Where is our bane ?

[dinatar]

Hi all!

 

Yes i want to know why 80%(my number ..) are crab or fortunata.

Sometimes we can sera a night widow, and rarely bane.

But i think is a really good AT, and the ranged version, soldier IS good too.

I think he need some DDR, and perhaps other AT version of shatter to have more aoe, but it s a beast in ST, and not bad in aoe.

I use all melee, plus range and melee if mace patron, he broke all the res of mobs, and do toxic damage.

I Saw 2/3 build in this forum, 1 IS arround the same of mine.

Where is the lover of this AT ? Share your build😉.

 

PS: as usual, sorry for m'y english!

 

 

[Omega-202]

The main reason you see fewer Banes and Night Widows than Crabs and Forts is because of two main reasons, in my opinion:

 

A) AoE is king in City of Heroes.  9 times out of 10, you want an AoE monster at endgame.  Single target damage is simply outclassed and is less efficient.  Crabs and Forts beat Banes and NWs in AoE, by a LOOOONG shot.  

 

B) The main "playstyle" for "pure" Banes and NWs is basically the same as a Stalker, but Stalkers do it better.  You lose significant single target damage (in comparison to a real Stalker) and gain some team buffs and debuffs.  It's not a great tradeoff.  

 

Regarding the "ranged version" of the Bane aka Huntsman Soldier build, Crabs do that build better.  They are bulkier and have access to an extra pet.  Banes only get Surveillance in exchange, which is decent, but not that great.  

[dinatar]

I understand your point of view, for my part I find that the 3 debuff available are very effective, the attack chain is relatively fast. I have never level a stalker, but I have 2 in level up now, it's true that the build up sequence is quite substantial! maybe we should improve these 2 AT ...

i think some DDR should be a good beginning, and as it s not possible to change ATO perhaps they Can have a mechanic to mâle more Crit?

howewer, when i group with grand, i find myself much more efficient

 

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by dinatar

[Fista]

Everything above is true however... I love my bane.  I don't care who has the biggest e-peen. I'm here for the story and teaming for TF/SF

Edited March 3, 2020 by Fista

[Redlynne]

11 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Regarding the "ranged version" of the Bane aka Huntsman Soldier build, Crabs do that build better.  They are bulkier and have access to an extra pet.  Banes only get Surveillance in exchange, which is decent, but not that great.

I can attest that Hunstman builds "gain more" out of blending with Crab powers (which enforce the backpack, even if you don't take any powers that "use" the backpack) than blending with Bane powers.  Pretty much all of the advantages of being a Bane rely upon using melee attacks, so the primary advantage of sticking with Bane powers on a Huntsman build basically comes down to not having the backpack enforced upon you and a different "flavoring" of how your protection scheme "works" for you as a Bane rather than as a Crab.  The loss of a Dull Pain styled power however makes Bane-based Huntsman builds a LOT flimsier.

 

For my take on these questions, have a look at some of my older build posts for Huntsman ... 1 and 2 ...

 

I have a feeling that at some point I cross-compared the protection schemes for Bane vs Crab and came away with the sense that Banes just trade away "too much" in a Huntsman build context relative to the Crab alternative.  I even looked into the possibility of trading in the Soldier Rifle for the Bane Mace for all the ranged attacks, kind of like how you can trade in the Soldier Rifle for Crab Backpack attacks (aside from a grenade attack that MUST be used from the Rifle), and found that the result was gimped beyond belief when trying to stick to an all ranged Bane Mace build (trust me, it was ... horrid).

 

Best I can say is that doing a Bane-based Huntsman results in a VERY different style of game play, mainly because the strengths and weaknesses shift rather dramatically relative to the Crab-based Huntsman builds.

[tidge]

I recently activated the second build of my lvl 50 Crab as a Bane. The Crab is a fun AoE w/ 6 pets, but is a little soft with low 30ish% positional Defenses. I realize that I really am supposed to alter play style depending on the build, but taking a lot of aggro with 30% defenses is tricky.

 

I built the Crab with 45%+ positional Defenses and roughly 50% resistances but this build is so much slower on offense. I'm relying on Mace attacks and Mu for offense. The activation animations are murder! The build is extremely capable: on TFs he can run away from the team and not worry about dying, but it clearing rooms by himself was simply not as easy.

 

The Fortunata is as tough as the Bane but delivers so much more AoE offense, plus brings control.

[Novacat]

Bane's problem is the ranged attacks it gains leave you purely as a wolf-spider. That leaves you with just the gun, which can be a bit visually and audibly underwhelming. Also for some reason they have a 10ft penalty (because screw us that's why) out of nowhere.

Bash isn't particularly bad - it's better than Pummel, but by the time it's available, since it's through a level 24 respec, you've also got Pulverize, Shatter and Bayonet available

Mace Beam is a 2s cast time for 55.61 with knockback. Single Shot may be Lethal of the same damage but it's done in 0.9 and Burst hits even harder in a beautiful 1s cast

Mace Beam Blast is trash. 2s cast time for 36.7 and some knockback. Radius is also 10, which is a flaw in the Frag Grenade but the Frag does just under twice the damage of this thing without the range penalty, weaker knockback that you probably won't need to slot against if you'd do so otherwise, and a faster casting time

And it gets worse, because both of these have a Patron pool equivalent which hits harder (and disruptor's got a wider radius), although their recharge time is slower due to being from the pool.

Mace Beam Volley Suffers the same problem as Blast, this time as a cone, though thankfully not overshadowed by a mace cone... well, not a mace one on a VEAT anyways...

Poisonous Ray Never got the range treatment.  It's 40ft like all the other old heavy blasts used to be, and is a little bit weaker to boot than those equivalents

and Crowd Control, well it's not bad but you're not really a melee specialist so you're less likely to get to even swing at two guys at a time compared to murdering a single with Shatter.

Web Cocoon is very Meh: it would be alright as a "toxic web grenade" but instead of damage it gets a hold... problem is you don't get any other holds to stack it with at all.

 

So basically you're in it for the cloak, build up, and for critical hits with Pulverize or Shatter. The armor's really good, but compared to getting even higher resists and an energy summon? Nearly everything else the Bane has, the Crab already has as well, or nearly as good (bayonet's not that much worse than pulverize, though pulverize IS better, for example) since they're wolf spider attacks.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Novacat
bold

[Erydanus]

I wish there were a third path available that let you build an arbiter style huntsman.  Alternately, if the Bane power sets had a few extra rifle powers that are mutually exclusive with the regular Bane mace versions it would work. For instance, a big gun attack tier 9 that was exclusive versus Crowd Control; an aim/buildup power that uses the rifle animation (as the build up in the set pulls out the mace). Of course, going bane and just taking the rifle attacks is a disadvantage but it's a theme thing for me at least.  This particular set reminds me so much of Thief/Ninja in Final Fantasy XIV. For the first 30 levels you're a dagger using thief, the class is hard capped at 30 you HAVE to turn into a ninja at that point to get any new abilities and the play experience drastically changes. 

[Frosticus]

remove all redraw on vests amd I'd be all over a bane.

maybe trim some animations a bit so it flows better. 

[Gyffes]

I've been running a pure Bane for a couple months now over on Everlasting, once you get used to rotating your weapons and leveraging the redraw it is quite abit of fun. It's slowly been turning into my most played alt even over my main Stalker. I would not complain at all about getting the venom nade in the mace though, at that point I'd be an even happier little murdermachine.

[BurtHutt]

On 3/3/2020 at 8:38 AM, Omega-202 said:

The main reason you see fewer Banes and Night Widows than Crabs and Forts is because of two main reasons, in my opinion:

 

A) AoE is king in City of Heroes.  9 times out of 10, you want an AoE monster at endgame.  Single target damage is simply outclassed and is less efficient.  Crabs and Forts beat Banes and NWs in AoE, by a LOOOONG shot.  

 

B) The main "playstyle" for "pure" Banes and NWs is basically the same as a Stalker, but Stalkers do it better.  You lose significant single target damage (in comparison to a real Stalker) and gain some team buffs and debuffs.  It's not a great tradeoff.  

 

Regarding the "ranged version" of the Bane aka Huntsman Soldier build, Crabs do that build better.  They are bulkier and have access to an extra pet.  Banes only get Surveillance in exchange, which is decent, but not that great.  

I also feel a Bane is way easier to slot for Resistance and Defence. My current Bane has softcapped Defence to all but Psionic (40%) and those are the numbers with Cloaking Device off. I always team so damage isn't a big issue. For me, the Bane beats out the Stalker.

Edited September 1, 2020 by BurtHutt

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, BurtHutt said:

I also feel a Bane is way easier to slot for Resistance and Defence. My current Bane has softcapped Defence to all but Psionic (40%) and those are the numbers with Cloaking Device off. I always team so damage isn't a big issue. For me, the Bane beats out the Stalker.

You're entitled to your opinion, but on both fronts the numbers disagree with you, harshly.  Where the Bane has Bane armor (7.5% res to all) at level 1, which is betterer than Crab armor (3% res to s/l/p) the Crab gets Fortification (15% res to s/l, 25% to f/c/e/n/t) which the Bane has no comparison to.  Because of Fortification, Crabs have 10%+ base resistance more than a Bane to everything but psi.

 

Crabs can get capped defense easily and ~60% resists to all but psi, while taking Musculature Alpha.  The best Bane builds on these boards wirh Musculature are getting ~40% resists.  Please show me a Bane build that hits 60% resist numbers without Resilient or Cardiac Alpha and maybe you'd have an argument.

 

Regarding comparing to Stalkers, when it comes to damage that comparison is really not even a fair fight.  Both have scale 1.0 damage, but Banes get 1.5x crits from Hide while Stalkers get 2x, Banes don't have any crits outside of Hide, while Stalkers on a full team crit on 31% of their regular attacks, and build Assassin's focus.  The Bane is only bringing the leadership buffs, which is fine, but if that's what you're goal is, Crab does it better.

[Brutal Justice]

12 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Regarding comparing to Stalkers, when it comes to damage that comparison is really not even a fair fight.  Both have scale 1.0 damage, but Banes get 1.5x crits from Hide while Stalkers get 2x, Banes don't have any crits outside of Hide, while Stalkers on a full team crit on 31% of their regular attacks, and build Assassin's focus.  The Bane is only bringing the leadership buffs, which is fine, but if that's what you're goal is, Crab does it better.

I would love to see a dps comparison between a bane and a stalker.  The stalker crits more but does the bane catch up with its -res and the pets?   How far behind does the bane lag?   Should banes see a bit of a buff?   I don’t personally have time to do the comparison but if somebody who is good at that could knock out a simple comparison just to get an idea, I would be very interested.  

[BurtHutt]

13 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

You're entitled to your opinion, but on both fronts the numbers disagree with you, harshly.  Where the Bane has Bane armor (7.5% res to all) at level 1, which is betterer than Crab armor (3% res to s/l/p) the Crab gets Fortification (15% res to s/l, 25% to f/c/e/n/t) which the Bane has no comparison to.  Because of Fortification, Crabs have 10%+ base resistance more than a Bane to everything but psi.

 

Crabs can get capped defense easily and ~60% resists to all but psi, while taking Musculature Alpha.  The best Bane builds on these boards wirh Musculature are getting ~40% resists.  Please show me a Bane build that hits 60% resist numbers without Resilient or Cardiac Alpha and maybe you'd have an argument.

 

Regarding comparing to Stalkers, when it comes to damage that comparison is really not even a fair fight.  Both have scale 1.0 damage, but Banes get 1.5x crits from Hide while Stalkers get 2x, Banes don't have any crits outside of Hide, while Stalkers on a full team crit on 31% of their regular attacks, and build Assassin's focus.  The Bane is only bringing the leadership buffs, which is fine, but if that's what you're goal is, Crab does it better.

I'm sure all of your numbers are correct. However, I did note I have softcapped and then some on all of my defences. S/L Res is just under 69% (69!) and the rest of the Res are sitting in the mid 20s. I opted to avoid pets for thematic reasons. All of those Res and Def numbers are before any incarnate powers and with Cloak off. Anyway, I enjoy the toon and that's kinda the key here.

[C U R S E]

I would just like to add, yes Banes and NW's are very rare, and as it was pointed out earlier in this thread, the Crabs and Fortunata are very popular. I can attest though, that my main, which I absolutely love, is a Night Widow. I think honestly, having played a few stalkers to end game, she just brings so much more, in way of buffs to teams. NW's pretty much are and can be, a powerhouse, with Proc's added and the ability to softcap and beyond, positional and typed defenses. I think the real lore for me, is I never see a NW, but that is the caveat of it all, playing a NW. To be so rare, and to bring so much to the table, is so much fun.

 

[KaizenSoze]

I have been flipping between bane/huntsmen and pure bane on the beta server.

 

Builds tried:

• Pure ranged huntsman
• Ranged/melee huntsman, no mace
  • 2nd best, only surveillance causes redraw
• Mixed mace and ranged huntsman attacks
  • Worst option, so much redraw
• Pure mace bane with mace epic, no nades
  • What I decided was best for me with placate to get more crits

 

Fixing the redraw would help a lot, but I think the bane needs a more defined role.

 

Stalker lite with team buffs, is fine, but doesn't not do enough damage. Except pure bane is ok.

 

In the end, on the beta server, where I can have any build I want. My pure bane only comes somewhat close to my Blood Widow in the ability to clear missions quickly.

 

There is something janky about the mace animations which really bothers me.

 

I think that banes should get a more defined role, like melee de-buffer. Or Stalker level crits, stalker ATOs are what make the crits, so powerful. I don't think it would overpower banes.

[Omega-202]

25 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Stalker lite with team buffs, is fine, but doesn't not do enough damage. Except pure bane is ok.

 

In the end, on the beta server, where I can have any build I want. My pure bane only comes somewhat close to my Blood Widow in the ability to clear missions quickly.

 

There is something janky about the mace animations which really bothers me.

The root problem of a lot of what you said in the quote above is the long animations, with nothing to compensate for them.  They look janky because there's no flow to them and they take forever to land.  

 

People complain about Longfang's unreasonably long animation time (2 s) on Crabs, and yet of the 13 Mace powers between Bane primary, Bane secondary and Mace PPP, 11 of them have an animation time of 2 seconds or longer.  Only Bash and Pulverize are faster than 2 seconds.  When Stalkers are putting out an attack chain with 0.8-1.5 s animations on each attack, with full crits from hide, crits outside of hide, and a hide proc ATO, there's no way a Bane could hope to keep up.  

 

All Arachnos Mace attacks, for Banes and in all PPPs need to have their animation times cut in half for them to be competitive.  

[KaizenSoze]

Honestly, I find all mace animations, War Mace included, janky.

 

There is weird pause and the beginning and end of most attacks.

[Zippity]

I always preferred the Mace based Bane Spider over the more Ranged version, mostly because in Live the ranged one was highly over used due to it's more AoE focus. You may not get the same sort of Critical hits that a Stalker gets, but the Mace attacks of the Bane feel very powerful when they hit. When you add in the strength of the hits along with the toxic dot's with high defenses, I feel the Bane is very capable. Sure, it is more Single Target focused, but that was the whole idea in the first place. Couple in the fact that many of the attacks also have a KD/KB component for a bit of crowd control, I feel powerful when playing a Melee focused Bane. Sure, the more AoE focused ranged Spider will see more numbers appear on the screen, but there are more then enough AoE based players out there. Having the option for more single target boss killing AT's helps fill in the gaps.

 

One caveat I always recommend though, if your gonna play a Melee Bane, stay away from the ranged attacks for the most part. They tend to have longer casting times and I feel they interrupt the flow of melee attacks, which come back fast enough that you don't need a whole bunch of additional attacks to throw into the fray, that might slow down your attack sequence. If you want something for the occasional runner, add in just one Ranged attack for those special occasions, but I would avoid it in your actual base attack rotation.

 

Another recommendation, the cone arc of Crowd Control does take some getting used to, like most melee cone attacks. But when lined up right, it is glorious to see all those baddies fall on their butts with a huge crunch sound to boot.

 

Some folks will feel as though the Mace attacks (like most big melee weapon sets) feel a bit slow. They may feel a bit slow, but the damage numbers are also typically higher, then the faster smaller weapon sets. Mace attacks may not appeal to everyone, and the same goes for Broadsword, Battleaxe, and the Warmace sets. They feel slower, but hit really hard, and sound like they hit hard as well. It takes a certain mind set to get around the slow feel of these types of weapons. In the end it is an illusion, that because they feel slower that they are inferior to the faster attack melee weapon sets.

 

I don't play MMORPG's to compete with other players. The whole genre of MMORPG's was designed around Co-Operative game play... I do understand some folks have this macho desire to compete against one another, to see who can get the greatest amount of large numbers flying across the screen. But for the most part, this game works better when folks of varying builds come together to defeat the enemy NPC's. There is supposed to be a sense of comradery, teaming up with other players, to work together towards a common goal. Nothing bothers me more then seeing the occasional Soloist who thinks they're better then everyone else, running off on their own, with the goal of outdoing everyone else (feeling superior to others), more so then having fun working together with other players.

 

Zip

Edited September 9, 2020 by Zippity

[Omega-202]

39 minutes ago, Zippity said:

 

Some folks will feel as though the Mace attacks (like most big melee weapon sets) feel a bit slow. They may feel a bit slow, but the damage numbers are also typically higher, then the faster smaller weapon sets. Mace attacks may not appeal to everyone, and the same goes for Broadsword, Battleaxe, and the Warmace sets. They feel slower, but hit really hard, and sound like they hit hard as well. It takes a certain mind set to get around the slow feel of these types of weapons. In the end it is an illusion, that because they feel slower that they are inferior to the faster attack melee weapon sets.

It's not an illusion, the long animation times are not compensated for with greater damage.  We have the numbers, go actually check the DPAnimation on Broadsword or normal Mace sets.  They do similar damage with shorter animations.  

 

I know it feels nice to have this "everyone is good, I feel powerful" mentality, but the truth is that numbers are numbers.  Bane attacks have worse stats than other sets.  

 

The topic for the thread is "where are all of the Banes?" and part of the answer is that melee focused Banes are underpowered compared to other sets.  It's not a figment of someone's imagination, it's just a fact.  Check the DPA stats on Mids, in game or at the below site and compare with the DPA of the other sets you're referencing (Axe, BS, War Mace).  Banes are slower and do similar damage over a longer animation, resulting in lower DPS than they otherwise should have.  

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20140625171903/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

[Brutal Justice]

4 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

The topic for the thread is "where are all of the Banes?" and part of the answer is that melee focused Banes are underpowered compared to other sets.  It's not a figment of someone's imagination, it's just a fact.  Check the DPA stats on Mids, in game or at the below site and compare with the DPA of the other sets you're referencing (Axe, BS, War Mace).  Banes are slower and do similar damage over a longer animation, resulting in lower DPS than they otherwise should have. 

I don’t have the game in front of me so I ran over to the link you provided to Red Tomax.  I looked at all of the numbers on the mentioned sets but I’ll just list and comment on warmace and banemace.  

 

Bash, pulverize, shatter, and crowd control all have the same cast time listed for scrappers and banes.  Banes do not have jawbreaker or clobber.

 

Bane damage numbers:

Bash - 1.3

pulverize - 2.14

shatter - 2.78

CC - 2.11

Attack chain - shatter, pulverize, CC = 7.03

shatter, pulverize, bash = 6.22

 

Scrapper damage numbers:

bash - 1.05

pulverize - 1.72

jawbreaker - 2.06

clobber - 3.07

shatter - 2.4

CC - 1.69

Attack chain - shatter, clobber, jawbreaker = 7.53

 

Clobber is carrying warmace for all archetypes.  Especially with its 1.23 activation.  Aside from that, the bane numbers are actually higher for banes according to Red  Tomax.  I don’t know if the scrapper damage modifiers cause the equivalent powers to catch up.  

 

I have some thoughts that stem from this information.  First, the clobber buff skyrocketed war maces’s performance.  Banes were forgotten when this happened.  

 

Second, criticals vs -res.  Without the ATIOs do scrapper criticals outperform the - res from surveillance?   

 

Third, the ATIOs for scrappers are far superior for damage, especially with Dominion of Arachnos using a debuff/cc rather than a form of +damage.  

 

Forth, does the scrapper damage modifier overcome the available +15% damage of banes?

 

Fifth, the scrapper secondary really over powers the bane.  IE bio or shield.  

 

Sixth, do the pets close the gap between scrappers and banes, or even surpass it?

 

The cause of the performance gap is not actually do to the mace animations and damage, but rather, clobber.  Bio and shield also contribute with no counterpart available for the bane.  

 

I suggest dropping one of the ranged mace attacks for a clobber equivalent.  That’s all that is needed to help banes.

[Omega-202]

@Brutal Justice Thanks for accumulating the numbers.  To answer some of your questions, Scrappers have a 1.125 damage scale compared to a Bane's 1.0, and have a 5-10% crit rate based on the target.  Overall, they come out pretty similar on the base numbers.

 

So Mace vs Mace, it seems you're right that the issue isn't so much the individual animations, but the fact that Bane's are missing the best DPA Mace attacks and only have the slow clunky ones.  

 

So either they need access to Clobber and Jawbreaker or they need the animations they have to be adjusted.  Either way, Bane's just aren't on par.  

[kiramon]

Bane and widow are also heavily into weapon attacks, which turns people off. They’re also very bland and boring with no real graphical niches that stand out and are like “oh I want that.”

 

Crab has the backpack and fortunata is the psychic character everybody wants 

[Brutal Justice]

I have never done this before so be brutal if I am way off! 🙂

 

Using the numbers from Red Tomax I tried to calculate some attack chains for the scrapper and bane.  I don’t know how to calculate for criticals so take that into account in regards to the scrapper numbers.  I also don’t know if these animation times include arcanatime. 

 

Scrapper chain:

sh-clobber-JB- repeat

damage numbers:

2.4+3.07+2.06 = 7.53 damage

animation times:

2.33+1.23+1.83 = 5.39 seconds

 

To somewhat match the bane attack chain I am going to multiply these by 4 since the scrapper can run this chain about 4 times during the bane chain. 

7.53*4= 30.12 damage

5.39*4= 21.56 seconds

 

Bane chain: 

VG-shatter armor-p-SH-CC

SV-SA-p-SH-CC-repeat

 

The numbers for this chain are slightly more complicated.  Venom grenade, shatter armor, and surveillance all apply -20 res for 20 seconds.  These are applied during the chain and then perma at -60 res after one rotation.  

 

Damage numbers:

.98+(2.76*1.2)+(2.13*1.4)+(2.78*1.4)+(2.11*1.4)= 14.13 dam

 

thats the first half of the chain

 

0+(2.76*1.6)+(2.13*1.6)+(2.78*1.6)+(2.11*1.6)= 15.67 dam

 

for the second half of the chain

 

29.8 damage total

 

animation times:

1.67+2.33+1.5+2.33+2+1.5+2.33+1.5+2.33+2= 19.49 seconds

 

The bane does .32 less damage but does it 2 seconds quicker.  The bane also has at least 2 pets available to add free dps.  I would personally have 3.  The -60 res is also multiplying your team’s damage and you’re likely giving +15 damage if not +30 damage to your team.  The bane IS using a patron attack, shatter armor, in the chain.  I don’t know if moonbeam adds to the scrapper attack chain.

 

Other things to consider.   The bane can slot all 3 -res procs in this chain with at least Achilles heal having a 90% fire rate.  The scrapper can only slot the Fury proc.  Surveillance can also take some damage procs which would replace the big fat +0 that is in the chain.  

 

I may may be way off, but without testing, the bane appears to be at least on equal footing with the scrapper, if not pulling ahead.  I didn’t use any IOS in the calculations other than the obvious +recharge that would be required to run the chains.  It IS possible that scrapper crits + their ATIOs cause the scrapper to pull ahead.  I don’t know how to figure that out without actual testing.  

 

It may take some ramp up time but I don’t think bane mace is as lagging in regards to war mace as is perceived.  

 

Again, I don’t want to spread misinformation so tear this apart if there are errors.  

[Omega-202]

@Brutal Justice Your numbers look generally correct, but they don't account for redraw, which is not free on VEATs like it is on other weapons sets for reasons I can't remember.   It doesn't change things much, but might add a bit of time to your Bane chain.  Otherwise, just need to add 5-10% (split it at 7.5%) to the Scrapper numbers to account for base level crits.  That's not accounting for Scrappers running their ATOs wisely, but that's hard to account for.  Overall, great summary.

 

While your chain shows that a Bane overall can do very solid damage, its diverging from what was being noted in the conversation before that point, in that it includes VG.  Zippity was saying that the mace attacks were fine, but they're not.  I agree that when you include VG, Banes do good to great damage, but the point was that the mace attacks themselves are lacking and not satisfying. 

 

Anyone who follows my SoA posts knows that I consider VG to be the best attack in the whole game.  If you slap VG on any AT or build in the game it would instantly be part of their attack chain, its that good.

 

In light of all of this, is it fair to say Banes need a buff?  Maybe?  It feels like in order to compete, they need to use VG, which they can do, but it's not a "Bane" power.  And the idea then devolves to "if you're using VG, you're pretty much better off running ranged AoE Bane/Huntsman or Crab".  Which then cycles back to the premise of the thread: where are the Banes?  When the Mace attacks are the weakest aspect of the Soldier AT, there's less incentive to go Mace Bane than Crab or Huntsman.