Introducing The Punisher!

They say good things come in threes. Well, we’re happy to introduce to you the next new mercenary, in our third consecutive update, the Punisher! Inspired after a popular character of the 19th century dime novels, the Punisher’s hero form is Frank Reade, the adventurous hero inventor created and popularized by Harry Enton.

The Punisher will be the first power saw mercenary introduced to Atlantica Online, so those of you who have yet to play as the power saw hero can still experience his power as your mercenary.

To begin the Punisher recruitment quest, you start by speaking to Christine, an NPC just outside of Detroit. She lost her family in the infamous “Detroit Massacre” of 5 years back, and became a sheriff to take vengeance on the two men she blames for the massacre: Frank Reade and Ed Gein—yes, it was influenced by the notorious serial killer of the same name.

Behold the Punisher!

As it turns out, there was an accident 5 years ago when Ed and Frank were working at Henry Ford’s robot factory. They were both killed, but Ford used his pilfered Atlantis technology to bring them back to life. Ed turned into a power saw wielding maniac, while Frank turned into a cyborg. However, Frank Reade was too stunned to stop Ed Gein from killing everyone around them.

With good strength and a powerful weapon, the Punisher has high attack power, but his low magic defense makes him more vulnerable to magic than other mercenaries. In this regard, the Punisher is very similar to the Viking—but still better than a Viking, though!

The Punisher’s first of three spells is called Broken Arrows, a powerful skill that debuffs enemy archers’ attack power and silences them. This spell was designed to effectively counter the powerful abilities of the newly introduced Hwarang and maintain balance among the new mercenaries that have been introduced in the last couple of patches.

His second spell, called the Power Saw Raid, causes him to jump into the enemy formation and swing his saw about wildly. It is a powerful AOE attack that deals damage to everyone in your opponent’s squad.

The Punisher’s third spell is Sacrificial Awakening. It works the same way the Monk’s awakening works, in that it removes stun counters from your squad, but the Punisher takes some damage when using this magic. This skill was designed to pull away so much of the reliance that Monks have been able to generate, and we hope to see these changes diversify formations.

The Punisher fits in well with stun pressure and AoE builds, and can provide support for or even replace a Monk in certain formations with his awakening magic. He has decent vitality, and with good armor he can act as a serviceable tank or off-tank when necessary. He is also effective against snipe builds with his Broken Arrows spell to greatly reduce the spike damage archers are capable of. But we’re especially excited to see all the strategies that you all will come up with.