Punisher - Loadout, Observations and Suggestions

The Punisher is, far and away, my least favorite vehicle to use in Indestructible. I only use it as part of my "rotation" of using all my vehicles, but I don't like it because whenever I use it, I always seem to find myself thinking, "I wish I had the Shooter right now." Or, "I wish I had the Pummeler right now." Or, "I wish I had anything else besides the Punisher right now!"

Having said that, it is not a waste of a vehicle. I have seen others use it much more effectively than I use it. For example, the player simply named "1234" was a monster in his Punisher. If you can aim really good with kinetic weapons, you can still be a force with the Punisher like 1234 was. It is an inherently stable vehicle, which means that it is not going to easily flip on you and it will not be susceptible to damaging bouceback consumables. Also, its Active Ability is dangerous and totally underutilized by most players. More on that later.

I have had an issue with what to put in ONE of my Punisher components. Here is my Punisher loadout, as it currently stands:

- T4 Tornado Cannon
- T4 Capacitor (increases capacity by +97)
- T4 Window (increases armor by 1,000)
- T3 Window (increases armor by 700)
- T4 Melee
- Incendiary Bullets consumable (additional 40 damage each second, for 4.5 seconds)

This loadout gives my Punisher 314.8 in damage and armor of 3,052. I feel the armor components are necessary because this vehicle comes with only 1,352 in armor - in other words, the Punisher essentially comes with eggshell armor. I used to have the T4 Wrench instead of the T3 Window, but I figure that, with that wrench, to get an additional 700 armor on the Punisher, you have to remain untouched for 35 seconds - a tall order for a car that is not exceptionally fast.

Kinetic works best with this car because its passive ability increases all kinetic damage it dishes out by a whopping 15%. Folks, that is significant. You can try missiles on it, but I have always found that the best Punisher players use kinetic on it and it is tougher to deal with kinetic on a Punisher than missiles on the Punisher - especially because the Punisher's acceleration is nothing to write home about and it's energy load means that it can only fire a few missiles before expending all its energy. Its not like the BigRig where you can fire almost unlimited missiles and barely dent the energy load.

One important weapon the Punisher has that people don't utilize enough is it's Active Ability - the ability to drop a mine every 10 seconds for only 4.75 energy. The mine dishes out a minimum of 250 damage to any opponent that hits it or drives really close to it. That is a fair amount of damage at little cost to the Punisher. Yet, I have seen players drive around rarely dropping mines or only placing them at strategic points on the map. Not me. When I'm in my Punisher, I drop a mine as soon as I'm able to unless there is a good opportunity coming up where you will be in close combat - in which case I try to drop it in my opponents' path. Put it this way - if you stay alive for 4 minutes, you can drop as many as 24 mines and make the map a veritable minefield for your opponents. It behooves you not to be frugal with dropping those explosive nuisances. Of course, it makes sense not to drop them in an infrequently traveled location (like a corner) - but if you're traveling somewhere it stands to reason that others will sooner or later travel there too. I just wish the mines stuck around forever - they burn out after like 30 seconds.

A good case can be made for more speed instead of armor. Believe me - I have tried this and have had mixed results. On the one hand, speed is valuable to get you out of sticky situations and/or chase down opponents. On the other hand, you are sacrificing armor for speed. Remember . . . in the Punisher, you are driving a car that comes with armor about as thick as an eggshell.

I would love to hear what others use as their components and their thoughts on the effectiveness of those components.