Jormungandr is the herald of Ragnarok and one of the newest gods to Smite. The serpentine dragon is so large that he cannot be knocked up or displaced. While he is classified as a Guardian, Jormungandr does not care about protecting his allies. Instead, he is all about jumping into the enemy team and disrupting their backline. Jormungandr is usually played in the solo lane, but he can be a strong selection in the support and middle lane roles. In this article, we will examine Jormungandr as a flex pick and see why the World Serpent is good in several roles in Smite.

 Jormungandr’s passive makes him Immovable. He cannot be knocked up or displaced. Instead, abilities that would move Jormungandr instead cause him to be dazed, slowing him and causing him to take 10% additional damage for two seconds. Abilities with displacement include Ne Zha’s Wind Fire Wheels, Fenrir’s Ragnarok, and Poseidon’s Whirlpool. Other forms of CC, such as stuns, roots, and fears, apply normally.

Jormungandr has a unique basic attack. His basic attack is a cone breath that deals small amounts of damage to all enemies in the zone. The breath starts out ticking quickly, but the tick rate slows down over time if the breath is sustained. Releasing the basic attack button allows the breath to recharge and for Jormungandr to attack at full speed after a few seconds. Additional attack speed stats reduce the cooldown of Jormungandr’s basic attack.

 Venomous Haze is Jormungandr’s first ability. He fires a projectile that does damage in an area and leaves behind a toxic cloud. The cloud ticks every second, dealing damage and slowing enemies in the area. The cloud lasts for 20 seconds and Jormungandr can have a maximum of 9 toxic clouds active at a time. The cooldown of Venomous Haze scales from 16 to 12 seconds, so you can’t create 9 clouds just from this ability. However, Jormungandr’s other spells create and manipulate these toxic clouds.

 Consuming Bellow is an ability where Jormungandr channels for 1.2 seconds and then roars, dealing damage as well as trembling and slowing enemy gods hit by 30% for 1.5 seconds. Jormungandr can empower this ability by casting it near toxic clouds, absorbing the power from up to three clouds to increase the damage of Consuming Bellow. If empowered by this ability, Jormungandr’s basic attack fires at its fastest rate.

 Submerge causes Jormungandr to turn invisible. While he’s stealthed, Jormungandr moves faster and gains vision of enemies in a large area. Refiring this ability causes Jormungandr to lose his stealth and knock up enemies near him. If Jormungandr gets damaged during this ability, he loses his stealth and buffs, but is still able to knock up foes. When emerging near a toxic cloud, Jormungandr splits it into three clouds of lower duration. This ability enables a combo where Jormungandr breaks his Submerge near a toxic cloud at create two more and then casts Consuming Bellow to absorb all three clouds for maximum damage.

 Jormungandr’s signature ability is his ultimate, The World Serpent. Jormungandr starts this ability by standing still and channeling. After the channel, Jormungandr submerges and becomes untargetable for the rest of the ability. Jormungandr grows in size and jumps into the air before crashing back into the ground and submerging again at a new location, creating a toxic cloud. This repeats two more times. Each emerge and submerge knocks up at its location and deals damage. Jormungandr also deals a small amount of damage during each submerge in the area his body crashes at when he dives below the ground.

Overall, The World Serpent keeps Jormungandr safe while impacting the fight, potentially dealing tons of damage and leaving behind several toxic clouds that slow and do more damage. The enemy cannot act on Jormungandr during the ability and have to dodge the strikes coming from the sky. The World Serpent can also be used to disengage, as each arc can cover tons of distance, allowing Jormungandr to get far away from a bad situation, provided he survives the initial windup. The World Serpent can also be used to force the opponents to run away as they fear a teamfight involving a giant snake.

Jormungandr is a Guardian that does a lot of damage.

Jormungandr deals a lot of damage for a Guardian and can make use of various item builds. Jormungandr uses his high damage to dive the enemy team. With tank builds, Jormungandr can stay in the middle of the enemy team, knocking up and slowing priority targets as well as absorbing damage for his own team. With more damage-oriented builds, Jormungandr instead keeps his distance until he has an opening to burst a squishy opponent. The World Serpent ultimate is an amazing tool for diving. An invulnerable Jormungandr jumping around the map and leaving slowing zones can sow so much havoc in a fight.

Across roles, Jormungandr is great at level one. His breath allows him to clear groups of minions and the toxic cloud left behind from Venomous Haze does considerable damage over time. Jormungandr has access to tons of AoE damage and can make quick work of minion waves in the early game. The poorer the early game of his lane opposition, the more Jormungandr can pressure and push them back.

The long-lasting effect of Venomous Haze and the toxic clouds means Jormungandr is great at applying on-hit effects from items. Items such as Gem of Isolation, Divine Ruin, and Spear of the Magus can all be easily utilized by a Jormungandr. It isn’t necessary to build these types of items on Jormungandr, but the puddles make it easy to apply any item effects that you do buy.

Jormungandr can flex between different roles in the Conquest map.

Jormungandr is most commonly played in the solo lane. He is a tanky Guardian with high defensive base stats. Along with a strong level one, his toxic clouds and breath attack give Jormungandr good control over the Totem of Ku. Jormungandr can take out a good amount of the totem’s health with his breath and then leave a toxic cloud behind to continue ticking damage on the objective.

Jormungandr is one of the potential answers to King Arthur. His early game is good enough to push out the King, at least until he buys Gladiator’s Shield. In addition, Jormungandr is immune to Excalibur’s Wrath, one of King Arthur’s best trading skills. Then in the late game, Jormungandr has more area control and teamfight impact than King Arthur with all his knock ups and slow zones.

In the solo lane, Jormungandr likes to build tanky like other Guardians. However, due to the damage over time nature of his toxic clouds, solo Jormungandrs often build an item with a strong on-hit passive, such as Stone of Binding and Spear of the Magus. Gem of Isolation is a particularly popular choice because it compounds the slowing effects of Venomous Haze and Consuming Bellow.

Another solo lane build for Jormungandr buys some cheap items with a mix of offensive and defensive attributes. The build usually starts with a Warrior’s Blessing and Imperial Helmet. The Helmet provides power and defense against physical lane opponents. The build then gains a lot of penetration by turning the helmet into Dynasty Plate Helm and purchasing Shoes of the Magi and Stone of Binding. Jormungandr has high base damages, so the penetration from these items brings out his damage. The first three items do provide some defense, and the rest of the build follows suit. Commonly bought items include Breastplate of Valor, Spirit Robe, and Void Stone. Gem of Isolation is also bought in the middle of this build for the slows as well as the combination of health and power. The bridge items and boots can be sold in the late game if needed for items that provide a bigger impact and have more stats overall.

Early penetration items help Jormungandr deal good damage in the mid game.

A support Jormungandr plays similarly to one in the solo lane. You build tanky and have great clear at level one. In the pro league, supports often start in the solo lane anyway before rotating out. In traditional starts, a support Jormungandr can mow down the wave with his Hunter and then clear buffs. In the support role, itemization is usually less greedy and focuses more on auras and items that help the team. The support role also gets less farm and levels than the solo lane. This means that a Jormungandr played as support will be squishier and have less threatening damage than one coming out of the solo lane. Jormungandr further limits his ability to peel for teammates while ulting as The World Serpent. However, Jormungandr is still a tanky Guardian and fits the role as an offensive character that dives into the enemy backline to disrupt and cause confusion among the enemy team.

Jormungandr is an aggressive support.

A final position that Jormungandr can excel in is the mid lane. Like in his other roles, Jormungandr’s breath and Venomous Haze provide great level one pressure. Jormungandr is a Guardian, so he gets more base protections than a Mage, but builds pure damage, meaning he is extremely squishy in the late game. Both Submerge and Consuming Bellow are short ranged abilities and, if Jormungandr gets caught out, he can easily die in the channel time of The World Serpent. In exchange, Jormungandr gains incredible burst damage and snipes from Venomous Haze can chunk out carries from a distance. If built with damage, a Jormungandr can easily deal over 1000 damage by hitting the same carry with The World Serpent. After the initial channel of his ultimate, Jormungandr is untargetable, meaning he can dish out damage over the course of a fight without the enemy being able to be hit back. Jormungandr has to be careful where he lands after the third strike, as he can be caught out and blown up for trying to finish off a carry.

Jormungandr mid excels in a dive composition, where he joins his teammates in running into the enemy team. It can be hard trying to fend off the likes of a Ravana and Osiris while a giant snake is knocking up the back line and creating toxic clouds all over the place. Having other, tankier, divers helps bring the pressure off of the relatively squishy Jormungandr. Jormungandr does not have a traditional Mage ultimate to secure objects like the Gold Fury or Fire Giant, so compositions with mid lane Jormungandrs are better suited to win a teamfight before trying to take down a major objective.

Former Dignitas mid laner Zyrhoes leads the charge on mid lane Jormungandr and builds a penetration heavy build on him. The build starts with a Mage’s Blessing and Magic Focus. Shoes of Focus is the first completed item to provide CDR and mana. The Magic Focus is then upgraded into a Divine Ruin. Divine Ruin is a decent item for power and penetration and the anti-heal is useful even against teams without much sustain. Soul Reaver is built next for a large damage spike. Mid Jormungandr is then built with more penetration, with Zyrhoes preferring to buy Obsidian Shard and Spear of Desolation. Flat penetration is useful for dealing devesting Consuming Bellows on squishies while percent penetration is used to cut through tanks. Rod of Tahuti is picked up as a sixth item for a giant damage spike. Because a middle lane Jormungandr is quite squishy, he runs Purification Beads and Aegis Amulet for safety.

When played in the mid lane, Jormungandr builds a lot of power and penetration.

Jormungandr was once played in the jungle in the Smite Console League. Unlike his other roles, Jormungandr did not perform well as a jungler and it has not been tried again in a serious game. Unless some major shift or theory crafting breaks through, Jormungandr is not a Guardian you want to stick in the jungle.

Jormungandr synergies with a few gods and compositions. With all of his knock ups, Awilix may view Jormungandr as her best friend. A stealth knock up into Gravity Surge, especially from over a wall, is devastating and demoralizing. Jormungandr is a good source of magic damage, even when built tanky, and can slot into a mostly physical damage comps as the magic damage anchor.

Not only is Jormungandr a strong diver, he excels when paired with other divers. Characters such as Achilles, Bacchus, and Ravana like to jump on the enemy backline while Jormungandr is either stealthed or bouncing around as The World Serpent. In this type of composition, the remaining carries either need a way to stay safe, like Nu Wa or Rama rising off the ground, or contribute to the chaos, such as with Darkest of Nights from Xbalanque, in case the opponent’s frontline try jump in and prey on a squishy god.

Jormungandr is powerful god in Smite. The World Serpent is normally played in the solo lane, but he has value as a flex pick. Jormungandr can be played in the support and mid roles.to great success. As a support or solo laner, Jormungandr is an annoying tank that can repeatedly slow and knock up his opponents. When played in the middle lane, Jormungandr is built squishier, but deals much more damage. Regardless of where Jormungandr starts the game, he is a diver and does especially well when his whole team composition is built on engaging and diving the enemy team. Players continue to optimize and innovate on Jormungandr. Who knows what new strategies or tech we will see popping up when the herald of Ragnarok reveals more of his secrets.

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