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65 - Bane (ranged Intelligence)
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Basic Abilities: Enfeeble, Brain Sap, Nightmare, Fiend's Grip
Shard Upgrade: Improves Brain Sap to make it splash in a 550 radius AoE; targets beyond the first only heal Bane for 25% of the damage.
Scepter Upgrade: Improves Fiend's Grip to spawn two Bane illusions that also channel a full-power Fiend's Grip on the target. These illusions provide no bounty and take 200% damage, dissipate if they are interrupted, but will continue channeling Fiend's Grip on the initial target if, for any reason, Bane himself is interrupted. They have a buffer of a 20 second uptime if Bane somehow can channel or reapply Fiend's Grip for that long (through talents/Refresher Orb)
7.31 and 7.32 changes - Enfeeble changed from debuffing cast time to cast range. Fiend's Grip DPS down by 10 at all levels; scepter upgrade illusion incoming damage lowered from 700% to 200%. L25 Brain Sap talent improved by +50 health drained. L10 talents changed from + Magic resistance and + armor TO +20% cast range reduction on Enfeeble or Nightmare's damage self-heals Bane.

Bane's a floating, eyeless, constantly bleeding ichorous centaurlike abomination that has the distinction of being one of the best combination-supports in the game (while also being one of the most boring) with some very clear strengths and weaknesses. The "boring" part is one of the main reasons I have him down here in the middle of the pack. As ever, let's go over some abilities.

Enfeeble is a single-target debuff that has been changed almost as much as Visage. Currently, the victim of it deals less attack damage in total (including from bonuses like Double Damage runes,) has their incoming healing modifier reduced by nearly half (45-60%, depending on level - and this includes regeneration, lifesteal, and item usage that doesn't first dispel a debuff) and flatly lowers cast range of its victim by 30% (or 50% if the level 10 talent is taken.) At rank 4, Enfeeble can have 100% uptime on a target so long as Bane's mana holds.

Brain Sap is a single-target nuke for pure damage. Target takes 75-300 pure damage, Bane immediately heals for 75-300 damage (which can be modified by healing improvement, such as from Holy Locket.) Modifiers such as Spell Amp, Spell vamp, and healing improvement can hit the damage and heal, too, which can lead to some nutty health restoration numbers.

Nightmare is a single-target debuff that puts a target to sleep for a duration. The target receives a full second of invulnerability while this happens, and enemies will begin taking pure damage over time while the nightmare persists. If the target is damaged by anyone other than Bane's autoattacks, the target wakes up. If someone under a Nightmare that *isn't* Bane attacks a target, the Nightmare buff refreshes and moves onto the new target as if freshly applied. At any time while Nightmare is active, the sub-ability "End Nightmare" appears which instantly wakes up the sleeper - providing, of course, Bane isn't disabled by anything other than his own Nightmare.

Fiend's Grip, Bane's ultimate, is essentially an Ultimate version of Shadow Shaman's shackles. It's the most potent single-target stun in the game: a channeled debuff that deals damage over time and drains a percentage of the victim's maximum mana every half a second until the duration ends. *And* it pierces spell immunity (but not spell block or reflection, so be careful of Linken's Spheres and Lotus Orbs.)

And that, right there, is Bane's biggest problem - Linken's Sphere, Lotus Orbs, or similar makes him have to think his way through teamfights a bit more, since his perfectly-balanced-but-meh stats aren't going to do him any favors if he gets caught in a 1v2 situation. If anyone on the enemy team doesn't get one, they are just *asking* to lose.

Well, that's one of his problems, anyways. Another big one, in my eyes, is Enfeeble. They just cannot decide what to do with it. Once upon a time it dealt flat damage reduction. Then status resistance dropping. Then cast point increasing. Now it's percentage attack damage reduction and healing reduction. Also, if you spam your spells, your balanced-but-meh stats, again, are going to make you run out of mana in a hurry, and Fiend's Grip is not a reliable mana drainer when it's supposed to be an initiation or priority-target removal. Aether Lens is basically required on him, so you need to walk on eggshells while you sloooowly farm it up, because... Bane can't flash-farm, either, without first purchasing a shard. At least his autoattack damage is decent, if only to bolster the fact that he alone can hurt his Nightmare target with autoattacks... with its awful cast range and his own personal bad attack range. Oh dear.

Yes, Bane is super-strong in 1v1 situations or 1v2 situations where you can pick your target to screw over (to the point where I managed MVP on it just earlier today by doing exactly that above item build of Shard and Aether Lens, skipping a Blink Dagger which is basically core for him, and having allies that knew how to work around Nightmare) but I just don't get the point of Bane, I guess. He has absolutely been *the* best support in the game in years past, but I'm just not into his mass disabler playstyle. Maybe I need to give his Scepter a spin one of these days, or a Moon Shard Nightmare carry... except wait, enemies wake up to any damage other than his autoattack. The horror!

Or maybe I just need to get more friends that play Mirana and live the dream of the 12 second disable without a level 25 talent.

Next up: Ironically gets dumped on by Bane existing when they drop their ultimate.