Bane: Infantry Hero Guide

Generation 1 · Epic · Infantry
Bane portrait: Infantry, Epic, Gen 1
Bane
Infantry
Click card for details on back
Bane splash artEpic rarity
Gen 1Farmable
Ubiquitous early game F2P infantry hero for expedition and arena
His job description was brief: survive.
Bane portrait: Infantry, Epic, Gen 1
Bane
Infantry
  • Early game Conquest core hero, among free-to-play and spenders
  • Remains Conquest-relevant for many players for multiple generations due to limited F2P-accessible infantry
  • Good PvP Joiner ability, but frequently overrated
  • Will be your main infantry rally hero until replaced by Gen 2 if you are free-to-play
Bear Rally Lead
Bear Joiner
PvP Rally Lead
PvP Garrison Lead
PvP Joiner
Solo March Combat
Arena/Conquest
Click to see front

Strat Game Sloth Strategic Summary

Bane is a foundational infantry hero for Expedition mode, primarily serving as a defensive specialist for your Lordrush army. His priority expedition skill, Defender’s Edge, provides a consistent army-wide 20% damage reduction, which makes him a decent early game choice for the first hero slot when joining defensive rallies or conducting solo wilderness marches. While he is often the best infantry option for free-to-play rally leaders during the early game, his damage reduction is to be considered secondary to Flint’s health-improving bonus in highly coordinated alliance garrisons. This is confirmed by more recent research and testing of Lordrush's combat formula which has shown that 20% bonus is treated the same way as Flint's 25% bonus, making it provably inferior. Nevertheless, Bane is still considered a mandatory build for being the best free-to-play infantry available at the game start and for adding some degree of versatility in protecting your troops from significant losses during Castle Battles as a joiner, until more hero options arrive later in the game. For Conquest and Arena mode, Bane is widely regarded as the premier purple rarity infantry hero due to his elite damage mitigation and crowd control capabilities. His signature ability, Shielded Strike, deals area damage and provides a crucial knockback effect that physically displaces the enemy front line, briefly interrupting their attacks and increasing Bane’s own uptime as a tank. He further empowers the entire team through Joint Defense, which is the only passive stat buff among purple heroes that increases the defense of every hero on your field. Because he excels at the most important function of an infantry hero, which is keeping your backline damage dealers alive, Bane remains a staple in tactical formations for most players.

Optimize Bane's gear

In-Game Skills

Conquest Skills (base)

Shielded Strike
Bane gives an enemy a solid whack with his heavy shield, knocking the target back while dealing Attack × 280% Area of Effect damage.
L1200%L2220%L3240%L4260%L5280%
Joint Defense
Bane leads the effort to fortify defenses, increasing Defense by 15% for all heroes.
L15%L27.5%L310%L412.5%L515%
Shield Block
Bane trades in his shield for an upgraded model, reducing damage taken by 30%.
L110%L215%L320%L425%L530%

Expedition Skills (passive / proc)

Defenders' Edge
Bane guards our troops with his shield, reducing damage taken by 20% for all troops.
L14%L28%L312%L416%L520%
passive
Weaken
Bane's intimidating presence reduces the total Enemy Squads' Attack by 20%.
L14%L28%L312%L416%L520%
passive

Stats at 5-Star Max

Conquest

Hero Attack
1,361
Hero Defense
2,220
Hero Health
26,640

Expedition

Infantry Attack
+140.11%
Infantry Defense
+140.11%

Hero Story

Story I
Bane's former glory was reduced to ashes during the "Crimson Eclipse," yet he remained like an unyielding statue, guarding the shattered shrine. When the banners of a new dynasty rose over the scorched land, the scarred shieldbearer was not honored, but instead branded as the last "witness" of a fallen age. To erase that history, the arbiters stripped him of his title and cast him into a lightless abyss, hoping the final backbone of the old world would vanish into dust.
Story II
Within the damp prison, an assassin once saved by Bane appeared like a ghost. Known as the "Cold Fang," the agent returned a rigged copper coin to him, his tone mocking yet edged with respect. "Great hero, taste this bitter cure—it's the quickest path to freedom." While the guards fell into a drugged slumber, Bane clenched his teeth and endured the searing pain of the antidote, racing against death itself. By the time the cell door was pried open from the shadows, he stumbled forward through a haze of fading consciousness and into freedom.
Story III
Bane regained awareness to the scent of cheap ale. He found himself at a remote outpost on the edge of the wasteland, watched over by a rambling, one-eyed veteran. The old soldier spent his days boasting of unheard-of battle tactics and brewing so-called "fine drinks" with questionable ingredients. Yet somehow, this rough, grounded life—full of dust and ordinary noise—began to mend the fractures in Bane's spirit.
Story IV
The former shieldbearer set aside his cold armor and lived as an ordinary man in that distant town. But when the thunder of raiders' hooves once again drew near, and no tower shield remained at his side, Bane tore the heavy redwood door from the crumbling outpost. With the wild ingenuity of the inventor Rita, that worn, dust-covered slab became an unbreakable wall. He no longer fought for statues or glory, but for the simple morning smoke rising from the town—and once more, he raised his heavy guard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I invest in Bane?

The decision about whether or not to invest in a given hero is a personal one based on a variety of factors, including:

  • How effectively the hero plays certain roles (like Bear Hunt rally lead, Castle/Garrison defender, etc.)
  • What alternative heroes you already have access to which can play those roles
  • The amount of other resources you have like general (“orange”) hero shards, widgets, and skill books, and your budget or willingness to acquire additional resources through packs.

While this hero details page speaks in-depth about how effectively Bane plays each of the possible roles in game, it does not take into account the personal factors involved in the decision.

OK, but how do I tell how Bane compares to alternative heroes for the same role?

In addition to the detailed Bane analysis on this page, we also have other elements of the Hero Optimizer module that allow you to compare Lordrush heroes in multiple ways.

We have created hero tier lists for each role a hero can play (e.g. Bear Hunt rally leader). These tier lists are presented as a snapshot for each hero generation so you can eventually see the movement of heroes between tiers over time, such as Bane entering in Generation 1 to future hero generations. We also have filters so you can sort for e.g. only archers, infantry, or lancer heroes that play that role, making it easier to fill in gaps in your hero roster. You can find the tier list view of the module here: [link]

Additionally, we have a hero compare view that allows you to directly compare the stats, abilities, and other elements between two heroes. This can help you make more informed decisions about whether or not it is time to replace your Bane with a different hero. You can find the Hero Compare view of the Hero Optimizer module here: [link]

How should I think about building hero gear for Bane?

Unlike many other hero roster builder games, Lordrush does not really have a mechanism by which you are rewarded for building hero gear differently for specific heroes like Bane. Hero gear is fully portable from one hero to another when you replace that hero in your roster and there are no synergies between hero skills and specific gear investments.

While it does not make sense to think of hero gear in terms of what works best for Bane specifically, there are considerations you should make around prioritizing hero gear investment for all infantry like Bane. That is because different stats on different troop types have different values. For example, an extra point of health on infantry is much more valuable than an extra point of health on lancers due to differences in troop base stats, combat simulation targeting logic, and other factors.

The implication of all this is that your question of what hero gear to build can be safely decoupled from the choice of hero to invest in. However, hero gear is still a question of supreme importance in Lordrush. So if you want to step up your game on the hero gear front, then check out the Hero Gear Optimizer [link] today!

It will allow you to see which gear piece you should prioritize next, give advice on reforging to more efficiently use your accumulated gear experience, and let you know where your next hero gear bottleneck comes from, e.g. a shortage of forgehammers. It takes into account the relative value of different stat points on different troop types, not just aggregate stat gain overall.

How do you validate the claims about Bane’s skills made on this page?

Great question! You have a right to be skeptical given the amount of randomness of battles, the limited information available in battle reports, and the rampant rumors about heroes that spread throughout the Lordrush community.

All of our claims are made from our own direct testing of hero mechanics. We do not simply repeat rumors unless we can provably verify them ourselves, which sometimes leads to our analysis feeling out of sync with conventional wisdom of these heroes. But we see this as a key differentiator of our work compared to other guides out there!

Our protocol follows a unit testing logic whereby we will isolate one hero ability at a time and run battles in-game with only tier 6 non-Truegold troops. We do this to remove any randomness from the native troop abilities. Because we have reverse engineered the relevant combat formulas into a simulator, we can predict the outcome of battles down to exact damage on a Bear Hunt or exact troop loss figured in a PvP match.

We continue running battles in-game and updating the code in the simulator for that hero until we can predict the results to 99%+ accuracy. This is easier for skills that are flat damage increases (e.g. +25% to lethality) than it is for random chance-based skills. The latter requires us to run 40+ in-game battles to compare the distribution curve of outcomes to our combat’s simulator’s outcomes and expected values.

Once that ability is coded in and known, then we move on to unit testing the next ability. This is necessary when evaluating how skill 2 or skill 3 works on a mythic hero since they cannot be unlocked without having the prior skills present.

Then when all skills for a given hero have passed unit testing, we perform system testing for the whole hero on a variety of combat settings which again requires evaluating a range of battle outcomes. Again, we target 99%+ predictive accuracy before moving on to another hero.

We believe this approach gives much more certainty to any claims we make about Bane’s skills, or any given hero’s skills for that matter. The testing process is long and painstaking. It can take many months to “process” each new hero generation.

Do all heroes eventually become available with Gold Keys?

If Lordrush follows the same design pattern as Kingshot (and so far all indications are yes), then almost all heroes become available with Gold Keys, but there are some exceptions. In the Hero Hall (not to be confused with the “Hall of Heroes”), players can do an “Epic Recruitment” of heroes with the Gold Key item. At the start of the game, this only includes Isabelle and the starter purple and blue heroes (except for Thora, which has her own event to acquire).

When Generation 4 comes to your Empire, it is expected that the Mythic heroes of Generation 2 will be added to the Gold Key loot pool when selecting Epic Recruitment. Then, when you reach Generation 5, the Generation 3 heroes will be added to the Gold Key loot pool. This pattern continues where each new generation brings the heroes from two generations prior into the Gold Key loot pool.

The notable exceptions to this are the pay-to-win Generation 1 heroes Valky and Sebastian, and for some odd reason, Porter. While there are no ways besides pack purchases to get more Valky or Sebastian hero shards, we expect you will at least be able to continue building Porter by spending tickets (which can be purchased in limited quantities with gems) in the Hall of Heroes during future hero generations. This can be an alternative to using orange shards.

How do I support the work you are doing on the Lordrush Hub website?

Thank you for thinking of us! There are two main ways. First, if you have any feedback about how to improve the website, we would love to hear about it! This can be for the Bane details page, the Hero module overall, or even the Lordrush Hub website experience overall. You can do this by using our built-in bug reporter tool, joining our Discord, and other methods found here: https://lordrushhub.com/contact

We also offer a variety of ways to support us to help keep the lights on for our hosting, CPU, and other administrative costs while keeping the website free for all users. This can be as simple as turning off your ad blocker for our website to direct donations, or channeling your in-game spend through our creator codes from partners. For the most up-to-date list of ways to support, check out here: https://lordrushhub.com/support