Summoners War Pungbaek Wind Pioneer Guide

Summoners War Pungbaek Wind Pioneer Guide by KirinHaven

I thought I would share my views on Pungbaek, who I feel doesn’t get the love he deserves despite being an overall great but not OP unit.

Now before I go into the guide, I just want to introduce myself a bit. I’ve been a long time lurker and have from time to time written a few discussion based posts or posted some reviews. I’m currently a C3 player in the Global server, so my views and discussions may not apply to everyone who reads it. Lastly, if you have opinions, please feel free to share them into the comments so I can learn as much back from you as I’m sharing mine right now. Without further ado, let’s dive into it.

Pungbaek, the Wind Pioneer, is one of the more underrated Nat 5’s in the game. Anytime someone pulls him, you’re very likely to see “RIP” in between all the congratulatory messages. The reason people look down on him is either because they don’t own him or they compare him against his fellow wind DD units such as Lagmaron, Lushen, Ethna, Charlotte, Teshar etc. What people don’t realise actually is after the recent buff, Pungbaek has a few unique properties of his own that none of the units above do, especially as a cleaver unit.

Skills Breakdown

Skill 1 – Yin Yang Attack

• Pretty much the basic Pioneer skill, doesn’t do much for PB other than the occasional clutch sleep but if PB does his job properly, you pretty much will never get to this skill.

Skill 2 – North Star’s Wisdom

• This skill saw a significant change from being unable to crit to being unable to glance. Now, while some circles saw this as a nerf, I saw it as significant buff as aside from being a Theomars insta-kill skill, this allows PB to handle Fire Threats such as Rakan, Perna and Khmun. This skill singlehandedly went from a mediocre skill with mediocre damage to one that can perform exceptionally well as a finishing move as we’ll see in the Arena and Guild War breakdowns I will go through later. A DD skill with high multipliers that can’t glance and apply buff block and strip? It’s quite an amazing skill to have.

Skill 3 – Lightning of Cycle

• This is his bread and butter and by god is it an amazing skill with a unique property. How it works is that it will nuke 100% damage against a single enemy and then immediately apply 50% of that damage to the remaining units. The unique par of this skill is how it ignores defense, elements and does not trigger any passives such as Camilla and Rina. If well-runed, a Pungbaek can deal upwards of 50,000 damage to a single defence broken target and 25,000 to the rest. Why is this effective you ask? Because it serves as a very unique counter to Arena Camillas, any hybrid Camilla with 25,000-27,000 HP will melt instantly. That pesky FY with shit tons of defence and 25,000 HP? Doesn’t exist anymore.

How to rune Pungbaek

• Rage/Will with as 85% crit rate and as much Crit Damage and Attack% as possible. Other beneficial stats are HP and SPD for speed tuning your AO.
• However, there is not a limit to Rage specifically. Any broken set which gives him the required stats will work just as well. Will, though is pretty much a must as he’s one of the better cleave lineup units out there.

Areas Where Pungbaek Shines

– Arena Offense

Now, naturally the biggest comparison against Pungbaek in Arena will be Double Lushen and I do not disagree that Double Lushen still is the premier AO. However, a Double Lushen that works effectively is hard to build and hard to rune. This is where Pungbaek comes in, he works immensely well in a Will/Shield cleave.

My AO: Full Will/ Shield on Galleon

• Alicia(L), Pungbaek, Hwadam, Galleon
• Alicia(L), Pungbaek, Triton, Galleon

Now, I climbed to C3 using those 2 AO’s exclusively so hear me out. There are many variations to this such as other strippers or other DD’s in place of Alicia. I am extremely lucky to have drawn Hwadam but my guild mates have attempted this with Triana (Wind Harp Magician) and it works just as well. I won’t go into detail on speed syncing as that’s covered by other guides but I will explain why Pungbaek + 1 DD + stripper/death prevent + Galleon is an amazing combo. First off, make sure Pungbaek moves first, this allows him to get off a full 50,000+ nuke on a full HP unit, making for maximum efficiency. After spreading out 50% of the damage on the rest of the team, any DD that moves after him can cleanup very easily. Since the 50% damage is practically unaffected by anything except the original nuke amount or damage reducing passives, this means you can prey hard on Chasun, Psamathe, Seara or any unit which has a low base DEF to deal a monstrous amount of damage to the rest of the team. You can also use it to take out high HP bruisers like Ritesh who has generally doesn’t build a lot of DEF% stats, leaving the other DD to clean up the rest. Pungbaek also has a base HP of 11,850 which is a crazy amount of base HP as you can easily get to 20,000 with just a bit of substats, which is essential to a cleave team to survive bad RNG.

Comparing against Lushens, is it a more effective AO? No. Double Lushens still stand as the most premier AO in the game. Does this mean that Pungbaek cannot serve in an effective end-game AO? Not necessarily either as a Will/Shield cleave team is much easier to build as compared to Double Lushens. Just because it’s not AS effective as double Lushens doesn’t mean it’s NOT effective.

-Arena Defense

No, I wouldn’t attempt to use Pungbaek here but feel free to let me know if you found an effective way to utilise him.

– Guild War Offence

This is where Pungbaek fulfils another unique niche. I use Pungbaek in 2 exclusive comps on GWO which are similar to the Arena ones but without Alicia so: – Pungbaek (L), Hwadam, Galleon – Pungbaek (L), Triton, Galleon

Now I know the question on everyone’s minds, what type of lineup do you bring him to? Well, he’s my go-to against all Seara + Orion + Fire Threat lineups. How it works is that Galleon simply needs to def break on either Seara or Orion, we all know how Galleon loves to derp so this helps reduce it since we only need 1. Once he blasts both Seara and Orion down with his S3, his S2 which cannot glance allows him to handle the final Fire threat, the one I like going up against the most being Rakan.

Likewise in Arena, Triana also works best in enabling PB to function as a standalone DD. You can also pair Pungbaek with a secondary DD in a Pungbaek/Galleon/DD Will/Shield comp and it will work just as well thanks to his 24% Crit Lead and high base HP.

In short, Pungbaek serves as a very good single DD in GWO against a few popular comps such as those with Seara, Chasun, Theomars, Orion and FY. You can always bring an additional DD depending on the threats you’re going up against.

Counters against Pungbaek

– Triana

As much as she serves to be one of PB’s best partners, she in return is the single hardest counter to PB. Triana’s passive functions by totally negating a death-dealing attack meaning that if the attack is fatal, her passive renders the attack to 0 damage. This means that PB’s single target nuke which will 99% of the time kill someone will deal 0 damage and 50% of 0 is also 0. So if you see a Triana, you’d best either avoid it or change your AO/GWO lineup.

– Anti-Crit Buff Units

Units such as Betta and Kabilla who bring an anti-crit buff is a great deterrent against any DD and PB is no different. With his reliance on a 1-time nuke, not getting a crit is pretty much akin to losing the match.

I do not wish to drone on too much as I’m also interested in sparking a discussion on where PB functions best and how he can be utilised in even more unique comps. I look forward to everyone’s discussion and please forgive me if there were any errors in my guide.

TL;DR: Pungbaek is a strong unit, not as OP as many other Nat 5’s but not worthy of an instant “RIP” either.