Hero Discussion #8 - Bane

Heys guys back to bring you Banel now! He is an Intelligence ranged hero that excels at disabling and weakening his enemies, while being very purple and spooky. He’s surprisingly tanky in the early levels for a support, having good stats that make him a good roamer and ganker, besides the typical babysitter in lane.

The fact that his ultimate, Fiend's Grip, pierces Black King Bar makes him a good counter to heroes that rely on their BKB active to go around spanking people (think Phantom Assassin or Sven, for instance).

One of the newest items in the game that seems to fit him as a glove is Aether Lens, that allows him to use his spells from farther, hiding in fog for his channelling, and having extra mana to work with.

---

Taking a quick look at his abilities:

Enfeeble: Weakens an enemy unit, reducing its attack physical damage (for 20 seconds).

Brain Sap: Deals a portion of pure damage to the enemy that cures Bane himself in the same amount.

Nightmare: Puts the target (friendly or enemy) to sleep while dealing damage. Target is invulnerable for 1 second but then can be damaged and attacked. If the target is damaged he wakes up, if he is attacked (by right clicks) the nightmare passes to the attacking unit. It’s mostly used as a set up for other skills (like a Sacred Arrow from Mirana) or as a save in clutch situations (for your teammates and for you).

Fiend's Grip: Channelling spell that grips an enemy unit, disabling it and causing damage overtime, while stealing 5% mana from that unity every second.

Aghanim's Scepter upgrade: Increases damage per second, mana drain, and duration. If an enemy tries to attack Bane while he is channeling Fiend's Grip, they have Bane's current level of Nightmare instantly inflicted upon them.

---

There isn’t much to say about one of the heroes that has been more constant in the meta, both in pick rate and in skill/item builds, but let’s try to look at it in new perspectives!

• What is the best skill build for Bane? The majority of pro players tend to favour Brain Sap and Nightmare, getting one or no points in Enfeeble until the late game, but this ability can play an important role in the lane if you want to deny the enemy’s core farm. What’s your opinion on this – when should you get earlier Enfeeble points?
  
  
• In what position or how do you like to play him more, as a babysitter support on duo or triplanes, as a roaming/ganking support or as a core mid or elsewhere?
  
  
• Let’s spice his up: If you would play him as a core, what would be your skill and item build? And what strat would he function better in?
  
  
• Do you think Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade is worth on this hero? What other items do you prefer to have on him? Do you like the build that concentrates on protecting yourself and your channeling (with items such as Black King Bar and Blink Dagger) or do you think you can still get “protect your core items” as well (such as Force Staff and Glimmer Cape)?
  
  
• When is Bane a good pick – what lineups does he shine the most in, or against who?
  
  
• You’re playing against a Bane. What do you need to do against him if you’re a core that wants to not be disabled by him? And if you are a support that he’s screwing up as well? (strategies, itemization, teamfight behaviour)
  
  
• Do you think the mana drain aspect of Bane’s ultimate is an important part of his spell array, or is it negligible and most people don’t even know it exists?
  
  
• Are you a Bane spammer? Share your best stories (or fails!) with us!

---

Hopefully we can still make an interesting discussion come out of one hero that is usually not on the spot light!

Cheers!
ChiChi

Short on time right now but you forget one of the most important uses of Nightmare:
Turning a fight into a 4 vs 5 for 7 seconds. If you can do that to a carry (unlikely) or a hero with mass disables you will have an easy time winning the teamfight and then killing the poor soul you sent to sleep.
Also works in conjunction with his ult to get a carry and another guy to change a 5 vs 5 into a 4 vs 3.

Good intro, I used to play a lot of Bane but have gone off him somewhat in recent patches.

He's fine as either a standard lane support, or a roamer, or although it helps a lot to have heroes with strong skillshots to follow up - like Pudge or Mirana. He's especially good roaming against mid as that's almost always a solo hero who's more vulnerable to him.

He's pretty level dependent, and you want to get points in Brain Sap ASAP, and access to your ult. Your game impact is mostly early, and you want to take full advantage every time his ult is off cooldown.

I do occasionally play him as part of a "spoiler" offlane duo, or even solo mid. He's basically good at spoiling the farm of heroes with poor base damage (Gyro, Mirana, AM, Sniper etc) as an early level or two in Enfeeble can completely ruin their ability to last hit. If they don't get kills on you, their item progression will be pathetic.

He's generally not great at team fights, farming and offers ****py damage after the midgame. Lategame pretty much all you offer is that channelled single target BKB piercing stun.

Usual Support Build: E-W-W-E-W-R-W, prioritise arcanes, aether, urn and glimmer cape.

Usual 'Spoiler' build: Q-E-W-W-W-R-W, maybe another point in Q snuck in somewhere if it's really causing them problems, or they get a bit more damage to try to counter it.

With farm, pretty much same items but with an early Soul Ring for spamming. Probably BKB instead of Glimmer, maybe a Necrobook and/or Sheepstick if the money's kicking around.

Good against: High mobility heroes who u need lockdown against - ember, am, QoP, storm etc

Bad against: anyone with a purge ( Slark especially), strong pushing/teamfight lineups, teams with lots of stuns, illusion heroes etc.

Thanks for the contribution guys, keep them coming!

Michi you are right, and that also reminded me of another thing I could have mentioned: the play you can do as a teammate of denying your core's Nightmare by attacking him yourself (to free him).

Wait I thought you could just press a button and remove all existing nightmares? Speaking of which, that needs to be changed from the dotafire database. Lemme do that right now.

http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Bane

EDIT: Nightmare End. That one.

Also, people under Nightmare take a certain amount of pure damage per second, regardless of ally or enemy. So you can deny allies with it.

EDITEDIT:

So Nightmare does these things:

• Puts unit to sleep
• Unit takes damage
• Unit is woken if it takes damage from anywhere else
• If the waking damage is caused by an autoattack, Nightmare passes on to the attacker
• Nightmare reduces enemy vision to 0
• and there's a whole bunch of rules saying whether the unit wakes up or not.

I meant if you're from the enemy team of Bane and he puts your carry under Nightmare to take him out of the fight, you can just force attack to get the nightmare on yourself and thus free him :) this before he has BKB mostly. Thanks for the editing too!

Yea, you can also deny allies. I didn't say that cause I was afraid of giving the wrong impression to someone new tbh XD I preffered to mention the "clutch saves" ahah, but you're right, should have said it all probs.

Few things I can tell you about Bane:

-Quite possibly the best counter against Linken's Sphere carriers since all of his spells are single target, ergo he can break linkens at will
-Similar to Elder Titan in that sometimes his teammates can wind up being his hardest counters (Attacking Nightmare'd heroes, not focusing enemies caught in Fiend's Grip, etc.)
-Possibly the greediest support in the game, since he needs either a lens or blink, a bkb, quick level 6 and more to the point, he has no way of getting any of those (He can't farm jungle stacks, has no built in exp-getter like sacrifice, and so on)
-Another support he's similar to IMO is Visage since they're both great if you're ahead, not so good if you're behind (attributable to their greediness)

@Sando I have to disagree with you somewhat on Bane's matchup with Slark, Dark Pact may be spammable, BUT Bane can easily bait it out. The key is to Nightmare him first, let it be dispelled, THEN ult him. If you're quick and time it right, you can counter Slark.

I'm not really a Bane player, probably my least played support hero, but what are your guys thaughts on Rod of Atos for him? The item gives him another disable hp and more mana to work with so it doesn't sound bad. Of course it is an expensive item and mostly not that great for a support.

@ Fedo:
You usually have enough damage to solo kill most heroes once you hit level 6. The damage is actually ridicolous. I would argue that he is not that greedy because this allows you to get some kill.
And if your team is ignoring the targets you put out of the game you still create a 4vs3 for your team. To say it in the words of SirActionSlacks:" If you allow your ******s to hit stuff longer than the enemy ******s then chances are you gonna win ".

@Frosto:
Thing is that Bane can't do something with a slow. It's as simple as that. You usually only get it on heroes who need a slow to deal their damage but Bane already has that cc.
And Bane wants so many items that he can't even dream of that. It's not a bad item per se but there are better items...

Michi's explanation on why Rod of Atos isn't great is one of the best I've read cause it says it all in the most simple way possible, and applicable to other heroes too, like in the Bristleback discussion: It's a good item, sometimes you would want it (why not) but mostly there are better suited ones because you need to be able to actually take advantage of the slow - and while a slow is better than no slow, other items provide more useful stuff.

When thinking the build for a hero I like to think as following: what do you have already/what do you lack? Do you have disables as a Bane? Definitelly, check. Don't get an item for that then. What don't you have? A reliable way to disable with channeling your ultimate? Get an item for that. Etc, etc. That's the most efficient way I've seen of building a hero, playing on his strenghts and weaknesses - then you add the situational items if the situation calls for them.