Is the punisher broken?

Will it see competitive play again other than a rare appearance?

Have you seen a punisher list that is any good post FAQ?

Is it in need of a fix? what will make it more playable?

Broken? No, far from it. Any good? Not really.

It needs tender loving care....

and maybe someday a few more pilots.

Broken? No, far from it. Any good? Not really.

not really any good and broken are one and the same.

is anyone actually playing the punisher in your area?

The forums are broken, because gamer slang is "Broken=overpowered" hence a Fix is a nerf to that

But here "broken" stands for "useless overpriced garbage" and Fixes mean overpowering it.

Broken? No, far from it. Any good? Not really.

not really any good and broken are one and the same.

is anyone actually playing the punisher in your area?

Broken does not mean "not very good"!

Is the punisher broken?

No.

Will it see competitive play again other than a rare appearance?

Barring Connor shennanigans with Deathrain, the ship was dead on arrival and the latest nerf to FCS & Clusters sealed the deal for Redline.

Have you seen a punisher list that is any good post FAQ?

I've never seen a good punisher list.

Is it in need of a fix? what will make it more playable?

It suffers from having a very low life expectancy and no repositioning abilities as well as points bloat when you load it with munitions. The fix? inbuilt sensor jammer, or +3 Shields, and unlimited munitions - meaning you will only have to buy one type of torpedo/missile - and then you have those for the rest of the game.

It is supposed to be a HEAVY Bomber for Sheev's sake!

Anyone else find it funny that a thread about the Punisher has immediately devolved into nitpicking over terminology?

On topic: The Punisher is unlikely to see much competetive play, it almost definitely won't have any competetive success without a fix.

There are cheaper, better Ordnance carriers out there -

Jumpmaster has EPT, Sweet dial, a turret, etc.

K-wing has a turret and Miranda has an ability which helps her once she's out of ordnance.

Bombers are cheap, and have just been given some new pilots to play with (ps5 ept, Tomax Bren, deathfire).

I love my Punishers, but they're not tournament viable - I think any potential fix for them would have to come from a new systems upgrade.

It's also ugly as hell and the one Imperial ship I've never had the remotest interest in acquiring.

i really enjoy flying Deathrain. I think he's one of the most enjoyable pilots in the game to fly with a very unique play style. That said, I don't know that he's a very competitive choice. You have to put far too many points into him to make him actually useful and he dies far too easily to focussed fire. Also, I think his pilot skill is in a really weird place where it's too high to use action bombs effectively and too low to use the other types effectively.

To summarize: Deathrain is very fun to fly but not a very competitive choice. Great for casual play, but I have no plans to bring him to any tournaments.

As to the Redline and the generics, I feel like jumpmasters are what punishers should have been. The one thing that the punisher should be top tier at is simply done better by another ship and for the same price as running a punisher as a mediocre ordnance platform, the empire has a plethora of more effective choices.

In short, the punisher needs help if it's going to be a flown competitively in the tournament scene. A title might do it or maybe some kind of ordnance specific advance system upgrade. System upgrade would also potentially give B-Wings a nice little boost which would be a good thing as you don't really see them around very much anymore with all the TLTs and U-boats everywhere.

I WAS using them, but the new FAQ killed my FCS+GChips+Cluster Missiles combo. So...not so much anymore.

The solution to fix Punishers is BEYOND simple. The TIE Bomber and TIE Punisher are LITERALLY the only ships in the game with 2 missile upgrade slots. All they have to do is introduce 2-slot missile weapons . That's it.

It's a not a new concept in the game. I mean, we have Palpatine that's a 2-slot crew. If there's one thing the Punisher has in spades over every other ship in the game is ordnance slots. All FFG has to do is design weapons with slot requirements that make it either impractical or impossible to use on other ships.

Bombers and Punishers are used for different roles, Bombers are more for alpha strikes whereas Punishers are more for sustained damage and bombs, so it would be extremely easy to pinpoint which ships you wish to use which weapons. All this is done elegantly without titles, introducing any new concepts, or any fiddling of the rules.

You still have to admit that FCS on a dedicated ordnance carrier is pretty handy. Target lock - spend lock to fire - get lock back - K-turn and fire again. I like Guidance Chips on them, obviously, but even with 1 agility, Autothrusters does some serious work keeping them in the game. I was surprised.

Well, Tom Reed has recently won an Open and two Regionals with his Triple Jumpmasters list.

My Punisher/Phantom list beat him, though, and he might run it at Coruscant as his Punisher entry.

That said, it's definitely true that the Punisher is an utter slog to play with and only Redline really makes it at all viable (and before people go "Redline is bad since FCS nerf" I wasn't using FCS anyway). The ship is almost certainly the worst thing in the Imperial arsenal.

But there are a ton of other ships out that that need love more. With Bombers being pushed up the ranks I think the Punisher can be left alone for a while to pay attention to scum/rebel ships instead.

Theyre not good.

Is the punisher broken?

Only if I sat on it

Will it see competitive play again other than a rare appearance?

Shrug, not by me. But I don't speak for everyone. So there's hope

Have you seen a punisher list that is any good post FAQ?

Nope

Is it in need of a fix?

I don't think so. But I'm hardly a tactical genius of Ackbarian proportions so my opinion there hardly noteworthy

what will make it more playable?

I'm just not a fan of bombing.

Even torpedoes and missiles are lacking from my lists.

If it had a shuttle version, to load it with crew, could see myself using it as an alternative to the Lambda. Yeah, a heavy duty crew ship is the only way I might be tempted to get it.

Though so far I'm not in a hurry to get the Imperial Veterans either

I do like the look of the Punisher though. More than the Bomber.

Broken? No, far from it. Any good? Not really.

not really any good and broken are one and the same.

No, they're not. Broken is quite the opposite.

Broken:

The list I've been running (pre-FAQ, but there's no FCS so it doesn't change much post-FAQ) is this:

Redline - TIE Punisher (37)

Proton Torpedoes, Cluster Missiles, Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips

I don't buy that FCS is essential with Redline - he already doubles down action economy on target locks and, Clusters aside (which no longer works) there's not a powerful incentive to add FCS when I can invest the points elsewhere. It's about maximising your list not one ship in that list. Proton Torpedoes make it more likely you can fire and potentially not spend your second target lock to modify dice, opening up that you can then K-turn and fire your second shot. Cluster Missiles are not 'whoops I got 6 hits' without FCS but they're far from bad and you can selectively burn your second target lock and guidance chips to mod the dice. I think this is basically the minimum you can spend to make Redline a serious threat, and that's the whole point.

Whisper - TIE Phantom (39)
Veteran Instincts, Fire Control System, Advanced Cloaking Device

In the past Phantoms are typically paired with Decimators and that's about having a strong central threat that the opponent has to deal with while the Phantom can flank around the edge. This list replaces the Decimator with the Punisher's torpedoes and so it can function in a similar way - make them look at Redline while Whisper does the hard work, or if they go after Whisper then Redline will *ahem* punish them for doing so . Though this has a Punisher in the list your chances of victory drop rapidly if Whisper gets killed - he clearly far superior to the Punisher in the endgame, after all.

Academy Pilot - TIE Fighter (12)
Academy Pilot - TIE Fighter (12)

The first pass of this list had a TIE Bomber in this spot to add more of a Torpedo threat alongside Redline, and then I considered trying Lt Colzet instead. In the end I opted one time for the Academy Pilot pair and everything seemed to just 'click' as soon as they went in. The two TIEs are there to run interference for both Whisper and Redline, blocking enemy ships to set up shots for your big guns and generally flying around and creating a nuisance of themselves. With Whisper and Redline on the table the Academies get ignored and that's when they start dealing a surprising amount of damage.


Strategy

DON'T GET WHISPER KILLED! He's your key, and it's much harder to win with Punisher & two TIEs than Phantom & two TIEs.

Usually you'll line the TIEs up as escorts for Redline with Whisper flanking. You need to force your opponent into a choice for who he's going after - either he comes straight on for Redline and Whisper hits his side or he turns side-on to hit Whisper and exposes himself to the guns of your main force. The TIEs can race forward to block and pin ships where Redline & Whisper can hit them. It's best if Whisper & Redline are hitting the same target - Whisper can strip shields for Redline's Proton Torpedo to punch through and deal crits.

The biggest weakness in the list is the Punisher's dial - when you get in close you've no hard 1 and a red hard 2 so getting turned back around basically requires the K-turn (the amount I was K-turning is why a key reason I switched Plasma to Protons). You need to sit Redline at range 3 then just roll a 1 forward for a second shot, then try and bug out. Sometimes you have to plan your shots a couple of turns in advance - the very last game I played, vs Aces, I had to deliberately not even try to take a shot on one turn in order to set up both a Target Lock and a free lane clear of rocks to then K-turn and unload the turn later, using my TIEs to block Vader where I could shoot at him. It worked, but it took advance planning.

The Punisher and K-wing have similar problems. You don't get enough value out of the points you have to put into them. If you load them up with ordnance, they die before firing all of it. If you go light on ordnance, them you may as well field a Bomber or Y-wing for fewer points.

That said, I ran Redline regularly before Guidance Chips were released. He was/is... okay to mediocre and you can run him in casual to semi-competetive play. He'll get murdered by so many things though: U-boats, Aces, TLTs, swarms, etc. He's good at piling some damage onto one ship (preferably large with low agility) then basically dying. And I still like him.

The Punisher and K-wing have similar problems. You don't get enough value out of the points you have to put into them. If you load them up with ordnance, they die before firing all of it. If you go light on ordnance, them you may as well field a Bomber or Y-wing for fewer points.

That said, I ran Redline regularly before Guidance Chips were released. He was/is... okay to mediocre and you can run him in casual to semi-competetive play. He'll get murdered by so many things though: U-boats, Aces, TLTs, swarms, etc. He's good at piling some damage onto one ship (preferably large with low agility) then basically dying. And I still like him.

Yeah I think that's right, and in my Redline build I was very mindful of trying to strike the balance between offense and cost.

I think that the Punisher desperately needs not to be the biggest target on the board. If he gets caught in a hail of fire on initial engagement then he's going down, it works best when the opponent either has something else they have to focus on first or you can restrict how much damage they can do to the Punisher (which is why I've got Whisper to distract and the TIEs to frustrate).

It's priced like a b-wing but lacks its firepower so already off to a poor start.

The recent faq killed redline.

Its just too fragile to live long enough to deliver a big payload and if your just going light tie bombers exist.

To this day I don't see why they released it.

It's priced like a b-wing but lacks its firepower so already off to a poor start.

The recent faq killed redline.

Its just too fragile to live long enough to deliver a big payload and if your just going light tie bombers exist.

To this day I don't see why they released it.

they wanted to ensure that it didn't just replace the bomber

and then they kept going and didn't know when to stop

the punisher isn't completely absolutely ruined past the point where some EPTs and a point reduction wouldn't bring it back to the fold; it's just another case of FFG being incredibly frugal in the strangest places before releasing things like JM5ks and the Inquisitor

it's just another case of FFG being incredibly frugal in the strangest places before releasing things like JM5ks and the Inquisitor

Or poor sales of Wave 7 prompted a more aggressive power creep for Wave 8?

I bet Wave 8 has sold BUCKETS more than Wave 7 did, even allowing for the increase in player base.

Two named pilots for it is limiting.

I figure Punisher and Phantom for Imperial Aces III. If only for lack of named pilots on each ship.

A -2 point missile slot Punisher only upgrade could work. Since you'll never fill all the ordnance slots anyway.