Marvel Rivals Punisher Character Guide

Marvel Rivals The Punisher Guide

Frank Castle deals out punishment to his targets with extreme prejudice. Being one of the most well-rounded heroes, The Punisher remains a strong pick regardless of team comp, objective mode, or map.

He creates a wall of damage the enemy team needs to break through. Although his kit gets countered by shields, it’s up to the individual player to find or create counterplay opportunities. Vantage Connection zipline gives him mediocre mobility, but he is stuck to one route until the next zipline becomes available.

Due to this, the Punisher struggles to position on off angles or flanks without being vulnerable to an enemy counterattack. When working together with his team, he has the powerful offensive capabilities out of any hero in all of Marvel Rivals.

Strengths

High Burst Damage

The only way to send an enemy on a same-day delivery to the respawn room is with a headshot from Deliverance, The Punisher’s shotgun. Team fights are often decided by which team gets the first pick. Deliverance can one-shot every 250hp hero, making The Punisher a constant lethal threat even if he has yet to confirm a kill.

Vanguards trying to advance into his team can quickly have their health bars depleted by quickly emptying an entire clip into their large bodies.

Fight Winning Ultimate

Anytime a team hears, “Judge, Jury, Executioner!” everyone who doesn’t run and hide meets their sudden death. Even the highest health Vanguards get melted when caught in the line of fire of Final Judgement. You’ll find it is prevalent for team fights to be decided by a single use of The Punisher’s Ult as he can quickly get multiple kills per use.

Adaptability

The combination of an assault rifle paired with a shotgun and turret form enables The Punisher to adapt to every situation. When his team needs long-range poke damage or someone to contest enemy fliers, Adjudication unloads bullets at them.

Need to hold down a choke point? Pop in his turret and hold your ground. Getting flanked by melee characters? Bust out the shotty and land a lucky headshot to shut them down.

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Weaknesses

Poor Defensive Options

Most of the rivals’ cast possess true defense abilities, such as self-sustaining, stunning, or using invincible escape tools. Punisher doesn’t come equipped with any of these. The way Punisher plays defense is through his overpowered offensive capabilities.

If he cannot kill or force a retreat from the enemy, he ends up being an easy elimination for the enemy team.

Long Cooldowns

Both Culling Turret and Vantage Connection are 20-second cooldowns. These are some of the longest cooldowns in the entire game. Whenever the enemy sees The Punisher use one of these, they know they have a massive window of time to attack, without having to consider
the threat of either ability.

Weak Against Shields and Damage Mitigation Abilities

When the enemy sees a Punisher is destroying their team, they can respond with heroes who possess multiple types of damage mitigation, such as Magneto and Doctor Strange. When his line sight is cut off, he can’t reliably reposition due to his weak mobility, so his only option ends up being waiting or using his ammo to shoot shields instead of actual enemies.

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Abilities

Primary Fire: Adjudication & Deliverance

• Weapon 1: Adjudication – Automatic Rifle
  • Weapon Type: Hitscan
  • Damage: 18 dmg
  • Ammo: 30
  • Range: Infinite range but has damage fall off.
  • Damage fall-off begins: 23 meters, down to a minimum 11 dmg per projectile.
• Weapon 2: Deliverance – Shotgun
  • Weapon Type: Hitscan
  • Damage: 125 full body shot.
  • 250 full headshot
  • “One Shotting,” a 250hp hero, typically requires a distance of 3 meters or less.
  • Ammo: 8
  • Range: Infinite but suffers severely from both damage fall off and weapon spread.

Secondary Fire: Scourge Grenade

• Damage: 45
• Cooldown: 8 seconds
• Range: 4 meter Radius AoE
• No damage fall off.

Vantage Connection [SHIFT]

• Cooldown: 20 seconds
• Range: 34 meters

Culling Turret [E]

• Weapon Type: Travel Projectile
• Damage: 20 dmg
• Headshots: No
• Ammo: 200
• Cooldown: 20
• Health:
  • Turret Health: 600
  • Punisher: 300
• Attacks that hit the Culling Turret damage only Turret HP. Attacks that hit The Punisher damage both Punisher’s and the Turret’s HP.

Ultimate: Final Judgment

• Damage: Unbelievably high
• Rocket Damage: 50 dmg per rocket.
• Ammo: Infinite
• Duration: 10 seconds

Passive: Warrior’s Gaze

• Duration: 3 seconds
• Cooldown: None
• Range: 29 meters
• Once activated, Warrior’s Gaze has infinite range until ability ends.

Team-up Ability: Infinite Punishment

• Rocket Racoon throws an Ammo Overload Device in the target direction. Upon entering the device’s range, The Punisher receives the buffs of Infinite Ammo and Faster Firing.
• Punisher is unable to activate the team-up ability on his own. After Rocket activates the device, the Punisher must stand in its AoE to gain the buffs.

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Synergies

Ideal team comps built around The Punisher enable him to play aggressively and not worry about being too safe or scared of dying. Allies that provide him with high amounts of healing and damage mitigation allow him to focus on constant damage output. Pairing any damage boost with his massive burst damage weapons can push break points over the edge and allow The Punisher to start deleting enemies.

Additionally, anyone with a stun to counter enemies trying to flank Frank Castle allows him guaranteed Deliverance headshots, which leave the would-be diver with zero counterplay.

Example Team Comps Built Around Punisher

Vanguards: Doctor Strange, Magneto

Duelists: Punisher, Hela

Strategists: Rocket Raccoon, Mantis

Vanguards: Magneto, Hulk

Duelists: Punisher, Scarlet Witch

Strategists: Rocket Raccoon, Luna

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Individual Synergies with Other Heroes

Rocket Raccoon

The best duo to run with Punisher is clearly Rocket Raccoon to gain access to Ammo Overload. Typically, you’ll want to ask your rocket to use the ability reactively to enemy aggression as the rate of fire buff and infinite ammo on his shotgun deletes any enemy in close range. Rocket also provides great healing to The Punisher, and combing their Ults is an instant team wipe if the enemy doesn’t have a defensive ult like Luna’s Fate of Two Worlds.

Hela

Hela and The Punisher are great matches because they pose such a serious threat to the enemy team that their focus is constantly split between the two Duelists. When the enemy focuses on one, it gives the other an opening to respond with a counterattack that can easily pick off the unsuspecting enemy.