Good Guy Ymir

Hi, I'm reach42, I've been playing Smite for about a year now. Ymir is my second-most played Conquest god and one of the top picks in my heart. I'm currently at 1824 elo, but I also don't play ranked as diligently as I should. Anyway, this build guide is going to be focused entirely around the "standard" way to build and play a tanky Blink Support Ymir, focusing on being a mobile tanky CC Monster. Please enjoy my first smitefire guide! :)

Pros

High CC (a 2.25 second cone aoe stun on a low cooldown!)
Extremely Tanky
Good at maintaining objective control (Yeah, sure TRY to steal Fire Giant through my Shards of Ice)
Actually pretty decent base damage
A good wall will literally win your team the game

Low mobility
Hard to hit ult in-lane
A bad wall will literally lose your team the game

Your core build is mark of the vanguard -> reinforced greaves -> breastplate of valor -> health items tailored to the major sources of incoming damage. You'll want to start with MotV, hand of the gods, another item (blink, creeping curse, beads) dependent on who you're facing off against. If you choose to build Blink Ymir, go for the 45 second cool-down blink, as it'll allow you to initiate and chase at a much higher frequency than if you were to build combat blink. Hand of the Gods is vital because it gives you objective control, after all, a well-timed Fire Giant steal can change the entire landscape of a game. Reinforced Greaves are a better purchase than Plated Greaves because the Resolve Passive (30% CC Reduction) would cost 2500 Gold otherwise that you should be spending on wards and active levels. After you finish Breastplate of Valor, focus on upgrading your actives and purchasing wards to get vision around the map before you pursue other fill items. Good "Fill" items are Hide (if the other team has a fed auto-attack reliant ad carry), Bulwark of Hope (good in most situations to be honest, the passive on it is useful as hell), Stone of Gaia (definitely better built as a luxury item AFTER you've built some items with health as a stat, but also handy if the other team has a really fed Magic carry), Magi's Blessing (if you're having difficulty getting your CC off because the other team keeps CCing you), Sovereignty (this is such an expensive item that really you should only get it if you're swimming in unspent gold). You might consider getting Mystical Mark, but really unless you're sololaning as Ymir it just doesn't give you the stats you need.

Ymir's got one of the best lockdown CC kits in the game, his Frost Breath is great from early to late-game, a well-timed wall can secure a kill or save a teammate from being chased, glacial strike does fairly good base damage and applies a slow, and Shards of Ice has probably the highest base damage in the game, if you can land it. Sometimes I skip wall pre-5 to put another point into Frost Breath, but having the wall ability and not needing it is better than not having it and needing it. A cool Ymir trick is that if you place the wall directly under your feet while walking forward un-slowed, it will put the wall directly behind you. This is Ymir's only escape. If you're being offensive in lane, your combo of abilities will be a Wall to prevent your target from getting too far away from you, followed by Frost Breath, followed by Glacial Strike.

Wards, wards, wards, wards. After you get Breastplate built, your consumable slots should always have wards in them. Put pinks in well-traveled intersections and greens at important objectives like Gold Fury and Fire Giant. Don't be afraid to roam a little bit, a blink-freeze into midlane can be instant death for your opponent's midlaner, but be careful to not lose out on too much farm. Your job as Ymir is to keep your sidelane carry safe while catching out your opponent's mistakes with careful aggression.

Being a team player with Ymir boils down to peeling. This means: don't get tunnel-vision on the low-health backline of your opponents team when you should be keeping your own backline safe with freezes, slows, and walls.

AD Ymir can definitely be Strong, but he requires so many items to get to that point that really you're just hindering yourself and your team. Any game that you win with AD Ymir is a game that you could've won otherwise with a normal build. Building Magic Power bruiser is also sortof a waste given that Ymir's scaling just isn't all that high. Being unkillable while having CDR to get your abilities off more often is certainly more important. Ymir's passive is really for early-game aggression.

HOWEVER, in special gamemodes like Grab Bag, this goes out the window. Swing away slugger.