damage-causing gems become less effective, so Splash and Shock are not good choices for normal play. They could be a good choice on a swarm level, however.

And finally, if you are using Stealing gems primarily as a source of income, you would, of course, benefit in placing them in traps, rather than towers.

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What tactics are best for killing Deathclaws?

Question

Everyone in Fallout tells you that Deathclaws are bad news. Everyone tells you it would be suicide to take them on alone. But this is a game, I'm the hero and I win against impossible odds all the time.

Well, it seems they really mean what they say this time. Deathclaws are extremely dangerous. They are fast, can take an absurd amount of damage, have a very high damage threshold and they kill you in a few swings.

So a typical encounter starts like this

and ends like this

In Fallout 3 you could just shoot them with the dartgun and they hobbled along while you walked backwards emptying your gun into their face.

What are effective tactics for killing Deathclaws in Fallout New Vegas? I'm not really looking for exploiting glitches like bad pathfinding, but legitimate tactics to have a good chance against those beasts.

Answer

Extreme range, sneak attack criticals, and armor-piercing bullets are your friends versus Deathclaws. If you're in possession of (and a decent shot with) a scoped hunting rifle or better sniper-type rifle, you can usually pick them off one at a time since they tend not to group up. If you're finding it impossible to get enough damage before they close the distance, you can always augment your plan by throwing down some mines on the path between you and the Deathclaw (make sure you back up some). Finally, it's handy to be able to quick switch to an automatic rifle to finish the job if the mines fail you.

Pulling Deathclaws one at a time like this is a slow and tedious process, but it works.

At the very least, you can always move on and come back later!

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How do I deal with Terran harassment as Zerg?

Question

http://sc2rep.net/replays/starcraft-2-replay-z-atnmardow-vs-t-naama-delta-quadrant-09-06-2010

How can I win this game as Zerg? First zerg gets harassed by a bunch of hellions, so you must get a couple of zerglings and roaches. When you tech towards those units, you have invisible banshee killing your queens/drones. So you must quickly tech up to mutas/hydras, but when you have 2-3 mutas finished and you take out those banshees, you now have MM ball with tanks in front of your base, because that terran was all the time massing these units. And because you were forced to tech in this early stage of game, you don't have much units. And GG is inevitable.

Answer

First off, if that's your replay, well done. I saw excellent micro in a number of places. For those of you who didn't watch the replay, he goes early gas into speedling, delayed expand. Gets bogged down by Hellion/Banshee harasses and eventually rolled by BioMech (I think I counted 4 Barracks).

Looking over the replay I saw two major problems:

1. You were always reacting
2. Your macro isn't on par with your micro

I'll try to help address these both.

Early on you scout Rax straight into Factory, as a Zerg player this should be a tell tail sign for hellion harassment. Your natural response should be: 1) Spine Crawler at the Ramp, 2) Roaches. I did notice you eventually transitioned into Roaches but it was after the Hellion harassment started. Now its possibly you just underestimated your opponent, but I still recommend that Spine Crawler. The next thing to note is that 1:1:1 builds mean early Starport and that means Vikings. To protect your Overlords you're going to need Spore Crawlers, their range is just too long to protect with Queens alone. A couple Spore Crawlers will limit the range his vikings can attack from and save most of your Overlords. You do eventually get Spore Crawlers, but only after Banshee harassment has started. Even though you scouted his build I'm not seeing any adjustments prior to his units getting on the field.

Early harassment is very annoying to deal with and taxing on both your mental strength and your concentration; so its not extremely surprising that your macro started to fall by the wayside. You spent a lot of effort trying to shut down Hellions with Speedlings. While this is doable, its very taxing (especially if you fail). Its not that I think you can't shut down Hellion Harassment with Speedlings (because you certainly can), but you need to think of less costly ways to do it. You start to fall behind in the Drone count when his Banshees come out and you attempt to tech to tier 2. By the time he readies his final push you have a handful of Roaches and a dozen Zerglings against a strong BioMech push. Now to your credit the banshees do kill some of your drones, but largely you stop producing them. I'd say this is mostly the result of the extra pressure of the situation you're in. By the time he pushes he's out macro'd you so badly there really is nothing you can do.

So I've come up with a quick list of things for you to work on:

1. Zergling surround on Hellions -> Grab a buddy and spend a couple hours working on this
2. Spine Crawlers near the expo
3. Reacting to what you scout -> grab YABOT, put it on Random, and then practice responding to a number of different builds. Don't deviate from your plan, but throw down a Baneling nest when you see 3 Rax, push to T2 when you see Robo, etc.
4. Crisis management -> Play some 4-5 Insane vs You, and just see how long you can survive. Don't let your mind get overwhelmed even if your base is.

That last one is a little Zen.

And no matter what anyone tells you, if your opponent has Banshees and you're still in Tier 1, its OK. Try to calmly respond with a few Spore Crawlers and get back to your plan.

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How to deal with 2v2 rushes?

Question

I play on a 2v2 team as Protoss, my ally is Terran.

1v1 rush handling is fairly straight-forward, and if you're prepared for it the defender gets the advantage because of quick reinforcements, high ground, etc.

In 2v2 however, when a rush comes, it's twice as strong, and the defender is at a disadvantage because:

• It's usually too early to join armies with your ally, so it's 2v1.
• As Protoss, when an early double rush comes in at 6 minutes, they are right at my production facilities. It's easy for one of them to deal with my units, and one of them to take out my pylons very quickly.
• There are more options for the opponent to see high ground: hallucinated colossus, overloards, or because the army is so big, just running straight up the ramp.

For example I just lost to a 6-minute marine+roach attack on Monlyth Ridge. We scouted and knew it was coming, but I don't know what we could have done to stop it. They killed my pylons while I tried to hold them off, thus I couldn't reinforce, thus they didn't even have to kill my base before going to kill my ally.

The typical answer to holding on in a 2v2 game when one ally is dying is: Die as slowly as possible. This is excellent later in the game, but against decent opponents at about 6-8 minutes, this isn't very powerful / possible because:

1. I have very few units to distract them with.
2. My map coverage & economy is not enough to start building dark templar or other surprise tech.
3. This early, they have a very clear idea of what options I have, so they are not afraid to just march into my base.
4. Luring them away from the base is too risky; without any defense in my base they will run in and kill production / economy.
5. Once they kill my production (which doesn't take long), they don't need to bother killing my buildings. They can march straight to the ally's base. They only need to keep a couple units in my base to prevent me from advancing.

My 2v2 team tends to win as long as we can hold off 6-8 minute rushes. Here are some ideas but I would like to hear your comments before I throw away lots of games experimenting:

• More sentries for forcefield. The advantage is this doesn't cost much of a compromise to my build as I can build them just as I build any other gateway unit. However, it only delays the inevitable and doesn't allow me to ramp up my production. It also prevents me from helping my ally if they go to him. So I am pretty scared to use FF in this scenario.
• Hallucination. They won't have detection at this point, and if they arrive at my front door and see 2 immortals and 6 stalkers, they may just run away. If not, it could absorb enough of their fire to buy us more time than a force field.
• Turtle. My ally and I prefer longer games so we just want to be able to hold off rushes. So should we do it decisively by turtling hard? Especially on Monlyth Ridge, could it be that doing a forge-first opening and quick-ish expand is the best way to fend off their early attacks? The idea would be to sacrifice early units, put all resources into defense and benefit from a healthier economy and play the game on our terms. But I am not sure static defense is strong enough for rushes like this anyway, and it's a lot of investment.

So, how does a 2v2 team defend against rushes like this as the different race options?

[Update, after accepting Sorean's answer]:

I want to say how I integrated Sorean's answer into my thinking and on the ladder. I think you can boil the issues down to joining armies at your base means giving up defensive advantages we're used to in 1v1. These advantages boil down mostly to positioning / base geography. Without that issue, for example on Discord IV, the defense strategy is the same as 1v1.

So the response is that, if you want to compensate for the disadvantage, then you'll need to emphasize more heavily the defensive capabilities of your race in a 2v2 defense. Fortunately Blizzard has given enough options to make up for the disadvantage in 2v2 (I think...). Note that I really don't know much about Zerg or Terran, but I'll try to list this:

1. For Protoss:
   1. Sentries with force field - if you can't completely block the opponent, you can at least choke them into a more favorable position.
   2. Cannons, though usual cautions apply for these costly defenses. But in some defensive positions cannons can be favored over units for the amount of damage they deal, and they are useful later in the game to detect burrowed units / dark templar.
2. For Zerg:
   1. Static defense (but usual cautions still apply of course). Zerg can benefit even better because of being able to move static defense.
   2. Creep
   3. Queens with transfuse. Think spanishiwa and how he manages to defend with almost no units against a 4-gate.
3. For Terran:
   1. Bunkers
   2. Siege tanks. Because siege tanks can arrive earlier in the game than anything else with such a long range, they are great for defending main / natural bases.
   3. Supply depots. Not sure if this really deserves to go on this list, but the ability to raise / lower a supply depot can be so useful in making building positioning work in your favor, and out of the opponents' favor. We are starting to experiment, putting the 2nd supply depot in the protoss base if we're walling in.

Answer

2v2 games are a unique beast in the sense that you need to change your style of play. My 2s partner and I used to die a lot when it came to these early quick game rushes, and on the flip side, have rushed others as well to vary up the play style.

You mentioned that you were able to scout that they are doing a rush, you could mix in your ideas of how to survive to get a good counter to a rush. (Going to be using Monlyth Ridge as the example map and your match up as reference PTvTZ)

At 6 minutes (I assume in game time) they can probably have 10-15 marines and 5-9 roaches.

• If you are confident in your micro, forgo static defenses and simply try to out produce your opponents. At 6 minutes, you can get your defensive 4 gate up. Although it's really close. A mix of stalkers to shoot from the high ground and sentries to hold off the ramp should be able to hold them off. Even a few zealots mixed in there to tank damage while sentries pick away could suffice as well. (So you'd have ~2-3 sentries, 4 stalkers, 1 zealot)
• You shouldn't be afraid to get sentries and use force field. As a protoss player you want to have a fair number of sentries mixed into your army anyway later in the game. The force field only lasts 8 seconds so it is not a huge amount of time to stop you from going to help your ally. If used correctly you may even be able to trap a few of their units in your base (although against a roach/marine army that would just give them high ground vision so not really helping you there).
• You mentioned that your ally is terran, there is very little cost to investing in an early bunker or even two (even with the recent patch, he's only going to lose 25 minerals in the long run if he salvages them). So long as your ally is quick on the repair then he should be able to hold off the rush long enough for you to build up an army and flank with him exiting his bunkers to assist when you believe the two of you have enough to take out the attacking army. (Ally if matching opponent would have 10-15 marines as well maybe a little less because of the bunker)
• I'm not sure how your buildings were laid out, but pylons usually shouldn't be in attackable range, although the new patch doesn't help this point much (which I personally think is a pretty stupid nerf to the race, but I digress). Try to ensure that you have overlap on your production buildings.

Assuming it played out with the above, if the enemy ran to your base first, you force field him off, pick off a few units, or even weaken them as the two of you build up an army to crush the attack since your reinforcements will arrive much sooner than the attacking force. If they attack your ally first they run into a face full of bunkers that are getting repaired and your defensive 4gate should produce enough units to kill that army that they are sending, that or enough to force a retreat.

Going a forge first fast expand with cannons in this case you'd probably need 4 or 5 to just hold off that army if your ally responds quickly enough with reinforcements. Also in this case you are forcing your opponents to either deal with your cannons (with a sentry on the high ground to your ramp to prevent a run by, but if your wall is good enough on the low ground a run by would sustain massive losses) or to attack your ally (who again should have 2 bunkers and since you were attacked first, have ample time to get SCVs down to repair. If you go with the forge first opening I would suggest getting at least 1 sentry and a 2:1 stalker:zealot ratio for the first little while as you'd try to stay close to your cannons when trying to engage.

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What is an effective way to use the Sandman in TF2?

Question

I recently unlocked the Sandman for the Scout and have been using it but I don't really see the advantages. The -15 health does not seem to make up for the fact that I am just able to stun a player for just a few seconds. Is the Sandman only used to make a quick get-away or is it used effectively in combat?

Answer

I use it a lot for things like

• Stunning an engineer who is hammering on a turret, usually while we have an uber going to take it out.
• Firing it into groups of people during a big firefight and helping my team by stunning one of the players in the fight
• Smacking heavies who are shooting with it, then running up on them and popping shots into them.
• Stunning anyone guarding a flag that I want to pick up

There are more uses than that but, that is my main usage of it. I've found it pretty useful in certain circumstances.

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What is the best tactic for finding cicada cages in A Tale in the Desert?

Question

I'm looking for more insightful comments than "run through the desert with your speakers turned up" or "go where you think others won't." Do you have any specific tactics that have worked well for you? Things that aren't on the test's wiki page -- that seem to be working so far, and best of all -- have helped you pass the test in previous tellings.

Before the Oyster test introduced swimming (in T4?), there was a whole ferry-chain, island-hopping game involved in cicada placement. Talking about that would be a great answer if it weren't for swimming having negated the issue. What other kinds of things like that are there?

Answer

It has been a couple of years since I played, but I noticed the following -- the harder it is to get to, the more likely it is to have a cage.

Helpful?

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Does the extractor trick actually help?

Question

The Zerg extractor trick allows you to start your 11th drone a few seconds faster. Does this actually help though? You gain a few seconds on that extra drone, but you lose due to:

1. The cancellation fee for the extractor which is something like 6 mins. That's like an entire drone trip to a mineral patch.
2. The time spent being an extractor, which is likely to be close to the time of a trip to minerals.

So I would say you lose something like 10 minerals to gain a few seconds on a drone. Is this actually worth it?

Disclaimer: I am really terrible at Zerg; I have no idea what I'm doing really.

Answer

Economy wise, overlord at 9 is best. If you happen to create a tenth drone by mistake, go for the extractor trick as it helps you minimize economic loss.

Some people do the extractor trick just to keep their fingers busy...

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Starcarft II Relapse, Protoss Tactics

Question

I was able to get away from Starcraft II for a while (6 months or so). Now that I relapsed I see that there were many updates. Some of these changed unit properties etc.

I was wondering if anything substantial has changed in tactics. Do the new unit updates have new tactics specific to once useless units like archons etc?

Thanks

Answer

For Protoss there three changes that really effect you.

• Warp Gate research time has been increased by 20 seconds
• Sentry build time from gateways has decreased by 5
• Archons are now Massive Units, with range 3.

Also note that infesters do the same damage with fungal growth in half the time and it now stops you from using Blink as well.

Forgot to mention that Khaydarin Amulet has been removed from the game - quite big as you can no longer warp in storms.

Not so important, units that exit a Motherships Vortex are immune from damage from 1.5 seconds.

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How do you get MVP in MAG?

Question

I have clocked up over 140 hours in MAG and rarely get less than a 3-1 kill/death ratio. Despite this, I have only ever got third Most Valuable Player on one occasion. Can someone give me some pointers on how to top the MVP.

Answer

MVP is awarded to the player with the most experience (before the bonus XP that is rewarded at the end) in the game. Some ways to boost your XP include:

• Reviving your teammates often (+10 per revive)
• Become a veteran (+10% XP per game)
• Deploy through directives (+10% XP per game)
• Destroy vehicles
• Stay in FRAGO areas as often as possible
• Blow up items that are fragged
• Repair when you can
• Be the SL/PL
• And of course, netting kills

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Citadel and Fort - For Ranged or Melee Unit?

Question

I don't know which unit should I put in there? It's nice to bombard enemy by Ranged, but they are too easily to be destroyed, even with +50 or 100% strength. Melee unit, however, can't attack enemies near the citadel or fort.

Please give me some advice.

Answer

Against the AI, I would recommend putting a melee unit there, and leaving a ranged unit behind it. The enemy units will usually not even attempt to attack the fortified units and will try to walk around, allowing you to bombard them with impunity (and they can only move one tile per turn if you place the fort in a good location, which forces them to walk right next to it).

In addition I recommend using a melee unit that receives tile defensive bonus and that can fortify, such as a rifleman. That means 50% for fortification + 50/100% for fort/citadel.

I'm guessing human opponents might be smarter and just constantly bombard the fortified melee unit, but you can usually still hold a few turns - I suggest, in these cases, to have a backup melee unit ready to replace the wounded one.

I've used forts and citadels in the above way to successfully defend against basically unlimited number of enemy AI troops - especially when I was able to have two siege units behind my fortified one. Just be wary of later-era units that can out-range this entire formation, such as artillery and aircraft.

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Tactics for killing Deathclaws in Fallout New Vegas

Question

Everyone in Fallout tells you that Deathclaws are bad news. Everyone tells you it would be suicide to take them on alone. But this is a game, I'm the hero and I win against impossible odds all the time.

Well, it seems they really mean what they say this time. Deathclaws are extremely dangerous. They are fast, can take an absurd amount of damage, have a very high damage threshold and they kill you in a few swings.

So a typical encounter starts like this

and ends like this

In Fallout 3 you could just shoot them with the dartgun and they hobbled along while you walked backwards emptying your gun into their face.

What are effective tactics for killing Deathclaws in Fallout New Vegas? I'm not really looking for exploiting glitches like bad pathfinding, but legitimate tactics to have a good chance against those beasts.

Answer

Extreme range, sneak attack criticals, and armor-piercing bullets are your friends versus Deathclaws. If you're in possession of (and a decent shot with) a scoped hunting rifle or better sniper-type rifle, you can usually pick them off one at a time since they tend not to group up. If you're finding it impossible to get enough damage before they close the distance, you can always augment your plan by throwing down some mines on the path between you and the Deathclaw (make sure you back up some). Finally, it's handy to be able to quick switch to an automatic rifle to finish the job if the mines fail you.

Pulling Deathclaws one at a time like this is a slow and tedious process, but it works.

At the very least, you can always move on and come back later!

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How to counter enemy blood mage “deathcloud” ability?

Question

I'm being seriously frustrated with fighting enemy blood mages in Dragon Age 2 (currently Huon as part of On the Loose quest):

They're casting some kind of death cloud spell, that appear as a red fog circles on the ground and stuns my party members in the area and does alot of damage - my main char (mage) and Anders and Isabela die almost instantly from it (and die certanly in a few seconds thanks to the stun).

I already had the same problem with another fight and I somehow managed to fight through it by lowering difficulty.

So the question is: how do I avoid this ability / mitigate the damage / counter it?

I'm playing on Hard difficulty.

Answer

Any enemy that is able to one-shot your party members should be incapacitated immediately, using Crushing Prison and similar abilities. Just don't let them cast the spell and kill them as fast as possible.

According to the description the spell you describe could be Hemorrhage. I don't think there are easy ways to protect yourself from that spell, blood magic deals physical damage and ignores armor (according to the description of the player blood magic abilities).

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Which champions can roam effectively in League of Legends?

Question

I just read a post on Elementz's blog that explained how meta game has changed in League Of Legends and how important is today the role of roamer.

I studied some videos of Alistar roaming and trained to fullfill this role quite successfully in some ranked games. But are there any alternatives to Alistar? Which characteristics should have been evaluated before choosing a champion for this role?

Answer

Other than having a low item and level dependency (as mentioned here) a good roamer needs to be able to do a few things:

• Counter-jungle
• Deny the opponent's solo
• Gank

I'll talk about why each of these are important, and what champions other than Alistar fit these roles very well.

Counter-Jungling

Counter-jungling is simply screwing with the enemy jungler. Junglers are countered by stealing their buffs and denying respawn.

Stealing buffs can be crippling to many junglers, as buffs are needed for clearing the jungle faster and ganking. For example, a jungler without crowd control needs Lizard to slow when ganking. A jungler who needs their abilities to jungle effectively (Nunu/Shaco) relies heavily on Golem. Stealing either of these will not only deny the jungler experience but likely prevent them from ganking other lanes, making your allies lives easier.

Denying respawn is simply done by killing the highest experience value creep in a camp of the enemies jungle. This gives less experience to the enemy jungler and the creeps will not respawn until the jungler kills the entire camp. Good creeps to do this with are the Big Banshee, Big Wolf, Lizard, and Golem.

Keep in mind that going for enemy buffs is extremely risky; most teams will actively protect their jungler and you might mind end up in a 1v3. A roamer needs to be able to deal with this.

Denying Solo

Simply put, prevent your opponent's solos from getting experience. Running into a lane and harassing the solo enough that they have to blue pill back home is basically all that you need to do. This gives your team's solos some free time to level and get last hits without harassment.

Ganking

This largely happens along with denying solo. In order to do this a roamer needs crowd control so that your allies can get in to do damage. Even if your gank fails, as long as you manage to get the enemy champion to blue pill back home you have successfully given your allies an opportunity to freely farm their lanes.

An important thing to remember is that you do not want to get the kill from a gank, unless the target will escape without you taking the kill. It is more important for your carries to get the gold in order to carry your team late game.

The glue that keeps it together

To accomplish the above goals you need to move quickly. This usually depends on the boots you choose, but getting the gold for those boots can be difficult as a roamer, so inherent speed is important.

The less time you spend getting from lane to lane the less experience you will lose while traveling. Although this isn't a huge deal, because you losing experience means your allies are gaining more, you still need to be able to travel quickly in order to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Fast traveling means you can run to the enemy jungler when you see him at the buff you warded, run to a lane to gank, or escape from a nasty scenario where the enemy team decides they don't like you roaming.

Alternatives to Alistar

Addressing all of the above roles, I have a few champions suggestion other than Alistar.

As stated in other answers, a champion who can jungle tends to make a good roamer, because both roamers and junglers have similar roles (deny solo, gank, counter-jungle).

Nunu in particular is a great roamer because of his abilities. Consume is a natural Smite, ideal for stealing buffs. My games usually start with me warding the enemy Lizard or Golem (depending on the enemy jungler), and waiting until they bring the creep down low so I can flash in and Consume. If that proves too risky I waltz to the banshees and consume Big Banshee for an easy respawn denial. Blood Boil is a great way to get around the map quickly, especially with Boots of Mobility. Less time traveling means you lose less experience and get more opportunities to be present for a gank or push. You can also cast on an ally to make them even deadlier during a gank while still getting the advantage for yourself. Ice Blast is a wicked ganking tool, providing a massive slow that is a nice lead into the ultimate Absolute Zero. The combo should give your allies plenty of time to run in and take out the target, but be careful not to take the kill with Absolute Zero's high damage.

Evelynn also makes a good roamer. Her ganking is ridiculous, and I won't bother going over how it works. Instead of stealing buffs, unless you have Smite, she tends to be more effective at scaring off junglers when they try to take a buff. Especially at level 1, many junglers get very low hp while taking Golem or Lizard. It's an ideal time to kill them with a stun/Ignite, or at least scare them off. If you take an Ignite/Smite combo you might get both a kill and a buff (win!). Going invisible makes Evelynn impossible to catch early game unless someone invests in an invisible detection wards (which will not happen), so there's little risk to counter-jungling. Her ultimate provides a massive speed boost around mid game, making her a very fast traveler, especially with Boots of Mobility.

There are plenty more roamers that I won't care to mention but given the criteria it should be easy to point out which of your favorite champions can make a good roamer.

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