*** The Punisher (Dark Reign) ***

eidehua

Celerity wrote:

Wolverine is getting nerfed, though, for good reason. It's not fair to compare. You also have to remember that the effective level of a 3* is lower than that of a 2*, so a 79 Punisher is supposed to be around the same power level as a 70 Wolverine. My lv100 Punisher deals more damage than any maxed 2* not named Wolverine or Thor, and he and Patch will likely be the most reliable bruisers once the nerfs are completed.

Do note I'm considering 4* wolvie here. Or even Patch. I'm saying of I run Patch or x force wolvie, I may not run punisher

Unknown

Thanks for all the great discussion. I finally made up my mind and went 3/5/5. My final decision was based on a doubtimg I will use him much other than to take down buffed opponents so the extra 10% is significant. His black skill is still very useful at 3 and the aoe buffed by strike tiles can do some serious damage. Also like the idea that one tile from black will trigger the strike tiles again but getting that tile down 1 turn quicker is not such a big deal. I will say when I was forced to use him I did enjoy putting up a bunch of his generating tiles and watching them go so it was a very hard decision. Guess that means they did a good job designing him!

Unknown

first post needs to be edited for accuracy (black has a 3 turn count down reduced to 2 at level 5)

Unknown

Mine is 3/3/2 and I have 1 black and 1 green cover. Never before had I such a hard time deciding what would be the most helpful.

Initially, I was considering 5/5/3 since the 5th red at max level offers a damage bonus (+1/3 of what it is at 3 covers which translates to a final of ~1100 instead of 1480) and the benefit of needing to deal ~1000 less damage to a buffed character with 10K max health (like Thor). If not buffed, the benefit drops to 500 or even less which is almost negligible. So is his red any good damage wise, other than the ability to down enemies?
My 2* Wolverine has 3 covers in red (12AP) and deals 2225 (186 damage/AP).
Punisher's red at 5 covers (8AP) deals 1482 (185 damage/AP) as opposed to ~1100 for 3 red covers (137 damage/AP) (Just a guess since I don't have data).
Patch at 5 red covers (14AP) deals 216 damage per tile and adds 2x148 Strike tiles. With 20 tiles on the board bearing his icon he deals 4320 (309 damage/AP). If we also add the damage from strike tiles he places on the board, he is a clear winner. It is worth mentioning though that getting 14 red in a barren board (it happens more often than I would like) can be challenging.

A drawback for Punisher and Patch is that to get that cool damage you need to max them and 126 levels means so much ISO for low/mid level players. On the other hand all major 2* characters that deal good red damage (Wolverine, Thor) and 3* Magneto are getting nerfed.

So who is going to deal red damage? Ares deal team damage with his red and it isn't that high. Moonstone at max level and 8 red tiles on the board deals 1992 for 11AP (181 damage/AP) bridging the gap between Punisher and Wolvering flexibility wise, but I am not a huge fan of her other abilities. Magneto (Marvel NOW!) deals nice red damage, but since he is 3/0/2 he is nowhere close to being useful. Ragnarok's red is too weak. Hulk I am not thrilled about since it drains green which I will probably need and comes with the risk of hurting your team (in addition to that he is only 2/0/0 so yeah, not using him any time soon).
I guess Patch wins the damage battle and he is already 25 3/3/2, so if I am lucky I will have the missing covers by the end of the current event.

But what about the Punisher's black abilty? I have a question at this point. What exactly do Attack tiles do? Do they just deal X damage at the end of your turn to the currently selected enemy? I assume the damage is buffed by Strike tiles, right?
My concern for the black ability is that it will require from you to protect the CD tile from regular matches and 4+ tile matches in order to be efficient. If you can do that, then the damage does seem quite nice once there are 2+ Attack tiles and 2-3 Stiles tiles on the board.

I keep going back and forth between 5/5/3 and 3/5/5. So far most seem to agree that the red is mostly good for PvE, but what about PvP? How efficient is black there? Also, is the AI in PvE smart enough to make matches to get rid your attack/strike tiles? Could the early use of Punisher's cheap black together with his red make up for that 1000 damage gap between 3 and 5 red? Then again, the 5th black only drops the countdown by 1 and adds a ~22% to the tile's damage. Doesn't seem too exciting.

Grrrr, I have no idea what to do and my head is killing me. The covers expire in 6.5 days so the event will be over by then. I guess I will wait until then to see whether they release some info about the changes to the heroes. If not, I will probably go for 3/5/5 since it seems to be marginally more beneficial. So, sorry I wasted your time, but I hope you enjoyed the damage comparison. Cheers.

Unknown

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. While there are a lot of great red options out there, all the extra 2 points in black do are -
Level 4: Increases Attack tile damage to 11.
Level 5: Reduces Countdown to 2.

This would probably work a lot better if we didn't know spiderman stun nerf was coming down the pipe line.

vs a flat 10%. I'd love to have both, but 1 cd reduction doesn't equate for me the times I can execute someone.

I went 3/5/5, but my main focus is PvP and I haven't regret it yet.

I look at the moltov dmg as just a bonus as so many people run thor/storm during pvp. that it's rough to protect anything.

PvE though - can just go wild.

MarcusGraves

Narkon wrote:

Mine is 3/3/2 and I have 1 black and 1 green cover. Never before had I such a hard time deciding what would be the most helpful.

judgement should be his always max power. even though it hits a random spot, it gives board clear which can help shake the board up or clear some enemy special tiles and it will drop three 104 strike tiles at max level for only 8 green which isn't a bad deal. I wouldn't even worry about hitting one strike tile on second use since you'd still be getting +2 after replacing the one lost.

for black the attack tile damage is just icing on top of the initial team damage, it really feels like a fire and forget power. should the countdown go off, neat but if it doesn't its no huge loss. fire off max rank judgement before tossing it to get that nice x3 strike tile bonus added to the team damage. its cost is also really good because once you get three matches down to use it the next two tosses will only take two matches each since 9-7=2 then +6 for the two black matches gets you eight then 8-7=1 and it will once again take two matches then it goes back to normal but a game should be over after three molv tosses.

3/5/5 I would argue is his absolute best build because if I wanted someone who specializes in attack tiles I would use dr doom. his at max can do 185 per tile which is waaaay stronger than punisher's and rack up 1110 damage per turn with all six out.

Unknown

Thank you both for your feedback.

Spoit

Yeah, when 2* wolvie gets nerfed, punisher's green will probably be a lot more attractive

eidehua

Spoit wrote:

Yeah, when 2* wolvie gets nerfed, punisher's green will probably be a lot more attractive

4* wolvie strike tiles may be even more attractive

NorthernPolarity

eidehua wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Yeah, when 2* wolvie gets nerfed, punisher's green will probably be a lot more attractive

4* wolvie strike tiles may be even more attractive

4* wolvie will take an eternity to level and get to punisher's strength though, I'm probably just going to level punisher so that I won't be screwed once wolvie is gone.

Unknown

Not sure if regretting putting in 5 black covers or not. On the one hand, I needed to raise his level cap to something useful. On the other hand, the Molotov Cocktails aren't as good as I thought they would be. They have too much ramp up time. Though I am starting to think I should try 5/5/3 instead of the 5/3/5 I was originally thinking. Alternatively I can keep the 5/3/5 build and team him up with Patch at 5/3/5. Patch can put out a good number of strike tiles to boost the attack tiles damage.

Any thoughts or should I cross my fingers and hope for a re-spec feature soon?

Unknown

GundamRangerX wrote:

Not sure if regretting putting in 5 black covers or not. On the one hand, I needed to raise his level cap to something useful. On the other hand, the Molotov Cocktails aren't as good as I thought they would be. They have too much ramp up time. Though I am starting to think I should try 5/5/3 instead of the 5/3/5 I was originally thinking. Alternatively I can keep the 5/3/5 build and team him up with Patch at 5/3/5. Patch can put out a good number of strike tiles to boost the attack tiles damage.

Any thoughts or should I cross my fingers and hope for a re-spec feature soon?

I'd say that unless you are sure your going to use patch, go with 5/5/3. I just finally finished mine with 3/5/5 (it's my first completed 3* yay!) and love it. Many people say that 5 in red is a must but in all honesty, whenever I get an opponent down to 40% life i usually have enough strike tiles and other AP to finish him off. Besides, I currently run him with Thor and believe his red at 6 AP, which adds 5 yellow to the board is lovely. Once the nerf hits I will probably replace Thor with Ragnarok (currently a 3/5) seeing as how his red is practically identical to Thor's. Best of luck to you

Unknown

Went 5 in black. (was sitting at 3/3/3 with 2 blacks in my cache, and with one minute left to sell them I panicked and trained him).
Here is how I (retroactively) am justifying my choice:

1. His black is unique, which is fun. Other heroes have green for strike tiles and red for high damage. No one else has black for AoE and attack tiles.
2. The key for Punisher is to have both strike tiles and attack tiles in play. Reducing the countdown makes it much more likely to get an attack tile out there.
3. I am determined to see the AI's ridiculous tile-matching-on-my-countdown-tiles luck streak end. Because I swear even if there is one lone red tile on the bottom row where I put molotov cocktail, it feels like within 2 turns the AI has miraculously triggered a cascade in which that lone red is now surrounded by other reds. I'm hoping that one less tick on the countdown helps fight that. This makes me stubborn and dumb.
4. I can't seem to land any other Punisher reds or greens
5. If I made a mistake and regret it, I'll look forward to a respec option. (Did I mention I am stubborn and dumb?)

mags1587

I'm in a similar situation. My Punisher is 3/5/1. Had planned to build him 3/5/5, but I have 2 black covers sitting in my cache. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. On the one hand, 5 black doesn't seem too amazing. On the other hand, how often will 5 red vs 3 red really make a difference? Plus, I have the black covers, so it's a 'bird in the hand' situation... at least I have a few more days to figure out what to do.

NorthernPolarity

mags1587 wrote:

I'm in a similar situation. My Punisher is 3/5/1. Had planned to build him 3/5/5, but I have 2 black covers sitting in my cache. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. On the one hand, 5 black doesn't seem too amazing. On the other hand, how often will 5 red vs 3 red really make a difference? Plus, I have the black covers, so it's a 'bird in the hand' situation... at least I have a few more days to figure out what to do.

From my experience with 3/5/5, it feels like the 5 red only really matters in those 3 level 240 pve missions, during which it's amazing since 1-2 turns (which is what ~2k hp is during those events) can be the difference between life and death. At times I do wish that I had the 5 black though: lowering the CD down to 2 makes the attack tiles pretty spammable, which is a big plus if you have a stunner on your team such as spidy, but I don't think either one makes or breaks the character. It really feels like the main decision point would be that 5 red is better specifically for high level pve/buffed characters, whereas 5 black will give you an small, incremental advantage in all matches that you play.

Unknown

I went 3/5/5 and have no regrets.

The red skill is unique and there is no other skill with its effect in the entire game right now.

Spoit

NorthernPolarity wrote:

mags1587 wrote:

I'm in a similar situation. My Punisher is 3/5/1. Had planned to build him 3/5/5, but I have 2 black covers sitting in my cache. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. On the one hand, 5 black doesn't seem too amazing. On the other hand, how often will 5 red vs 3 red really make a difference? Plus, I have the black covers, so it's a 'bird in the hand' situation... at least I have a few more days to figure out what to do.

From my experience with 3/5/5, it feels like the 5 red only really matters in those 3 level 240 pve missions, during which it's amazing since 1-2 turns (which is what ~2k hp is during those events) can be the difference between life and death. At times I do wish that I had the 5 black though: lowering the CD down to 2 makes the attack tiles pretty spammable, which is a big plus if you have a stunner on your team such as spidy, but I don't think either one makes or breaks the character. It really feels like the main decision point would be that 5 red is better specifically for high level pve/buffed characters, whereas 5 black will give you an small, incremental advantage in all matches that you play.

Yeah, for those 240 missions, you're going to be spending a lot of time grinding them down anyway, so the extra strike tiles might actually do more damage while you try to whittle them down. The extra 10% is only 1k or so on non-juggie 240s (and dear god I hope we don't have him too often when wolvie isn't boosted), which you can easily get up to with attack tiles with spidey's help

eidehua

I don't think relying on spidey is that good of an idea knowing he's going to be changed.

Puritas

Had two black covers expiring in the morning, and bit the bullet and went 5/5/3
My reasoning:

With less boosts and Thor nerfs, game is slower - and I need a solid brawler in my regular lineup.
I'm maxing Patchs red, so makes the combo between them better.
AI defense is more important now, and a Molotov ticking in the corner is way more rage inducing than random executes
Respec is coming soon (TM), so I can just max my punisher now

poomermon

I went with 5 black too mostly because my covers were going to expire. While I agree that red is going to shine on those maxed pve missions normally I almost never use my red but I use my black in every match. Having attack tiles on board more consistently can be a pretty big deal when combined with strike tiles and can even offset the 10% difference on those pve matches. Not saying 5 black is absolutely better choice but at least people should not feel too bad for going that route.