BANE:
50/50 mix-ups and or pressure: 4/5
Tick throws off of 3 strings and several normals. Trait gives him armor on all specials and armor break on lvl 3. He's got a low launching string and for 2 bars can turn his armored, armor-breaking overhead (which also ticks into command grab) into a launcher. Took a point off because most of his stuff has poor range and is comically slow/unsafe. He's also neutered quite a bit by MBB3's.
Zoning and anti-zoning: 2/5
No projectiles. Very limited movement with slow, stubby strings and normals, a floaty jump and a slow recovering dash. All he has is MB roll and a 33f startup charge that can be easily MBB3'd on reaction. I gave him 2 pts because he has gdlk walk speed, a full screen super and can move through projectiles with F2 cancels at lvl 3 venom.
Neutral game and footsies: 3/5
Bane has little full screen presence and is often out ranged up close. Fastest normals are a 9f high and 11f D1; he relies on these for the bulk of his neutral, in addition to his trait armored specials. His offense opens up after landing D1 (low/OH/cmd grab mixup) but is easily avoidable with backdash, as D1 frame traps require incredibly strict timing. The high volume of unthrowable normals, strings and specials neuters command grab. All of Bane's specials, in addition to being super unsafe, are single hit, so MBB3's bodies his armor.
Defensive options: 4/5
Venom uppercut has fast startup, very good horizontal/vertical range, a wide hitbox that extends behind Bane and autocorrects. Block to bait it and you eat command grab. In the neutral, he has an air grab with a giant horizontal hitbox (catches CW j2 from far af) and his frame 1 armor allows him to disrespect gaps better than any char and also be able to do wakeup with specials even if he does delay WU. I took one point off because, again, he's heavily reliant on single hit specials and MBB3 just disrespects that.
Damage output: 3.5/5
This score probably seems odd since Bane has astronomical combo damage, especially with bounce cancels, but watch extended play of any Bane and you'll see that he rarely lands them. His primary combo starters are 11, B23 and B11. All of these have bad range and are 9f (high), 18f and 17f startup respectively. Most of Bane's damage comes from landing his armored specials. The risk/reward of that is heavily skewed against Bane, though. He takes damage from the attacks he armors through, and all of his specials are super unsafe. For every 2-4 correct guesses he makes, one combo will usually equal out or surpass the damage, while also often leaving him in a mixup with debuff hanging over his head.
Score: 16.5/25
