The answer to all your questions is “who cares.”
Hi! I’m a total beginner but I would like to change that, so I apologize for any dumb questions that I ask (like the following one).
It should probably be obvious, but my shallow analysis is not offering an answer… what are Iron Man’s strengths and weaknesses? I’ve been reading that Iron Man is generally worse than a comparable character like Doom or Magneto… why?
And a little extra question: is anchor Iron Man viable?
Thanks for the help! 
Iron Man’s strengths are his long-ranged normals that allow him to outpoke other characters, his high-damage combos, and the ability to play a strong defensive/runaway game with an array of zoning tools and airdashes that cover a ton of ground. He also has great assists, many consider Unibeam the best beam assist in the game.
His weaknesses are his poor hypers (Proton Cannon has a ton of startup and is thus very difficult to use to any effect outside of combos, and he also has no safe DHCs), his lack of a decent reversal option to get rushdown chars off of him once they establish pressure, his difficulty in converting clean hits into full combos (most notably air-to-air hits), and his clunky movement which makes him bad at fine positioning when up close against other characters (his ground dash can’t be canceled by crouches or attacks for the first 11 frames, and his forward or backward moving airdashes have 10 frames of startup before Iron Man actually starts moving), thus making it that much harder for him to fight rushdown once it gets in on him.
Iron Man is considered worse than Doom/Magnus because they generally share his strengths but lack most or all of the notable weaknesses mentioned above. They both have safe, screen-clearing hypers, can easily convert air-to-air hits (and random hits in general) into big damage, and their airdashes have no startup lag which makes them much better at fighting up close against other characters and also makes them much easier to rush down with should you wish to do so. In terms of reversals, they also do better than Iron Man, all Magneto needs is a split second to throw out Magnetic Shockwave and the enemy is pushed fullscreen again, while Doom can mash footdive which has retarded startup + priority and punishes dash-ins and button hitting in general much better than anything Iron Man has.
Anchor Iron Man is viable in the sense that you can play him in that spot and he’s probably not the worst out there at it, but he’s no Wesker, don’t count on him to pull off many reverse OCVs. You should aim to at least have the opponent down to their last char by the time Iron Man comes in, as if he is even or ahead on life he can play a very solid lame game in a 1-on-1 situation. If you are behind on life and he has to go in, however, you’re in trouble. Some things to keep in mind when playing IM anchor is that his level 3 is actually pretty good, it goes 3/4 screen with a ton of invincibility and can be followed up with proton cannon afterwards. XF guard cancel + level 3 will probably net you a kill if you get a chance to do it. Iron Man can also run a decent chip strategy if he has XF3 and bar stocked, simply wait for an opportunity to throw out proton cannon and you’re in there. This is a good option if you are about even on life with the other guy’s anchor and need to get a solid life lead without actually taking the risk of going in.
If you look closely it’s thrown over to him by Chris Redfield. The startup would be better if that fool could sort his inventory faster.
Wow, thanks so much for such an in depth reply!
Yall niggas need to quit bullshittin and play Ironman/Dante/Sentinel…Ironman kills Zero for Free…yall not playing him right you dont rush down with him you just control an area. Ironman is godlike.
I definitely agree with you and think that in certain cases Iron Man should focus on zoning and hit confirming off when the opponent gets close. Zero is one of these matchups.
Also yes Iron Man is godlike, he’s the best average character in the game!
You’re really not thinking very hard about this are you?
Maybe it’s hard to think straight in “Ibuki’s coochie.”
What you mean? I’ve played the match up against a decent Zero (not pro at all but he has good air movement and hit confirms) and IM wins as long as at the beginning of the match you get some space space enough to keep him off you. Y’all ever notice when your opponent adv. guards IM he bounces waaaay to basically the other side of the screen? It’s retarded. The tactics I used all depended on where i was on the screen if i was full lentgh id call drones and Tiger Knee Unibeam L if zero blocked I’d wave dash and apply a little pressure LMH ending with Unibeam L and be able to call drones again offscreen again. If zero super jumped with buster charged depending on space I would call jam session and repulsor blast repulsor blast eats full charge z buster. I can also hit confirm off Jam Session with j.M, j.M, j.H, j. down forward H, (fly)(I also would use this same string to apply air2air pressure/block string), j.L,j.M,j.H. j.down fwd H, S, (land) cr.M, s.H, launch, mmhs, smart bomb otg, proton cannon.
Idk maybe I’m crazy or the zero player isn’t as good as I think. But I’ve played Sam (Zero/Vergil/Dante) and Stone (Zero/Dorm/Wesker)
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with my Nova/Vergil/Hawkeye team and faired very well any hit by them always came down to a movement execution error on my part i picked up IM after losing to them haven’t played them again yet wih this team but I will soon when I get time to go back to a Planet Zero weekly.
IMO Ironman wins the Zero matchup as long as you zone him correctly, you will then get a chance to trap him with drones and go for a high/low mixup for a hit.
Edit: also if zero ever tried to air dash forward I’d hit him with j.H (flight cancel) Unibeam L if he air blocked in time or smart bomb H if he got hit. Learning how to use IM’s j.H is a key element in the matchup. Lol takes a lot of finger work but it’s worth it. You’re really just trying to play keep away the entire match. also if zero or any opponent super jumps and could get/land behind you just avoid them don’t try to catch them with repulsor blast L because if they block it even if you spread cancel they can punish you if the don’t adv.guard.
Yo I’ll put 500 dollars on sam or stone never losing zero to your Ironman.
Lol that’s a lot of money…but I hope you guys don’t think I came here to talk down on yall or gloat…but I really love my IM/Dante/Sent team, I could be entirely wrong about the matchup and if i am oh well but I think it’s worth a shot. Sorry if I offended anyone. I’ve seriously almost beat both of them in a tourney setting, I had never played a Zero team before them, but now I think I can. I also beat Mike Ross when he came down to Houston a few weeks ago, I’m not trying to brag or anything just trying to say I’m a pretty good marvel player.
With all due respect to you and the boy… This doesn’t seem to be a big accomplishment. However I do agree IM/Sent/Dante is a team I’m experimenting with and it does seem strong.
TK unibeam I’d agree is strong against zero spamming normal jump m tele and m lighting, but hardly good enough to make IM good against zero.
HAHHAHA I know!!! Mike Ross is a fraud in dat mahvel! Cool dude tho! I did pretty well against him in AE 2012 too tho
i do pretty well against mike any time i play him in sf4… doesnt mean jack. my friend beat him at mvc3 at ceo in florida… my friend isnt that good (better than me though) doing well against established players isnt really a barometer for success. that having been said, ive never really seen what zero brings to the table specifically that beats ironman. i cant consider him as a “counter” to IM yet… but its been awhile since ive played a zero so… i generally consider counter matchups as those between characters where one counters (ie completely shuts down) anothers tools. zero to me doesnt do that… hes just, better than IM, alot better.
which makes the matchup seem more winnable to me, i may change my mind on this once i play one worth a damn.
-dime
I can tell you with a lot of confidence that zero vs ironman is very solidly in zero’s favor. Zoning him is barely an option due to his ability to change his direction in the air on a dime and punish the smallest mistakes with buster into death. Iron mans most solid ways to land damage, repulsar blast, add mixups, and hell attempted super jump confirms from j.h are all beaten by super jumping back and throwing safe raikousens and busters.
You’d think assists would help in this regard, but anyone who’s played against a good zero(I like klique play against stone and Sam) should know that every assist call against zero is going to get bustered, and even if you cover it with say repulsar spread you are giving him time to freely mix you up after the spread finishes or even continue running away if he feels like it.
It’s not an unwinnable match, honestly I think its better than my my other vs zero matchip with Spencer, but against any zero playing the least bit patiently(thankfully a rarity out of Sam :p) makes life very hard for our boy Tony.
Stone… did he used to call himself KenmastersX?
Yes, that’s his handle. His real name is so awesome that we finally got him to start going by it instead, though.
yea I agree completely assists getting Bustered is the biggest threat Zero poses, so calling them has to be at the right time EVERYTIME…because he is so mobile its hard to force the little fucker to block let alone keep still…with IM/Dante/Sent I’m gonna be trying my hardest just to keep him away from me the entire match…thankfully due to IM’s pokes c.M, s.M., repulsor blast, and his Focus shots i should be able to do that…but fuck well see calling drones offscreen is a MUST tho…thankfully Dante can hold his own against Zero tho
i need to get better at comboing off of repulsor blast aswell
in all honesty tho…I hate Zero, I don’t mind losing to a player, but against a Zero I’m forever gonna take that shit personal, he shouldnt be able to kill ANY member of ANY team by himself, thats retarded, sitting here watching myself get combo’ed to death by a little munchskin…NO!
Repulsor Blast has more durability than Buster, so just doing assist + repulsor should get your assist out there safely unless Zero fires the buster pre-emptively and stuffs repulsor (i.e. he predicted you or just plain got lucky). Zero can’t block during any of his air movements so repulsor paired with Doom missiles or Strider or whatever would be very annoying for him to deal with. This is my main tactic against Zero (or any air based character really) and it’s worked well so far, but granted I don’t have any Sam/Stone level Zeros to play against. Proton cannon can also punish his air movements, though you have to take care not to get it stuffed by buster (i.e. block a buster first then do it while he’s charging another one, dash forward or back so that you are out of buster trajectory, etc.).