**** Iron Man (Hulkbuster) ****

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Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I'd go further and say any 4* who's better than Nick Fury is going to be nerfed.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    mjh wrote:
    This guy is a bit OP. I predict he will be like old 4Thor and take over this game. He will get the nerf bat like all before him have gotten. That is my prediction.

    But to talk about his abilities, one thing I realized is if he ever gets his blackflag.png off it's automatically followed up by redflag.png which will hit for a minimum of 5670 + 354 strike.png + 354 strike.png = 6378

    The AI will never use the black -> red combo on the same turn because of color priorities (red comes before black). So you'll always have one turn to try to dodge it, via stun, KO, Furious Charge, or other hail mary play you have up your sleeve.

    That's also why Cyclops would make a terrible partner for him, at least defensively. Unless sitting on exactly 9AP, you can expect to get hit with Optic Blasts most (all?) of the time.
  • Alkyoneus
    Alkyoneus Posts: 116 Tile Toppler
    I'm one of the few people who will probably have bought covers for him. I'm waiting for the nebulous "Ultron 10-pack makeup" reward to see if I get any more covers before making him 5/5/3; I love me some Iron Man and especially HB armor. But that's another topic. Back to the topic at hand, I've been using Mohawk Storm with him in the current Thick as Thieves event and been enjoying some good synergy with her green and yellow. Nothing game-changing, just adding her to the list of teammates who you can pair with him without too much troubles. Her green and yellow don't get in the way of HB's, and she board shakes enough to hopefully collect some red, black, or blue for him to use. Overall I like her a lot and will likely try her out in Sim with him once I get them all up to speed.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I leveled my Mohawk to 100 for this event (loving the new reduced ISO costs sub 120) and then reconsidered and ran SW with him instead, plus Blade, for his essential node. Not enough red for The Thirst? Gather blue and Hulk-Proof that board against Hulks (or something).
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Alkyoneus wrote:
    I'm one of the few people who will probably have bought covers for him. I'm waiting for the nebulous "Ultron 10-pack makeup" reward to see if I get any more covers before making him 5/5/3; I love me some Iron Man and especially HB armor. But that's another topic. Back to the topic at hand, I've been using Mohawk Storm with him in the current Thick as Thieves event and been enjoying some good synergy with her green and yellow. Nothing game-changing, just adding her to the list of teammates who you can pair with him without too much troubles. Her green and yellow don't get in the way of HB's, and she board shakes enough to hopefully collect some red, black, or blue for him to use. Overall I like her a lot and will likely try her out in Sim with him once I get them all up to speed.
    There's nothing wrong with spending to cover him/level him.

    If you like the character, etc. that's fine.

    It's just he's a very likely nerf target(being 4*, being an AP generator) and I shudder to even think of him going from current form to Ragnarok 3.0
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,760 Chairperson of the Boards
    So after playing the gimme hulk buster in TaT Hulkbuster is the new OP character. I think for pairing you just bring someone else with high health without a red or black ability. I think he more interesting item is who would you attach him wi if you did not have him? My first though is a team around KK. Her purple is cheep enough to keep changing the colors away from red and black, and her green can do close to 4k AOE damage? Pair her with She Hulk to steal the strike tiles IM can create and you might get away without using a health pack.
    If you want to go after red aggressively DP could be effective when buffed becuase for 6 red he can take chunks out if IM until another power can take him out.

    I don't know if and when he will be fun balanced but even with buffed 3* I am not looking forward to seeing him all over the place.
  • Arondite
    Arondite Posts: 1,188 Chairperson of the Boards
    wymtime wrote:
    I don't know if and when he will be fun balanced but even with buffed 3* I am not looking forward to seeing him all over the place.

    Already we're doing this?

    pls no
  • notamutant
    notamutant Posts: 855 Critical Contributor
    I don't think he will be nerfed. He is really good, but his black, which is essential to use him well, has a big drawback for continued use. It prevents him from being overpowered when pushing up in pvp, although it does make him crazy on defense since he won't have that drawback.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Add him to the soon to be nerfed list with Prof X.

    HB is head and shoulders above 4hor Fury Xforce. They are seen to be balanced by the devs so expect a HB nerf at some point in the future.
    How long depends on how many people buy covers and how prevalent he becomes in pvps. Already starting to see a lot of maxed HBs.

    A month or 2? Longer? Who knows. If you buy now expecting a nerf later you could get some could use out of him to win a bunch of pvps and the sell with the increased buy back after the nerf hits. Not a bad idea just costs a lot of hp.
    notamutant wrote:
    I don't think he will be nerfed. He is really good, but his black, which is essential to use him well, has a big drawback for continued use. It prevents him from being overpowered when pushing up in pvp, although it does make him crazy on defense since he won't have that drawback.

    Remember what happened to Sentry?
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    He seems like an obvious pair with anyone with a "good" fake heal will be useful to extend the utility of IMHB's black. KK is the standout there, and the colors match well too, but Spidey and beast might also work well when boosted.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    kerravon wrote:
    Add him to the soon to be nerfed list with Prof X.

    HB is head and shoulders above 4hor Fury Xforce. They are seen to be balanced by the devs so expect a HB nerf at some point in the future.
    How long depends on how many people buy covers and how prevalent he becomes in pvps. Already starting to see a lot of maxed HBs.

    A month or 2? Longer? Who knows. If you buy now expecting a nerf later you could get some could use out of him to win a bunch of pvps and the sell with the increased buy back after the nerf hits. Not a bad idea just costs a lot of hp.
    notamutant wrote:
    I don't think he will be nerfed. He is really good, but his black, which is essential to use him well, has a big drawback for continued use. It prevents him from being overpowered when pushing up in pvp, although it does make him crazy on defense since he won't have that drawback.

    Remember what happened to Sentry?

    The difference is that Sentry pre-nerf could reliably end fights in less than 30 seconds. At the time, there was no one with more health than hulk, so max boost --> World Rupture --> Sacrifice --> Intimidation and it was all over.

    Even if we all agree that IMHB is head and shoulders above the rest of the field, he won't be able to do that. Even if you max boosted black, made two black matches and fired repulsor punch immediately, you are still only doing around 6k to a single target.

    He will be dominant defensively, and might be as OP was Thorverine was from December 2014 --> March 2015, but I don't think he will be quite as meta-defining at sentry. All of which is to say that I would expect a nerf at some point, but i don't think it will be quite as brutal as senty's (though perhaps as bad as Xforce, which would be almost as bad for those who buy 4+ covers outright).
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,760 Chairperson of the Boards
    notamutant wrote:
    I don't think he will be nerfed. He is really good, but his black, which is essential to use him well, has a big drawback for continued use. It prevents him from being overpowered when pushing up in pvp, although it does make him crazy on defense since he won't have that drawback.
    He has 18k health who cares about 150 Per match when you get 9 red AP to nuke someone?
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    IMHB is pretty much like Thor 3*. Just bigger and better numbers at everything, but lacking in any fundamentally broken moves. Of course, until Sentry comes along, having bigger numbers than anyone else is still plenty meta-defining. It's just not like Sentry where you can't even try to keep up with World Rupture without him. Sure, IMHB is going to have an edge on you if you don't have him just because he has bigger numbers on any similarly cost moves, but he's not like Sentry where he can often pull a 2-match World Rupture (when combined with The Hood, or simply on offense) that is almost game ending. Overdrive can be considered a game ending move, but you still got to collect that 11 black AP the old fashion way. You can throw in the AP accelerators but there are also plenty of powerful 4 match black moves. It might be the best one but it's not the difference between Surgical Strike and the rest of the 4-match blacks. Thor basically got nerfed by getting no HP increase so it's something like a 5%-20% power loss (he didn't get the 5% extra HP he should, while a lot of other guys got far more than that to withstand his moves) and if a nerf happens to IMHB it'd look pretty similar to that too.
  • Inarius
    Inarius Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    what about setting him at 3/5/5 and placing him with IF and Sentry.

    IF will feed black to IMHB who in turn will feed red to Sentry which will bomb the enemy team for over 3k almost each time...yes, supernova comes with a price but with the new hp boosts one could handle around 2 maybe 3 matches...assuming it doesn't take that long to feed him.

    anyone tried it this way?
  • Arondite
    Arondite Posts: 1,188 Chairperson of the Boards
    Why are people saying he's "head and shoulders" above? He is the best, yes, but it's not like these heroes are in completely separate leagues. He's the best, but he's not "shut you out, if you ain't got it you ain't winnin'" good.
  • mjh
    mjh Posts: 708 Critical Contributor
    Arondite wrote:
    Why are people saying he's "head and shoulders" above? He is the best, yes, but it's not like these heroes are in completely separate leagues. He's the best, but he's not "shut you out, if you ain't got it you ain't winnin'" good.
    He will become just as original 4Thor was. To reach 1k progression IMHB covers you will be fighting a wall of IMHB. Then it becomes you need to have IMHB to get IMHB.

    That's how it was for 4Thor, that's how it will be for IMHB.
  • Arondite
    Arondite Posts: 1,188 Chairperson of the Boards
    mjh wrote:
    Arondite wrote:
    Why are people saying he's "head and shoulders" above? He is the best, yes, but it's not like these heroes are in completely separate leagues. He's the best, but he's not "shut you out, if you ain't got it you ain't winnin'" good.
    He will become just as original 4Thor was. To reach 1k progression IMHB covers you will be fighting a wall of IMHB. Then it becomes you need to have IMHB to get IMHB.

    That's how it was for 4Thor, that's how it will be for IMHB.

    'cept I, and many others, got 4Thor covers without 4Thor. You will certainly fight a ton of IMHB. But you can hit 1K on 3 Star teams alone. That won't really change, you'll just most likely get hit by Hulk Buster a lot on your way up.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Arondite wrote:
    Why are people saying he's "head and shoulders" above? He is the best, yes, but it's not like these heroes are in completely separate leagues. He's the best, but he's not "shut you out, if you ain't got it you ain't winnin'" good.

    We don't know if IMHB will be essential (though I suspect he will be as essential as 4* thor was pre-nerf. All of the best players will have IMHB, so while it will still be technically possible to fight against him to get to 1k, it will be much riskier and more expensive.

    Also, I would argue that being substantially better than all the competition is more or less the definition of being "head and shoulders above." Obviously, it's still a bit early to truly evaluate IMHB; he won't have a chance to dominate the meta until many more people have him covered and leveled.

    But his power set and massive health pool suggest that he will be extremely good. And those people who have bought covers are corroborating the paper stats, so his dominance seems like a fairly safe bet.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Vhailorx wrote:
    Arondite wrote:
    Why are people saying he's "head and shoulders" above? He is the best, yes, but it's not like these heroes are in completely separate leagues. He's the best, but he's not "shut you out, if you ain't got it you ain't winnin'" good.

    We don't know if IMHB will be essential (though I suspect he will be as essential as 4* thor was pre-nerf. All of the best players will have IMHB, so while it will still be technically possible to fight against him to get to 1k, it will be much riskier and more expensive.

    Also, I would argue that being substantially better than all the competition is more or less the definition of being "head and shoulders above." Obviously, it's still a bit early to truly evaluate IMHB; he won't have a chance to dominate the meta until many more people have him covered and leveled.

    But his power set and massive health pool suggest that he will be extremely good. And those people who have bought covers are corroborating the paper stats, so his dominance seems like a fairly safe bet.
    theres also the fact that the "main" 4* characters have been dethroned, and the spot for top char is empty. Yes professor x fufills a niche as a 'top character', but certainly not as straightforwardly as xforce/4*thor
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    raisinbman wrote:
    Yes professor x fufills a niche as a 'top character', but certainly not as straightforwardly as xforce/4*thor
    ... and if you leave him up on defense, the entire world thinks his bald head is a pinata. For all the talk about his scary invisibility tile, no one is really afraid of it at all, and no one has any trouble at all beating him.

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