When first playing Anubis, keep in mind you have insanely high sustain through your passive.
Sands of Time
PASSIVE - This item grants 2 MP5 per 10% of your missing Mana. Your damaging abilities deal an extra 15 true damage to minions. Can be upgraded at level 20.
Vampiric Shroud
PASSIVE - Damaging any enemy with an ability restores 2 health and 6 mana. Can only trigger once per target per ability. Can be upgraded at level 20.
Pick a starter to start the game.
Vampiric Shroud is the normal/meta one, provides lots of sustain that synergizes well with your passive.
Sands of time is an off meta pick that has its uses, but typically you almost always want vampiric
Y10 Bancroft's Talon
PASSIVE - You gain additional Magical Power and Lifesteal scaled from missing Health. This caps at 70 power and 10% Lifesteal at 40% Health.
Typhon's Fang
PASSIVE - Your Healing obtained from Magical Lifesteal is increased by 15%. Your Magical power is increased by 1.5x the amount of Magical Lifesteal you have.
Y10 Spear of the Magus
PASSIVE - Whenever you damage an enemy god with an ability you mark them to take 5% increased damage from all sources. This effect lasts for 8s and can only occur once every 15s.
With the changes to lifesteal Anubis is not capable of drain tanking like he used to. While it's still recommended that you build/rush bancrofts, going for spear of the magus to help someone else do damage isnt a bad idea now. These 3 items however should be the first 3 items you get, and should be built in 80% of matches.
These will all be good items to finish out your build, either for some power or more protections.
Rod of Tahuti
PASSIVE - Basic Attacks and Abilities gain 15% additional Magical Power against targets below 60% Health.
Spear of Desolation
PASSIVE - If you receive a kill or assist on an Enemy God all of your non-ultimate cooldowns are reduced by 2 seconds and your ultimate cooldown is reduced by 6 seconds.
S9 Divine Ruin
PASSIVE - Enemies hit by your abilities have 40% reduced healing for 5 seconds.
Soul Reaver
PASSIVE - Your abilities deal an additional 1% of the target's maximum Health as Magical Damage. If the target has over 2000 Health, your ability bonus damage scales up. This effect reaches a maximum of 9% Maximum Health damage at 2750 Health. Subsequent hits on the same target do half the bonus damage for the next 3s.
Chronos' Pendant
PASSIVE - Every 10s the Pendant activates, subtracting 1s from all of your abilities currently on Cooldown. The initial countdown will not start until you leave the fountain.
Rejuvenating Heart
PASSIVE - Lifestealing off of enemy gods heals yourself and nearby allies within 55 units of you by 75% of that healing.
These items all give Anubis more power
Rod of Tahuti for tons of damage
Spear of Desolation for damage and more cdr
Divine Ruin for reducing healing
Soul Reaver helps kill tanks by doing percent max health damage
Chronos' pendant for CDR and mana
Rejuvenating heart to be a big sweetie and heal your team a bit.
Breastplate of Valor
Gem of Isolation
PASSIVE - Enemies hit by your damaging abilities will move 30% Slower and will have Shields applied on them reduced by 50% for 2.5 seconds. This can only occur once every 2.5 seconds.
Genji's Guard
PASSIVE - When you take Magical Damage from Abilities your cooldowns are reduced by 3s. This can only occur once every 30s.
If you enjoy the idea of being a bit extra tanky you can grab one of these. breastplate provides good mana and physical protections for hard hitting hunters, Gem is all around ok, and Genji's can get a skill up quicker to start life stealing again.
Just your basic leveling guide for Anubis, E max gives you ranged damage, a slow and some good teamfighting.
Passive, Sorrow - Steals Protections and increases Anubis' healing from Lifesteal, stacks 3 times. This ability stacks per tick, and Anubis' Ability 1 and 3 tick twice a second. On top of that you can get multiple stacks per spell on different items, so on a minion wave you instantly stack your passive in 0.5 seconds. Against a single target it takes 1.5 seconds to reach max stacks. Steals 7 protections and grants 33% bonus healing per stack/ 99% bonus healing and 21 bonus protections at 3 stacks. It also reduces all crowd control durations by 33%
Ability 1, Plague of Locusts - Short ranged high damage ability, people really underestimate the damage this does. At max rank it does 570 base damage + 240% of your Magical power over the whole duration. It also ticks extremely quickly to stakc your passive almost instantly. Lasts 3s and makes Anubis immune to all knockbacks and knockups. Against most fighters you can just use this through their spells and avoid their knockbacks. Gilgamesh can't drop kick this!
Ability 2, Mummify - Pretty simple, a skillshot that goes forward relatively quickly. Hit a single enemy god to stun them. Stuns for 2.5 seconds at max rank.
Abiility 3, Grasping Hands - Mid-high ranged AOE damaging spell that also slows. Great for clearing minions and for just throwing at the enemy. Lasts for 2 seconds. This thing deals impressive damage early game, and can surprise people.
ULTIMATE, Death Gaze - Mid-high ranged straight line damage. What makes Anubis such a damage threat, casting this deals damage ticks 10 times a second. At max rank it does 1290 (+450% of your Magical Power) damage over 3 seconds. This makes Anubis entirely immune to any crowd control however you can only spin in place. This goes through walls and deals damage to all enemies along it's range.
The thing about matchups early is that it's a coin flip, you can beat anyone and can lose to anyone when you're still new to Smite or Anubis. Keep that in mind
Anubis easily wins any matchup against a god that lacks movement, the ability to hit a mummify and then your full damage combo will almost always lead to a kill or advantage in mid. Some points to keep in mind is that you are also slow, and should watch out for the enemy engage.
Anubis suffers against anyone who has movement/blinks or from anyone who can outrange and poke him. Keep the enemy damage in mind, build a bit more defensive, and you can succeed.
I hate them both.