**** Iceman (All New X-Men) ****

notamutant

https://youtu.be/f3KbV6eVLkg

I went back to make a video of Iceman. He still stacks up really well even with newer 4 stars out. He is one of the few characters capable of being on a team of 4 stars that can beat 5 stars. I really love using him with Nova to get some perma stunlocks going on the whole team, as can be seen around 12 minutes into the video.

Vhailorx

Still the best 4* in the game.

Good in every mode of play, plays well with lots of different characters. Just generally awesome!

Cousin Simpson

I'm a new convert to the Iceman is 4* God Church, and I've been having a ball pairing him with IM40; however, I've seen people mention that IMHB is also a good partner. Is that primarily for PVP? And do people prefer IMHB because of his massive health pool and red nuke (potentially enhanced with the black) at the cost of slower green/blue generation?

notamutant

Cousin Simpson wrote:

I'm a new convert to the Iceman is 4* God Church, and I've been having a ball pairing him with IM40; however, I've seen people mention that IMHB is also a good partner. Is that primarily for PVP? And do people prefer IMHB because of his massive health pool and red nuke (potentially enhanced with the black) at the cost of slower green/blue generation?

Generally, higher health means you scare people off more in PvP, as well as being able to play longer. IM40 with a bunch of champion levels is just as useful if not more useful than IMHB. At lower levels, its risky using a lower health 3 star in this age of super high damage moves. IMHBs black is good too. It really depends on the boosted characters of the week though. Overall, IM40 and Iceman are a great team. I even found a use for Starlord with Iceman, since his yellow makes Icemans blue only 4 AP.

Crowl

Cousin Simpson wrote:

I'm a new convert to the Iceman is 4* God Church, and I've been having a ball pairing him with IM40; however, I've seen people mention that IMHB is also a good partner. Is that primarily for PVP? And do people prefer IMHB because of his massive health pool and red nuke (potentially enhanced with the black) at the cost of slower green/blue generation?

I find that IM40 is useful to speed up your initial climb, but once you get to a certain point level, the gain in speed is easily offset by how much more appealing a target he makes you, people will just take him out first when you are on defence and you'll end up losing more points from attacks while you were in your own match.

Blahahah

Ice Man is god, and Kingpin is his prophet.

All hail Iceman + Kingpin + Iron man.

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Hallowed be thy combo of Fisk Defense into Recharge.

Crowl

Blahahah wrote:

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Not sure that is such a praiseworthy combo, it is merely a weaker stand-in when you don't have 6 more blue to use ice's punch instead.

Vhailorx

Ice blue + kp black + ice blue is useful in 2 circumstances:

(1) kp is boosted and ice isn't. When this is the case, a finger poke does more damage; or

(2) when you prefer to stun two enemies for 4 turns, but only have 12-17 blue ap.

Additionally, kp + im40 + ice is a solid combo. It's got rainbow coverage, and it's much easier to get recharge off with kp playing yellow battery.

Blahahah

Crowl wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Not sure that is such a praiseworthy combo, it is merely a weaker stand-in when you don't have 6 more blue to use ice's punch instead.

Stunning for 4 turns with KP and iron man as batteries is far more valuable than the damage. The poke simply resets the stun.

Piro_plock

Blahahah wrote:

Crowl wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Not sure that is such a praiseworthy combo, it is merely a weaker stand-in when you don't have 6 more blue to use ice's punch instead.

Stunning for 4 turns with KP and iron man as batteries is far more valuable than the damage. The poke simply resets the stun.

I am still questioning the superiority of poking the snowman under normal conditions (i.e.both on level 270, no boosts). IM40 does not generate black, in fact both his red and blue drain black ap! Of course you don't use his blue, but red can be a very handy finisher.
A much better option would be saving up 12 yellow ap (perhaps with the help of Fisk Defence) and launching two Recharges at once. This way you can do stun-punch-stun-punch, dealing over 16k damage (most likely killing any character below level 300) and stunning two others. Not to mention 18 green ap you collect this way (1.5 Whiteouts!)

Blahahah

Piro_plock wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

Crowl wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Not sure that is such a praiseworthy combo, it is merely a weaker stand-in when you don't have 6 more blue to use ice's punch instead.

Stunning for 4 turns with KP and iron man as batteries is far more valuable than the damage. The poke simply resets the stun.

I am still questioning the superiority of poking the snowman under normal conditions (i.e.both on level 270, no boosts). IM40 does not generate black, in fact both his red and blue drain black ap! Of course you don't use his blue, but red can be a very handy finisher.
A much better option would be saving up 12 yellow ap (perhaps with the help of Fisk Defence) and launching two Recharges at once. This way you can do stun-punch-stun-punch, dealing over 16k damage (most likely killing any character below level 300) and stunning two others. Not to mention 18 green ap you collect this way (1.5 Whiteouts!)

While that may be true, 6 black isn't necessarily hard to get you know. Also if I fire off two recharges with a poke I could do stun - poke - stun - punch - stun and then their entire team is stunned for 4 turns with one or two of them taking huge damage in the meantime. Then it's as simple as popping a whiteout or two to finish the job.

At the end of the day though if I had 18 blue and 6 black I'd still do stun - poke 2nd - stun 3rd - punch 2nd. It deals about 14k damage (still enough to kill most people) and it's less expensive to deal with. After that point, I'm basically free to do whatever I want because I'll never be short on AP between Kingpin and Iron man.

That's my playstyle though, I enjoy the CC and denial game. It's not like your idea isn't good, and KP could serve admirably simply as a yellow battery for IM and nothing else, but I feel his poke definitely has it's place as a cheap, highly damaging, valuable alternative to spending blue you could be using to stun.

Crowl

I can see the benefits of using a poke over a punch at times depending on ap levels, my only objection was the hyping of the combo when the alternate ice-based version is the better one at times.

Blahahah

Crowl wrote:

I can see the benefits of using a poke over a punch at times depending on ap levels, my only objection was the hyping of the combo when the alternate ice-based version is the better one at times.

hyping was meant to be hyperbolic. It's a nifty combo and one I like to use, but by no means is it completely optimal. If there's just one or two guys left, you'd bet your bacon I'd just go for punch and completely remove one of them.

(Also I had to consider that if you have Iceman in front, the AI will use snowman before poke naturally so the combo has its merits outside of pure offense. At the very least it helps the AI be a little less derp.)

Piro_plock

Blahahah wrote:

(Also I had to consider that if you have Iceman in front, the AI will use snowman before poke naturally so the combo has its merits outside of pure offense. At the very least it helps the AI be a little less derp.)

The order of characters doesn't matter. AI fires powers in a fixed order of colours:

Iceman can sit in the back. Blue comes before black, so if AI has 6 blue and 6 black, Iceman will go first, then Kingpin will poke the countdown.

Blahahah

Piro_plock wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

(Also I had to consider that if you have Iceman in front, the AI will use snowman before poke naturally so the combo has its merits outside of pure offense. At the very least it helps the AI be a little less derp.)

The order of characters doesn't matter. AI fires powers in a fixed order of colours:

Iceman can sit in the back. Blue comes before black, so if AI has 6 blue and 6 black, Iceman will go first, then Kingpin will poke the countdown.

AH! Good to know.

Banjo

Blahahah wrote:

Ice Man is god, and Kingpin is his prophet.

All hail Iceman + Kingpin + Iron man.

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Hallowed be thy combo of Fisk Defense into Recharge.

Just got my KP champed (thanks new SHIELD levels!), & my Iceman is 279 - going to give this a try, thanks!

sambrookjm

Blahahah wrote:

Ice Man is god, and Kingpin is his prophet.

All hail Iceman + Kingpin + Iron man.

Praise be to the combo of snowman + poke + another snowman.

Hallowed be thy combo of Fisk Defense into Recharge.

Even with a 2/3/5 Kingpin, this is a darned good team. It's become one of my go to teams...thanks to a champed Iceman.

Tiger_Wong

Finally champed Iceman this week. I can now run this team without fear.....

iceman
medusa
carnage

D4Ni13

Manage to finally champ Iceman, after a long wait for the last cover. Other than Vulture, who should I pair him with ?

Dormammu

I like him with Carnage and Medusa, but really - Iceman fits on any team where his colors don't create a major conflict since he self-synergizes. IM40 (of course) will speed him up.