Not all items will be discussed in this section, but we'll cover some of the main ones and some interesting situational items.
CORE ITEMS:
Typhon's Fang
Typhon's Fang supports lifesteal from other items by enhancing total lifesteal, and also provides 10% penetration.
It also provides 70 power and 200 mana, and besides enhancing total lifesteal, boosts power by twice the amount of lifesteal you have, making this a solid power item as well.
This should be considered a core lifesteal / penetration item for him, and should be built in almost every mode, typically as a second lifesteal item in the mid to late-game.
Charon's Coin Obsidian Shard
You need to choose at least one of these high % penetration items to help your abilities punch through enemy protections.
Charon's Coin is the utility % penetration item for Anubis. It provides 80 power, 7 HP5, 20 MP5, 20% magical penetration, and a passive that provides increased MP5 or 2% movement speed every time you gain a stack (through god kills or assists). At max stacks of the passive, this means you'll have an additional 35 HP5, 35 MP5 and 8% movement speed. In addition, each time you get another kill or assist, you'll get a 5% MS buff or 150 health for 6 seconds.
Obsidian Shard is much more straightforward, and provides 100 power and 20% magical penetration. Its passive allows for an ability to gain an additional 10% penetration (with a cooldown of 10 seconds), which can be very helpful against tankier targets, and especially if it's activated with ult use.
SITUATIONAL OFFENSE:
Bancroft's Talon
Its stats are synergistic with Anubis' kit; it offers raw 100 Magical Power, 150 mana, and 15% magical lifesteal, plus a situational passive. The passive increases the owner's magical power as he is damaged, maxing at an additional 100 power and 20% bonus lifesteal at or below 25% health.
Sounds good, doesn't it? The only problem is that for the passive to become fully relevant, Anubis has to be extremely hurt, at which point he is an easy prey for the enemy jungler. But there's always a possibility of it being extremely useful, for example when ganked, with most of the HP gone - the only option for Anubis is to stand his ground, which might result in killing the attacker and surviving, due to the increased power and lifesteal.
Bancroft's has a reasonable price and thus can, depending on the situation (like for example when starting with
Talon Trinket), provide an early power spike granting the possibility of snowballing. I wouldn't recommend this tactic for beginners though.
On the other hand,
Bancroft's Talon has been proven extraordinarily helpful in the Arena mode (
a great guide in which info has been provided by Branmuffin17)- due to its layout Anubis has even less chance to escape than normal, which forces him to stand his ground in almost every fight. Because of that, he'll often find himself lacking HP, which increases the Bancroft's passive value regularly.
For significantly enhanced lifesteal function, pair this item with a later
Typhon's Fang.
Chronos' Pendant
Gives 90 magical power, restores 20 mana per 5 seconds, and lowers the cooldown on all abilities by 20%. In addition, the passive subtracts 1 second from all abilities currently on cooldown every 10 seconds. Useful on hectic modes based mainly around constant fighting like Arena, Assault or Clash, or if you're focusing on ult spamming, you'll see great use from this item.
It can be considered in the middle of a build if you've already covered the more important stats (lifesteal and penetration). Otherwise, it's a useful pickup in the late-game for more uses of his ult.
Gem of Isolation
This item is best bought on modes like Arena and Assault as a substitute for the
Warlock's Staff, as it provides 200 health and 90 magical power, but doesn't require any stacking.
Its main asset is the passive: every time an enemy is damaged by the owner's ability, he suffers a 20% movement speed slow for a second after getting hit. Just imagine how it works combined with the 25% slow from the
Grasping Hands...your enemy will move like they are in molasses.
Buy this if you want to cripple the enemy's mobility, granting your team positioning advantage, a stronger means of "escaping," or just like the feeling of watching everyone trudge through your abilities like they're stuck in molasses.
The 20% slow can additionally have a great positive impact on confirming the damage from
Death Gaze and
Plague of Locusts, making it a lot harder for enemies to escape their areas of influence: it'll be refreshed with every single ability tick.
(
Gem of Isolation is also a good item on the jungle build; yes, it is a viable strategy, and a fun one also. It requires a good deal of practice with
Mummify, though.)
Spear of Desolation
Spear of Desolation can be considered as a late game offensive item, potentially as an option for the last item if you don't feel the need for protection.
It gives 100 magical power, 15 magical penetration, 10% cooldown reduction, and a passive that subtracts 2 seconds from all abilities currently on cooldown when earning a kill or assist (which he should be doing often).
Consider if you want some protections, and are getting jumped at close range by junglers.
Divine Ruin
This is a situational item that is recommended
specifically to counter healers, and only when there's more than one.
Anubis doesn't typically want to fight a war of attrition; his best potential comes from high damage and quick kills, and his damage output should be able to outperform most healing.
Spear of the Magus
This is a strong early-game item that provides some lifesteal and bonus damage potential, combined with good power and flat pen. It is one of the most popular items for him in the current meta due to the balanced offensive stats.
Rod of Tahuti
This item is has received a situational nerf for Season 5, but remains a solid item for pure offense. It gives 140 magical power on its own, and can situationally increase total magical power by 25%.
Its biggest downside is its high price, so it's best to wait until late game before buying it (as it will also provide the best effects from its passive at that point).
Staff of Myrddin
This can be considered in the late game as a source of CDR and power. More specifically, however, you'll purchase this in anticipation of a teamfight.
When you ult, you get a huge temporary boost to your CDR so that you can cast your ability again quickly. This can be incredibly helpful, especially for an ability like
Grasping Hands, which gives good AOE damage and the slow for control.
Ethereal Staff
This item is considered more of a bruiser/utility item. It provides 90 power, 200 health, 20% crowd control reduction, and a passive that steals mana and health from enemies. The key here is the base health and the health steal, which can be substantial, especially for a god that is typically squishy.
If you've covered all of your core needs, this can be a great late-game pickup to provide survivability.
Doom Orb
Depending on the god, this can be considered as an early-game rush item. The cost is a bit prohibitive, but once it's purchased, it provides not only high power (145), but also a chunk of mana (200) and mana regen (25 MP5), movement speed (4%), and a passive that grants you further movement speed and power when killing minions (or enemy gods).
This is quite helpful when in the laning phase, as you'll be killing minions as your primary function, and the movement speed increase will help you rotate and farm efficiently.
DEFENSIVE OPTIONS:
Mantle of Discord
Mantle of Discord can be considered as a late game defensive item to gain some survivability. It's not typically recommended as it will cut into your damage potential, but you can't deal damage if you're dead.
Magi's Cloak
This is a situational item that is extremely helpful to counter dangerous CC abilities when
Purification Beads don't provide enough safety on their own. It provides 300 health, 15 of each protection, and a passive that absorbs hard CC or roots once every 70 seconds (also providing 1 second of CC immunity after being triggered).
Breastplate of Valor
Gives 65 physical protection, 300 mana, 10 mana per 5 seconds, and reduces cooldown on all abilities by 20%. Extremely useful against physical damage-heavy teams, as suddenly Anubis has 125 physical protection (including his base protections at level 20), deflecting a considerable amount of damage. (this is even more true since initial levels of protection give the most percentage damage reduction, as visualized in this graph:
Damage Dealt/Protection
-Defense is a subject of diminishing returns, meaning that the higher the current damage reduction, the more protection points it takes to further reduce damage taken by the same amount)
With 125 protection (achieved purely by buying
Breastplate of Valor, which also offers some helpful utility stats), enemies with no penetration would deal only about 45% of their damage against Anubis, and a typical hunter with
The Executioner providing 36% of protection reduction at max stacks would deal about 55% of his potential damage.
That said, with his scaling, the power contribution is plenty welcome. If he's got all of his core items online, it should suit pretty well as a 6th/7th item, possibly as an alternative to Rod of Tahuti, for example. Less total power potential when the enemy is below 50% health, but quick kills of jungle camps or minion waves late game can help him move more quickly around the map.
That said, WTF DV-8? WHERE TF HAVE YOU BEEN???
Forgot I didn't update for Elixir and shoes, will do.
Also how come you don't list the tier 2 bancrofts start for mid lane?
As for being a "viable" jungle pick, no he's not viable in SPL, but people can get him to work in general. Historically he's been a niche pick, and he remains as such here.
Mattypocket is the only listed case of him being used in the Jungle in the past year or whatever per Smite Pro Builds, but he was used with success, going 5/2/9 as a counter pick against a Merc.
And in any case, it's always been niche. He has solid kill potential, but he's super risky. And if you're looking for an Anubis guide for Jungle, wouldn't you rather have this than other options? It's not the first priority...the first presented build is Mid, so people have to make extra effort to find the jungle build.
But I have a slight disagreement with you. I just don't think it's worth selling two items (IMO) to complete your build. However, I agree against a mostly tanky enemy team, I would consider picking up Obsidian Shard over Spear of the Magus.
@Kriega, I'm actually surprised and really intrigued you suggested Mantle. Note I'm just offering build examples, and Mantle is a listed optional item, so people could build it exactly like that if they want...the option is technically there. Agreed?
As for Deso...I'm on the fence there. The CDR will help, but I don't know if I prioritize it over other stuff...
I was referring to conquest. The deso is there for when the cdr and for when you sell magus for obsidian lategame.
So you would prioritize sellings shoes for Elixir of Speed and Obsidian Shard (against tanky comp)? Not Potion of Magical Might or Elixir of Power?
Under threats, you list general matchups that you may face, except for Odin, who you consider a unique threat. I think along those same lines, Kuzenbo could deserve mentioning, as Anubis has a very tough matchup against him.
Question...if Anubis is channeling Plague of Locusts, does he get affected by Kuzenbo's push or ult knockup? If so, I agree. I would say it's a potentially pain-in-the-*** matchup, but he also has his ult where none of Kuzen's CC will affect him, and high lifesteal to counter the majority of Kuzen's spikes reflection, along with Beads if necessary. He can quickly kill NeNe with Locusts also...more quickly than most. Thoughts on this?
As for Shaman's Ring...you keep bringing this up in all my guides. WHY DO YOU LIKE THE ITEM SO MUCH?!?!? XD
Um...it should be nice. I'm thinking more along the lines of the benefits of the MS than the damage boost, though. Anubis has so much damage potential, and will get better damage from Rod of Tahuti. So Shaman's could bring utility, but wouldn't be my first preference. Consider perhaps only if you need that MS boost? Remember also, that 10% damage boost is only after the trigger of the first ability hit, and is still subject to mitigations, so is likely only like a 5-8% boost.
Updated the builds...moving away from Warlock's Staff as the main build example, though I still provide multiple build examples.
Changed out some items too (as items like Stone of Fal just honestly suck right now), and adjusted suggested skill leveling, with thanks to Estidien for the reasoning in a different thread.
Spot anything wrong, don't agree on the builds, let me know. Thanks for the continued help, everyone!
(Also, chatted briefly with Daelinn a short while ago, he's doing well for anyone that remembers him)