Bane in 7.41f: less armor and a little less room for error

Hi! Today I’m looking at Bane in 7.41f, and the reason is pretty straightforward: the hero got another small adjustment, and with it there’s now an interesting chain of changes across the last few versions. It seems to me that Bane is always a good example of how Dota rewards supports who don’t just run around spamming buttons, but instead break the pace with one good initiation.

Role and abilities

Bane is a universal ranged hero with a difficulty rating of 2 out of 3. In terms of roles, he leans most heavily toward Disabler, with Support and Nuker close behind; Durable is much less pronounced. Valve describes him as someone who “disables enemies by putting them to sleep,” and that really captures his style: Bane pressures a single target, keeps it from playing Dota, and gives his team a window to finish the job.

• Enfeeble — deals damage every second and reduces attack damage as well as spell cast range.
• Brain Sap — drains an enemy’s life force: it deals damage and restores Bane’s health.
• Nightmare — puts an enemy or allied hero to sleep, and if attacked the effect can transfer to the attacker; there is an alternate cast to keep the target in place.
• Fiend’s Grip — a channeled disable with stun and heavy periodic damage; with an Aghanim’s Scepter, 2 uncontrollable illusions appear and cast the ability on the same target.
• Ichor of Nyctasha — innate ability: heroes killed by Bane or who die under his debuffs are put into Nightmare until the end of the game, and each such effect reduces their resistance to subsequent debuffs from Bane.

Changes in recent patches

Bane has picked up several tweaks over the last few versions, and I think they show pretty clearly where he’s being pushed: less random durability, more control, and more careful tuning of debuff power.

• 7.41f — base armor reduced by 1.
• 7.41e — for Ichor of Nyctasha, the maximum number of Nightmares on an enemy increased from 5 to 6, while the debuff resistance reduction per Nightmare was lowered from 5% to 4%.
• 7.41e — Nightmare had its duration reduced from 3.5/4.5/5.5/6.5 to 3/4/5/6 seconds.
• 7.41e — Nightmare now completely removes the victim’s vision instead of changing its range.
• 7.41e — Fiend’s Grip had the cooldown reduction from Aghanim’s Scepter weakened: from 45 to 40 seconds.
• 7.41c — mana cost on Brain Sap reduced from 120/130/140/150 to 105/120/135/150.
• 7.41 — strength, agility, and intelligence gain reduced from 2.7 to 2.5, and bonus damage per level reduced from 3.6 to 3.4.
• 7.41 — attack range increased from 400 to 425.
• 7.41 — Nightmare became vector-targeted, and sleeping units move in the chosen direction at 110 speed; alternate casting lets you hold the target in place.

Looking only at the patch notes, Bane has had his fundamentals nudged toward a more careful support: he previously gained some comfort from attack range and the mana savings on Brain Sap, and now he’s lost some armor and gotten a more restrained ceiling on sleep and innate mechanics. On paper that doesn’t look like a dramatic nerf, but the hero’s margin for error is tighter now, and that matters.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Bane has played 122,625 public matches and has a 48.8% win rate. That’s 81st out of 127 heroes by win percentage and 106th by number of games. What’s more interesting to me isn’t even the win rate itself, but how it climbs by rank: the higher the rating, the stronger the hero looks.

• Herald — 47.3%
• Guardian — 46.3%
• Crusader — 47.6%
• Archon — 48.7%
• Legend — 49.5%
• Ancient — 49.9%
• Divine — 50.5%

In professional matches, OpenDota shows Bane with 19 picks, 9 wins, which is 47.4%, and 16 bans over the same period. That doesn’t look like a hero around which the meta is built, but for a niche support the numbers are perfectly alive. In my opinion, that kind of stat line usually points to a hero with a very clear job: he’s not picked for flashy highlights, but when a team needs reliable control and nasty pressure on one target.

Items and matchups

Popular items in pro matches show that Bane remains a classic support who first builds economy and survivability, and only then picks up tools for positioning and locking a target down.

• Start: Iron Branch, Observer and Sentry Wards, Tango, Blood Grenade, Faerie Fire, Smoke of Deceit.
• Early game: Boots of Speed, Arcane Boots, Bracer, Void Stone.
• Mid game: Aether Lens, Arcane Boots, Ogre Axe, Point Booster, Staff of Wizardry, Ghost Scepter.
• Late game: Aghanim’s Scepter, Blink Dagger, Force Staff, Aether Lens, Glimmer Cape, Solar Crest.

Looking at matchups in pro games where the opponent has at least 20 matches, Bane looks especially good against Razor, Phantom Lancer, and Crystal Maiden. On the other hand, he has a harder time against Lone Druid, Monkey King, and Centaur Warrunner. That seems pretty expected to me: Bane likes heroes he can pin down and methodically shut off, while heroes that force tempo quickly or make it hard to hold distance comfortably give him more trouble.

Conclusion

Right now Bane looks like a hero that still has a very clear job in the game: disable one target at the right moment, survive the counterpressure, and help his team finish the kill. After 7.41f, he isn’t weak in a vacuum, but the feeling that he can just stand there calmly and do everything has become a little less secure. By the numbers, the hero doesn’t look overtuned or dead, and the rise in win rate by rank even suggests that he performs better in the hands of more disciplined players. I’d expect him more as a stable pick for control enjoyers than as a sudden patch superstar.

Source: official Dota 2 data and OpenDota.

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