Bane needs advice.

I have nearly been tearing my hair out for the last week, week and a half trying to figure out the answer to this question. I need to pick a group of powers, and cannot for the life of me figure out which is going to be more beneficial.

The choices are:

1) Kick, tough, weave.

Kick is... well, needed. Not much to say other then that. Tough and weave are both four-slotted. The highlights of this build are 39.3% Smash/Lethal Resistance, 1.22/s end drain, 3.66/s recovery, 80% recharge, 226% regeneration. Around 50/47/46 Melee/Ranged/AoE defense percentages.

2) Aid other, Aid Self, variable. (Thinking Tactical Training: Leadership, or Web Cocoon.)

Aid other is about the same as kick. Probably get more use then kick, but I don't intend to dedicate any slots to it. Aid self would probably get 4 or 5, depending on whether I go Numina's or Doctored wounds. The resistance is, of course, lower, but the positional defense values and recovery are pretty similar to option #1. The recharge might be slightly lower, but the end drain off toggles will also be lower.


Breaking this down a little, I suppose my problem is trying to decide whether a self-heal or 40% S/L resistances would greater affect my survivability. Although I don't know if I'll ever actually do so with him, what's making me face this question is Incarnate content and PVP. I've been told that defense doesn't help as much in those two situations, and so a backup of one or the other seems like a good idea... Just can't pick which. Either something gets through my shields and then doesn't hurt as much, or it hurts a lot and I have to break away from the fight to heal. However, I can think of situations in which I'm either taking too much damage per second and resistance won't save me, or I just got hit by a ton of burst damage and I won't have time to heal until I'm crushed.

I suppose, in both of those worst-case situations, neither one would protect me completely, but... Still. I'm at a dead end; I need other points of view.

IMO, Aid Self is highly debatable for a Bane. With good regen and strong defenses, you should be able to stand up indefinitely against most foes, and in PVP, aid self is basically worthless. Incarnate content, you should be getting extra defense buffs from your party to overcome the base to hit that the Trial mobs have.

Having run a Bane in the incarnate trials, you are either taking small amounts of damage, popping a Green Insp covers this, or you are hit so fast you’re dead before you can react, and that is with way over the max defences from all the buffs that you will pick up, tbh the only things that seem to make much difference in the trails is the level shifts, once you get all three you live longer. Also a lot of the damage is not S/L.

PVP I don’t do, so I can’t help you there.

I'm not sure about PvP but for Incarnate Content I would actually say neither. Now, comparing Tough/Weave to Aid Other/Self I would say take Tough/Weave (assuming you can afford to run them). However, I would also say that you really, really, really want Tactical Training: Leadership for the Incarnate Content. Fighting level 54s, many of whom have Defense buffs, means that you really need more accuracy/to hit bonuses than in normal content.

PVE only:
Now that I have Rebirth T4 +regeneration, I use Aid-Self much less. However, I still use it, as well as inspirations and everything else at my disposal. But it is also arguable that I dive in way over my head frequently; the other side of that argument is that if you aren't in danger of dieing, you aren't fighting hard enough nor leveraging all of your resources to the utmost.

There is no perfect answer to your question, other than take all of the above, for the simple reason that each solves a different problem.

Resist brings the spikes down, you're much less likely to die from a spike. However, you still have to recover your HP quickly after resist saves your hide. You can also only carry so many greens. The spike hits you, and it will eventually get lucky and hit you, you're not dead (and you would have been dead without resist), but you have 100 hp, now what do you do to keep yourself alive in your very weakened state, where even a very minor lucky scratch can finish you off.

I have Aid-Self, I DO die to spikes. Spikes nail me. On the other hand, unless you can spike me in less than 10 seconds, It's near impossible to bring me down.

Aid Self makes it trivial to replace hp between battles, and even during battles to some extent, if one is maneuverable enough, and/or puts an interrupt in Aid Self. Rebirth does this better, but is available much less often. Prior to rebirth I'd use aid-self every battle and/or between every battle to keep myself topped off. With rebirth, and the lingering +regeneration from rebirth, I use Aid Self infrequently, but do still use it to stay alive. The times I'm finding I'm still using Aid-Self tend to be in the last 30 seconds or so before the Rebirth +Regeneration T4 recharges. Greens or a Little more caution may well be sufficient to bridge that gap. If you do go the resist route, I'd almost certainly say take Rebirth +regeneration T4, and then you should be very sturdy.

Myself, I took Aid Other, Aid Self, and Vengeance, and I don't want to give up Vengeance, nor do I feel like I have the Endurance to spare for two additional toggles; although the Resist + Rebirth combination is overall likely a more stable and balanced defensive platform.

In a Lambda, I can't typically solo all 10 crates/containers of a sabotage phase. Why ? Because inevitably someone gets lucky and spikes me. I have all the other defensive bases covered, they really have no chance at all to defeat me. Yet, everytime, sooner or later, out of the blue with no warning, I go from full health to very very dead instantly. Resist would fix that. However, if I chose Resist over Aid Self, while I wouldn't die, I would then have to pause between each container/crate/Battle to give regeneration enough time to top of my health before I risked the next battle that's capable of taking 90% of my health.

Which is better, charging full speed ahead rolling the dice knowing you'll win 9 out of 10 times, or slowing down, taking your time and pausing between battles and never having any chance of losing ?

Aren't you on a team? If you've got a healer around, tough will keep you from dying to spikes, and the corrupters/defenders/controllers/masterminds on your squad should be able to top you off, and if they're not around, pop a green.

The streak breaker will make sure you eat a damage spike now and then, no matter how high your defense is.

Streak breaker? I can guess on what you mean by this just given what it's called, but I'm hoping I'm not about to find out there's a mechanic in the game that goes "this guy is living way too long, lets drop his defense to crap for the next attack?"

Also, good advice all around, and thank you for those who answered. I would have replied sooner, but I got distracted by scrapperishness.

Heh, total segue. The first thing to mind when I saw the thread title was "Don't just break Batman's back, KILL him!"

I went with Aid Other/Aid Self on my Incarnate Bane. His defenses are just past the soft-cap already and the Medicine Pool comes in handy for those times when you DO get hit hard by someone (it happens to us all).

Be sure to add an Interupt Enhancement so you can click on Aid Self during the battle. An enemy may get one lucky hit on you, but it's nice to refill your green bar while he continues to flail away in a continuous string of Misses.

Weave is always a nice option, yet it is still 3 powers just to get there. Only go for Weave if you don't already have Maneuvers (power pool). Maneuvers may provide slightly less defense but it helps out your entire team slightly more. Maybe its just the 'supporter' in my soul that tells me to help others before myself /dramatic. you could always pick up Assault or something..?

Weave may be 3 powers to reach, but tough is an excellent power in its own right. Though my own bane has Leadership:Maneuvers and Leadership:Assault as well, so clearly we're in agreement fundamentally.

Between Aid Self and Tough, I'll take Tough just because using Aid Self really hurts your dps. You need to spend a while to cast and if you are under a lot of fire, you may need to run to the side a bit to heal up.

You mentioned that you may want to pvp, then Tough is a must. Some people told me Tough in pvp gives resistance to all (not too sure about psionic though).

Actually, if you are serious about pvp, you may want to take both Aid Self and Tough.


Now, don't take Weave. Take another Maneuver. Yes, Weave's # is a bit higher but for similar endurance cost, you might as well carry Maneuver for the team. Double Maneuver is very enticing.

In Trial content, your Tough may mean you die in ONE hit or not. If you die in one hit without Tough, Aid Self won't help you.