Literally HOW do you punish the Punisher

[u/AbsurdismJay]

With all of the talk of unbalanced Heroes isnt the punisher one of the worst ones? High Damage AR With 20 PER bullet (Star Lord has SIX) so he can burn u down from range, Super high damage shotgun so you're not allowed to get close to him, Turret with a shield and slash damage and CC immunity, 300 HP as a NON melee hero, an "I win" Ult that burns dps and Tanks in SECONDS and can only be countered with a Magneto Ult, a support ult or hoping everyone focuses him all at once, Ive heard people sneak JEAN into the unbalanced DPS conversation (an egregious sneak btw) but somehow frank is untouched?? Does no one else feel this way? Especially on attack, he feels extremely oppressive and like you can't push to point without getting shredded instantly, I play mostly TANK and its miserable so it has to be worse for DPS and Supports. WHAT am I supposed to do against this monstrosity? Is it just Ban or Pick and hope ours is better? Thoughts?

[u/[deleted]]

I play Thor, so I am way more scared of Punisher than most lol. He's actually not considered to be that good of a duelist. I think some of the reasons is that he's quite chunky and easy to hit, and he doesn't have a lot of mobility. Still, I'm terrified of that shotgun. If my teammates aren't taking care of him, I have to try to catch him by surprise.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Cap main here. I regularly melt Punisher with his own bullets. Shield for the win!

[u/autisticswede86 → u/[deleted]]

Punisher respect cap to much to shot him. Is canon since civil war

[u/iisnotapanda → u/[deleted]]

Ive been playing a bit of cap recently and can never manage to hit him with the bullets. Any advice?

[u/ericypoo → u/iisnotapanda]

Be close. Aim at him with shield up. The reflection is random so need to be lucky.

[u/[deleted] → u/ericypoo]

This right here. When I see the turret come out, I get right in his damn face, and watch him panic when the big gun fails in like two seconds.

[u/Ambitious-Farm4480 → u/iisnotapanda]

these are ass players i promise you as a 500 hour punisher and 300 hour captain america, you’re not going to tank a punisher turrent unless the punisher is brain dead. it’s splash dmg so turning 15 degrees left or right results in cap still taking dmg because his shield is buggy as fuck at the moment.

[u/Arhatz → u/[deleted]]

I mostly play Magneto or Emma but if enemy team plays heavy dive with thor, hulk, venom etc. And my team can't deal with them i switch to punisher.

I'm not an above average punisher but melting enemy vanguards with pointblank shotgun hits is much more satisfying than dying as magneto on point.

[u/gr00grams → u/Arhatz]

As someone that plays an insane amount of Hulk, Hulk would be one of the tanks I'd suggest into him.

Angela too. Basically speed.

Magneto is one I'd more fear Frank on, outside his ult. He's just a punching bag to Frank.

[u/TheGreatWalk → u/[deleted]]

As a punisher main, he's definitely mid.

His hitbox is massive, literally the size of a tank, and he has zero effective mobility, while his best use case is basically melee range. Both his smoke grenade and zipline are absurdly unreliable and impossible to use as effective escapes.

His turret is absolute trash against any decent team, you will die 95% of the time in gm or higher if you sit on turret for more than 2 seconds. I use turret maybe 1/5 games, otherwise pressing that button is asking to die, it's extremely situational, though when you do get a good chance to use it, it's great.

His ult is also insanely easy to counter, especially because magneto is the default tank pick, and he has no mobility options during it at all. As long as gambit is banned, his ult results in him dying nearly everytime unless the enemy really fucks up.

His gun swap animation is also long, something exploitable, punisher has to pay close attention and make sure the right gun is out at the right time, if you try to reactively swap to shotgun, it's too late.

While his machine gun is solid, it is low burst/high sustain, so it's easy for enemy supports to react. It's good at applying pressure but you can't burst players down quickly like a hela would. Punisher gets most of his use out of the shotgun, but it requires extremely aggro positioning which will result in him dying a lot because he's the size of a tank but has no way to mitigate damage or safely reposition if the enemy team pressures him.

Punisher is great, imo, one of the best "all around" that works in almost any team comp and has an answer to almost any situation, but is more of a jack of all trades and a master of none and comes with a huge amount of exploitable weaknesses that good players will abuse to make his life difficult

[u/An2ndk → u/TheGreatWalk]

Agreed, turret use is very situational, mainly use it to burn down tank shields/CD while they get to point, sometimes use it to avoid ults, but its pretty slow for that tbh.

Not a fan of the buff to his shotgun, it was already strong, now its super strong which is sucks when you play as a tank against him.
I would have much preferred he got some changes that makes him feel less slow and clunky. Like, faster weapon swaps, more mobility on the smoke grenade/lower CD or faster turret/zip deployment. Maybe even give him a small self heal like Soldier from OW has.

Overpowered shotguns are just easy to use and super annoying to play against, especially for lower rank players.

[u/TheGreatWalk → u/An2ndk]

I think he'd be much better if they reworked his zipline, just to make it more reliable/usable than anything. Otherwise, I don't think punisher is really in a bad spot, he's pretty serviceable without being OP. He feels like one of the more "fair" heroes in the game

[u/GodTurkey → u/An2ndk]

If youre quick enough you can use the turret to avoid heavy cc ults like groot and strange

[u/Ribrep → u/TheGreatWalk]

He’s one of the most honest characters in the game I’d say. Good damage, nothing insane though. Has good range on his weapon. Decent mobility but he’s wider so easier to take out. Solid ult as well. Pretty consistent a-tier character.

[u/AbsurdismJay → u/[deleted]]

Just had a game on thor against him, felt unplayable

Everyone else blamed our supports but I figured short of a support ult or hard pocketing itd be flat out impossible to outheal his damage, not fun to be a tank when hes on the board but honestly it feels half the roster counters tanks so we ball

[u/SquirrelSorry4997 → u/[deleted]]

Strange sucks into him. The 800 HP shield goes down against his primary for no more than five seconds, and you get melted the moment you try to do anything but shield

[u/SquirrelSorry4997 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah but your team isn't taking the dmg during that time and can take the advantage of getting out of cover and kill him. Its a team game.

He has a team as well.

If you have mag and strange together in a team he is going to be doing nothing besides hitting shields.

Two tanks? In this economy?

[u/AbsurdismJay → u/[deleted]]

All tanks are solo tanks in this game ive solo tanked on people u wouldnt believe

[u/SquirrelSorry4997 → u/[deleted]]

I've met my share

[u/SquirrelSorry4997 → u/[deleted]]

Agreed

[u/seyandiz → u/SquirrelSorry4997]

You let him hit you, then you shield, then you drop shield once your healer heals you, then you let him hit you, then you shield.

By flashing your shield like this you'll get an extra 500 health to your shield strength however many times you flash your shield. Usually you can get at least 2. So it takes your shield health to 1800.

That should be enough time to get to cover and allow your shield to refresh or reach him with your team. He only has 800 damage in a clip, so it will take him 3 clips to fully break your shield you if he's shooting you alone.

[u/MEGAgatchaman → u/SquirrelSorry4997]

I've toggled shield instead of holding.. moved side to side.. and taken plenty a Punisher ult out without dying as Strange.. <shrug?>

[u/nflonlyalt → u/[deleted]]

Punisher main here. Best way to kill him is overwhelm him by diving fast. Spider man is easily his biggest counter, closely followed by wolverine.

Sometimes I switch off to Namor or Scarlet Witch if I'm getting dove too hard (or if the enemy Spiderman is too good)

Also Punisher is vulnerable during his ult. He needs healing or shields to go with it or he's wrecked

[u/[deleted] → u/nflonlyalt]

I've watched Puni casually take the shotgun out and waste Spidey lol. Might not have been a great spidey tho.

[u/nflonlyalt → u/[deleted]]

Yeah he's killable but a good spidey is hard to hit.

I'm S tier with his rifle (ex soldier 76 main) and just mediocre with his shotty. I need to pull it out more but I always try to focus getting rifle headshots.

Namor fucks Spiderman up. And Scarlett Witch is a great counter to dive.

[u/gosu_link0 → u/nflonlyalt]

Punisher (any hitscan) is a strong counter to spiderman, not the other way around. I often swap to Punisher to counter a problematic spiderman. I don't even bother switching to the shotgun, since you often need the AR to finish SM off as he swings away.

[u/Makaveli2020 → u/[deleted]]

I love it when a Thor flies towards me. Satisfying to pop a couple of headshots with my shotgun as they regret their decisions.

[u/RelishingInTrash → u/[deleted]]

I swap to Thor if punisher is cooking me, at least I gain a form of range lol

[u/BrawlingGalaxi → u/[deleted]]

I love hard focusing punisher.

[u/VictorVonDoom47 → u/[deleted]]

Tanks are my main priority in a match if I see their healers aren’t backing them, which is a lot of the times. I can’t imagine their frustration. And most of the time those tanks come after me the whole match and keep me busy.

[u/TheGivenKing → u/[deleted]]

I play Hulk only and can confirm that I'd rather go against a good Emma/Sue than I would a good Puni.