A Play Journal: The Bane of My Existence

This has been great! As a (very) casual player, and someone that hasn't been on in close to 6 months now, it's awesome to see how you build and how you plan. I think I have a low teens huntsman that I had planned on taking the bane route. A VG mate has a Bane that clears missions as fast as the rest of the team, so they are already intriguing to me. Keep this up!

I'm eagerly awaiting your next update! Thanks for all the tips and advice.

Day 12: Final Entry

All good things must eventually come to an end. Tonight I am going to log my last entry for Fara. It's not that I'll abandon her completely but rather the lure of Going Rogue will undoubtedly pull my interests in that direction. It's been a fun ride; Banes are certainly not the underpowered, red-headed stepchild of the Soldiers of Arachnos family.

So where did I end up with Fara:

Level 40
1325 hitpoints
45.57 melee defense*
46.43 ranged defense*
37.03 aoe defense*
39.75 global recharge
(*assumes cloaking device is suppressed)
286 reward merits
516,536,992 infamy earned (probably 300M more in IOs in the base and on the market)
85 hours played

Fara's enhancement screen looks like this:



At level 40, I took 260 of those 286 merits and made 13 level 35-39 random merit rolls. I came out pretty well with that I think.



Some closing thoughts.

1. While I liked having the fighting pool, especially up against foes like Nemesis which do a lot of damage, I wonder if there's a way to make a better mouse trap. To take fighting pool, you have to use up three power choices and really not take a number of powers that are desirable such as Tactical Training Leadership and delay powers like Tactical Training Assault and Surveillance. It might be easier to just grab Manuevers from the Leaderhip pool, soft cap earlier and then go for an all-in offensive build and not worry about resistance so much. Come respec time, this may be the way to go for Fara.

2. I think not taking both Venom Grenade and Surveillance is a serious mistake, and I will forever think that any Bane build that doesn't have both of them is self gimping. They are literally that awesome. One is good, two will be amazing (note: I have Surveillance planned for Fara at level 47). There's just no underestimating how much raw damage that -40% resistance (more if the Achilles Heel proc in Surveillance procs) with double assault can unleash. If you think about it, a Bane built that way can worry less about defense because everything will be flattened so quickly.

3. I think Banes do well with not one but two -kb IOs in their build. Even with soft capped melee and ranged defense, it was irritating facing things like Fake Nemesis and Family Consiglieres who can bounce you around like a level 1 Hellion hit by a level 50 Defender's Force Bolt.

4. Banes really require an offensive mind set. If you build them like a tank or a scrapper, you're not really getting the best out of your build. That's probably the mistake I made since I keep expecting Fara to play like a scrapper. Take your -res debuffs and your assault toggles early and kill stuff before they kill you. Banes really thrive when you think of them more as a melee blaster with some defense rather than as a scrapper or stalker.

Finally, thank you all for some of your encouraging comments and notes of appreciation. This has been a fun project. Sometime in the future, I'll make a separate post when I finish Fara's build and perhaps update some of the adventures she had in the interim. I eventually plan to take her hero side with Going Rogue, and spec her into more of a high octane offensive build. As with most of my characters, she'll also probably get close to the infamy gap at level 50 while still being mostly IO'ed out. That's when she'll splurge on some purples and finally finish her build.

Thanks again for reading,

FF

Very nice topic. Good bit of forum reading.

I do have to admit, I'm kind of dissapointed in not having anything more to follow
Iv'e had this thread bookmarked to keep me entertained, and to also encourage me to play the game mission to mission rather than breaks of AE.

Thanks for the read, and I hope to hear of another journey from you, perhaps in my favorite AT section...Scrappers

Very enjoyable read. Thank you for your efforts and sharing with us all.

Thanks for the thread.

I disagree pretty strongly with some of your conclusions, but I think that is the nice thing about the Bane. You can go more than one route and kick butt. I know my lvl 50 Bane is quite fun.

Soitenly, then. Keep in mind, I made Lilya in May of 2008 and she rocketed up to 50. So, my experience is older than yours. I don't think a ton has changed with Banes, though, but I could be wrong.

I don't use either Surveillance or Venom grenade. I respecced out of Surveilance, as it just didn't fit my playstyle. Now, I do use Shatter Armor - so a 20% 20 second resist debuff is getting used on hard targets.

I'm soft-capped to ranged. My melee defense is around 41% in combat. AOE I think is around 35%. With the defense, I only have the one knockback IO in and it works fine. Oops - actually I have a BotZ as well, so I was wrong on that one. I should see about slotting another full set of ToD to get closer to melee cap.

Crowd Control and Disruptor Blast, combined with my three pets (2 Disrupters and 1 Blaster), give me some decent AoE. The Disrupters also get some convenient holds in sometimes. Good defenses and pet distractions combine well for me.

Never considered Fighting pool - not enough power slots for me. But the IO's have brought me a lot of defense to make up for no Weave.

Don't have the leadership pool. Just the usual TT: Leadership and Maneuvers.

Yup - Crowd Control is that good. Amazing power. Love the Armageddon fire proc in it.

Lil isn't my Fire/En/Fire tank by any means, but she plays like a champ. And I would be comfortable taking her into any situation.

Hmm - I can now drop A/S, which I never use and get another power selection as I can take Flight directly. If nothing else, thanks for making me look at Lil closer!