Ymir - Ice Age Incoming a tank and jungle guide

Welcome to my Overall 15th guide and its going to be on Ymir Father Of The Frost giants this guide will cover his strong and weak points as well as how to play him in either lane as a tank/initiator or in the jungle as a early magic bruiser initiator both guides turn him into a late game tank overall

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in case you have anything to add to this guide leave it in the comments and ill look over it

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i will assume that you know the basics of what AA FG GF AD and AP mean as well as AoE MIA CD and CDR but just in case:

AA - Auto Attack

FG - Fire Giant

GF - Gold Fury

AD - Attack Damage

AP/MP - Ability Power/Magic Power

AoE - Area Of Effect

MIA - Missing In Action

CD - Cooldown

CDR - Cool Down Reduction

HP - Hit Points/health bar

MP - Mana Points

HP5 - Health/hit Point Regeneration per 5 sec

MP5 - Mana point regeneration per 5 sec

DoT - Damage Over Time

HoG - hand of gods

Pros: + Tanky + good CC with Frost Breath and Ice Wall and the Glacial Strike is a slow his ultimate is also a slow + hard hitting spells early/mid game + early instant death if fully charged ultimate and all round strong damage zone tool ultimate Shards of Ice can be canceled early for less damage which still hits like a truck + Ice Wall can cut escapes for dashes and block some skills like he bo and his Crushing Wave or stop dashed like Special Delivery or even Sonic Boom +great initiation with blink

Cons: -somewhat low mobility - slight mana issues early -long CD on his CC and thus requires proper management of spell and casting to maintain best effect - due to above mentioned low mobility blink is a near must have acctive on him which means he can only have either Hand of the Gods or Eye of Providence as his other actives -often hard to tell if your body blocking well due to your large size - easy to avoid ultimate if the enemy has a escape spell up or a Aegis Amulet to withstand it - Frost Breath is somewhat hard to land until you get used to it - Ice Wall is a bit hard to place on demands as if the foe is fast it will rise up to late and cut off the path for you and your team saving the enemy these are the Pros and Cons of ymir.

Passive: : every time we hit somebody with a spell they take 100% more magic in hand damage from us this is what makes the jungle ymir possible

spell 1: you form a wall of ice after about a 0.2/0.5 or so delay this can be used to help you close in a target and land Frost Breath or to cut away jungle entry or escape routes when running away/escaping or be used to block dash like skills as mentioned in pros and cons

spell 2: this spell is our more sustained damage output with some CDR its up every 4/5 sec or so and if possible we can use it to poke(if you learn its range well) or help push it deals high base damage and is a valid option for maxing it first

spell 3: this is our main form of CC and lasts for 2.25 or so sec it also deals some damage either way a good spell and form of CC it can also hit more then 1 target as its a cone based skill but be careful its simpler to avoid at point blank range if they run to the sides

spell 4: this is our ultimate its a zone control toll for the most part as a large portion of enemy gods would rather not risk standing in there and take damage or be slowed by it thus they often jump/dash away ect...Jumps in General can be a portential 100% counter to this if they time the jump with detonation of the ultimate(in other words jumps can be used for the gods to stand in that area or kill of a target running around you in order to protect it self if they can time it well)otherwise they would need Aegis Amulet or a spell that has similar effects to withstand it otherwise this spell deals very heavy damage

1. Watcher's Gift or Mark of the Vanguard here is a valid option of what you prefer the 1st option gives you more gold overall while the 2nd option makes you more tanky and makes a aggressive play style more possible to a degree

2.midas boots -these will help us keep up in gold and are advised if you have gold issues if you dont feel free to get either reinforced graves for the CC reduction or Shoes of Focus for there CDR AP mana and boost of damage and poke to your skills

3. Breastplate of Valor - this solves most mana related issues early mid and late gives us protections and to top it all of 25% CDR which we need on ymir though if you have mastered the art of conserving and managing mana i would by all means advise you to get Sovereignty over this as its much more of a effective item as far as making you more of a behemoth that wont stop go....i in most games find my self forced to use spells to protect a carry that may not think things through so yeah...

4. Bulwark of Hope a lot of magic protections and a lot of HP and its passive saves us sometimes in case of a heavy AD teams switch this with item no.5

5. Sovereignty in case we did not get this 2nd due to above mentioned reasons get it here as its the best item for tanks stat vise in case you did get it 2nd get Breastplate of Valor here instead

6. Pestilence gives us more magic protections and HP and to top it all off a aura that lowers the healing and regeneration of nearby enemy gods by 15% this is great vs a team with heavy life steal focused builds or healers or gods with strong self recovery potential

7. Ethereal Staff this is our usual last item it gives us a lot of AP and HP and some other good stats in general we get it for its massive HP boost letting us take up to a total of 3/4 ultimate spells in the face if they have penetrations to a degree if they have no pen then i dare say you can take 5 in the face and walk out of it with around half HP which is still more then all of there HP in most cases

Some other good options:

= we slow a lot already so slowing on all AA is pretty good and make it nearly impossible to run from us makes landing our Glacial Strike a piece of frosted triple chocolate chip ice cream cake

= in case they have pesky healers that help there team this makes sure they dont do the job i prefer this instead of its AA version as its much simper to just land spells on afew enemy gods and our ult can be insta cast and detonated to apply charges instantly if we need them ect...

1. Bumba's Mask - for its sustain obviously

2. Shoes of Focus - our jungle clearing speed depends on how often we can cast spells and work with our passive Frostbite so we get this for speed AP CDR and the above mentioned reason

3. Focused Void Stone - for its protections pen and AP it boosts our damage a lot

4. Hide of the Urchin - overall protections for both sides

5. Ethereal Staff - for its large HP and fair AP ration ect...

6. Breastplate of Valor - for its CDR mana and protections

7. Rod of Tahuti - in general i like it becouse your initiation is deadly with this and other tank items might not be the best option here but if you want to you can replace this with what ever you prefer as a final tank item if you want to be a pure tank late game only the first 3 items are a must from my point of view but this is meant to make you a magic bruiser so....

1.Blink this is a must have and is mandatory on all Ymir players we simply need that instant in your face pop up factor to add to your intimidation factor in case you dont get this i pray your a boss at running into guys that wont split up against you ect...

2. Eye of Providence free wards this helps us out a lot as they also become vision wards latter on every 60 sec so make sure to put em up as they come up or go down

3. Hand of the Gods in case your not having any problems with buying normal Wards or vision wards then get this to help get buffs and ect...

the above 3 are the only actives ymir should ever get as a tank or jungler other items are just batter suited for other teammates to get

in general this is how you start:

- get blue for your carry ward your side of the jungle hit the lane

- look for good chances to land Glacial Strike and Frost Breath idea chances are to stun them when there casting there spells or after they miss there spells and ward there side if possible

- protect the carry and make sure to keep up Wards on your and enemy jungle areas while protecting the carry and work togather with the jungler for his ganks if the jungler has CC let him start things off with his unless there skill shots in this case you star things off with your CC then he adds his CC to yours as it wears off this is done to avoid something stupid like hitting all CC at once and them only being stunned for a short while like 2/3 sec at most if you guys spam it

- as you enter the mid game your role in general become the initiator as in blink in CC the key targets and push/secure objectives with your team you can secure GF or FG with a rank 3 Hand of the Gods

- as late game starts you need to protected 2 key targets that is your Hunter and Mage(ADC and APC) the main source of AD and AP damage in case they have escapes and are hard to catch you can switch to protect the solo laner if there not a bruiser or ect... your role is also still that of a initiator if your team lacks one if your team has a good initiator(not that your not a awesome one but a Tyr with a blink and Fearless combo is a good thing 2 from a solo lane for example) in that case you follow up the initiation with CC and ect...

-make sure to use hand of gods only when it will actually kill the GF or FG dont mess it up it can cost you the game if its the FG ect...

When in the jungle as Ymir it is important to note that your clear speed depends on how fast you can execute this combo Glacial Strike > AA > AA > AA > frostbreath > AA > AA > AA > Glacial Strike this combo makes the most out of our passive Frostbite which gives us a shocking fair clear around lvl 6/7 early it may be a bit hard your route in the jungle is this:

passive(no invades) with ganking:

1 - grab mid neutrals

2 - grab red buff

3 - grab blue for solo/duo and give it to them

4 - small fury camp on the side you started

5 - small fury camp on the other side

6 - here it would depend on what the duo lane/solo did if there lane was not near red it can either be:

6.a - they stole the enemy blue and left blue for you to clear so they can refresh it when you do it in case they did that do that blue and then gank there lane if possible

6.b - if they took there own blue go do your speed buff and let them know to pick it up then go towards the re-spawned mid neutrals on that side and get them then gank mid

7 - right about now red buff should be coming up in around 20 - 40 sec depending on how fast it was cleared go back to base and then go towards it as you start the simple route again but this time ganking the solo/duo lane(if possible) instead of going directly to the small fury camps after the gank you go on ahead as normal

When Ganking:

Option 1: walk in from behind the lane your ganking hit Frost Breath and then hit 1 AA followed by Glacial Strike then AA them for as long as you can

option 2: blink in then do the above even more so if your ganking mid not many see the Ymir blinking in through the wall for the mid fury camps into mid and landing his combo

option 3: this is a bit advanced but if you can land Glacial Strike the go with AA then Frost Breath then a AA then the Glacial Strikeagain in a combined attack and burst of the lane your ganking you would double the damage done nearly...

in general when your about to CC some 1 make sure that there are no other forms of CC incoming on him except initiation CC that would let you put out your own CC otherwise try to start with your CC and have your team add the CC as your own wares off and make sure to have them focus the CC targets (its rare but some players dont do that) as far as the rest goes make sure to ward and counter ward the enemy team ect....

Ymir is in general a strong pick but requires a lot of time to learn to combo with other to the best of your ability and get a good grasp on his kit as well as mastering it