Tyr, Ultimate Bruiser (Conquest Solo, Season 4)

Tyr was one of the first gods I played and really enjoyed in Smite. His kit has a great mixture of damage, crowd control, mobility, and sustain, and he has some of the best baseline stats of all warriors in the game thanks to Change Stance, which gives him a free item's worth of Power or Protections when used correctly.

Because of his varied and powerful kit, Tyr is one of few gods that is really meant to be built as a bruiser. Smite typically encourages Gods to excel in either damage or defense, but rarely both. This makes sense from a balance perspective; if most Gods could be built to have their cake and eat it to, there wouldn't be much variety in builds. Tyr is a very special God because he can, theoretically, do it all, and that's what this built is meant to represent. If your team needs a tank, this Tyr can soak up a lot of damage. If your team needs someone to initiate, pick someone to die, and start hurting them, this Tyr can mark the prey. If your team needs someone to clean up weak enemies, this Tyr can reliably deal that final blow. If your team needs someone to isolate the enemy tanks and keep them busy, this Tyr is ready to tango all game long.

Tyr's clear is some of the best in the early/mid game, if you're willing to pay the mana for it. Right from level 1, he can (and should) use Fearless to smash the melee minions into the archers, then stance shift to Fearless again back out through the minions. When Tyr unlocks Power Cleave at level 2, his clear combo becomes: Fearless-Power Cleave-Stance Shift-Power Cleave-Fearless. This procs 4 abilities, heals Tyr, and leaves the wave almost if not completely dead, allowing Tyr to whale on his hapless opponent who is outnumbered 7-1 against Tyr and his wave of minions.

Finish maximizing Lawbringer at the end. Since its Physical Power scaling is high but its base damage scales somewhat slowly, it's not very important to max it quickly. Plus, its Slow never scales up, so its utility is already great at any stage of the game. However, if you're falling behind, leveling this becomes more of a priority because its cooldown scales down as it levels up, meaning its more available for you to use as a panic button to dodge ganks or secure a kill your team badly needs.

I usually start with Items, but Tyr is a special case. His Skills are what define him.

Tyr is able to Stance Change from level 1 without putting a point into the actual skill. This utility means that Tyr can ignore putting points in for a long while if need be, allowing him to focus on enhancing his Fearless and Power Cleave.

Put your first point in Fearless. In season 3, you would choose Power Cleave so that you could smack down the Jungle camps and heal off them to arrive at lane fresh as a daisy. In season 4, you need to be able to clear the wave as rapidly as possible, and Fearless lets you do that. At level 1, Fearless deals 175 damage if he hits with both ticks (assuming you got Bluestone pendant starter item). If you stance change then blast through them again, you'll deal another 107 damage, for a total of 282 damage. This will seriously weaken the wave, far more than the enemy can match at level 1.

Your second point should go into Power Cleave. With this point, you can now nearly wipe out a wave in a few seconds by using the combination described in the introduction above (total damage output: 582) and can badly damage your opponent if they're foolish enough to stand in the wave. You'll be burning a ton of mana to do this, but the tempo you can gain makes it well worth it. Pop a mana pot, go grab their mana buff with your combo, and come back just as your opponent is finishing off the last of your creeps.

Your third point will also go into Power Cleave, then the fourth will go to Stance Change. This reduces the cooldown on switch stances by a second, but it also provides you with a little physical power when in Assault Stance, making your combo more mana-efficient (and providing some protections in Guard Stance, letting you take a little more creep poke than your opponent).

At level 5 get your ultimate, Lawbringer, for escaping or initiating. From here on out, focus on maximizing Power Cleave first (to get the most healing as soon as possible), then Fearless (to keep adding flat damage to clear more and more efficiently), and leveling Stance Change when possible (see progression above) to keep adding a little more base power/protections and cooldown.

Once Fearless and Power Cleave are maxed out, dump into Stance Change. The CDR you'll be slowly building will compound with the cool down drops that leveling this ability provide, adding up to a less than 7 second cooldown by endgame. That means every 7 seconds, Tyr can completely refresh all his abilities, giving him unparalleled combat relevance. Tyr always has something to do!

Finally, maxing Lawbringer will bring its base damage up to speed and, more importantly, lower its own cooldown.

Starting Purchases

Tyr doesn't get much mileage out of his basic attacks. His hit progression and lack of AoE on them makes them perfectly serviceable, but not great. His abilities completely overshadow them, and so Tyr benefits enormously from Bluestone Pendant. Furthermore, Tyr is arguably the most mana-hungry warrior in the game, so the extra mana and MP5 from Bluestone is a big deal.

Aside from Bluestone, probably the best recommended package for Tyr is level 1 boots, 4 health pots and 4 mana pots. If you are facing a slow-starting solo laner (like Amaterasu), then you may wish to get greedy and buy 4 multi-pots and 4 mana. This strategy means you're planning on sustaining off of Tyr's Power Cleave healing and bullying the lane/stealing camps, so you require even more mana.

Get Teleport as your active. Some solo laners can get away without it, but Tyr's movement speed is pretty lousy, so I don't recommend it. Remember that you don't necessarily have to get teleport right away; you could get it, or another relic you might prefer on your first back. You're not punished in any way getting Teleport later on, because it only saves you time getting BACK to the wave!

Your other reasonable aggressive option is Blink. Considered by some the quintessential Tyr item, Blink gives you the ability to teleport a short distance. This is most commonly used to get behind an opponent who has pushed up on a friendly tower; after you've taken their back, you can Fearless them into your tower and then Power Cleave to knock them further back and keep them CC'd. Getting Blink as your first active means you are committed to killing your opponent, or rotating early for some cheesy ganks. However, don't expect this trick to work more than once on your solo lane opponent in a game, and don't expect it to work at ALL against experienced opponents. "Blink Tyr" is an old, but powerful, build, and veterans of Smite will notice it and be prepared for it.

Laning Phase

Finish your Warrior Tabi, because the power and movement speed is perfect for Tyr's ability-based playstyle.

Your next item will depend on how things have been progressing in your lane. If you're evens-up with your opponent, and they're physical, Gladiator's Shield is a very nice bridge-item that gives you a little power, a decent amount of protections, and your first hit of CDR. That CDR will allow you to get more aggressive, and furthermore, the Shield's passive of healing you when you hit with an ability will support this aggression (or maybe bail you out if you get ganked) and maybe tip the balance. This is a great conservative choice for Tyr with plenty of upside.

If you're falling behind and need to catch up in farm, Breastplate of Valor provides you with lots of mana, good physical protections, MP5, and 20% CDR. All of these stats will allow you to stay in lane longer, and since Tyr's clear scales extremely well as he levels, you'll still have plenty of power to kill minions and camps.

If you're ahead and want to stay that way, Jotunn's Wrath is your second item. Another 40 power plus 10 flat penetration means your abilities are going to hurt your handicapped opponent badly. Flat penetration is at its best in the early game, when gods without protections have only a few base protections (most Warriors average 20-25 between levels 4 and 8). Mages and assassins, who have very few base physical protections, will be nearly defenseless against Jotunn's Wrath, so this item will allow you to rotate and gank very effectively, too. Finally, Jotunn's Wrath happens to provide you with 20% CDR and an extra 150 mana, all things Tyr likes.

Assuming nothing unusual happens in your game, you'll be building up to owning all three of these items. You may sell the Gladiator's Shield at any time after getting the two 20% CDR items, since the extra 10% it gives you is redudant...but the passive, protections, and power are still useful and worth keeping if you have no good reason to ditch it.

If you find yourself against a magical solo laner, like Xing Tian, then buying Runic Shield is an excellent idea instead of Gladiator's Shield. Runic Shield is an undervalued item that really shines when fighting magical solo laners for the following reasons:

It provides you with 35 physical power, a fine number that will allow you to keep hurting your tricksy magical opponent.

[list=2] It provides you with 50 magical protections, making you significantly tankier against their attacks.

[list=3] It provides 100 health, meaning it helps your overall survivability in a small way throughout the game.

[list=4] Reducing enemy magical power by 50 is really significant early on. Magical power, like physical power, is additive throughout the game; a proportion of it is added to God's abilities and basic attacks. Physical gods add 100% of their physical power to their basic attacks, while magical gods only add 20%. This means the effect of the Runic Shield is to negate most, if not all, of your enemy's magical power added to their basic attacks, making their basics worse at cleaning up minions in your lane and worse at poking you. Furthermore, the shield also removes a lot of the extra damage these magical gods add to their abilities, especially early on. If your magical opponent picked up Shoes of Focus as their first full item, then your Runic Shield completely eliminates the 40 power that the Shoes provide. It's like your opponent spent 1500 gold on an item that gave them 250 mana and 10% CDR; you really put them behind!

Leaving the Laning Phase

As the game wears on and you start rotating and team fighting more, it'll be time to think about what's going on all over the map.

If your team is doing well, or things still seem uncertain, Shifter's Shield is a fantastic way to hedge your bets that also seems flavorfully perfect for Tyr and his Stance Changing. When you have more than 50% of your max health, the shield provides 15 physical and magical protections (not much, but better than nothing), and a whopping 70 physical power. This is the second most physical power on a single item in the game; Bloodforge, which costs 450 more gold and is considered a luxury item, gives only 5 more power.

When your health drops below 50%, you lose 35 power but gain 35 more protections. While this does make the item somewhat unreliable for chasing down a kill when you're at low health, it does make it wonderful for executing a fighting retreat; put yourself in Guard Stance, heal up, and enjoy abruptly having 45-85 more protections than you did a mere moment ago.

If magical damage is a big problem for your team, then Bulwark of Hope is a responsible choice. Protections and Health makes uyou much tankier, the passive's shield is useful against any team in any situation, and it happens to provide some crowd control reduction which works very well with Tyr's passive, Unyielding.