Whatever you do to increase contrast, if you exceed the number of levels that can be handled by the number of bits in a byte, you are likely to provoke banding.
My point is that, if you use the right tools, you can get a good result (without banding)
Take a look at this post…
… to see what a mess the Selective Tonality tool can make of smooth gradation. There are other posts where I show better example of how a step wedge is mistreated if you apply that tool as well, but I can’t find them at the moment