Like Hoku said of you stay on your target and a move anubs damage ramps up, I’ve never really found him lacking for a tank in this department if you stick to a single target.
damage with anub can be a bit tricky.
Back in 2019 he’d get occasional nerfs that’d lower damage on one thing, then another, then another, so some of his options aren’t as damaging as they used to be.
If you look at johanna, and topics about that, she has a lot poke damage, and ways to pad stats. Anub doesn’t really have poke, and his aoe is limited so he doesn’t pad as well as other tanks can. Some tanks have a ranged/semi ability they can use and still have the threat of their combo available, while anub doesn’t; if he’s using his cc for poke, that takes away from his ability to combo with it, or it hurts his damage mitigation, or his escape, so of the ways to visibly see damage, he has a harder time than other comparable picks.
This used to be the go to pick back in 2017/18 or something. To be fair Anub didn’t have many options back then and was basically 1 build only.
I actually got so used to this talent that I always pick it, just cause I like to do extra burst to the target when I stunlock them. It deals really nice single target damage.
I usually pick Qslow or E range with it. I know W build is really good but I just don’t feel like I’m doing enough with Anub with W build. Feels like I should’ve picked some other hero at that point.
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Since they heavily nerfed his base AA damage, it really doesn’t do much burst at all. It does add to his overall damage done if you keep AAing (like you should), but I typically take Urticating Spines because it does do true burst damage, or Burning Beetles because the damage bonus isn’t conditional, and applies to anything they attack. You don’t need full beetle build to get decent wave clear and brawling potential with the little bugs. If you math things out, Acid-Drenched actually comes in at the lower end of his damage spectrum.
The E range talent is comparatively bad, unless you are running a true dive comp. It is pretty rare I need the extra range and damage, especially as it can lead to the tank overextending. This may secure a kill, but it can also leave you out of range of your healer, or worse, your back line open to a counter-engage, and without Rewind, you may not get back in time.
I actually love the W talent on this tier, even without a W build. It makes him deceptively slippery, and is great for catching a fleeing hero who isn’t expecting a zoomy bug. I see is as on-demand move speed on a low CD, which can be invaluable for repositioning, dodging nonsense, chasing, leaving, and pretty much everything you want a tank to do efficiently. Give it a try some time, you may find it more useful than you think. Sure, it doesn’t impact your damage numbers at all, but it can impact your KDA!
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Like I said I just got used to it.
The math you talked about, is that just overall or on the CCed target? I’d like to know more about that.
My got to is usually the Q slow most of the time. E range only on hyper dive comps tbh.
I used the W talent before and it’s definitely great. I guess it just doesn’t really fit my playstyle with him 
Honestly I just look to CC and burst down a target, don’t really care about damage numbers in the stat screen. I also rarely die on him 
If you said Toyota Corolla, we’d have some issues. 
Also, nothing like cocooning a ETC while he moshes, or any stim droned or nano boosted target. Timing Cocoon perfectly against ETC is a great feeling and your team will love you for it.
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Well thanks for the assistance I’ve played around with him and my current high score with him damage wise is… (excuse if I’m slightly out)
148000 rounded to the nearest 1000
so yeah my problem is gone and now I like him a whole lot more
btw how ADORABLE is his pink love bug skin!! so cute you just wanna squeeze him!
One of the best skins in the game 
Can you show the math on this? I went to try mode and tested all 3 talents. It showed that the AA talent is still a little bit better for single target burst than the other 2 (which is why I pick it since forever, when I CC a target I want it dead asap).
The burning beetles are more consistent damage overall so if you just want to pump numbers and spread damage + a bit of extra waveclear this is a good choice, but the AA is still better single target burst.
The shield one seems like the worst choice when it comes to single target burst but it’s best if the enemy is heavy melee and all stay all closer to you. And of course, the cdr on W makes you pump more damage with it, but still better if more than 1 enemy is close to you.
I just ask for the math cause from my own testing in try mode, AA is still better single target burst which is why I like it.
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On a CC’d target. I am going to be a little lazy, so I will go over the math generally in ideal situations. His base AA damage was nerfed to hell to 81. At level 13, his base AA damage is about 130, so with the talent bonus, each AA would do 221 damage to a hero. For Urticating Spines, at level 13 it does 130 damage to any target in range, 260 to any hero.
So the initial damage to any hero is sort of the same mathematically, but then it gets weird when you start taking all the conditionals into account. Urticating Spines is AoE spell damage, Acid-Drenched is single-target AA. Anub’s attack speed is 1, so in a perfect world, you are consistently getting 3 of those 221 attacks in every CC window. To make things even more complicated, Harden Carapace is on a 7 second CD, but can be talented to be as low as 4 seconds. Spines will damage non-heroic targets, Mandibles will not.
In my experience, even with the slows and stuns Anub provides on his own, there are just too many conditions on getting perfect usage out of Mandibles to make it worth taking over Spines. I would say Mandibles has more potential for burst, but plays out less often that way in actual matches.
Back when his AAs hit like a truck, Mandibles was a must-pick. After the nerf to his AAs, it is OK, but not as reliable as the other choices, especially since the other two affect all targets in range.
I see. Maybe I’m just so used to AAing with every hero that I manage to get the most out of it? Idk, it does feel like I do more single target damage with it than the other 2. I know the other 2 will do more AoE damage and probably pump more numbers on stat screen, but that’s not really I’m looking for, you know? I really like the single target damage for Anub, and if I want AoE damage I just pick something else.
I guess it’s just my playstyle.
Going off feelings is a little tricky, because it is very easy to remember the times it worked, and forget all the times it didn’t. AA talents as a tank can be tricky, because you are an easy target for blinds, AS slows, block talents, and the like. If you are allowed to jump on a Chromie with impunity, it can blow her up, but a lot of the time that just won’t happen.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying ADM is a terrible pick, but there is a good reason it has the lowest pick and win rate on that tier.
Besides, sniping kills from your Genji with a beetle is fun! 
For sure, for sure. I did try it out on try mode though and it did seem like AA did a little bit more single target damage than burning beetles and shield (well, the shield you can’t really test cause you need to take damage for the cdr, and of course it’s more for aoe damage than single target).
But like you said, AA is way harder to pull off due to many variables, so going burning beetles will definitely make you have an easier time and much more value overall.
I’m fine with that as long as I get the reset tbh 
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Yeah, I was trying to lure them closer to our side of the map since our Genji pinged that he was on the way, hoping to kill both of them, but the Malfurion wasn’t stupid. It was just so funny that a beetle gave me the killing blow. As you said, at least he got the reset!
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I see you are a fellow ladybug user too.
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Me thinks this is one of the major points.
Where I play, it’s super useful to soak, and this set of talents just takes care of it.
I don’t have the brain capacity to care a lot about it, but when playing mages I tend to get all my spells blocked, so taking care of small business as Anub might empower the team.
In related news, I tend to spam W to spawn beetles. I’m also backline tanking. And just realized yesterday Anub is my top winrate hero.
The whole concept might not scale past Platinum, I have no idea.
After all this talk I had to play a couple anubarak games yesterday 
Won both matches. First one I went globe quest full E build with cocoon, acid and rewind cause we had a hyper dive comp with butcher, sylv and I can’t remember the other 2 right now. It was a fun game, we just kept diving together and feeding our butcher. It was hanamura. Oh, also got a good 3man stunlock at some point. Our butcher just said “follow my stun” and went in, right in the middle of the enemy team. They all stayed close to him to try and kill, I came behind him and stunlocked them with rewind and cocooned genji cause he was giving us a bit of trouble and was outside of the stunlock. We won with that play getting objective into core push cause they were all dead.
Second match was on garden. Matchmaker gave us 3 tanks and enemy had 2. Pretty weird match but we won easier than the last one. I went for globe quest, Qslow, Eshield, cocoon, burning beetles to help with waveclear a bit since we needed that, Ecdr and rewind. Also a fun game but kind of a stomp.
Heh, I ended up playing 3 matches in QM on Anub last night. The first one was a stomp in our favor. They had Chromie and Azmo so I went W, W, W, c’mon man, beetles, E, Rewind. I died 0 times because the move speed at 4 means I never get hit by Chromie or Azmo nonsense (no stacks 4 u!), and extra spell armor means that if I do get CC’d by their tank, I don’t really care if I do get hit. Even with a super defensive build, I still had more siege and hero damage than their Mei, and 0 deaths to her 3.
I lost the next one on WHJ, but a lot of that was having someone learning Rexxar on my team. It happens, and I am not upset at that loss, because they said they were practicing, and everyone has to learn some time. Better in QM than SL!
The third match was pretty close. They had a Stitches, so I went Beetle Build, with move speed at 4 because they also had a Qhira, Anduin, and Abby, and E at 16.
And I learned something new that match. While I can self-cleanse Qhira’s E with Burrow Charge, if she uses her trait to grapple on to me, she remains glued even when I am Unstoppable, and earns a free trip into my towers!
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Yeah, because her E is CC, while her trait isn’t. That’s why you can’t cleanse her trait.
It was mostly surprising because I have never had a Qhira try to grapple onto any of the tanks I play, so I didn’t even think of it. Normally if I am hit by a Qhira, it is her E, and I can use Burrow Charge to drop her where I want her. I had never had one follow me before, so found it pretty funny.
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