Tier 3 Punisher Slayer Build Guide

Welcome to the Tier 3 Punisher Slayer Build Guide! This build is a fast-paced back-attacking Burst playstyle based on her Fury gauge. When full, you can activate it to enter Burst mode and unleash powerful blows including her identity skill Bloodlust.

Punisher excels at Stagger. Destruction can be tricky mainly due to her skills being on long cooldowns and tied to Burst Mode.

Want a more fast paced and dynamic playstyle? Check out our Predator guide.

Builds

Raids - 1.5 Cycle

Raids - 1.0 Cycle

Chaos Dungeons

Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.

• Brutal Impact, Guillotine, Volcanic Eruption and Bloodlust (Z) are your main sources of damage during Burst mode. You should avoid using them outside of it.
• Furious Claw is a decent damage and gauge skill, you can use it during burst mode and outside.
• Wild Rush is your mobility skill.
• Wild Stomp and Spinning Sword are gauge generators. Wild Stomp is your Counter skill.
• Flash Blade is your Synergy skill.
• Ragna Break is your awakening. It deals massive amounts of damage, so it's recommended to use it during burst mode for the extra damage from Punisher's class engraving.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

You can drop Flash Blade for Ground Smash.

• This replaces a fast, short-cd skill with a longer, Push Immune skill with more meter generation.
• You will need to move Cooldown Gem and Wealth from Spinning Sword to Ground Smash.
• You will need to add Wealth to Spinning Sword.
• You will need to select Damage Amplification on Wild Stomp as your Synergy Skill.
  • You can then replace its Wealth rune with Bleed or any utility rune.
  • This effectively reduces the amount of Focus you need to level by 1.

Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.

Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.

This build requires higher investment into skill points, Specialization (1782+), tripods (Focus) and all Wealth (1 Legendary, 2 Epic, 2 Rare) runes to work. If you don't meet the requisites, it will perform worse than the 1.5 Cycle counterpart).

• Brutal Impact, Guillotine, Volcanic Eruption and Bloodlust (Z) are your main sources of damage during Burst mode. You should avoid using them outside of it.
• Furious Claw is a decent damage and gauge skill, you can use it during burst mode and outside.
• Wild Stomp, Ground Smash, Cruel Pierce and Spinning Sword are gauge generators. Wild Stomp is your Counter skill as well as Synergy in this build.
• Ragna Break is your awakening. It deals massive amounts of damage, so it's recommended to use it during burst mode for the extra damage from Punisher's class engraving.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

You can replace Cruel Pierce with Punishing Draw at 1808 Specialization.

• This reduces your Destruction but replaces it with a skill with Paralysis Immunity as well as a secondary Counter.
  • This effectively reduces the amount of Focus needed to be leveled by 1.

At 1836 Specialization you can take off the Wealth rune from Wild Stomp, and have a flex slot for Purify, Bleed or similar.

Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.

This build is optimized and meant to be used only in Chaos Dungeons. For Ebony Cube please use a Raid build.

• Guillotine is your main lesser monster and Elite killer. It does a big spin that should instantly kill everything in range and reduce its cooldown.
• Brutal Impact is your Floor 2 Boss killer, alternatively, you can also use Ragna Break.
• Wild Rush is your Floor 3 Crystal crusher and a mobility tool in case you need it.
• The rest of the skills are damage fillers to kill lesser monsters during Guillotine downtime.

Recommended Engraving Setup

While you can freely experiment with any engravings you want for this content, here's a recommended setup, based on the Engraving Support system:

• Preemptive Strike causes your attacks to deal immense amounts of damage to monsters that you haven't attacked yet, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Contender is a stacking Attack Power effect that increases in strength once you kill a monster, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Raid Captain provides damage based on your Bonus Movement Speed, synergizing well with the Buff Nodes scattered throughout Chaos Dungeons.
• Cursed Doll increases your damage with essentially no drawback in Chaos Dungeons.
• Predator provides some extra damage and mana recovery throughout the entire run.

Gameplay & Skill Rotation

This build focuses on dealing massive amounts of burst damage within the Burst Mode (Z) window with your Brutal Impact, Guillotine and Volcanic Eruption. Outside of that you're trying to rebuild Fury Meter as quickly as possible to then repeat the burst process.

Activating her identity grants you the following effects for its entire duration:

• +20% Attack Speed and Move Speed
• +30% Crit Rate
• Resets the cooldown of Bloodlust

All attacks with a Back Attack affix receive +10% Crit Rate and +5% Damage when they land on the target's back-side indicator. It is important to position yourself accordingly as much as possible to take advantage of it, since her entire kit benefits from this.

Slayer Identity

Punisher engraving provides 7/15/25% damage during Burst Mode, and 5/10/20% Crit Rate to Bloodlust. It additionally reduces Fury meter gain and Burst mode duration, and removes the Exhaustion mechanic at the end of Burst Mode.

Basic Rotations

Burst Rotation

*

• *If you have a high-enough Cooldown Gem (9+) and Quick Prep at level 5 in Guillotine, you can cast it twice per burst cycle. Otherwise, skip the last one.
• You can fit your Ragna Break during dead time in Burst Mode.
• For 1.0 Cycle builds, you cycle so fast that following the order listed above is not always possible. In that case, cast the skills as they come off cooldown.

Stagger Check Rotation

• Most Stagger checks in the game have damage reduction so you want to avoid using your big skills on them, but if it's necessary (or if the stagger check is too long) then Brutal Impact and Bloodlust also deal massive amounts of Stagger.
• Don't forget to utilize a Whirlwind Grenade if necessary.

Tripods and Gems

Tripod Levelling

Increasing the level of Tripods greatly enhances their effectiveness. You may only increase the level of 18 tripods at a time. Some of them cannot be leveled at all, or are left at level 1 - these tripods are omitted from the table, even if they are used. Here are the main tripods you should look out for in order to maximize this build's potential.

For more information on where to obtain Tripod Amulets and how to use them, check out our Skill Tree System Guide.

Gems

Gems are another significant aspect of your build, as they directly impact the damage and cooldowns of your skills. You can equip up to 11 gems at a time. Here are the ones you should focus on in order to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.

For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.

Stat Priority

This build utilizes Specialization and Swiftness.

• Specialization is the primary stat. It increases damage during Burst Mode and increases Fury Meter generation.
• Swiftness is a secondary stat. It helps with Raid Captain efficiency and cooldown reduction.
• Crit is taken only on bracelet for a small consistency boost.

Gear Set

Entropy Set

This set is optimal thanks to the large amounts of Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and positional damage it provides.

Check out the Gear Progression Guide for step by step instructions and early game gearing.
If you are interested in Sidereal Weapons, click here for more details.

Engravings

Engravings are a core part of your build. Typically, most engravings will be used at level 3, but there are some that can be used at level 1 or 2 in addition to the others, after reaching item level 1540 and unlocking Ancient Accessories.

Engraving Explanations

Core Engravings

• Punisher gives damage and allows you to make use of Burst Mode.
• Grudge increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase without needing specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
• Ambush Master provides a huge amount of positional damage to Back Attack skills.
• Raid Captain is a good choice since you get Move Speed from Identity, Swiftness and Supports.

Add-on Engravings (Pick 1)

• Cursed Doll is a significant Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players who are not familiar with boss mechanics, but it becomes easy to overcome with time.
• Keen Blunt Weapon can be a good option alternative to Cursed Doll, providing Crit Damage at the expense of slightly lower average damage. It becomes better with additional Crit Rate sources such as Synergies.
• Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power. It can be difficult to maintain in some skill builds. Can be run at Level 3 if you want to avoid Cursed Doll's penalty and aren't convinced of Keen Blunt Weapon.

Level 1 and 2 Engravings

• Adrenaline is ideal at Level 1 and 2 due to all the other sources of Crit Rate we already have.
• Ether Predator (Level 1) is a decent alternative but can be annoying to play around since you have to collect orbs over time to reach its true potential.

Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.

Bracelet

Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls they have.

The primary goal is to get the main stat used by this build - Specialization and Crit. After that you should be aiming for Special Rolls to get more damage. Please note that this system is heavily reliant on RNG, and you should not expect to get much more beyond your main stats early on.

Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.

Elixir

The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.

Check out the Elixir Guide for more details and general stat recommendations.

Card Sets

Cards are an endgame system that helps maximize your character's damage. Here are the recommended card sets for this build.

• Deep Dive is used early on as it is fairly easy to obtain.
• Light of Salvation is the standard endgame option, but it can take a long time to acquire 30-piece Awakening.
• Kazeros's Legion Commanders is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in content where enemies have a weakness to Dark Damage.
• Three Umar Families combined with A Voice Calls with is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in Guardian Raid content exclusively.

Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain cards and interact with them.

End Game Damage Card Set