Anhur - Mid guide / Crit build

This guide will be focused on exploiting Anhur's early to mid game strength in order to snowball into an advantageous position for the lategame. In the lategame our resident lion turns into a relatively safe, strong ranged physical God who can, if you hit your Impales, be completely devastating to the enemy team.

Who am I to write this? Well, I have a relatively short history of MOBA's. I played some LoL, never seriously, some BLC, though never really serious there either. I was a pretty good QW player back in the day; played with one of the best teams in Europe at the time. Right now, I'm floating around the 2900 rating range in Smite, and enjoying the game, and Anhur, quite a bit.

Anhur's strength lies, as mentioned earlier, in his early to mid game. His ultimate waxes in strength at levels 5 and 9, and wanes as the game progresses. At level 5, Anhur can dish out enough damage in a single 1-2-4 or 2-4-1 combo (more on these later), that he can literally drop someone in the duration of his Impale stun. Not only that, but if he's able to harass an opponent without dash or leap, he can quite easily drop them from half health with just his ultimate whilst in this level range.

Another benefit of picking Anhur is Disperse (his leap and knockback). It can be used to peel for friendlies, position enemies for your Impale, escape bad situations, break/block CCs and even to block damage. There is arguably no safer God in the game to go 1v2 with than a well-played Anhur.

His weakness is his lack of a reliable steroid. Shifting Sands (his pillar) will mostly be used for utility rather than to boost your damage, and as such, despite his passive, he might not do too well in a straight-up shoot-off against a God with a stronger steroid (like Artemis). Luckily, we should never end up in those situations unless we make mistakes.

Without further ado, lets delve into the skills. I'll start off by shortly summing them up and then go a little more indepth.

Cripple (Passive)
Anhur's spear attacks reduce the enemy targets physical power by 20% for 3 seconds.
Anhur's passive is one of the reasons he trades so well with other physical Gods. There's not much more to say, other than that this passive will scale very well into the lategame, whilst being relatively unnoticeable in the early game.

Shifting Sands
Anhur erects an obelisk from the ground, blocking player movement for 7 seconds. The surrounding sands slow enemies by 20/25/30/35/40% and increase the damage of Anhur's basic attacks by 4/8/12/16/20%
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana.
Cooldown: 14 s.
Shifting Sands can be used in a variety of ways. Offensively it can block off escape routes, slow enemies and set up a solid object for you to knock your targets into with Impale. Defensively it can be used to cover an escape, block physical projectiles, stop lane creeps from advancing into your tower, and even to block dashes and charges such as Sobek's Charge Prey. Be aware however that abilities that pass through walls will pass through your pillar as well. We take our first point at level 4 and max this skill second, to improve the snare and our maximum damage output.

Impale
Anhur hurls his spear with great might. If the spear hits a god, they take 90/155/220/285/350 (80% of your physical power) physical damage and are knocked back. Gods hitting a wall are stunned for 2 seconds. The spear passes through minions doing damage to them as well.
Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana.
Cooldown: 12 s.
Anhur's primary waveclear and the source of most of his kill potential, Impale carries not only a great deal of damage with it, but also a great deal of potential. Some games you might miss most of your Impales, and you're going to be a very sad kitty. Literally. Anhur needs to land his Impales to be effective, so get good at it. The spear will stop if it hits a wall or a player, so be aware of this when waveclearing against melee's and Ra's who like to get into the thick of it to waveclear themselves. We level this ability first for the waveclear and the burst damage.

Disperse
Anhur leaps to his ground target location, doing 50/90/130/170/210 (+50% of your physical power) physical damage and knocking back all enemies in the radius.
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana.
Cooldown: 13 s.
Anhur's main defense ability, Disperse is an invaluable tool for a multitude of reasons. It allows you push your lane harder than you would otherwise, since you can leap over walls to escape ganks. It allows you to take that Cupid's Heart Bomb to the face, because if you time your jump just right you will not only immune the stun but also block the damage, and it will even allow you to peel from teammates by knocking back and interrupting enemies. We take one point in this ability at level 3, and level it last.

Desert Fury
Summoning the fury of the desert, Anhur hunkers down and throws 8 empowered spears that pass through everything, doing 75/95/115/135/155 (+15% of your physical power) physical damage to all enemies in their path. He is immune to knockback for the duration.
Cost: 80/90/100/110/120 mana.
Cooldown: 90 s.
Despite the description, no hunkering down occurs when Anhur fires his ultimate. He is fully mobile, not slowing down at all. He can re-aim each projectile of the ultimate independantly, though they fire in rapid succession. At level 5 through 10 it gives him an absolutely insane damage potential when used in combination with Impale to ensure that each spear lands.

Combos
Earlier I mentioned combos such as 1-2-4. To fully comprehend some of the things I might write later, I should explain them a bit further. If you comprehend already, feel free to skip the following paragraphs and hit the next headline.

With a 1-2-4 combo I'm implying that you drop your Shifting Sands (1) behind your enemy, instantly fire off an Impale (2) to stun them into it, and then follow up with Desert Fury (4) to maximize damage in the stun. At level 5 this can strike an unprepared opponent brutally hard, and may even outright kill them. Most of the time if they were at full health you will need another hit or two to finish the job, though.

Another combo I mentioned was 2-4-1, which implies that you knock someone into a pre-existing object, such as a tower or the wall, fire off your ultimate right away, and then drop your pillar to block their escape.

During levels 1-4 you want to mainly focus on farming and counterpushing. Anhur can hold his own early on, but he doesn't really have any kill potential before he gets his ultimate. Use your impale to cleave the minions before they split up if possible, and try to not use more than one impale per wave to conserve mana.

At level 5 you will want to start looking for kill opportunities. Executing a successful 1-2-4 or even a 3-2-4-1 will be a guaranteed kill unless you're laning against a tank or they started out with armor.

If they play extremely safe and are sitting at tower, try to have your impale up by the time your minions reach the tower. Look for opportunities to 2-4 them into the tower, or just 1-2-4 if they stick their neck out far enough. Just because they're playing safe doesn't mean you can't punish them for it.

Once you've pushed down the T1 tower you can start roaming. Push the wave hard and fast with Impale, then instantly look for opportunities on the side lanes. While you're en route to the lane of your choice, keep an eye on your minimap and try to see if you can swing back around to end up behind your lane opponent. Even if you fail to kill him and he escapes in such a situation, he will be far more wary of pushing and it will be far easier for you to roam without risking your T1 tower.

As a physical ranged God and a mid laner, you're best suited to choose when it's time to go for the Gold Fury. By the time you've finished your Deathbringer you can actually solo it, but with some help you can easily take it down with just Heartseeker and Executioner's. Try to look for a timing where you've either killed or pushed 1-2 enemies in the corresponding lane/mid to retreat, and hit it hard and fast.

Make sure that the rest of your team are sticking to their respective enemies (if Gold Fury is left, then right can't just call missing and expect everything to be OK while you're doing Gold Fury). Early Gold Furies can be risky business so let your team know what's gonna happen before you do it.

Around the mid game mark you will start roaming a lot more as well. Pick up jungle camps as you pass through them; by this time you can clear them pretty fast with just an Impale and auto's.

Look for opportunities. This doesn't just mean "go to the lane that's losing", even though that's naturally where you'd stray. Tower diving at this level can be quite unexpected and very rewarding. Anhur's strength is that he can always escape a bad gank by jumping out of it. Push your limits and take some chances; but always leave yourself that route of escape.

Anhur's positioning should always be in the back/middle of the pack. He doesn't want to be grabbed by Sobek/Arachne, nor end up stunned by an Ymir/Anubis, and so forth. He wants to be there to follow up on the tank's initiation with a solid stun and snare of his own to secure the kill.

Conserve your mana. Don't use your Impale to waveclear when a teamfight is imminent, as you'll need that mana to maintain full utility through a longer fight. You should be able to kill pretty much any God that hasn't built defensively with an Impale and 4-5 attacks at most. So don't get greedy, wait for your opportune moment, and then strike. Try to avoid poking at the enemy with your autos as that will make you an easy target for their CC and focusfire.

Just a list of things that I've picked up on and wanted to share, that might not be readily obvious. I'll fill in with more as I recall them.

• Desert Fury will pass through everything, including walls - use it to finish off jumpers that get away with a sliver of health, or while chasing someone around corners in the jungle.
• You can impale people on Arachne's eggs.
• Arachne is immune to knockbacks while using her Drain Life; don't waste your impale thinking you can interrupt her with stun.
• Guan Yu is immune to knockbacks while using his Taolu Assault; don't waste your impale thinking you can interrupt him with stun.
• You will gain more distance from your opponent by jumping straight up and down on top of them with Disperse than you do just jumping away from them. Just don't miss the knockback. Mostly useful in situations where you can't jump over walls to escape.
• There is a slight delay between activating Disperse until you actually jump. During this short period of time you can be interrupted and have your Disperse reset. Don't wait too long to jump.
• As mentioned before, you are immune to everything while in flight. Jump to avoid damage, stuns, predictable bursts (Ymir/Sobek ultimate), etc.

Feedback is always welcome! This grew a bit lengthier than I planned, but if there's interest for it, I might also add some common matchups that people run into and have trouble with. Just request in the comments if there's any interest for something like that.