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

dkffiv

Punisher was always solid, I think the biggest contributing factor leading to his downfall was true healing. His hp is kinda low and he would usually end up taking 1-2k damage per match. Going in with under 3k is dangerous b/c a cascade into an ability could down him. Buffing him up to 8500 would give more of a buffer of when it's safe to bring him in while damaged.

In a fully healed / don't care about how much hp he has after battle Punisher is one of my top 3* choices. Sentry is probably up there too but I think Punisher has the edge on torch, patch and probably cage. I think he can handle himself pretty well against lthor too

Phaserhawk

atomzed wrote:

raziel777 wrote:

atomzed wrote:

If we start to buff punisher, then eventually we would have to buff other characters that are fallen behind (Much like how punisher is at the current state).

Won't this lead to power creep?

Power creep is reason he needs buff, not the other way around...

And you are asking him to be buffed, to feed into the power creep, so that other characters will need to be buff more? That doesn't make sense to me...

Arondite wrote:

atomzed wrote:

It surprises me to see people calling for a buff to punisher.

Pun has been a solid top 10 from season 1 to season 6 iirc. For a period of time, he was seen as the model of balanced character.

But with the release of New characters and balancing, he has been predictably fallen behind the curve.

If we start to buff punisher, then eventually we would have to buff other characters that are fallen behind (Much like how punisher is at the current state).

Won't this lead to power creep?

You say "lead to" as if it isn't in full effect

Really? Do you think there's a power creep?

Cos besides GT, none of the new characters are really THAT good that it render all old characters to be useless.

Hmm, this is an interesting enough topic. I probably should post a new topic.

I agree if you take out the 4*'s power creep is fairly in check, however what you have seen is an increase in the health of opponents, and Punisher seems to be lackluster in the overall damage department. He needs more of a tweak then a buff. I think the biggest issue for him is the cost and the lack of damage. A quick fix, I would maybe amp up the damage on black by maybe 10-20%, but what really needs an increase in damage are the attack tiles, what they are currently is just terrible, that thing should be 150-200 per turn, also you should get an attack tile plus the CD timer. If I really threw a molotov cocktail it's going to start a fire(attack tile) right away as it slowly spreads to create more fire (attack tile). Another nice quick fix would be to allow the place of his green, but that might push him into another power tier. Honestly if they fixed it so it always blew up 9 tiles and not get placed into a corner or something then we have something as well. Finally red, I would give it a little more damage if any at all, but allow it to execute at 50% for the 5th cover, this would really help 3*'s compete against the rise of the 4*'s.

Trilateralus

Survival nodes really give molotov cocktail a chance to shine. Long fights with extended stretches against only goons. Tried Punisher with LCap and Hood. Throw out a couple molotovs, preferrably boosted with some strike tiles, use Caps powers as needed and top it off with some intimidation to speed everything up. It becomes pretty simple to protect a few CD tiles against only goons and you can quickly fill the board with attack tiles.

dkffiv

Trilateralus wrote:

Survival nodes really give molotov cocktail a chance to shine. Long fights with extended stretches against only goons. Tried Punisher with LCap and Hood. Throw out a couple molotovs, preferrably boosted with some strike tiles, use Caps powers as needed and top it off with some intimidation to speed everything up. It becomes pretty simple to protect a few CD tiles against only goons and you can quickly fill the board with attack tiles.

Punisher does amazingly well with Falcon. He is fairly quick and Inspiration buffing his Strike and Attack tiles can ramp up the damage very quickly. Throw in BP, Spider-Man, (or LCap) and you got rainbow abilities and attack/defense/strike tile generation.

babinro

Level 249 Punisher

Molotov Cocktail: 1155 damage AoE, Attack Tile 96 (at 3 covers)
Judgement: 3x 179 strike Tiles (at 5 covers)
Retribution: 2568 damage downing people below 40% max health (at 5 covers)

Level 166 Black Panther:
Battleplan: 3x 175 damage strike tiles before conditional buff to 260 (at 5 covers)

Judgement vs Battleplan is a direct *** comparison that illustrates how well this buff works out. The powers become very comparable at a similar ability cost . The red and black abilities don't really have direct comparisons in this game but I'd say that they 'feel' appropriate when buffed from play.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

I'm strictly talking about their skills here...not match damage or hit points.

Note: You could do the same buff with Psylocke's skills as well and she'd become playable.

PuceMoose

I was just thinking about this when playing some of the current PvP. He feels nice and solid at 242 (my current Punisher level). Since Judgement has the chance to take out existing beneficial tiles (though it can also punish enemy tiles of course, so I guess that balances out), I think the bump in damage would be reasonable. I almost never see him in PvP anymore unless he's featured; it would be interesting if such a boost would give him a little more popularity.

MarvelMan

He'd still directly conflict with XF on two powers, both of which would still be inferior.

rednailz

He's a touch "weak" skill wise, but still has his use. His green doesn't need to be the same as BP's yellow. Pun's green also has a chance of cascades, and a chance to take out harmful tiles as well as strike tiles, so IMO it's strong enough when compared to BP's yellow.

Retribution is a fine skill that has potential to do thousands of damage. His black sorta stinks and could use a touch of love. Funny, punpun used to have one of the best (and only) blacks in the game...lol.

As it's been pointed out, he shares 2 colors with xforce so you wouldn't see him much in pvp regardless. And there are many better choices out there for black users, even with a bit of a buff.

konannfriends

rednailz wrote:

He's a touch "weak" skill wise, but still has his use. His green doesn't need to be the same as BP's yellow. Pun's green also has a chance of cascades, and a chance to take out harmful tiles as well as strike tiles, so IMO it's strong enough when compared to BP's yellow.

Retribution is a fine skill that has potential to do thousands of damage. His black sorta stinks and could use a touch of love. Funny, punpun used to have one of the best (and only) blacks in the game...lol.

As it's been pointed out, he shares 2 colors with xforce so you wouldn't see him much in pvp regardless. And there are many better choices out there for black users, even with a bit of a buff.

dont forget that hes way at the bottom of the buff list, to many other characters need it. i find punisher as just a character who is built to spam is powers .

and in psylockes case. her blue could be good if it had situational effects such as. If this tile is matched before it activates psylocke gains 3 red and 3 black ap. after that shed be solid and i would use her, since her powers are cheap and she has decent health and powers dont conflict with xforce ( not that i use him) except black

tanis3303

I would use Punisher a LOT more, even at his current 166 stats, if you could place the spot Judgement blows up. I mean, he's the freakin Punisher, he's not going to miss.

TazFTW

tanis3303 wrote:

I would use Punisher a LOT more, even at his current 166 stats, if you could place the spot Judgement blows up. I mean, he's the freakin Punisher, he's not going to miss.

Punisher is more of a quantity than quality type of guy.

Dauthi

I'm surprised anyone feels that Punisher is underpowered. He has one of the best greens in the game as it adds shakup, damage, and strike tiles on random tiles of any color. His black is cheap area damage with the chance at scaling damage every turn, and can get pretty strong when paired with green.

If he had his buffed numbers one green would add around 540 damage to your attacks while still providing shakeup and damage for 8 ap? This would be extremely powerful as it would destroy low hp characters, and make easy work of medium hp ones. Throw in his cheap 7 cost black doing it's damage, plus attack tile damage every turn, and that strike damage, that's game over. It's scaled up damage for a reason.

dkffiv

Punisher was my first maxed 3*'s and he's still really powerful. You can't directly compare his skills to BP because he has a cheap AoE and can generate attack tiles while also having a somewhat spammable direct damage move (with an excellent execute).

I think green is fine as is and very comparable to BP's yellow. If his body was upgraded to 8500 HP that may be enough - I hate facing Punisher because you're guaranteed to take a decent chunk of damage. If he needs more tweaks after that upgrade maybe raise his red to 2000 damage and his black to 1000 / 100 damage tiles.

As is if he gets a green off and Molotov generates an attack tile you will take a lot of damage if you can't destroy those tiles. Friggin Daken wiped me out in PvE because they had a Molotov TU which lodged in an unreachable corner and taking an extra 500 damage per turn killed off my team.

Unknown

All this thread shows is that primary green/black character need to be about 50% stronger because X Force, a primary green/black guy, is at least 50% stronger than anyone else.

Dauthi

dkffiv wrote:

As is if he gets a green off and Molotov generates an attack tile you will take a lot of damage if you can't destroy those tiles. Friggin Daken wiped me out in PvE because they had a Molotov TU which lodged in an unreachable corner and taking an extra 500 damage per turn killed off my team.

The ol' hidden molotov trick, it rages me every time

Around 8 months or so ago he was everyone's first 3* due to D3 giving him out so often, and everyone was quite pleased.

Phantron wrote:

All this thread shows is that primary green/black character need to be about 50% stronger because X Force, a primary green/black guy, is at least 50% stronger than anyone else.

100% agreed. In a world with SS and XForce, Punisher is severely overshadowed to the point people are actually considering him bad.

Pylgrim

Great idea. I'd argue that Red doesn't need the buff as it's never been about the damage but about the percentage, but black and green definitely could be more powerful.

dkffiv wrote:

Punisher was my first maxed 3*'s and he's still really powerful. You can't directly compare his skills to BP because he has a cheap AoE and can generate attack tiles while also having a somewhat spammable direct damage move (with an excellent execute).

I think green is fine as is and very comparable to BP's yellow. If his body was upgraded to 8500 HP that may be enough - I hate facing Punisher because you're guaranteed to take a decent chunk of damage. If he needs more tweaks after that upgrade maybe raise his red to 2000 damage and his black to 1000 / 100 damage tiles.

As is if he gets a green off and Molotov generates an attack tile you will take a lot of damage if you can't destroy those tiles. Friggin Daken wiped me out in PvE because they had a Molotov TU which lodged in an unreachable corner and taking an extra 500 damage per turn killed off my team.

I agree that Punisher is not a pushover, as many other 3*s, but he's still far from being powerful. He's merely solid. You actually can compare him directly to BP because BP also has a black AoE: It costs less than twice as much as Molotov but deals almost 5 times as much! yeah has a small drawback and doesn't leave a super slow and weak Attack tile, but when you're hitting the opposing team for almost 4k, the game is basically over and you don't care.

Houtro

I like the idea!
If his green was at least not random it would be much more powerful.
His health is to high is only Human

Spoit

DP would also be incredibly viable at the powered-up state. I always love when his pvp comes around

Mawtful

Been thinking about this for a bit.

* His red ability is fine as it is, no problems there. But no-one's arguing that anyway. Still, it's easy to cover that now and move on.
* His green ability is probably fine as it is. It's got tile destruction and cascade potential, which Panther and Iron Fist are lacking. It doesn't give the opponent AP or require an additional 12 AP in reserve either.
* His black could probably stand to be improved slightly, now that Black is super competitive. Not entirely sure what the best way to do that is. Perhaps make the countdown deal damage directly (like Human Torch's Green) and reduce the timer by 1? Not really sure.

I think Frank could probably stand to gain some additional hit points. He's not a tiny man, he seems to regularly cheat death, he takes a beating and just keeps on going. He's not on par with Cap or Thor, but he'd be right at home in the "new" 7650 health tier.

In the bring 2 + featured metagame he just doesn't synergise with X Force. They share 2 colours, so you're already having to decide between abilities. One of them creates a bunch of special tiles and the other disrupts the board. Punisher's Red is good, but it's not "bring this character for the one ability" level of good. Even if you did take XForce and Punisher, you're then at the mercy of the featured to cover blue and purple at the very least. Since both XForce's yellow and Punisher's Red are somewhat conditional, you may also want alternative options for both of those colours as well.

I think X-Force, Fury, Punisher could be an interesting team. It poses a decent enough "who do I take out first?" problem to attacking teams, but it's only going to pop up in Army of One.

dkffiv

Mawtful wrote:

Been thinking about this for a bit.

* His red ability is fine as it is, no problems there. But no-one's arguing that anyway. Still, it's easy to cover that now and move on.
* His green ability is probably fine as it is. It's got tile destruction and cascade potential, which Panther and Iron Fist are lacking. It doesn't give the opponent AP or require an additional 12 AP in reserve either.
* His black could probably stand to be improved slightly, now that Black is super competitive. Not entirely sure what the best way to do that is. Perhaps make the countdown deal damage directly (like Human Torch's Green) and reduce the timer by 1? Not really sure.

I think Frank could probably stand to gain some additional hit points. He's not a tiny man, he seems to regularly cheat death, he takes a beating and just keeps on going. He's not on par with Cap or Thor, but he'd be right at home in the "new" 7650 health tier.

In the bring 2 + featured metagame he just doesn't synergise with X Force. They share 2 colours, so you're already having to decide between abilities. One of them creates a bunch of special tiles and the other disrupts the board. Punisher's Red is good, but it's not "bring this character for the one ability" level of good. Even if you did take XForce and Punisher, you're then at the mercy of the featured to cover blue and purple at the very least. Since both XForce's yellow and Punisher's Red are somewhat conditional, you may also want alternative options for both of those colours as well.

I think X-Force, Fury, Punisher could be an interesting team. It poses a decent enough "who do I take out first?" problem to attacking teams, but it's only going to pop up in Army of One.

Fury + Punisher + low covered/underleveled essential character is a very solid team, especially if Wolverine is locked out.