I had no idea how potentially devastating Blood Punch can be

[furbleburble]

It's a struggle for me because of motor function problems, but I've been trying to improve at my use of Blood Punch. It's a pretty serious game changer. I had no idea. I highly recommend people work on making routine use of it.

A while back, I switched GK/BP to a thumb button on my mouse. It's usually easy enough to GK without bothering my thumb because I don't spam it. Using the same button more often for BP is a different matter, but I can go from BP straight to GK and back to BP, and some times even more. Unfortunately, it can be a pain to spam but I don't really have any other viable options for my button choices. Also unfortunate is that in order to make use of BP I sometimes have to make other uncomfortable actions in quick succession, so I don't get to use it as much as I'd like. For example, for a pairing of Cybermancubi I might throw in a frost grenade, Flame Belch on them, BP both, back away and SSG+Ballista combo them until I can Fire Meathook and GK them. That's not easy for me to pull off but it's so gratifying to do so!

Regarding my health, I have arthritic and neurological problems in both my hands (among other issues). I use my mouse with my right hand. My right thumb is arthritic and often spasms. Using my thumb can trigger joint pain and spasms.

[Hundinger]

I underestimated blood punch a the beginning. I was even disappointed that two of the upgrades (health for blood, armor for blood) were blood punch related. Lame, I thought, and took them last. I was so wrong. Blood punch is such a powerful tool and said upgrades are a priority for me now, right after flame belch and loot magnet.

[chester]

A great blood punch tip is to use it with your chaingun shield up. It lets you be a lot more aggressive with it because you can freely blood punch most enemies with no risk of damage. Something I love doing when I have full armor is lighting a super heavy on fire and blood punching it multiple times with my shield up. The armor you get will refuel the blood punch and let you use it more than twice consecutively. It's even better when the super heavy is frozen because you get health back too. I've been able to blood punch a frozen/burned super heavy four times consecutively and it feels great

[MattCryptid]

I was always a frequent user of it, so it was very welcome when it was eventually patched to trigger correctly.

It's pretty much about as important as an SSG blast in terms of maximising DPS for me.

Just a fantastic ability.

[SuperFly]

"I win" button.

[Grampire]

I truly feel Blood Punch is the most powerful tool in your arsenal when used effectively - even outstripping tools like the BFG and crucible:

• ease in charging
  
• heavy AoE damage
  
• falters
  
• removes weakpoints
  
• safe with shield
  
• huge combo potential with other close range weapons (flame belch, grenade, SSG etc.)

If you enjoy playing in close range and aggressively then Blood Punch enables you more than any single tool in the game. I actually somewhat agree with Romero Meme above - if you master BP it does feel like it breaks the game. There are entire encounters where I do nothing but bash with the shield, flame belch and BP and murder everything with full stack.

I'll never understand people who complain about the melee options in this game when you literally have the hand of God at your disposal.

[furbleburble]

I've read all the comments so far and I appreciate the feedback and tips. I've discussed BP with some of you in the past, and it is those discussions that have encouraged me to try to use it more.

I've struggled with using BP in part because I never have the health or armor for good use of it and because I struggle with aggressive and especially close-range play. I didn't realize that actively using it makes actively using it much easier. I knew, at least conceptually, that using it, especially in conjunction with other tools, can help get armor and health back but it wasn't until recently that I actually witnessed destructive potential and the potential for health and armor restoration.

I haven't completed Mars Core ML yet, but there's a part where two Cybermancubi (CM, for simplicity), a Revenant, 2 Carcases, and I think a Hell Knight spawn at the top of a ramp. This arena has a pair of Archviles, but they're not in this exact situation. As I run into the room I meathook the Revenant to close the gap, freeze grenade it which also freezes the 2 CM and sometimes other stuff, quickly rotate a Flame Belch through everything I can, BP both CM which often GK-states the nearby Carcases, and the rest depends on how I'm doing at the moment in the attempt, but I've been able to multi-GK/BP and pretty much trivialize the situation (at times, not every time). Prior to figuring this out I was having a terrible time with the encounter. Now if I could just do everything else so well! Btw, I'm playing it on Nightmare, which further complicates matters.

I won't say I've managed to trivialize the encounter, but BP has helped make the 4 CM in the beginning of Mars Core ML much easier as well. I run into the room, around the central pillar, jump between the two CM, freeze them, Belch on them, BP both, sometimes get them to GK state which then allows further ease against the remaining CM. I've managed to work Chaingun Shield into this but it's still difficult to do that.

Talking about this is making me reconsider completing the game and SGN ML on Nightmare a second time each. If I can learn to implement BP well then I might have a much easier time with those things.

Originally posted by Grampire:

I'll never understand people who complain about the melee options in this game when you literally have the hand of God at your disposal.

As I am learning more of BP myself, it's clear that that theirs is a stance of ignorance. Until it's actually witnessed, though, it's incredibly difficult to understand the effectiveness and usefulness of BP. Hundinger spoke of underestimating BP. I know I've underestimated it, and I suspect the people who think ill of it do so as well.