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Animal Courier
Sage's Mask
ClarityClarityClarity
Headdress
Soul Ring
Arcane Boots
Buckler
Guardian Greaves
Aghanim's Scepter
Dagon 1
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Black King Bar
Glimmer Cape
Flying Courier
Dust of Appearance
Observer and Sentry Wards
Observer Ward
Sentry Ward
Gem of True Sight
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2 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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1 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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4 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Bane wins games.
And good players know that Bane is also all about moderation. As one of the hardest supports in the game he's so strong in the first 25 minutes that it's sometimes easy to think that might become the team carry. New bane players will mistakenly take a dozen kills in a row at the beginning of the match only to realize that they didn't give their carries a chance to farm. Don't let this be you.
The reason this happens is because he's one of the best early-game gankers in Dota. A well placed Fiend's Grip followed up with a Brain Sap will kill almost any other hero in the first 20 minutes. In team-fights he has three disables that will incapacitate most of the enemy team. Until recently Nightmare was a mixed bag--occasionally backfiring and disabling your own teammates--however the recent update fixed the problem allowing you to cancel errant nightmares. This changes the game and makes him a very solid pick for high-level play.
Pros
Ridiculously strong early game
Syngergizes well with most team builds
Crazy-good at ganking
Three (3!) disables
Decent nuke.
Fiend's Grip goes through Black King Bar
Needs very few items
great right click (for a support)
Con's
Easy to counter with silences
Very easy to kill steal
Falls off late game
Squishy
No AOE, and not a good farmer
Enfeeble takes right clickers out of the game. Fully-maxed it reduces attack damage by 120 which can make a terrifying opponent actually sort of cuddly. The best part is that a lot of the time players don't realize they've been hit with it and will comically whack away at you confused by why you aren't dead yet. Synergies great with any 1 on 1 bash fest. If you get one point early game you can make it almost impossible for your opponent to last hit. Spam it frequently. It's also your least interesting skill. Max it last.
Brain Sap is your utility nuke. It is crazy OP in the early game and heals you for the same amount of damage, creating a 600 HP swing in your favor. This is the reason you don't need 
Tangos in the starting build. It has decent range and is very easy to last hit opponents. Be careful with it, though, because you can end up stealing kills with it very easily. Leave that XP for your friends because they'll need it a lot more than you will late game. (Then again, one or two can't hurt, can it?)
Nightmare places an enemy in a stasis for an insanely long 8 seconds. If someone attacks them the nightmare will transfer to the attacker. In previous version Nightmare was sometimes a problem because you would disable an opponent only to have a teammate get disabled in the fight. However, the recent patch lets you cancel errant nightmares if that happens. This is a fantastic spell for escaping imminent death, taking one opponent out of a fight to reposition, or to annoy your teammates while they attack Roshan and you nightmare him (always with hilarious results).
Fiend's Grip This is your signature spell. And, I might argue, one of the best spells in the game. It places a single target in a crushingly painful death-hug that deals damage and mana every second while keeping them disabled. Maxed out that's 1075 damage (1890 with Aghanim's Scepter) And, if that's not quite enough to kill them, add a Brain Sap at the end for a little bit more. The spell is channeled, so a savvy team can break the grip, but usually when you get someone they will die. Unlike nightmare, your team can attack them in that time. Very few characters can survive a grip. It is also a great way to survive a gank: if 
Riki, 
Clinkz, or some other sneaky dude jumps on you, just grip him and, unless it's very late game, he will probably die. Oh, and perhaps even more importantly, Fiend's Grip will disable (though not do damage) to enemies protected by a Black King Bar.
Bane is not very item dependent. Most of your gold should go towards support items. Buy the courier, upgrade it, and fill the map with wards. This is your job. Own it.
The only items that you need address Bane's mana issues: especially in the early game. The trick is to get items that boost mana output. Rush Guardian Greaves and a Soul Ring and the problem is more or less solved.
Aghanim's Scepter is a pretty cool item, too, since it gives you a huge damage boost, a longer Fiend's Grip and will nightmare the first person who attacks you. This bonus lets you use your ult in the middle of a teamfight with an added layer of protection.
If your team is doing well, I've listed a few other items to try out above. None are necessary, but they can be a lot of fun.
More than anything else, Bane is a support. This means that your job isn't to get the most kills. You're not supposed to focus on last hitting creeps. You're not supposed to walk down the mid lane and feed yourself to the enemy. None of these things.
A support's role is to make the game easier for your teammates to stomp the enemy. You are like sunlight on a flower, and fertalizer under your carry's feet. Grow them into big strong game-stomping badasses and you will go to support valhalla. It isn't the most popular role in Dota, people don't like picking supports for some reason. But, in my opinion, it is the most fun. And if you do the job well your team will love you.
You're the one who buys the courier. Deny creeps so that the lane is nice and snug with your tower and your carry gets most of the juicy last hits. And once you have a few very basic items, you're the one who places Observer Wards all over the map. If the enemy has invisible heroes or is warding themselves, you also are buying Sentry Wards. If you haven't spent at least 500 gold on wards by minute 20 you're doing Bane wrong. Wards are one of the most OP items in the game. They tell you where the enemy is. They let you set up ganks. And they protect you from incoming hellfire. Take a set of racks? Place a ward down where the tower was to give vision of their base. Don't know where else to place a ward? Here's a nice map of ward locations that I stole from the internet:
The other items you get should help your team in fights. Think about nice buffing aura items if you've got extra cash. (Of course, Guardian Greaves should be standard.)
Here's a recent guide to what supports do. It's worth a read.
And remember,to paraphrase the words of JFK: "Ask not where your team can ward for you. Ask where you can ward for your team."
Friends
Legion Commander: You can help her win almost any duel.
Silencer: Steal that intelligence together!
Bounty Hunter: Everyone loves extra gold
These folks solve your mana issues:
Crystal Maiden
Keeper of the Light
You can help these folks set up really good kills when they fail their skill-shots:
Pudge: New flesh heap have trouble landing hooks
Lina: sometimes she's not good at landing her stun.
Leshrac: same as Lina
Mirana: arrows are hard.
Great Ganking Synergy
Riki, Bounty Hunter, 
Spirit Breaker, 
Necrophos, Clinkz
Foes:
Anyone who can break your channeling, silence you, or sneak up on you:
Silencer
Spirit Breaker
Riki
Clinkz
Anyone who has lots of illusions, avatars or attacks from multiple directions at once can take you out pretty easily.
Phantom Lancer
Chaos Knight
Meepo
Chen
Thanks for reading. s with every guide, this isn't the last word on how to play this hero. I'd love to hear your comments so that I can make this guide a little better. I'll add rep to anyone who comments below. And I'd love to see you give your support to the guide on those green arrows above so that this, and not the ridiculously outdated 2012 guide hits the top bane ranking.
Have fun playing with him and trying out a very under-picked, but incredibly powerful support.
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