Iron Man (Model 40) Updates Coming Soon

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hello,

As mentioned in the February Community Video the next Marvel Puzzle Quest character slated for updated abilities is Iron Man (Model 40). The update is planned for arrival with the R94 patch.

Here’s details from Demiurge:

"Iron Man is one of the premier characters of the Marvel Universe and one of the first 3-Star characters we made. Unfortunately, as more heroes were released, Model 40 fell behind, leaving him a little rusty. We hope these changes will give players a reason to get excited to have Tony Stark and his Model 40 suit on their team again.

For Unibeam, we added more base damage, reduced the number of AP pools the ability drains, and added more damage as the ability upgrades. For Ballistic Salvo, we reduced the cost to 16 AP, changed the AP pools it drains from, removed the stun, and added to the total amount of tiles it destroys. Lastly, for Recharge, we made the ability get cheaper as it levels up and changed the AP pools it generates."

***IRON MAN (MODEL 40)***

NEW - Unibeam - Red 13
Iron Man diverts excess power to a focused energy beam blasted from Model 40’s chest. Deals 1036 damage and drains up to 4 of the team's Yellow, Purple and Black AP.
Level 2: Deals 1198 Damage.
Level 3: Deals 1281 damage and drains up to 3 of the team's Yellow, Purple and Black AP.
Level 4: Deals 1599 damage.
Level 5: Deals 2172 damage and drains up to 2 of the team's Yellow, Purple and Black AP.
MAX: Iron Man diverts excess power to a focused energy beam blasted from Model 40’s chest. Deals 6781 damage and drains up to 2 of the team's Yellow, Purple and Black AP.

(Old Values: Unibeam - Red 13 Tony Stark diverts all power to a focused energy beam fired from Model 40's chest. Deals 473 damage and costs 4 of the team's AP in every other color. Level 2: 10% damage Level 3: Drains 3 AP from other colors. Level 4: 10% damage Level 5: Drains 2 AP from other colors. Max Level: 3559 damage)

NEW - Ballistic Salvo - Blue 16
Tony Stark shoots to thrill, letting loose a barrage of charged homing missiles at his enemies. Deals 508 damage to the enemy team, destroys 3 random basic tiles and drains 3 of the team’s Yellow, Purple and Black AP. (Destroyed tiles do not generate AP.)
Level 2: Deals 601 damage to the enemy team.
Level 3: Deals 625 damage to the enemy team and drains the team's Yellow, Purple and Black AP.
Level 4: Deals 757 damage to the enemy team and destroys 4 random basic tiles.
Level 5: Deals 1035 damage to the enemy team and destroys 6 random basic tiles.
MAX: Tony Stark shoots to thrill, letting loose a barrage of charged homing missiles at his enemies. Deals 3235 damage to the enemy team, destroys 6 random basic tiles and drains 3 of the team’s Yellow, Purple and Black AP. (Destroyed tiles do not generate AP.)

(Old Values: Ballistic Salvo - Blue 20 Fires charged homing missiles. They do 355 damage to each enemy and crater the battlefield, destroying 3 basic tiles. Uses reserve power, sapping 3 AP from other AP colors. Level 2: 10% damage Level 3: Reduces non-Blue AP drain to 2. Level 4: 10% damage Level 5: Stuns current target for 2 turns. Max Level: 2669 damage)

NEW - Recharge - Yellow 8
Tony recharges Model 40’s weapon systems to give his opponents a taste of what this baby’s capable of. Creates 3 2-Turn Countdown tiles that restore 3 Red & Blue AP each, but stun Iron Man for 2 turns.
Level 2: Each Tile also Restores 2 Green AP.
Level 3: Recharge costs 7 AP to fire.
Level 4: Recharge costs 6 AP to fire and each tiles produces 3 Green AP.
Level 5: Each Countdown tiles produces 4 Red & Blue AP, 3 Green AP and 1 Purple AP.
MAX: Tony recharges Model 40’s weapon systems to give his opponents a taste of what this baby’s capable of. Creates 3 2-Turn Countdown tiles that restore 4 Red AP, 4 Blue AP, 3 Green AP & 1 Purple AP each, but stun Iron Man for 2 turns.

(Old Values: Recharge - Yellow 6 Recharges weapon systems. Creates 3 Countdown tiles that activate after 2 turns, restoring 3 Red AP each. Iron Man is then stunned for 2 turns as systems reinitialize. Level 2: Each Countdown tile also restores 3 Blue AP. Costs 8 AP. Level 3: Each Countdown tile also restores 2 Green AP. Costs 10 AP. Level 4: Each Countdown tile also restores 2 Purple AP. Costs 12 AP. Level 5: Each Countdown tile also restores 2 Black AP. Costs 14 AP.)

NickHewitt12

Now THAT is giving new life to a useless character. Solid 5/3/5. Great work guys!

boldfacedfemme

I could get on board with this.

SnowcaTT

Heard a birdie say this was coming long ago, and champed him looking forward to this change. I'm excited to see if he has a place in combo land now that 3*'s are outclassed and soon will be outnumbered by 4*'s...or if he can hold his own as a boosted essential now.

20three

Damn, just trashed my iron man. No big loss, he's still pretty bad.

fmftint

Red is still over costed, it shouldn't drain ap from other color pools.

Now 5 yellow is required

Monged4life

Thank you again! This change is fantastic. That red damage is comparable to Luke Cage, love it! Yellow is solid now, and blue is alright, but probably going to be ignored in every case for maxed yellow and red.

Wonder who is next?

Pylgrim

The only upgrade truly worthy of a character in these times is his Yellow. His Red is now the second highest single damage ability in 3* land, but taking in account that the first (Full Blast) doesn't have a drawback but only an easy to accomplish condition and the close third (Righteous Uppercut) has a condition that is easier to fulfill than not, the fact that it drains up to 6 AP makes it but a last resort. Blue is still, by far, the worst AoE ability in 3* land and it /still/ has a big drawback. It would still be terrible value without it, so I can't understand why it wasn't removed if it also lost one of its positive effects with the cost reduction.

wymtime

SnowcaTT wrote:

Heard a birdie say this was coming long ago, and champed him looking forward to this change. I'm excited to see if he has a place in combo land now that 3*'s are outclassed and soon will be outnumbered by 4*'s...or if he can hold his own as a boosted essential now.

Run him with 4Thor and KP. Now with the Cheeper powers you can run KP 5,3,5 instead of 5,5,3. This is a great PVE team. Now yellow is Cheeper you can run him with Anyone who has expensive red, green, or blue powers. RHulk, HB, Iceman. You can even run him with Ant man and actually fire off grow with Ant mans blue!!!

STOPTHIS

Not exactly what I was hoping to see, sucks his red still has a drawback, but that yellow! He's definitely going to get some love now outside of lightning rounds.

SnowcaTT

Pylgrim wrote:

The only upgrade truly worthy of a character in these times is his Yellow. His Red is now the second highest single damage ability in 3* land, but taking in account that the first (Full Blast) doesn't have a drawback but only an easy to accomplish condition and the close third (Righteous Uppercut) has a condition that is easier to fulfill than not, the fact that it drains up to 6 AP makes it but a last resort. Blue is still, by far, the worst AoE ability in 3* land and it /still/ has a big drawback. It would still be terrible value without it, so I can't understand why it wasn't removed if it also lost one of its positive effects with the cost reduction.

I'm always a little shocked when they do the "obviously this configuration/build". Especially now with champions, where re-spec is easy. Why not Blade-type, where I'm actually changing back and forth depending on the event that is being run? It smacks of lazy development, not putting to much thought into balancing the three abilities.

Ruinate

Am I reading this correctly? For 6 yellow you can potentially gain 12 red, 12 blue, 9 green and 3 pink?

How do you go from such garbage to this?? I think he may have just become the greatest character ever.

SnowcaTT

Ruinate wrote:

Am I reading this correctly? For 6 yellow you can potentially gain 12 red, 12 blue, 9 green and 3 pink?

How do you go from such garbage to this?? I think he may have just become the greatest character ever.

It's quite a shock when you compare it to the "buff" quicksilver just received....

stochasticism

Can't wait to play him with kk.

Ruinate

SnowcaTT wrote:

Ruinate wrote:

Am I reading this correctly? For 6 yellow you can potentially gain 12 red, 12 blue, 9 green and 3 pink?

How do you go from such garbage to this?? I think he may have just become the greatest character ever.

It's quite a shock when you compare it to the "buff" quicksilver just received....

With 6 yellow you can Lazer someone and be half way there from a fully powered Hammer+Anvil. That's crazy.


I would like a clarification on blue. At first I thought it meant it drains the enemy teams pink/black/yellow. To me it reads "Blue does this and this and this" not "Blue does this and this, but this." Probably not considering how stupid his yellow is.

Mawtful

Definitely a step in the right direction. As others have said, I think the AP drain is still a little too severe - particularly on his blue. There's a strong case to be made for 5/3/5 as a generic build. There's a little competition for Red nukes, though, so 3/5/5 might actually be a better build if you're pairing him with, say, Cyclops.

As a side note, the self-AP drain is much more akin to a Black type ability, rather than Red or Blue - any thoughts about adding the stun back to Salvo but changing it to Black? I know we have a tonne of Red/Black/Yellow characters, but I think it could be a good thematic change - and creates additional diversity between the Iron Man suits ( -> -> ).

Unknown

I'm honestly half afraid to talk about how hype that yellow is out of fear it'll get nerfed.

Like, lets run a team of 3*

Your first two moves, you get 6 yellow. Not unreasonable. Make sure there's no easy yellow matches. Clear them up if there are.

Fire Recharge. (And get a heal for it), and keep those CDs safe for two turns.

All three go off.

You now have 12 , 12 , 9 , and 3 (6 Yellow into 36 AP!!!)

On turn 5, The Cap Train is rolling.

Shields are tossed, players with annoying passives are stunned, and you only need 1 AP in 3 turns to throw the shield again. And you also got two heals for it.

You're also only 1 Green match-3 away from Kamala tossing down some pretty big AOE damage on top of it.

You're tossing shields left and right now, and you got Kamala healing you for each one. This is a team that can start at half health and keep going no problem, so long as you can get Two. Yellow. Matches.

This loadout is just beastly.

TheOncomingStorm

Perfect job. The definition of a balanced character (blue and red caveats balance out the strength of yellow).

I finally have renewed hope for xfw green, 4or yellow, and hulk green.

Disregard the talk of red and blue and ap drain, single abilities can not be evaluated in a vacuum.

P.S. For skeptics, he's a 3*, shouldn't compare to 4* or 5*. He's very good. Maybe not cyclops or fist tier, but definitely lazy thor and colossus tier.

TLCstormz

This seems waaaaay too good to be true......

babinro

Yellow is clearly OP for the cost. That's completely nuts.

I'm not upset about it though since at 3* tier an overpowered ability won't ruin things anymore. OBW's purple has been too strong for a long time now but it's fine cause she's a 2*. Iron Fists purple is still too strong IMO and he's been fine since 4* tier really came into it's own.

IM40 absolutely has the potential to open up new teams which is great. Even if the yellow takes things too far this is what we needed from a balance change. The red and blue both feel like viable options now as well. While 5/3/5 feels like the standout build it's entirely possible you'll go 3/5/5 and pair him with another red spender so to not drain team AP.

Great job!

ronin_san

Still not a fan. The caveat AP loss is a tough pill to swallow.

The yellow is a huge improvement, but let's not kid ourselves.