Iām far from an expert of Iron Man, but I see it at a different angle. With certain assists, Iron Man can play a very good midrange game, and with the damage that he can rack up with assists + repulsor /spread x 2 to photon canon, I really think Iron Man should be placed 1st. It sounds crazy, yes, he doesnāt look as intimidating as Wesker, Vergil, Zero, Magneto, Storm, Dante, Wolverine, the usual 1st character, but i think he can stand toe to toe with most of them if played correctly, and 1 touch can lead to 1m damage with 1 bar. Iron Man in xfc is great, but i truly believe he needs assists to back him up and maximize his damage, my theory is instead of putting him 3rd and use 2 points/ 1 assist (iron man is good in xfc but once it runs out, he can be in trouble), put iron man as 1st and play 2 characters that has an assist that benefit him and also playable alone, like a 3 points composition. Iām thinking Iron Man/ Nova /Spencer , Iron Man/ Dante/ Hawkeye, Iron Man / Storm/ Doom something like that. Still needs a lot of lab work and player matches to prove this theory 
Talking to Flash on Monday; heās convinced Iron Man is absolute trash, which is more inspiration for me to stick with him for a bit.
I really canāt condone building an entire team around Ultimate Iron man. Thatās essentially what youāre implying with that composition. I canāt condone your reasoning either. Saying you should build a team around U Iron Man on point just because he can land a 1 mil combo with certain Characters/Assists (which likely requires the corner) is like saying I should build a team around Nemesis or Sentinel on point, just because they hit hard.
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I just reread your post, fully. If youāre going to play Iron Man, your other characters need to be Point Characters - no doubt about it. Thatās part of what makes the character so restrictive.
Iron Man, literally, brings little to your team when played first, unless all you want to do is run away and shoot Unibeam to build meter for others on your team (and his UB as an Assist builds almost twice as much meter). The character is synergistically bankrupt with his limited DHC potential and is too slow to consistently convert, spontaneously, off some of the best Assists (i.e. Tatsu, Jam Session etc.), which means he largely uses them to keep people in place just so he can move on the screen . He has limited potential in his Reset game due to the nerfs on his Air and Ground Dashes - He canāt Air Throw in a ton of situations because he canāt even act for 10 frames after an Air Dash (seriously, what type of shit is this?). Trying to Ground Dash -> Air Throw is just as limited due to the slower startup on that, too.
Vanilla Iron Man lacked synergistic principles also (lacking in DHC potential, lack of Hard KDs/ Soft KDs on Hypers that team members could take advantage of etc), but the key difference was that he was fast and versatile enough to be placed anywhere on your squad. He was a great point character, because he could both zone and rushdown, while taking adequate advantage of any popular Assist, hit like an abusive father without needing meter, could build meter effectively, and had Reset potential. He was just as good as an Anchor, due to all things mentioned, plus access to LvL 3 XF and meter. He added synergy by simply being an awesome character in his own right.
U Iron Man is forced to be played midrange by design, and brought his inability to play well with others along with him. That makes for a limited character. Unless some kind of breakthrough comes through, I canāt imagine him being anything but low tier in this game.
I think the point is that assists let him dramatically boost his damage by chaining series of special moves together at the end of his combos. He winds up hitting harder than Dante with the right assists. The good news is that some of those assists are good in their own right (Jam Session, Tatsu, Lariat, Plasma Beam, Centurion Rush, Eye of Agamotto, Rapid Slash, etc).
I think playing him at first resolves many issues with his gameplay, though. I think heās weakest when heās trying to make a comeback. Heās really bad at chasing characters down who donāt want to stay on the ground or come to him. Heās at his strongest when heās beating you up with his superior midrange tools as youāre trying to get in. He also can safely call assists to setup pressure. :d::h: + assist and then canceling the :d::h: into a Repulsor Blast, Unibeam or Flight is an easy and relatively safe way to get things started.
And I think horizontal proton cannon is easy enough to DHC after. The angled one is a bit harder though for sure, which is probably what most people are doing after OTG smart bombs since itās an easier input.
Iām not too worried at the lack of a reset game. He kills people dead when he confirms a combo on them in the first place. The air dash changes are weird but theyāve grown on me quickly. His ability to slide into ground throws from super far away is underrated right now, especially when he can do Vanilla Wolverine style XF1 kills on the entire cast. Any throw? X-Factor and kill them, meterless.
Itās going to take a while to find the right teams for him. Iāve been happiest when I play him first but have the option to switch my team line-up to put him last if the match-up is bad.
For instance, if Iām worried about being zoned out by a lame keepaway character they run first, on one team Iām able to flip him with Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange + Unibeam assist is very strong against those kinds of keepaway characters.
Itās easy to write IM off early because heās so fucking clunky, but I think heās got potential and is solid mid tier at the least.
I get what heās saying regarding the Assists. I donāt see how thatās a strength particular to Iron Man is my point. Also, my point with the DHC comment is that you canāt DHC into a lot of Hypers out of Proton Cannon due to the fact that it doesnāt cause a Spinning, Soft or Hard Knockdown. Itās not about the ease of DHCing in or out of, as much as the relative utility you donāt get out of it beyond Iron Man himself because of its nature.
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About Resets: part of being a good Point character is being able to kill without wasting Meter. Having a bad Reset game limits your potential to do this.
I agree with Synikal about the little utility for Iron Man to be played 1st, itās hard to DHC from Photon Canon to anything outside another beam super. All Iām just trying to say is how to make the best use of Iron Man if we are not going to drop him. Playing him last as an achor was your idea which is good, Iām just trying to think of another way of using him. He needs assists to back him up to close in and dish out damage. And the way Iām looking at it is like you said, play 3 points characters taht have good synergy assists for iron man ( Dante, Dr. strange come to mind).
I think my theory is a simple one:
- Iron Man can hit hard if he can land the 1st hit, and having assists will greatly help him open people up.
- He needs lock down assists to help his movement and combo extensions.
- Ideally, if you can fight with him then tag him out, his assists are pretty good for most characters.
In Ultimate, it most certainly is. Now that assists are subject to hit stun deterioration and HSD is higher in general, many characters canāt use assists to chain together 6 high damaging specials at the end of a combo. Repulsor spread gives him a hard knockdown no matter when itās used - thatās a big deal that most characters donāt get.
I think youāre placing an arbitrary restriction on him in this case. If he could kill most characters in one confirmed and converted hit while still being meter positive, would you be as concerned with his reset game? He can do 900k-1mil+ for one meter while building 2 in the process. Iāll take that to the bank all day long.
Even if it wasnāt meter positive, thatās still something you can work within. X-Factor is like a āfree killā in terms of not needing meter in most cases, while also setting you up with meter for the next kill or two.
Post your combo.
Correct me if Iām wrong, but donāt I remember the Proton Cannon doing this up until the 36-38th hit or so? I donāt remember the exact number of hits, but I do remember that if you stop it prior to the last few hits, you do have a state where you can follow up. I havenāt tested it in this game officially, but in the first game that was what we used to get a 2nd cannon using xfactor + unibeam. (along with dhcās like Spencerās bionic maneuvers)
Kei
I think you might actually be right. I hadnāt considered the details of PC since the beginning of Vanilla, so I may have just forgotten it worked that way. Hopefully someone else can confirm that because I canāt test it now.
Yeah if you cancel Proton Canon early then they just fall into a soft knockdown. A lot of supers can catch the opponent in this case. This of course doesnāt kill your point because it sucks that you have to cancel the super early.
Thanks for the backup, I went into the training room just to make sure I wasnāt remembering something that had never happened lol. The opponent will not recover (assuming theyāre not on the ground so it doesnāt work on a raw cannon with them standing), but will go into a freefall state giving you time to do a follow up, but as I said earlier you have to cancel it before the last couple of hitsā¦might actually be literally before the LAST hit itself. The only reason youād need to cancel earlier just before the end is if they got pushed too high from the cannon.
Kei
Proton Cannon is soft knockdown until that last hit, most every hyper in the game is this way.
Novaās is a wierd exception, they us Hard Knockdown for the first set of hits, and soft for the last few.
Iām a little bit saddened by Iron Manās high execution requirements. My execution and hit confirming is meh average but I do like him. Still playing with other characters to make my A list team. Iām content with not having him on my A Team this time around and appreciating him as a fun side character.
P.S. also I play online a lot and I want to stab myself in the neck doing high execution shit there.
Got to put in over 100 games with him earlier and it further reinforced to me that heās a threat, albeit with some issues that youāll have to solve with assists and smart team composition.
But yeah, heās a character that wonāt even begin to shine until youāre a stone cold badass with him. But he has a really unique style of harassment and keepaway into eventual mix-ups.
Spent most of Wednesday messing around with Stark for my main team of Nemesis/Iron Man/Strider, and Iāve found two things. First, that Iron Man moves so slick in this game. Awkward as it is, his mobility is actually really good - but hitconfirming while staying mobile is really hard. Air-to-ground or ground-to-ground you just need to get to cr.M somehow, but air-to-air and ground-to-air Iām not really sure what to do. Mostly, Iāve found that I just donāt understand his neutral game. His jumping heavies and j.S beat absolutely everything and his pressure is legit, but you need to have breathing room to let him move around - at a little above head height, his new airdash is great. I might put him first, since Nemesisā assist lets him use that ground bounce he never uses and OTG after smart bomb, while also being okay mixup with how fast he can get over your head. That does lose a character for Nemesis, though.
I just wish Proton Cannon was less terrible for DHCing out of, and Striderās level 1 was less terrible for DHCing into. Or something.
But mostly, whatās his gameplan at neutral? I feel like heās easily pushed out when heās throwing air-to-ground unless heās -really- close, and his forward dashes arenāt all that fast. Sit back, zone with heavies, play reactively or throw smart bombs? Or try and move in and eat up space until theyāre cornered. Flight mode gives you way more options, especially since you can unfly to block anything immediately, so does it make sense to stay in it as much as possible (cover yourself with normals instead of blocking, unfly to block supers/etc)?
Would you mind not keeping us in the dark regarding your 1 meter 1 mil combo?
If you have two assists, itās pretty darned easy to break 1 million with IM. He way his specials scale is really awesome.
I didnāt ask about ease of execution, I asked for a notation. Are you going to give me one?
Because it depends on your team. Smart bombs+Assist> Repulser>Spread>Smartbombs+Assist>Repulser>Spread>Smartbombs>Proton Cannon.