Anubis SMITE 2 Guide

Overview

Anubis is built around one uncomfortable trade: his highest-damage abilities root him in place while he channels them. Stand still and you out-damage almost any mage in the game. Stand still at the wrong moment and you die to a jungler you never saw. His lifesteal passive makes him deceptively durable in a straight damage race, which is why he punishes opponents who duel him head-on rather than collapsing from the fog. He is an excellent entry point into the mid lane precisely because his kit teaches positioning discipline the hard way.

Power spike

First completed damage item. Before it, his channels do not kill fast enough to justify standing still; after it, a landed root is usually a kill.

Skill ceiling

Low mechanical ceiling, moderate positioning ceiling. Anyone can land the combo; the separation between a bad Anubis and a good one is entirely which fights they choose to stand still in.

Strengths and weaknesses

Every god guide here lists the weaknesses as prominently as the strengths, because the weaknesses are what tell you which games this pick will not rescue — and that is usually the more actionable half.

What Anubis is genuinely good at

• Extremely high area damage over a short window — a full channel on a grouped team ends fights.
• Built-in magical lifesteal means he sustains through lane without spending an early item slot on it.
• His root-into-channel combo is one of the simplest reliable kill setups in the game, which makes him genuinely beginner-friendly.
• Fast wave clear from level one, so he rarely loses lane on farm even when he loses it on pressure.

Where Anubis falls short

• No dash, no leap, no escape. Every mistake is fatal and there is no recovery button.
• His damage requires standing still, so any knockback, silence or displacement deletes his entire output.
• He is the most gank-vulnerable mid laner in the game — junglers path toward him deliberately.
• Falls off against teams that spread out, since his damage is concentrated into fixed ground areas.

Build and reasoning

Anubis wants penetration far more than raw power, because his damage arrives as many small ticks rather than one large hit — and flat mitigation taxes every tick separately. An early lifesteal power item is close to mandatory: it is what converts channel time into survivability instead of pure risk. Cooldown reduction matters more on him than on most mages because his root is his only defensive tool, and having it available is the difference between a gank survived and a gank died to.

Core build path

These are item roles rather than fixed product names, because specific items are rebalanced every patch and the reasoning behind a slot is not. Match each role to whatever currently fills it best.

1. 1 Mage starter
2. 2 Magical lifesteal power item
3. 3 Magical penetration item
4. 4 Cooldown reduction item
5. 5 Penetration item
6. 6 Late-game power item

Situational purchases

Anti-heal

Almost always, and early. He is the mid laner most likely to be in range to apply it consistently.

Crowd-control reduction

The enemy has chain CC. Being stunned mid-channel is how Anubis games end.

Protection shred

The enemy frontline is stacking magical protections to blank your area damage.

For the reasoning behind these stats — why penetration outperforms power against a built target, why anti-heal has to be bought before it feels necessary — see the item and stat reference and build fundamentals.

Counters and synergies

What beats Anubis

Mobile assassins

They close the gap during his channel and he has no answer once they are on him.

Displacement guardians

A single knockup cancels the channel and wastes his entire damage window.

Long-range poke mages

They win the lane without ever entering his threat range.

What Anubis works with

Lockdown guardians

A stunned or taunted target cannot walk out of his damage zones, which is the only way they reliably land on a good player.

Zone-control teammates

Stacking his ground zones with another zoning ability makes a corridor genuinely impassable.

Practical tips

1. Stagger your ground abilities instead of overlapping them. Two zones placed back to back keep a target in danger twice as long as two placed on top of each other.
2. Buy lifesteal earlier than feels comfortable. It is not a greedy purchase on Anubis — it is what makes the channel survivable.
3. Treat your root as a defensive cooldown first. Spending it aggressively and then getting collapsed on is how players lose a winning lane.
4. Ward the river entrance before you push past the halfway point, every single time. You have no escape, so information is your escape.

Frequently asked questions