PunchDrunk

Time for a thread dedicated to my favorite brute, PunchDrunk. Let's talk destiny, because I think I want to make some changes, so let's hammer this out before it comes up. Here's his destiny from Hemogrobil; it's not any different from the previous ranks other than being a few levels longer.

Right now, he's level 16 and has just taken Arts Martiaux.

So if he follows this destiny perfectly, he'll be hyper-agile with 48 agility plus untouchable, three great weapons with perseverant and arts, armor and peau. Pretty good, but could be better. He's very vulnerable to attacks that take away his agility: marteau-pilon, net, and fast weapons particularly with implacable. His disarming sucks. If he had choc and increvable, or even thief and survival, he'd be a much better brute. So where can I find them?

The most obvious spot is to take Tornado at level 23 which may or may not decrease his agility but will give back more combos. But that's pretty late -- a more radical option would be to get rid of the whip at level 18. The whip is a mixed blessing, because it gets stolen a lot and its accuracy makes it much harder to dodge than block, so it's not great against shield brutes but it's awful when a thief gets it.

Your thoughts?

stay with taht

I agree with you that whip is helpful but maybe not essential for PD. He would ideally like to find choc + increvable ASAP.

I try to experiment immediately after the last skill/weapon I deem to be irreplaceable. This way the potential to get another irreplaceable skill comes as soon as possible.

In PD's case, Martial Arts is the last skill you absolutely have to have, so I would first experiment by choosing 3 Str instead of Peau (which is a skill that I also happen to regard as being fairly bottom-tier and on par with choosing a stat anyways - if it appears later in a brute's destiny it is usually one of the first places I experiment). If choosing STR over Peau doesn't quickly yield a better result I would then try chosing STR instead of Whip.

If your experiments don't turn up anything worthwhile, I definitely like the Tornade de Coups for PD because as a superagile it will really ramp up his damage with the epee and punching. (I have my suspicions that Tornade does not effect shuriken, because throwing a weapon away is not handled the same way as normal attacking so you cannot technically have multi-hits with them)

Get rid of whip. You have martial arts and you have epee and shruiken. It is a great weapon, but you just don't need it. Getting rid of the whip means you will be more likely to ninja someone. Even if you don't or you get disarmed or something, you have martial arts.

Hum let's see.
You can take a subpath at peau (lvl 17), whip (lvl 18), lance (lvl 21), tornade (lvl 23).

If I were you, I will try to take peau lvl 17 and +3 str lvl 18. I think it's for the best because if someone steals your shuri or épée you can still avoid it but the whip... (cf Katgirl in 1/2) not to mention it is quite easy to block. Punch will be more ninja and punchy this way. Xcpistou taught us weapons are not always necessary^^. I would invest a little more in str.

Peau is really interesting on a armour. I would keep it.

i wouldnt change anything before 16

xteenager wrote:

i wouldnt change anything before 16

xteen, I'm already at level 16 so I won't change anything before that.

I just updated the screenshot to add level numbers, easier to read.

What did you choose at level 7?

And why didn't you pick 6th sense @10? Well it turned out it was the right decision (untouchable) but nevertheless I'm curious.

Rippraff wrote:

What did you choose at level 7?

And why didn't you pick 6th sense @10? Well it turned out it was the right decision (untouchable) but nevertheless I'm curious.

Whoops! There were some errors around level 6/7 that I didn't correct until Sabre. I've updated the screenshot again.

I did actually take 6th in the Padawan rank. My records really suck from that one, but he got hache the next level and then won the tourney. I didn't like how he was with the hache, since it slowed him down and didn't do that much damage, so I took endurance instead of 6th and agility instead of peau and suddenly intouchable popped up and I basically knew I'd found the right path.

Rippraff wrote:

What did you choose at level 7?

And why didn't you pick 6th sense @10? Well it turned out it was the right decision (untouchable) but nevertheless I'm curious.

rippraff is reading my mind

By the way, does anyone here play the iPhone game? I noticed there's a PunchDrunk brute in that game and a Punch Drunk as well and I wondered if it's any of you guys.

It's a clever enough pun that I wouldn't be surprised that multiple people would try it independently.

No way you should get rid of whip. PD's low speed makes whip very useful for him as he can "6th sense whip" a lot. And if some thief steals it, he can dodge it a lot of times aswell.

NixxxoN wrote:

No way you should get rid of whip. PD's low speed makes whip very useful for him as he can "6th sense whip" a lot. And if some thief steals it, he can dodge it a lot of times aswell.

ya but because of the fact that in sword many opponents have Shiel counter the whip is kind of weakness for punchdrunk because it can easily be blocked and then countered... and the counterattacks are usualy hard to dodge even if he is untoutchable :idea:

Rico wrote:

NixxxoN wrote:

No way you should get rid of whip. PD's low speed makes whip very useful for him as he can "6th sense whip" a lot. And if some thief steals it, he can dodge it a lot of times aswell.

ya but because of the fact that in sword many opponents have Shiel counter the whip is kind of weakness for punchdrunk because it can easily be blocked and then countered... and the counterattacks are usualy hard to dodge even if he is untoutchable :idea:

Bingo. Finally someone with a little intelligence. No way you should choose whip. Shield/counter will eat him alive!

hmmmmmmmm I didnt know that counter attacks (with contre) were hard to dodge. I usually thought that very agile brutes can dodge everything with the same ease, besides deluge, bomb and hammer that cant be dodged.

NixxxoN wrote:

hmmmmmmmm I didnt know that counter attacks (with contre) were hard to dodge. I usually thought that very agile brutes can dodge everything with the same ease, besides deluge, bomb and hammer that cant be dodged.

of cource counter attacks can be dodged but not easy to dodge them in this case because you have the whip in your hands and you are in short distance to the Opponents. i do not have a whip Brute to Post a Fight but you might find some fights with this situation in the satan thread....

well,i have a theory of mine which im pretty sure EVERYONE will disagree but

punch is a GREAT agile, if not the best
u got SO much 3 agi choices, and u are very lucky for that

i think the high agi is a need, more than skills

so my advice is to stay as u are
no brute ive seen so far gets that much +3 agi choices

changing punch would get u less agi , MUCH less, and thats bad

believe me, agi is more important for punch than ANYTHING!
the ONLY change i recommend is tornado at level 23, altho u need the 3 end so try it out next time

Better to experiment. Yes the agility is good but I doubt that ALL agility choices will disappear. Who knows, you might get something better.

xteenager wrote:

punch is a GREAT agile, if not the best
u got SO much 3 agi choices, and u are very lucky for that
i think the high agi is a need, more than skills
so my advice is to stay as u are
no brute ive seen so far gets that much +3 agi choices
changing punch would get u less agi , MUCH less, and thats bad

believe me, agi is more important for punch than ANYTHING!
the ONLY change i recommend is tornado at level 23, altho u need the 3 end so try it out next time

first he is not the a the brute with the most agi at least he has 29 agility at lvl 20 and this one has 31 at lvl 20 http://labrute.muxxu.com/b/367810 http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/84100479?chk=11b0 (this is not that important here i just wanted to feel some pride )

now comes my Point and mantis´s: because of the fact that he found a path with so much agi which is perfect for BL and because he is not in a big hurry (top 36 brute in the Game) he HAS TO take another path because he only got 2 times to explore and search for a better Path before he HAVE TO decide which Path is the best for BL.

so my Advice is to take STRENGTH instead of WHIP at lvl 18 and explore the new Path. not because whip imo is a bad choice for him but because he only has 2 chances to explore

Rico wrote:

so my Advice is to take STRENGTH instead of WHIP at lvl 18 and explore the new Path. not because whip imo is a bad choice for him but because he only has 2 chances to explore

Totally agree with you. Xteen can fantasize about the jumping power of Punch but you can't invest all your resources in it. It will be far too risky. You must try to enhance his efficiency and you're bound to have enough agility on the way.

He needs more strengh, maybe increvable and something against weapons (choc...)

Fortunately I have a few more days to think about it.

First, I'm keeping peau, which I should get tomorrow, because of wolves. Dogs already can't hurt me through armor, but wolves are a problem. After peau, no problem.

But then, it looks like there's two camps. One says keep the whip and the agility that comes with it -- agility is what PD is about, it's his offense and his defense, and to some extent that's true. He has less to gain, but a lot less to lose, and 39 agilite at level 22 is a pretty big deal.

On the other hand, he's certain to get at least one level of agility somewhere in those 4 levels and 29 agility isn't bad. And that leaves him with less opportunity to get increvable, sai, choc, or something else cool.

The only metagame question I would apply is that PD is at a really good rank now, and rising slowly. A bad path at this point could strand me in Sabre for weeks, wiping out the progress I made. A really good path, on the other hand, could jump me ahead of some of the 30-rank clowns who currently clog up my training fights. So I have to weigh what I'm risking here against what I hope to gain. A misstep here could cost me big time, but a misstep later could cost me even worse.

IMO, dont change at all
u are right
risking this agi in sabre is tough

it will cost u being in the first bl tour maybe, and u have almost an 80% chance u be in the first bl tour

You gotta change now. You can always change back in the next three ranks.

Well, I did it, I took 3 Force instead of Fouet at level 18. Let's see what happens!