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

LambadaDave

Thank you! I appreciate your input on this. Yeah, he's pretty niche until he hopefully gets improved.
I'll stick to 3/5/5, and sell my extra black cover.

rkd80

Just championed him...He was at 155, so ""only"" cost 27k iso + 7.5k iso to champion - but figuring he is a buffed LR character, can't hurt.

Playing around with the different builds, due to serious power creep black at anything higher than 3 really makes zero sense. Getting an extra 20 damage for a strike tile is silly.

sinnerjfl

rkd80 wrote:

Just championed him...He was at 155, so ""only"" cost 27k iso + 7.5k iso to champion - but figuring he is a buffed LR character, can't hurt.

Playing around with the different builds, due to serious power creep black at anything higher than 3 really makes zero sense. Getting an extra 20 damage for a strike tile is silly.

Actually, if you do the math, 3/5/5 and 5/3/5 roughly end up doing almost the same damage. He's so old that I don't care to do it again but the reason is, at 5 covers, black will pump out a lot more atk tiles than you might think. Every 2 turns is faster than it looks because in reality, it's every other turn that he will poop another tile on the board. It adds up real fast and it's a valid build.

Pair him with a better strike tile generator and his black is not bad at all with 5 covers.

rkd80

Hmm I see your point, this buff rotation with blade buffed - 5 black for punisher may actually make sense! IF + boosted Blade + featured 5 black Punisher....yeah could work!

Hoho69

currently enjoying my 198 lvl Punisher 3 star, Iceman 270 & IM 40 170 combo.

Punisher can shine if played carefully with the right combos. He is a great coup de grace weapon. So IM40 yellows fire up, Iceman freezes enemies iwth blues, group damage with greens, Punisher can also use black as group damage , and also Iceman can use punch a snowman blue to heavy damage , so when the enemies go down below 40 percent, use the red, and we know the IM40 yellow produces mucho red.

Target strongest characters first or characters with strong chance of firing a power. your call.

This combo took down a 280 lvl Hulkbuster, 185 lvl Khan, 170 lvl Iron fist combo. in the shield simulator my combo got little damaged. Hulkbuster got freezed while iceman used his green to heavy damage the group, by 4th round, Punisher red killed both Iron fist and khan critical damage HB with punch a snowman, and 5th regular attack killed HB. 1000 damage on Iceman total.

Hoho69

he also good with Quake , Red Hulk + Punisher 3 star & IM 40.

Same strategy, get the IM 40 yellow going, do group damage with Quake and red Hulk then punisher 3 star Red coup de grace.

mpqr7

Hey if they are giving out upgrades to certain characters. This one should get some boosts.

The strike tiles should be much stronger. Boosted at 5 covers still only adds around 500 dmg, which is pretty little these days.

Cost should be one or two AP lower to make it truly terrifying! Also, it would be great to tell in advance whether or not the shot will kill your enemy. Some kind of flashing or else something in the description, perhaps?

No worries, no one uses this power anyway, so leave it as is, or provide a slight damage boost to the aoe attack and the .

Crowl

mpqr7 wrote:

Hey if they are giving out upgrades to certain characters. This one should get some boosts.

The strike tiles should be much stronger. Boosted at 5 covers still only adds around 500 dmg, which is pretty little these days.

Cost should be one or two AP lower to make it truly terrifying! Also, it would be great to tell in advance whether or not the shot will kill your enemy. Some kind of flashing or else something in the description, perhaps?

No worries, no one uses this power anyway, so leave it as is, or provide a slight damage boost to the aoe attack and the .

Black and a lot of these ongoing countdown powers like this would be so much better if they immediately applied one round of their power, that way you would still get something even if the tile was immediately cleared away.

MrBowers

To me his red is fine. For his green I would change it to aoe like grenadiers rocket attack. His black keep the damage from the initial hit as it is but when the countdown reaches zero create 1 strike and 1 attack tile (these would need to be buffed from what they are now). You could also add strikes to the end of his green but then he might be a little overpowerred.

Gmax101

red is fine. It is already scary as hell... although maybe make it a situational reduced cost (X Attack and Strike Tiles in play saves you 2 AP)

Green - Make it targetable, that alone strengthens the power significantly... maybe tweak the strike tiles or increase the area it explodes or make it AoE damage... similar to Sniper Rifle (which is more like a bazooka at the top end anyway)

Black - A damage tweak wouldnt hurt, either on initial effect or boost the attack tiles. But personally I'd like to see it behave a bit more like Ghost Riders Hellfire... so add damage when the CD hits 0. But if you prefer something more distinctive, add another countdown tile... meaning the fire really begins to spread...if it doesn't get dealt with it would be horrid fast... two rounds and you have an attack tile and 2 CDs, after another 2 rounds it would be 3 attack tiles (without it being matched) and 4 CDs....

Trilateralus

Every time Punisher comes up in discussion I'm reminded he is perhaps the most misunderstood character in MPQ. As most of us on the forums know, one of the key aspects of success in MPQ is speed, so it's strange to me that so many people prefer Punishers slower builds. Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself. A 5/5/3 Punisher can in most cases reduce a target to 30% as fast, or faster, than a 3/5/5 or 5/3/5 build can reach 40%. Retribution is one of the best, if not the best, moves in MPQ. As a team up. Punishers value lies in his abilities to quickly ramp up your damage dealing through the generation of strike and attack tiles and a cheap AOE. He shines in wave battles and is largely a waste of a character slot in boss battles.

simonsez

Trilateralus wrote:

Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself.

If you're a 3* player facing off against 3* opponents, you're right. I used to have him at 5/5/3. But once you reach the point where you only use him as a required character against 4*/5* characters, 5 in red is the only thing that matters. His other abilities aren't significant enough to matter, and you ought to have a better green and black in play anyway.

Trilateralus

simonsez wrote:

Trilateralus wrote:

Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself.

If you're a 3* player facing off against 3* opponents, you're right. I used to have him at 5/5/3. But once you reach the point where you only use him as a required character against 4*/5* characters, 5 in red is the only thing that matters. His other abilities aren't significant enough to matter, and you ought to have a better green and black in play anyway.

Apparently you missed the part where I said a 5/5/3 build will allow you to reduce a target to 30% faster than other builds can reach 40%. If you're using him as required against 4/5* that extra 10% is largely meaningless.

Trilateralus

aesthetocyst wrote:

Trilateralus wrote:

Retribution is one of the best, if not the best, moves in MPQ.

3Puns IS a TU.

Any power that scales in a similar fashion will always eventually become nothing but a TU to you.

Ghost Rider is basically the 4* version of 3* Puns. And he's a TU.

You're absolutely correct. I considered mentioning Ghost Rider but wanted to keep things concise.

Crowl

Trilateralus wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Trilateralus wrote:

Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself.

If you're a 3* player facing off against 3* opponents, you're right. I used to have him at 5/5/3. But once you reach the point where you only use him as a required character against 4*/5* characters, 5 in red is the only thing that matters. His other abilities aren't significant enough to matter, and you ought to have a better green and black in play anyway.

Apparently you missed the part where I said a 5/5/3 build will allow you to reduce a target to 30% faster than other builds can reach 40%. If you're using him as required against 4/5* that extra 10% is largely meaningless.

When taken in isolation your point is correct in theory, but it does not get you quicker to the threshold in a team, because you are almost certainly not going to be using his green at 3 or 5 covers anyway.

Trilateralus

Crowl wrote:

Trilateralus wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Trilateralus wrote:

Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself.

If you're a 3* player facing off against 3* opponents, you're right. I used to have him at 5/5/3. But once you reach the point where you only use him as a required character against 4*/5* characters, 5 in red is the only thing that matters. His other abilities aren't significant enough to matter, and you ought to have a better green and black in play anyway.

Apparently you missed the part where I said a 5/5/3 build will allow you to reduce a target to 30% faster than other builds can reach 40%. If you're using him as required against 4/5* that extra 10% is largely meaningless.

When taken in isolation your point is correct in theory, but it does not get you quicker to the threshold in a team, because you are almost certainly not going to be using his green at 3 or 5 covers anyway.

Perhaps the fact that I'm still transitioning to 4* colours my perception. I just find it unlikely that any 4/5* players, even being required to use Pun wouldn't have better options than ALL of his powers. The problem with Retribution is that it's requirement necessitates delaying its use, slowing you down, rather than just using s better red. Of which there are many. Which is why it makes such a great TU. 8 TU AP to down someone under 40% is fantastic at any level of play. If you're using Pun for PVP he's useless on defence and unless you have someone to tank for him on offence he's likely going to die before Retribution will matter. If you have someone to tank you likely have a better use for your AP.

simonsez

Trilateralus wrote:

Apparently you missed the part where I said a 5/5/3 build will allow you to reduce a target to 30% faster than other builds can reach 40%. If you're using him as required against 4/5* that extra 10% is largely meaningless.

That's absurdly wrong. Against an opponent with 40k health, how many turns will it take for his attack tiles via black to generate an extra 4k points? Here's a hint: a **** load.

simonsez

Trilateralus wrote:

Perhaps the fact that I'm still transitioning to 4* colours my perception. I just find it unlikely that any 4/5* players, even being required to use Pun wouldn't have better options than ALL of his powers.

In general, yes. But to go back to my example of an opponent with 40k health, even a 4/5* player probably isn't going to have another ability that will do 16k damage for 8 red.

Wolarsen

A completely agree with Simonsez; as enemy HP grows, so do Retribution.
It helps inmensely in the last waves of Alliance bosses as Galactus and Ultron.

Trilateralus

Wolarsen wrote:

A completely agree with Simonsez; as enemy HP grows, so do Retribution.
It helps inmensely in the last waves of Alliance bosses as Galactus and Ultron.

This argument doesn't make any sense to me. You're saying that a player has 2 4/5* characters that are so effective that they can afford to take a 3* for one power used once? And they don't have a single other character that would be more useful?! 16K for 8 AP sure sounds nice but I would think even another 3* like LCap would be more useful over the course of a fight with Galactus. But not a single other 4/5* would be? Tinykitty.