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

lukewin

When I use him, probably only in his PVP, I'll be saying/hearing the Capcom soundbite, IIIIIIIIIICEMAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!! every time I use a power. When I use Patch, I still say/hear Berrrrserrrrrker Baaaraaaage!!!!!!

evil panda

i think i'll be hearing that song from Frozen..."do you wanna build a snoowmaaan?"

dr tinykittylove

Might be an argument for a 3/5/5 Rags build for a partner.

Jathro

Competing blues and greens? To feed green?

MarcusGraves

evil panda wrote:

i think i'll be hearing that song from Frozen..."do you wanna build a snoowmaaan?"

no...no... DAMNIT NOOOOOO

poomermon

MarcusGraves wrote:

evil panda wrote:

i think i'll be hearing that song from Frozen..."do you wanna build a snoowmaaan?"

no...no... DAMNIT NOOOOOO

I think you should just let it go.

CaptainFreaky

Seems like such an easy 5/5/3. Purple is cool, but Green & Blue are simply too powerful not to max - that is if his purpose is primarily as a damage dealer and not as a nuisance/support character. His Purple can mess up opposing teams, but to me he seems too potent at offence not to max those aspects, eg collect 12 blue and lay down the frozen hammer so to speak.

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

When I use him, probably only in his PVP, I'll be saying/hearing the Capcom soundbite, IIIIIIIIIICEMAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!! every time I use a power. When I use Patch, I still say/hear Berrrrserrrrrker Baaaraaaage!!!!!!

I always hear "JUGGERNAUT *pause* HEADRUSH" whenever I see headbutts.

notamutant

So can we focus on teammates some more, for both PvE and PvP? I saw someone mention Hulkbuster, so you can get black and red, although yellow still isn't covered. Although with so many useful damaging moves, you won't need every color. Who else works well? Jean Grey has too much color coverage.

Isay_Isay

Kingpin would work. Purple is the same cost for both plus it gives you some flexibility to do a direct AP drain/gain or use Iceman's if the board is setup for cascades. Cheap CD tile to be poked away and you could even stun two characters for a slight drop in damage (Snowman->Poke->Snowman). Would still need a Red outlet.

GrumpySmurf1002

notamutant wrote:

So can we focus on teammates some more, for both PvE and PvP? I saw someone mention Hulkbuster, so you can get black and red, although yellow still isn't covered. Although with so many useful damaging moves, you won't need every color. Who else works well? Jean Grey has too much color coverage.

Starlord's yellow (4+ covers) reduces IceMan's blue to 4AP and his green to 10. That's pretty lethal, and covers all but black.

notamutant

Isay_Isay wrote:

Kingpin would work. Purple is the same cost for both plus it gives you some flexibility to do a direct AP drain/gain or use Iceman's if the board is setup for cascades. Cheap CD tile to be poked away and you could even stun two characters for a slight drop in damage (Snowman->Poke->Snowman). Would still need a Red outlet.

I am not so sure I would use poke that way. Yes, you can't always get 12 AP in one color as fast as 6 AP in two colors, but you are doing a lot less damage. Maybe in the rare circumstance where stunning two guys is more useful than extra damage.

Buret0

I like him because it isn't obvious which way to cover him. Kudos to the designer on this one!

Vhailorx

Buret0 wrote:

I like him because it isn't obvious which way to cover him. Kudos to the designer on this one!

I agree that he does seem to be well I designed, but I do think that 5/5/3 seems like the best build. This is the case with all other characters that have a similar power (imhb's blue, kingpin's purple, cyclops' yellow, etc). Most of its utility is captured in the first 3 covers, and the 3->5 gap isn't as meaningful as it is for the other 2 powers.

Unknown

Problem with his purple is that it's red dependant, so a simple double cast alredy goes to waste most of the time even at 3 covers. I don't see any point into using more than 3 on that purple. The same reason we use 535 cyke and 355 kk, he can get few to none tile change after the first cast while hers can only make bigger blobs of green due to versatility.

I would even pair kk with him just to use her purple instead of his, 553 kk is a beast as pure support. And again, SW blue either exploding or just popping up after his purple has been used can make easy match 4/5s.

Buret0

Vhailorx wrote:

I agree that he does seem to be well I designed, but I do think that 5/5/3 seems like the best build. This is the case with all other characters that have a similar power (imhb's blue, kingpin's purple, cyclops' yellow, etc). Most of its utility is captured in the first 3 covers, and the 3->5 gap isn't as meaningful as it is for the other 2 powers.

I don't know... at X/X/3 he only drains two red AP. Those last two covers will make a big difference in usage.

GrumpySmurf1002

I can't think of a situation where those 2 tiles are worth giving up thousands of damage.

Polares

Well another very very good 4, the list is bigger and bigger with every new addition.

First he is by far the best stunner in the whole game, 4 turns for just 6AP is REALLY good, far better than Reeds and 4hor. Just for this ability he is going to be very annoying to play against. And then the second part of the ability is also really powerful, but I dont know if he would have been even better just with a 6AP - 4 turn stunner (with 12 AP you would leave the other team allmost unusable for 4 turns).

Then the most powerful AoE of the whole game. 6k to everybody is MASSIVE. And again just for 12 AP.

For me the third power more than an anti-IMHB is just an enhancer for the other two. So this is the one with 3 covers. But I could see somebody that it is just interested in the stun and doesnt care about the damage and prefers to have this ability at its most.

I dont still dont know though which is going to be his best partner, Kingpin maybe? Or 5/3/5 Antman? Maybe even IMHB, blue is for iceman and you get red just from black. There is not an obvious partner, I think maybe it will be a new future 4

Buret0

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I can't think of a situation where those 2 tiles are worth giving up thousands of damage.

None of the 4 cover builds are ideal... you give away too much by missing the 5th cover in green or blue. 4/4/5 would be the worst of all of the builds.

I'm already getting the 4-turn stun at 3 covers on his blue. At 5/3/5 I am creating 7 blue tiles and draining 4 red AP. Those blue tiles are only an extra 538 damage on the entire enemy team or an extra 1,614 damage. If you think that there are, on average, 9 blue tiles and 9 red tiles on the board... well, it is tough not to want to maximize that nuke with more tiles. On D, the AI is going to struggle with putting together back-to-back blue abilities, so this build focuses on red AP drain and hitting the other team with stuns and a pretty sizable green nuke. The AI may save enough blue AP to use the big hit if there's enough out there.

In a 3/5/5 build, those 7 blue tiles will create extra blue AP to pack a big punch into the blue ability. You can expect some cascades that will power up other teammates as well, but your nuke has been crippled in strength, which is less than ideal. However, on D, this build will be more able to actually fire off the blue ability more than once (see luke cage's black).

In a 5/5/3 build, you lose 1 red AP drain and 2 blue tiles, which could mean leaving more tiles on the board for the green nuke, but it slows down the production for the blue (which requires 12 blue AP). On D, you are going to see the AI failing to use the 5 points in blue to the optimal power, rarely getting full use of the 5 covers. On O, you will be more strategic on how to use this character, but it isn't going to be a beautiful D prize the way Hulkbuster is.

Buret0

Polares wrote:

I dont still dont know though which is going to be his best partner, Kingpin maybe? Or 5/3/5 Antman? Maybe even IMHB, blue is for iceman and you get red just from black. There is not an obvious partner, I think maybe it will be a new future 4

Yeah, looking at my roster, some of the big guns are immediately out. Destroys red: hulkbuster and 4Pool aren't happy about that. Competes with Jean and KK on both Green and Purple, so they are out. Carnage and Thing both want red and green, so they are out. Silver Surfer wants blue and red, so there's competition there, but he is going to tank and do excellent match damage on all your blues. Iron fist wants purple, so they are at odds. Captain Falcon is going to decrease the count on his Ice tile (and wants red), so I wouldn't pair them up. Reed wants blue for his own stun, and imaginaut isn't going to power blue or purple.

PX wants purple, but he's always cool to share. With the number of ability activations you expect out of a fast character like Ice, he's going to be useful in his tile creation and his master plan usage. If high enough level, PX will use the purple -> blue cascades to create even more blue (if the strongest color), so he could play very well with a 3/5/5 Ice. Wolvie would have fun with that 3/5/5 build too... surgical strike and X-Force would add to the cascade chaos (and he uses green instead of the 3 cover nuke).

Switch is always a favorite of mine whenever I need purple, so in an X/X/5 build, I think she would be useful... especially with the free blue AP she produces every once in awhile. Of course, keeping her protect tiles safe in a blue heavy environment will be a trick. I still think she's going to be the best option in 3* land.

Cyclops creates red, which can be used to create blue after the cascades stop. They might be fun, even though everyone uses a 5/3/5 cyc, and you need red on the board to maximize his damage.

5/5/3 Quicksilver doesn't have any major conflicts. They should do well together, except only when he's boosted... because he's pretty weak.

5/3/5 Panther when he's boosted? 5/3/5 Hulk when he's boosted? Get more green on the board, but he's not going to tank on O with a maxed out Ice.

I'm thinking that Ice + Switch + ??? is where I'm headed. Third will be based on who is boosted. Jean makes a nice back-up. No matter which one you down, you still have a big AoE to worry about, plus her passive protects you. Hood when boosted would make for some nice acceleration and doesn't have any conflicts with SW and Ice. Someone with a ton of health like Kingpin would be good, and only conflict is with his purple.