Tips for playing Punisher?

[Rot Pot]

I feel like there's something fundamental im not getting when I attempt to play this class. Does anyone have any tips, spell combos, or just general common sense knowledge for playing Punisher?

[Grandpa Crack Pipe]

He's.. tough. I'll say that much. He's got a lot of neat tools, but not a lot to back them up to begin with, what with his -1 AC and -1 strength. The whip and mask are completely unique to him, and the whip even moreso as a melee weapon that scales with ranged.

I'd say the best way to play him to utilize his tools is a sort of stealth mage archer hybrid. Sneak attack whips to bleed and fuel your spells, with thrown weapons or a good bow to back it up.

The first few floors are going to be the roughest. The whip is nice, but it really doesn't crank out the damage, and the axe is going to break sooner than later if you use it on everything. Snag the torches off the walls and sneak around, get some backstabs, utilize the whip's extended range to attack from a safer distance. Once you get out of the mines and find things that actually have blood, keeping your mana up should be a bit easier.
Once you snag some actual armor, find an actual spell that does damage, and get a bow/crossbow, life should be far easier for you.

Now, as for the whole Disarm mechanic also unique to the whip.. it's a bit of an expensive gimmick. Marking and teleporting an enemy just to disarm is 25 mana spent on one thing, when you probably could have just killed them quicker. The only reason I could think this is worth it is if you do it on Funny Bones or the Potato King to get a hold of their Artifact weapons. I don't remember if the other NPCs carrying artifact weapons have magic reflection or not.

But yeah, that's what i'm seeing so far. Sneaky mage. Stealth attacks with the whip, bleeds for magic regen, magic for blasting, thrown weapons or cross/bows for downtime.

[Grandpa Crack Pipe]

Now, I WILL say, if you're playing on Hardcore (bad idea), disarming an Artifact wielder is a whole hell of a lot more valuable. Imagine getting in a melee tussle with a Funny Bones with 200 health a two-shot waiting for you.

[LazyTavi]

I noticed that certain afflictions like confusion or sleep will dramatically improve the effectiveness of the whip

[happygiggi]

It's a gimmicky class.

Whip is supposed to be more a tool than a weapon, tho ofc it's viable. Whip has increased bleeding chance from back attacks.

Disarm mechanic is weighted by the debuff, sleep spell is the best spell as sleeping enemies have 100% disarm + bleed chance from whip.

Disarm bow and staff wielding enemies.

Hood mana bonus is strong, combined with said sleep spell you can disarm and bleed everyone, and recover more mana than it used.

Another unique spell people forget is inner demon, that spell is extremely strong. You sacrifice a bit of hp for turning strong enemies like trolls and cockatrice into free kill!

Cast the spell and chain back attacks to the target.

The spell scale itself technically, if you're weak, the monster reflect a lot of damage from attacking the demon.
If you're strong, the monster is stalled while YOU're doing the heavy damage instead.

[Rot Pot]

Lots of great answers in the thread. Thanks a lot everyone, I really didnt understand ♥♥♥♥ all.

[Grandpa Crack Pipe]

Originally posted by happygiggi:

It's a gimmicky class.

Whip is supposed to be more a tool than a weapon, tho ofc it's viable. Whip has increased bleeding chance from back attacks.

Disarm mechanic is weighted by the debuff, sleep spell is the best spell as sleeping enemies have 100% disarm + bleed chance from whip.

Disarm bow and staff wielding enemies.

Hood mana bonus is strong, combined with said sleep spell you can disarm and bleed everyone, and recover more mana than it used.

Another unique spell people forget is inner demon, that spell is extremely strong. You sacrifice a bit of hp for turning strong enemies like trolls and cockatrice into free kill!

Cast the spell and chain back attacks to the target.

The spell scale itself technically, if you're weak, the monster reflect a lot of damage from attacking the demon.
If you're strong, the monster is stalled while YOU're doing the heavy damage instead.

I completely forgot about Inner Demon and sleep disarms.
Yeah, I should actually play him more than a few floors.