Cookie's Bane

Intro

Bane is a very underrated intelligence hero who, if played correctly, can be an absolute ganking beast in the early to mid game. He has an array of powerful single target disables and nukes to facilitate this.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

• Very powerful single target disables/nukes
• Decent starting damage and armor
• Strong support laner and ganker
• Fiend's Grip's disable goes thru BKB

Weaknesses:

• Very level dependent
• Low range
• Somewhat squishy
• Poor mobility (no escape mechanism)
• Effectiveness tapers off in late game
• No AOE (push/counterpushing ability)
• No carry potential
• Weak suicide lane hero

Skill Build

Enfeeble is a very powerful disable against right-clickers. Usually 1 point investment in this early on is more than enough. I usually opt for more early stats, since hard right clickers don't usually come around until people start leveling and getting more items (mid game).



Brain Sap is your bread and butter nuke and heal. It deals 300 pure damage and heals 300hp regardless of damage dealt. Very powerful and flexible skill that can be used to turn the fight around, nuke down an enemy, and survive longer at the same time. The mana cost and cooldown aren't great, so use it sparingly (at least until you get some nice mana regen like Soul Ring or Bottle or Arcane Boots.



Nightmare is one of the best level 1 single target disables in the game, 4 whooping seconds to put a target out of action, or as a set up for a series of stuns and nukes from your allies and yourself. The target will also be invulnerable for the first second. This skill can also be used to save allies, nuke block/dodge if timed carefully, or to deny yourself/allies. 1 level of this is enough until you max your first 2 skills.
Note that attacking a Nightmared unit will cause the attacker to become nightmared instead, whilst usually pretty annoying, this can be used in a hilarious situation where 2 allies attack each other and kite in-between in order to utilize the invulnerability to save each other.



Fiend's Grip is a 5 second disable that deals 100/155/215 damage per second. (upgradable by Aghanim's Scepter) The disable will also go thru BKB but the damage won't. Early/mid game, it's an excellent spell that can nuke down squishies on it's own. Late game- it's used more to disable BKB carries whilst your team fights their team. However it is a channelling spell, so wait for the first round of disables to go off first. Make sure you're not going to be stunned for the 5 second duration if possible. Having your own Black King Bar helps.

Bane's spells all have a long cooldowns. Use them judiciously.

Item Build

Item's are meant to either fill in a heroes gaps/weaknesses, or to synergize with what they already have. If we look at Bane, he's lacking in early stats, lacking in mobility, and a decent source of mana regen for his expensive spells.
Naturally, Ironwood Branch(stats) and Tango will help with early survivability.
Mantle of Intelligence for lasting hitting power/bigger mana pool.
Observer Ward or Courier if you're playing a support role.

With CORE ITEMS:
Phase Boots gives you great movement speed boost for better positioning to cast spells. Power Treads and Arcane Boots are viable if you need to be more tanky or you want to play support.
Magic Wand and Town Portal Scroll are very useful items for any player, must haves.
Bottle makes sense if you're roaming/ganking alot (try and rush this if you're solo).
Soul Ring is a great regen item that gives you burst mana whenever you need, and works great with Brain Sap as well.

From here, the rest are purely Situational Items.
Following from our theme of improving stats, Bracer into a Drum of Endurance, early Point Booster into an Aghanim's Scepter later, or an early Ogre Club into a Black King Bar for later on. Drums gives you and your team a nice speed boost, BKB makes you more tanky and good against a CC heavy enemy team, and Agh's makes you more tanky and improves your ulti's DPS

Necronomicon also gives you a nice stat boost, pesky and powerful summons that improve your damage output and burns enemy mana, and helps to deal with enemy invis units at level 3. If you're gonna get this, get it FAST.

If you want to improve mobility, utility items like Force Staff or Blink Dagger helps with initiation and escape. Eul's Scepter of Divinity is also a nice choice with nice mana regen and movement speed boost, and gives you 1 more single target disable/nuke dodge.

Mekanism would not be Bane's first choice of support items, but if no one else on your team is getting it, mek can still make a huge impact in team fights, so why not.
Ghost Scepter is usually not neccessary as you already have a strong disable against right clickers. But if, for example, the enemy Clinkz is a huge problem, get it.

Try and be balanced with your item build. If you already have enough stats, get some utility items, and Vice versa. A well balanced build means you'll have fewer weaknesses, and thus more effective and dominating.

Gameplay

Early/Mid Game

Laning

Soloing:

Creep block, last hit, deny if possible. Last hitting should be decent due to your nice base damage. Harrass if possible, trading hits is usually ok as Brain Sap is often enough to turn the tables around for you to score a kill or force them back.
Use Nightmare if enemy gets too close to the tower and their creep wave is almost dead. By the time nightmare is off, auto-attack, tower hits and a final Brain Sap would often score a kill.
Alternate skill build with early level(s) in Enfeeble makes last-hitting hell for the opponent, and can be used to shut down their farm, but is quite mana intensive, so bring clarities or rush bottle.

Dual laning:

Bane would usually play the support role when dual laning, so wards or courier is essential. Harrass is not easy to come by with your low range, luckily if you trade hits, you can heal up with Brain Sap. Make sure you manage your mana well, at least before you get Soul Ring.
Communication with your laning partner/roaming gankers is key. Signal when you're about to Nightmare, and make sure your allies can follow up with a stun/nuke or something. This can quite often help you score easy kills in lane. If nothing else, Nightmare can also give you 4 seconds to run away if you or your ally is dying.

Ganking

As soon as you hit level 6, you would want to gank as much as possible.

1. Signal target, stay in fog/go from behind if possible.

2. Initiate with Nightmare, or use it to disable the opposing stunner so you can focus on weak carry.
DO NOT NIGHTMARE THE TARGET WHEN YOUR TEAM IS FOCUSING HIM DOWN. I've seen so many idiots disable the wrong target.
Rule of Thumb: if your allies are already murdering that hero, nightmare someone else

3. Do not spam Brain Sap just because you can. Save it for the killing blow, to help nuke down a target your allies cant finish off on their own, or until you've taken a little bit of damage (since it does 300 pure damage, and heals 300hp at lvl 4 regardless of damage dealt)

4. Use Fiend's Grip on escaping enemies, squishy heroes, or to pick off/disable an annoying mobile hero like Storm Spirit or Queen of Pain. Becareful to wait until the first round of disables are cast. Bane's ulti IS CHANNELING so you must be pretty sure no one's gonna stun you half way and waste your ulti.

With a crazy 4 second disable, a 300 nuke/heal, and a 5 second nuke/disable, you're almost garanteed to score at least 1 kill, more if the enemy heroes are squishy.

NOTE that Bane excels more in 2v2, 3v3 teamfights than large 5v5 ones, so strike early while people are still laning! And keep striking and ganking across the map!

A Fiend's Grip and Brain Sap combo only does a limited amount of damage, and is pretty much your main damage output. If an enemy is tank enough to survive this, or has skills/items that can block single target nukes ( Refraction, Spiked Carapace, Linken's Sphere), you're gonna be in trouble, and you're gonna need help from allies to take them down. Whilst uncommon, an Urn of Shadows is one way you can use to burn off your enemy's spell block with its DoT damage, so you can cast your powerful disables on them.

Late Game

Picking off heroes

If you've been playing correctly in the early-mid game, and the enemy don't have too many hard counters against you, the game should be very much in your favor.
Use your utility items to help you initiate on lone heroes farming on their own. A huge 7 second disable would give your team ample time to surround them/finish them off.

Large teamfights

The biggest question is: who to disable??
This depends largely on the enemy team composition.
Ideally, cast Nightmare on large AOE/teamfight hero right off the bat. If they already initiated on you, aim for anyone with big AOE or annoying disablers on their team.
Then use Enfeeble on a hard right-clicker/carry.
If you have BKB, use it before you use Fiend's Grip to disable the enemy BKB carry for 5 seconds. Annoying stunners can also be a good target if they dont have a high DPS BKB carry.
If the enemy has a strong healing/support system going, like Chen or Enchantress with mek, it may be worthwhile to Nightmare or Ulti them so the rest of the team dies faster, but usually, the AOE heroes or BKB carries take priority.
Save your Brain Sap for a killing blow, or to heal yourself. There are much cheaper and faster cooldown nukes, Brain Sap isn't one of them.

Friends and Foes

Friends:
Bane is great with anyone, but more so with heroes who needs alot of time to set up, or slow melee heroes, or just anyone who can deal following up damage after Bane disables. Examples include...



They can get all the time they need to set up a perfect arrow, illuminate, hook, epicentre etc.

Bane can quite easily take out most hard carries/support heroes 1v1 early game due to their squishyness and Bane's strong nukes/disables. There are too many heroes that fit this category, but just to name a few...



Foes:
Anyone with long ranged disables, silence, nuke/spell blocking abilities can all counter Bane pretty hard. Examples include...



for their silence, and



for their spell/damage blocking abilities.

And don't forget, anyone with a

Difference between soloing and dual laning

As Bane is very level dependent, early levels and farm with solo lane allows him to get ahead, and gank much more effectively and much earlier.
That said, he is NOT A SOLO SUICIDE LANE HERO. Even though he does have a disable and a nice heal, he's much too slow and squishy and has no escape mechanism to survive a suicide lane.
Bane is in no way a carry. After he gets the beginning EXP and gold, someone else can take the solo lane if they need the farm/exp, whilst Bane roams.

Dual laning on the other hand is still effective. His Nightmare is a great set up skill even at level 1, for laning partners like Lina and Leshrac and Kunkka to land their stuns. His Brain Sap allows him to trade more hits with the enemy than many other supports would, and still stay alive and healthy. Getting Enfeeble early if you want to shut down the enemy's farm is also an option when side-laning.