This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
Vote received! Would you like to let the author know their guide helped you and leave them a message?
Benevolence Is also a good choice as an aggressive starter since it can lead to Animosity, which synergizes well with Ymir's 
Frostbite passive. This does run the risk of letting you fall behind as it gives you no extra XP on assists and reduces the amount of XP you get on kills.
Glowing Emerald in favor of 
Shoes if you prefer the early movement speed or don't plan on buying an early 
Gauntlet of Thebes, but I've found that the early 100 health and 10 HP5 can help him sustain in lane well.
My preferred start for Ymir.
Sentinel's Gift gives you a little sustain in lane and keeps you relevant through the extra assist credit it gives you. Benevolence Is also a good choice as an aggressive starter since it can lead to Animosity, which synergizes well with Ymir's Frostbite passive. This does run the risk of letting you fall behind as it gives you no extra XP on assists and reduces the amount of XP you get on kills.
You can also forgo Glowing Emerald in favor of Shoes if you prefer the early movement speed or don't plan on buying an early Gauntlet of Thebes, but I've found that the early 100 health and 10 HP5 can help him sustain in lane well.
Sentinel's Gift
Glowing Emerald
Hand of the Gods
Multi Potion
Winged Blade can be swapped for a 
Pridwen to give some extra protections and the handy shield after you ult.
This is the Ymir build I've been working with recently. Following this build should land you with nearly maxed out protections and a little under 4000 health, with some cooldowns and CCR to boot.
As with his abilities, his build should vary a lot depending on your situation and teammates. If the enemy team has few slows, Winged Blade can be swapped for a Pridwen to give some extra protections and the handy shield after you ult.
Sentinel's Embrace
Gauntlet of Thebes
Shoes of Focus
Sovereignty
Heartward Amulet
Winged Blade
Spirit Robe
Glacial Strike should be the first ability leveled so he can clear the first camp and the wave, but beyond that his leveling can vary depending on what you need. See the Skills section for more details.
This skill order is, by no means, the only or most optimal way to level Ymir. His Glacial Strike should be the first ability leveled so he can clear the first camp and the wave, but beyond that his leveling can vary depending on what you need. See the Skills section for more details.
Y
B
A
X
Benevolence may put you a little behind from the lack of XP and gold that it gives you, but getting an early 
Stone of Binding should help you and your team punch through early game protections. 
Talisman of Energy should help keep you pushing forward in teamfights with the bonus movement speed and the attack speed stim will lend itself well to both sieging and teamfights once Animosity is online. Frostbite should double that to 440 damage onto a low-defense enemy.
A more aggressive build for Ymir. Benevolence may put you a little behind from the lack of XP and gold that it gives you, but getting an early Stone of Binding should help you and your team punch through early game protections. Talisman of Energy should help keep you pushing forward in teamfights with the bonus movement speed and the attack speed stim will lend itself well to both sieging and teamfights once Animosity is online.
This build can hit hard. Animosity will give around 150 extra basic attack power when you're full build (~220 with Ymir's natural scaling), and Frostbite should double that to 440 damage onto a low-defense enemy.
Heroism
Stone of Binding
Reinforced Shoes
Sovereignty
Talisman of Energy
Winged Blade
Spirit Robe
Contagion or 
Pestilence are good antiheal choices for Ymir. Just be in the teamfight and they'll do their thing.
Mail of Renewal is hot right now, and could be slotted into your build in place of Winged Blade or Spirit Robe depending on what you need. If your team lacks sustain it may be a good choice.
Mantle of Discord or 
Hide of the Urchin can also replace your last item depending on how much gold you have and what you need. I consider Mantle to be an aggressive item on Ymir, so if you're ahead and want to punish anyone for fighting back, Mantle is a good choice. Pridwen can be built in a lot of places in either build. 20% CDR is fantastic and lets you use all of your core abilities several times in a fight. What's better than a Ymir wall? Two Ymir walls. The shield is handy for making up for the damage you are bound to take while charging Shards of Ice as well.
Witchblade and 
Relic Dagger are situational but both useful enough to keep in mind.
Contagion or Pestilence are good antiheal choices for Ymir. Just be in the teamfight and they'll do their thing.
Mail of Renewal is hot right now, and could be slotted into your build in place of Winged Blade or Spirit Robe depending on what you need. If your team lacks sustain it may be a good choice.
Mantle of Discord or Hide of the Urchin can also replace your last item depending on how much gold you have and what you need. I consider Mantle to be an aggressive item on Ymir, so if you're ahead and want to punish anyone for fighting back, Mantle is a good choice.
Pridwen can be built in a lot of places in either build. 20% CDR is fantastic and lets you use all of your core abilities several times in a fight. What's better than a Ymir wall? Two Ymir walls. The shield is handy for making up for the damage you are bound to take while charging Shards of Ice as well.
Witchblade and Relic Dagger are situational but both useful enough to keep in mind.
Pestilence
Relic Dagger
Mail of Renewal
Mantle of Discord
Pridwen
Hide of the Urchin
Witchblade
Blink Rune is basically necessary on Ymir to initiate and close the gap, especially on slippery backliners.
Heavenly Wings is good on Ymir for a lot of reasons. Not only is it a useful tool for you to cleanse your team of slows or hit the gas and charge an enemy team, it also makes up for one of Ymir's biggest downfalls: his weakness to slows.
The relics I nearly always take as a Ymir.
Blink Rune is basically necessary on Ymir to initiate and close the gap, especially on slippery backliners.
Heavenly Wings is good on Ymir for a lot of reasons. Not only is it a useful tool for you to cleanse your team of slows or hit the gas and charge an enemy team, it also makes up for one of Ymir's biggest downfalls: his weakness to slows.
Blink Rune
Heavenly Wings
Cursed Ankh cuts enemy healing and makes them take more damage, 
Phantom Veil gets you out of player-made walls, etc. 
Shield of Thorns can help you run down an enemy ADC, and 
Sundering Spear works well with Ymir's Frost Breath to ensure you land that upgraded version.
Situational relics to counter specific enemy compositions. Cursed Ankh cuts enemy healing and makes them take more damage, Phantom Veil gets you out of player-made walls, etc. Shield of Thorns can help you run down an enemy ADC, and Sundering Spear works well with Ymir's Frost Breath to ensure you land that upgraded version.
Cursed Ankh
Magic Shell
Phantom Veil
Sundering Spear
Shield of Thorns
Welcome to my first guide on SmiteFire. I've been playing SMITE since the beta and have wracked up around 2.5k hours in it by now. I play a wide variety of characters but have always been a support main, and many of my builds will reflect that.
Ymir is the second god I ever got to diamond rank and my second most played character in total. I've seen around ninety god's added to the game since I first picked up Ymir and have watched him surge to the forefront of metas before falling deep to the wayside just as quickly. If you want to play Ymir, hopefully this guide will give you an idea as to how.
|
Pros:
|
Cons:
. . . . |
Ymir is not what I would call a traditional support choice. He has his strengths and his weaknesses like any other guardian, but with some additional ups and downs that a new Ymir player absolutely must be aware of.
Let's start with his supporting style, which can be summed up in one word: aggressive. Ymir wants to be in your face, he wants to freeze you, whack you, take your lunch money, and then ult you. His base damage is higher than most other guardians and Shards of Ice has surprisingly high damage scaling for his role (a whopping 150%). He has solid crowd control and damage, he's tanky and nearly all of his abilities apply a slow and a debuff (see Frostbite), and his Ice Wall is a death sentence to characters who can't get through it. He can be incredibly fun to play and really make you feel like you're leading your team from the front.
Unfortunately, Ymir comes with some drawbacks. While his damage output is high, he needs to be keeping up in levels to get that increased base damage on his abilities, and without any sort of movement ability he can struggle to initiate effectively on an enemy team. His CC is potent but will likely only hit a maximum of two enemies per use of Frost Breath, and his ult takes three seconds to channel the full damage. These may not seem like terrible downsides, but combining Ymir's flaws means that he is nearly useless from behind. An Athena can fall behind three levels and still be effective, but an Ymir who falls behind three levels does too little damage, too little CC, and has no way to run from an enemy team.
In summary, Ymir is feast or famine. He can get ahead and deal high damage alongside a long stun, or he can fall behind and do little damage before inevitably getting blown up. This god rarely has an in-between game, but how good he feels from ahead can make up for how bad he feels from behind.
If you're looking for early damage, Glacial Strike is your best bet for putting an enemy into the ground. It does good damage, slows enemies, and is on a low cooldown so hitting an enemy with it can really throw a wrench into their early game. Maxing it out means more damage, simple as that.
Frost Breath can be maxed out first, depending on who your teammates are. The duration of the freeze gets longer with each level put into it (to a hefty 2.25 seconds), so maxing it out early can ensure some easy setup. If you have someone like a Cupid or an Anhur with you in lane, consider maxing this out first to provide solid setup at the expense of a little damage.
Ice Wall can also be maxed out first in certain situations. For each level put into it, it gains 1 second to it's duration and loses 1 second on it's cooldown, making it an effective lockdown and escape-preventing tool. If the enemy team struggles to get over walls, it could be good to max this out first.
Finally, Shards of Ice. How you level this ability can really depend on the state of the game or your team composition. It does solid damage, makes Ymir CC immune for the duration, and slows down all nearby enemies. Unfortunately, it is incredibly well telegraphed and hard to actually land it's max damage. If the enemy team has a hard time dealing with slows or your team has lots of lockdown and CC, Shards of Ice can be leveled as soon as possible to get the higher damage numbers. Otherwise, consider leveling it up at 5 and then ignoring it until late game in favor of your other abilities.
All in all, take a look at what you and your team needs come level 5. If they need damage and pressure, max out Glacial Strike. If they need CC, max out Frost Breath. If they need to prevent enemy escapes and disrupt the flow of battle, max out Ice Wall.
SMITEFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new god, or fine tune your favorite SMITE gods’s build and strategy.
Copyright © 2019 SMITEFire | All Rights Reserved
Solid write-up besides that. I like the inclusion of relic dagger, very underrated item.