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Tango
Sage's Mask
Iron BranchIron BranchIron Branch
Soul Ring
Magic Wand
Ogre Club
Boots of Speed
Black King Bar
Arcane Boots
Aghanim's Scepter
Blink Dagger
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1 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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4 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Atropos the Bane Elemental is one of my favourite support heroes in the game. He is not as hard a support as others, but certainly uses his spells rather than his items to kill his foes. Due to his reliance on level and his ganking presence (particularly his innate ability to help gank a dual lane with his Nightmare spell), he is a brilliant choice for solo mid, but can fair off in a side lane to harass just as well. He is one of the best mid game heroes in my opinion, but also devastates late game with a good level advantage and the right items.
Due to Bane's Brain Sap, which you should max first under all circumstances, you should not pick up too much regen, but just in case you or your laning partner (if you are on a side lane), tangos are always good to have. The mane reason you are doing without a salve as well is that you should rush a Soul Ring early game to use your most important spell without burning your mana. As you'll run in to more mana problems than health problems, you'll start off with a Sage's Mask. A Magic Wand is a good item to have early game for cheap regen and stats - as you'll be buying iron branches for early stats anyways. Keep in mind that Bane has great starting stats and gain, so stats aren't a big problem for him. After these two miniscule cost items, pick up some Boots of Speed and then an Ogre Club which not only will grant Bane some extra HP but is a mutual item between a Black King Bar and an Aghanim's Scepter depending on your choice (which is entirely situational).
After picking up some more kills, you should pick up Arcane Boots. You'll need the mana regen for it, plus you're a support so you can get away with supporting just by using arcane boots and maybe planting a couple of wards if you don't have another hard support on your team like Crystal Maiden or something. You may want to contact your team if they plan on building a couple arcane boots, in which you can save up for boots of travel for more ganking presence.
As mentioned before your core items will be Aghanim's Scepter and a Black King Bar, and after some farm a Blink Dagger to finish off fleeing foes and/or initiating a gank or even a Force Staff is also a great pick up due to his immobility. (as I always say, a staff is a BRILLIANT item on any intelligence hero, it's only a matter of priority.) Aghanim's will extend the period and damage of his ultimate, Fiend's Grip by over 50%. His ultimate at max level without Aghanim's will deal up to 1075 magical damage, but WITH Aghanim's will deal up to 1890 magical damage. Due to the fact it nearly doubles the power of his ultimate, and Bane isn't truly item reliant, it is certainly a good pick for bane to grab and just also give a passive stat boost and health/mana pool expansion to keep him in fights longer. Black King Bar takes priority over it depending on how much crowd control you are receiving. It is silly to pick a Bane against multiple stunners due to his channeling spell, and you can disable their stunner(s) with Nightmare and even your channeling ult itself, but being spammed with spells while channelling one of the most powerful single target spells in the game is commonplace so a BKB is still a good pickup.
Bane has the typical four skills - all four being single target spells and three being disables.
Enfeeble reduces a target's attack damage by 30/60/90/120. It's one of his best scaling abilities but is not as important as brain sap early game. It takes priority over nightmare as first level if you are mid, however always should be maxed in priority over nightmare. Still though, should not take max priority over Brain Sap. The reason why you should level this first as mid is because you can shut down your opponent so easily with it. A perfect example is Shadow Fiend - he has really low starting damage as he relies on his last hits to gain him extra damage to last hit more. Reducing his damage with level one enfeeble will leave him with 10 damage, making it almost impossible for him to land the last hits he needs (both for gold, and for souls for extra damage). This spell is still good for any other hero, leaving them with less than half of your base damage, but Shadow Fiend is the best example for this. If you need a counter pick for Shadow Fiend, Bane is your man. In team fights, Enfeeble, unlike Nightmare, needs to be focused exlusively on right clickers like Drow, Huskar and Skeleton King (just some examples). 120 damage reduction at level 10 will completely disallow these heroes from doing any damage at all.
Brain Sap takes 90/160/230/300 hit points in pure damage from an opponent. It is Bane's only non disable spell and it is crucial to laning and survival. It should always be maxed first under any circumstance and is arguably the best spell in the mid/early game. Laning against a squishy foe will be able to take almost have of their HP in one hit, being able to net either easy kills, or against a smart opponent will force them to flee the lane entirely due to your immense power at this point. Unfortunately it drops off late game but it still works well to keep yourself in fights and to some neat burst damage. Don't forget it is 300 pure, irresistable damage, and Bane gets 300 HP at level four no matter how much HP the target had remaining. Brain sap can be ignored as first level due to it's mana cost per effect and his importance on other skills.
Nightmare disables a target and drains 20 hp every 4/5/6/7 seconds. Nightmare can make or break a gank so communication with this spell is crucial. Due to its lack of scaling in comparison to his other skills it should be picked up once early game then ignored until your Q and W are maxed. This can take first level priority over Enfeeble if you are in a side lane, as it provides a chance for fleeing team mates to escape, and can help catch escaping foes. The most important ability how ever is to completely rule someone out of a fight, and this spell is the aforementioned ability that allows Bane to gank dual lanes. Simply disable one target with this spell, then everyone can jump on the other and pick them off one at a time. It turns 2v2's into 2v1s, and also useful in team fights as you can change 5v5's to 5v4's for up to 7 seconds. The great fact of this disable is that it can be used on both casters and right clickers, so you dont need to be as judicious on these picks as enfeeble, but the flaw is it requires much more communication. As you already have a disable for right clickers, this should be used on casters, but it's a brilliant crowd control weapon for someone like Ursa after he's pounded all his spells and can disable a SECOND right clicker! Nightmare's HP removal is also not to be overseen, you can finish off a backing opponent with it if you don't want to waste a brain sap and cant quite connect two auto attacks, but you can also deny yourself and teammates with it, which yet again requires more communication. But it's a great spell. In rare cases, you can nightmare yourself in a 1v1 when you have low health, which also prevent the enemy from attacking you, and if they're stupid enough they will take the nightmare off you early enough for you to escape and team mates to catch up to them.
Fiend's Grip is one of the most powerful single target spells in the game. It disables a target for up to 5(7) seconds, dealing 100/155/215 (155/215/270) damage per second, and draining 5%(10%) of their max mana per second. While this is bane's greatest spell, it should be casted last as you will be disabled for the duration while channelling it, so be sure to use your other spells before casting it so they can be of use while you are channeling. Of course channeling is the major draw back, so don't play against heroes with stuns. If you do however, disable a stunner with nightmare, and if theres another, use Fiend's Grip itself on the stunner as it disables them. However, in some situations you may be asked to focus other heroes instead of being selfish and disabling stunners just so you can pull off your ulti, so a BKB is still a good pick. Due to stuns being commonplace, you're almost guaranteed to play against one or more heroes with a stun in a pub or competitive game, so please pick up a Black King Bar for this spell (unless the rare case happens there the opposing team has no stuns or mini stuns at all).
Team Work with Bane is completely focused with his Nightmare. You can use commonsense to choose targets to enfeeble, and brain sap who you wish (though you may not want to steal kills from carries if a carry is there to pick it up), and Fiend's Grip does require focus as it may not be strong enough to solo someone but provides a brilliant lengthy disable for your teammates to rip into whoever is Gripped, but PLEASE make sure your team knows how nightmare works. If they attacked a nightmared unit, it disables them, and they will get major angry. Also, NEVER nightmare a unit your team are about to kill unless they are guaranteed to get away if you do not cast it.
The way to comm with nightmaring is when ganking a dual lane. State to your team who you are nightmaring and who you are attacking before leaving a lane. And let them know that if you get the kill in on one hero before the other's nightmare wears off and you havent taken too much damage, be sure to attack the other hero. And in team fights as well, let the enemy know who you are disabling so they can focus on other heroes while it is disabled.
Also be sure to nightmare low hp teammates that are bound to die so you can deny them. Teammates may rage at you for not giving them a chance to escape, so use communication with that as well. The best deny usage however is on yourself if you are all alone without a teammate to deny you.
Pros with Bane are his mid game, The fact he can support, gank, save teammates and rig teams of team fights by disabling three targets, will make everyone Bane's best friend. He can also outperform with farm from soloing while still being able to devastate battles without significant items.
Bane's only major con (besides silly team mates) is his lack of pushing power. All his spells are single target spells too useful to be used on creeps and Bane's right clicks are a weak point for him, so trying to push or farm with bane will not work out at all. But for his disabling and high damage presence, it's well worth it.
Bane is a viable pick against so many heroes and if you need a mid and/or support hero in your team, but certainly shouldn't be picked with lots of stuns around. Bane is a hero not to be ****ed with and takes some teamwork, but when it's present Bane can win the game by potentially making 5v5 team fights into 5v2's.
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