Marvel Rivals Punisher Guide
Punisher might lack the superpowers that most of his partners and enemies in the Marvel Rivals roster boast, but that doesn’t stop him from being the highest DPS character in the entire game.
Read: Marvel Rivals - Best Settings
Standing high in the official Hero Hot List through both high pick and win rate, Punisher is a low skill-floor character with a considerably high skill-ceiling, particularly if you attempt to master his movement system.
Why Punisher Is A Great Duelist To Main
Punisher 2099 SkinRated at a one star, Punisher is the Duelist that I would recommend any new player to try out. If you’ve played any shooters before, your aim will translate almost directly into his play, as he is a hitscan hero, meaning that your shots will land exactly where you’re aiming.
He deals a ton of damage, doesn’t have any fancy movement requirements (requirements being the keyword), and has two panic buttons allowing him to self-peel.
Read: Marvel Rivals - All Maps, Regions, And Game Modes
Wielding two weapons, the Punisher excels at both close and long range fights, and his turret allows him to deal AOE damage. Situations in which he isn’t a great Duelist choice are rare, so he is one of the best heroes in the game to main.
Ability Breakdown
Given Frank’s love for his weapons, it seems fitting to use them as our starting point. The Punisher carries two weapons, and he can swap between them freely by pressing 1 or 2 (default binds).
Punisher Assault RifleHe will always spawn holding his Assault Rifle, Adjudication, assigned to 1, but can change to the Shotgun, assigned to 2. The Assault Rifle is a hitscan weapon with X bullets per magazine and little to no spread, especially at midrange.
Frank’s Shotgun, Deliverance, is his close-range melter. It has a ton of spread, which makes it ineffective at mid to long ranges, but extremely effective against targets close to him, especially if they’re big targets.
Punisher Shotgun DamageThe Punisher’s passive ability, Warrior's Gaze, is a sort of temporary wall hack. He will retain vision of any enemy who has exited his line of sight for a couple of seconds. This can be useful to track enemies trying to escape, to catch flankers unaware, and synergizes well with a tool that will get into later.
Punisher PassiveMoving on to abilities per se, The Punisher’s first skill, from left to right, is his grappling hook, Vantage Connection. Bound by default to Shift, it is his main movement ability. It allows you to grapple onto a surface at quite a distance.
Upon a successful hit, it will create a rope between the point in which you shot the ability and where the hook landed. The Punisher can place three of these at once, but the ability as a cooldown of 20 seconds.
Grappling Hook To Leave BaseUsing an already placed rope does not have a cooldown though, so you can even create chains of these to maneuver quickly throughout the map, or as a shortcut to get you back from spawn quicker.
Frank’s second ability, assigned to E by default, is his Culling Turret. He will spawn a turret and operate it, allowing him a massive magazine that shoots explosive bullets dealing AOE damage on impact.
Punisher TurretThe Punisher does not turn into a turret, he is not Overwatch’s Bastion, he sits on it. The turret has its own health bar, which serves as a shield, but only if it is blocking whatever is being thrown towards Frank.
If you get hit from the sides or directly from behind while on the turret, it will not take damage, but you will. So pay attention to your flanks (and use headphones).
The turret lasts until you run out of bullets, run out of turret health, or simply press the E button again to voluntarily dismount it.
Scourge Grenade is The Punisher’s second movement ability. It is a smoke grenade and comes bound to your Mouse Right Click by default. Throwing it pushes Frank backwards, relatively to his crosshair, not to his position.
Jumping With Smoke BombIf you shoot the Smoke Grenade towards your feet, you will be propelled upwards, reaching higher than you ever could with a regular jump. The smoke will linger for a couple seconds, giving The Punisher the information advantage through his passive.
Funnily enough, this ability also deals AOE damage to everyone hit by the explosion itself. You will rarely use it for that purpose, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.
Lastly, we get into the infamous “Judge, Jury, Executioner!”. The Punisher’s ultimate, Final Judgement, is one of the most devastating abilities in the entire game. If you’ve ever been in the position of playing a meaty tank in the frontlines, reading that voice-line is probably enough to trigger your PTSD.
Punisher Final JudgementPressing the default Q will play an animation in which The Punisher brings out an entire arsenal of military-grade weaponry out of nowhere, turning him into a budget Space Marine.
He gains access to two hitscan miniguns with unlimited ammo, and a rocket launcher that automatically shoots the nearest enemies. The minigun will melt any character who isn’t being ulted by a healer or doesn’t have any invulnerability protecting them.
Tips And Tricks
There isn’t really a wrong way to play Punisher — as long as you’re not running it down, of course — , but there is a lot more that you can do with him than it seems at first.
Punisher Countering Iron ManHe is the best character in the game at dealing with flying heroes like Iron Man and Storm. He is excellent at holding chokepoints with his turret. If you stick with these two plans, you’ll do fine.
Yet, if you want to maximize your impact, you’ll want to do more. You want to keep mobile, and your grappling hook will be your main tool for that. Set them up in ways that allow you to dive deep, or back off quickly. Don’t over-index on reaching high ground, as that will frequently expose you too much.
Grappling Hook PositioningUsing Vantage Connection also gives you a ton of momentum, which you can retain even after leaving the rope, if you jump off of it. This can take you much further than a normal use of a grappling hook, but it takes some time to master.
You can use your Smoke Bomb to jump into higher ground, saving your Hook for more optimal positions. If you’re healers are getting dove by tanks or DPS, run to them and clean house with your shotgun.
Read: Marvel Rivals Game Modes, Explained
If the enemy team is clump up and you can’t get an LOS to any priority targets, try to flank, while always keeping a hook available in case you need an emergency exit. Do not be afraid to get into 1v1s with other squishies, though. With good aim, your Shotgun will allow you to outduel most characters.
Close RangeDo not get greedy with your ultimate. The amount of times I see a Punisher die while casting his ult or immediately after is too many. Make sure you are in your healers’ LOS before pressing the button, and get behind cover while the ult animation plays out.
Once your ulti is online, aim for the priority targets, but maximize your DPS. If a healer gets behind cover, change to whoever is exposed as you have infinite ammo. Even though your ulti has insane DPS, healer ultis like Cloak and Dagger’s, Luna Snow’s, and Mantis, will hard-counter it.
Ulting Behind CoverYou’ll ideally want to wait for the healers to waste their ultis before using yours, but if you can’t, try to catch someone who leaves the healing area. You’ll be able to kill them even if they get out of the area for one second.
Team Up
Punisher only has a single team-up and, although it doesn’t depend on you how effective it is, its impact can be very high.
Rocket Raccoon can drop an area that will give you higher rate of fire and infinite ammo for 12 seconds, on a 45 second cooldown. Crucially, this does not influence your turret ammo or rate of fire, so never go into turret mode when you’re inside Rocket’s Ammo Invention.
Punisher Team UpIf you get lucky enough to get a Rocket on your team, change your gameplan. You’ll want to stick with him as much as possible, requesting Ammo Invention through voice chat or through pings.
Sticking by him makes Rocket’s job much easier, and the DPS boost that you get off of it is more than worth it for a possible loss in optimal positioning. If your Rocket is using Ammo Invention on cooldown, you can easily alternate between using your weapon while it's up, and sticking to your turret while it is down.
When Should You Swap Off Of Punisher
Punisher is effective in most situations, but he can obviously be countered, or be less than optimal for his team-comp. If your fellow Duelist player opts for something heavily dependent on direct LOS for damage, like Hela, Hawkeye, or Black Widow, you’ll likely be both attacking from the same angles.
Countered By MagnetoIf the enemy team has any sort of shield heroes, like Dr. Strange, Magneto, or Groot, they’ll easily negate your impact too much. Punisher excels when paired with Duelists that dive, forcing the enemy frontline to turn their backs and drop their shields.
A few Duelists can be a problem too. Most DPS duels will come down to skill, but you’ll frequently have a hard time handling Spiderman, Psylocke, and Iron Fist.
