Introduction
“A battle? I must be dreaming!”
Bane is a ranged intelligence support hero notable for his disables and anti-carry potential. He is a popular pick in competitive Dota thanks to his unique skill-set which lends itself superbly to certain support duos, but the coordination required to pull off these combos makes him a somewhat niche pick in public matchmaking.
Bane's complete character profile can be found here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Has access to two forms of lockdown
- Amazing set-up for hard-to-land stuns
- Has a disable which goes through spell immunity and deals significant damage
- Good counter to low base damage carries
- Flexible item build
- High damage nuke which also heals
Cons
- Very high mana cost abilities
- Huge mana problems early on
- Poor solo lane support
- Nightmare can hurt your team as much as it helps it if not used correctly
- Requires good game-knowledge, map awareness, and decision making abilities
Item Build
Bane is typically played as a lane support or a roaming support as part of a roaming duo (such as with Mirana or another hero with an impactful but sometimes hard-to-land stun), especially in competitive Dota, and so this build guide is geared towards this style of play.
It is not unheard for Bane to lane mid, however, where there are no better alternatives. This has the benefit, at the very least, of getting him a fast level 6 and some quick Arcane Boots, but is generally reserved for when your team composition lacks a more effective mid.
Starting Items
As a support hero it’s your job to ensure that the Courier and/or Observer Wards are bought at the start of the game. Usually these duties will be split between yourself and another hero on your team, but you can’t always guarantee this in public games. If no one else ponies up the gold for one then you should bite the bullet and buy both for your team.
Good starting items for Bane are:
Courier and/or Observer Wards, a Set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 2x Iron Branches, and as many Clarities as you can afford with your remaining gold.
Early Game
Ensure that the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark. Also ensure that Observer Wards are always purchased when they’re off cooldown.
Get your Boots of Speed up and running first. Bane actually has really good base move speed (315), but is still squishy and vulnerable to early rotations and ganks, so Boots are a must.
Upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand, and at this stage consider whether you need a Soul Ring. Bane has huge mana issues early on and oftentimes Arcane Boots will feel a long way off for a lowly and poor support. If you feel you won’t be able to farm them up in a timely fashion then a Soul Ring is a great way to give you that early infusion of mana you need to prove effective as a lane harasser, to be able to use your full combo, or to guarantee you have emergency access to an ability.
Soul Ring has the advantage of consisting of three relatively cheap components, so if you attempt to save up for Arcane Boots but fail to do so, you can quickly buy up Soul Ring components prior to dying and losing your precious unreliable gold.
Core
Arcane Boots are your compulsory core item. There is no other option – each of your 4 active abilities comes with a hefty mana cost, so if you want any hope of being able to use your complete arsenal without having to hoof it back to base after every engagement you’re going to need a sizeable base mana pool and good mana regeneration - Arcane Boots give both.
Luxury Items
Blink Dagger – One of the most popular luxury items on Bane. Blink gives you great mobility outside of, or before, direct combat, and will allow you to position yourself better as a support or initiator. Blink into Fiend’s Grip with back-up from allies will be enough to kill off a lot of heroes in the mid game.
Force Staff – Will significantly improve your mobility and make you feel less vulnerable. It’s an amazing escape tool for someone who is naturally fairly squishy, and can be used on allies and enemies, making it a great play-making item for clutch saves or to Force an enemy into bad positioning. It can also benefit your initiation by propelling you forwards into range of a Fiend’s Grip.
Whereas Blink Dagger tends to be the more popular of the two mobility items, I more often than not prefer Force Staff on supports for the bonus utility it provides your team. Blink will allow you to Fiend’s Grip a target from a much greater distance than Force Staff, and will not telegraph your gank attempts as much, but it is the greedier and more one dimensional item on a support.
Drums of Endurance – Drums of Endurance are a great option if none of your cores decide to purchase them because they give you team bonus attack speed and move speed auras, whilst at the same time giving you plenty of stats and being easy to build into (since the components are so cheap you can buy them up whenever you have the spare unreliable gold, meaning you won’t lose much gold when you die). If you bought a Bracer earlier on for some extra tankability then Drums are a natural extension to your inventory as well.
Black King Bar – Bane will often find himself the focus of stuns in teamfights because Fiend’s Grip makes him a stationary, high priority target as soon as you decide to use it. If you find that your ultimate is frequently being instantly cancelled because the enemy dedicate a stun to shutting you down, or burst you down with magic damage, then BKB is the route to take.
Often BKB is considered a second luxury item purchase but sometimes you may need to prioritise it if you find you’re simply not being given a chance to use your ultimate. A nice chunk of health and spell immunity will make you much harder to shut down when you use your Fiend’s Grip.
Necronomicon – Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights and for countering any invis enemy heroes.
Note that you can spawn the minions whilst using Fiend’s Grip – without cancelling it – thus allowing you to deal even more damage, as well as mana burn.
Aghanim’s Scepter – Aghanim’s Scepter is an ok luxury option for Bane. +10 all stats, +200 health, and +150 mana is nice to have on a support. The buff it provides to your ultimate is solid – increased damage per second, double the amount of mana drain, two additional seconds of lockdown, and it causes anyone who attacks Bane while he is channeling to be afflicted with Nightmare.
If you’re getting off full length Fiend’s Grips then it can be a good pick-up – if you’re not getting off full duration Fiend’s Grips then there are probably better item purchases you could be making.
Heaven’s Halberd – A fantastic anti-carry item, thanks to the ability to disarm an enemy core for 3.0-4.5 seconds, Halberd will also give you a much-welcome chunk of health an evasion, making you a lot less fragile.
I think of Bane as being a solid anti-carry support, thanks to his skillset providing him with a disable that goes through Black King Bar and a very hefty minus damage debuff. Throw a Heaven’s Halberd on top of all of this and you’ll make life hell for physical DPS’ers.
Ghost Scepter – The go-to luxury pick-up if you find the enemy team is able to bring you down quickly with physical damage (typically in the form of right-clicks). Most often this will be the enemy carry taking you out of the fight quickly with a few auto-attacks. Ghost Scepter will buy you a clutch 4 seconds of physical immunity, which gives you time to create distance between yourself and the enemy carry or at the very least buys your team 4 seconds of distraction time. Get both this and a Heaven’s Halberd and the enemy carry will loathe the very sight of you.
Scythe of Vyse – The ultimate late game item for most intelligence heroes. It's very good on Bane too, giving you another, more reliable source of disable, although you won't get as much out of the bonus stats as most typical Scythe carriers that can transition into semi-carry roles. The 3.5 second Hex is superb in teamfights and for picking off enemy heroes though. The enormous cost makes it prohibitively expensive for most supports, but if the game is going very late and you're almost 6 slotted it's a great option.
Situational Items
Boots of Travel – Great for the late game, when you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use if you’re about to become 6 slotted (which will be highly unlikely on Bane!).
Vladmir’s Offering - Yes, you’re ranged, so you won’t get the lifesteal bonus from Vlad’s, but you’re not buying it for yourself, you’re buying it for your team. Vladmir’s Offering is great to pick up on a support even if your team doesn’t consist of any melee heroes because of the bonus damage and armour it provides. If your team does have a melee core and no one else has purchased one then it’s an excellent utility item to purchase.
Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight – all-important detection. You’ll need at least one of these in your inventory if the enemy line-up features an invis hero. Sentry Wards will also allow you to deward rune spots, and Gem will give you superior vision going into the mid and late game.
Smoke of Deceit – If you roam with another support in the early stages of the game a Smoke will allow you to do so more quickly and without being spotted by enemy wards. Smoke will also come in handy in the post-laning phase if your team wants to gank as 5.
Skill Build
Enfeeble is a debuff that reduces the attack damage of a chosen enemy unit for 20 seconds. It reduces the unit’s damage by 30/60/90/120, making it a potent anti-physical carry debuff. Enfeeble is usually skilled last but maxed second.
With a cooldown of 10 seconds and a duration of 20, it is useful at all stages of the game and can be cast on two enemy cores out once, providing you have the mana to support persistent usage.
Brain Sap is a nuke which also heals Bane. It is skilled second but is always maxed first. Brain Sap deals 90/160/230/300 pure damage to an enemy unit (hero or creep), and heals Bane by an equal amount to the damage dealt by the ability.
With a 14 second cooldown it is a somewhat spammable nuke, although its high mana cost (125/150/175/200) makes this unfeasible early on unless you either have a very strong start (and get fast Arcane Boots), have a Keeper of the Light in your lane, or opt for an early Soul Ring.
Nightmare is a minor hp removal over time ability the main use for which is to sleep a target for a lengthy period of time. It is always skilled first in case you need emergency lockdown at level 1, but is maxed last.
Nightmare ‘sleeps’ an enemy or friendly unit for 4/5/6/7 seconds, and whilst under its affects the unit loses 20 health per second. Additional levels also increase the cast range of Nightmare from 500 up to 650 units. Anyone who physically attacks a slept unit will themselves be slept, but non-physical abilities can be used on them freely.
Fiend’s Grip is Bane’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). Fiend’s Grip is a powerful single target spell which disables the target for 5 seconds whilst draining their mana (5% of their mana per second) and dealing high magic damage per second (100/155/215 per second). A full duration Fiend’s Grip deals 500/775/1075 magic damage.
The only downside of Fiend’s Grip is that it is a channelled ability, which means that whilst using it Bane remains stationary and is thus vulnerable to attacks and disables. Nonetheless, it provides great lockdown and deals high magic damage; any hero caught in a full duration Fiend’s Grip is unlikely to survive early on so long as you have even just a small amount of follow-up.
Gameplay Tips
Although Bane lacks for mana early, Enfeeble can be used in aggressive dual or trilanes to make last hitting hell for the enemy carry. If you cast it on them as they approach the creep wave to last hit they will find it hard to secure the last hit (and any subsequent last hit attempts for the remaining 20 seconds of its duration). Do so as mana times as your mana supply allows to seriously hamper the carry’s early farm.
In the mid and late game ensure you cast Enfeeble on enemy cores, especially their physical damage dealers, whenever the opportunity presents itself. At level 4 it takes away a huge 120 of their attack damage, which can render most carries virtually useless as far as physical DPS goes in the early post-laning phase.
Brain Sap deals pure damage, which means it is not reduced by enemy armour or magic resistance. It is thus a reliable 300 health damage nuke, which also heals Bane, making for a total swing of 600 health – a significant amount.
| Note: Bane is always healed for the full amount, regardless of damage dealt by Brain Sap. |
Once you have the mana to support it you can use Brain Sap to deal substantial harassment damage in the lane whilst also topping up your own health. It also allows you to mitigate the negative effect from the active of Soul Ring, if you decide to purchase it.
Nightmare has multiple uses. Some of the most common are:
- To take a dangerous enemy out of the fight if your team doesn’t yet want to deal with them.
- To lockdown an enemy your team is attempting to chase. If you are ahead of your team Nightmare will allow you to detain the enemy whilst your allies catch up
- To protect an ally who is on low health from physical attacks
- To detain an enemy hero who is chasing down an ally and who has burst magic damage at their disposal
- To deny yourself or an ally who is on low health and has no chance of escape
- To set up for an allied hero’s stun which is hard to land (such as Mirana’s arrow, Lesh’s split earth, or even Pudge’s hook).
- To set up for your own Fiend’s Grip > Brain Sap combo if you’re not yet ready to use them
Remember, physically clicking on a hero who is asleep as a result of Nightmare will cause you to be slept and them to awaken. However, non-physical abilities can still be used on the target (and this too will awaken them) without any affect to yourself. Do not Nightmare an ally unless they are about to die (so an attempt to deny them) or they are attempting to avoid physical damage from an enemy unit!
| Note: Bane can cast Nightmare on himself in order to avoid physical attacks or attempt to deny himself. If you cast Nightmare on yourself then a new ability takes its place called Nightmare End, which allows Bane to wake himself up from Nightmare. |
Fiend’s Grip goes through Spell Immunity. Although it will not deal damage to them it will keep them lockdown for the duration, making it a great way to put an enemy carry’s BKB charge to waste, or to interrupt high-impact channelled abilities which are often cast from the safety of BKB (such as Enigma’s Black Hole).
As soon as you hit level 6 you should be looking for an opportunity to gank and secure a kill with Fiend’s Grip. Partner up with your laning ally, or rotate to another lane, and put it to use – not many heroes will survive an early Fiend’s Grip with follow-up.
Fiend’s Grip can be used to secure solo kills in the early game as well. So long as the hero in question does not have a huge health pool, a full duration Fiend’s Grip, followed by Brain Sap and right clicks, followed by Nightmare if necessary, will usually net you a kill.
In teamfights you have two very lengthy disables, so can effectively make short skirmishes a 3v4 affair – Nightmare one enemy and Fiend’s Grip another. Remember to cast Enfeeble on their primary source of physical damage to complete your teamfight control capabilities. However, don’t cast Fiend’s Grip if a nearby enemy is likely to stun you as soon as you begin channeling it, unless you activate BKB first.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
