A long note – and plea – for OG Iron Man
ESF
Member Posts: 2,084 ★★★★★
Hello, everyone. Hope all is well.
Thanks, in advance, for taking the time to read this note, if you do. I hope it will make sense and not sound entitled or like a complaint.
It is neither; it is honestly a request for someone at Kabam to hopefully take a few minutes, read this note, perhaps fire up MCoC and test OG Iron Man in one or two fights, then compare with other characters of the same rarity and rank.
My hope is that by doing so, Kabam might take a few more moments to assess the character and what its limitations are and perhaps address even one or two things that would make the character more fun to play.
This is important: I am not, repeat NOT, asking for a full rework of OG Iron Man. I realize that is simply not going to happen. The character is one of the originals, and an Infinity War version was released last year. I promise: I get it.
I am also not hopeful of the character getting a significant buff that would require valuable employee man-hours.
What I am hopeful of happening, as a result of this note and someone from Kabam possibly playing the character for a bit in 2019, is an adjustment to his base damage – which is extremely low – as well as increased duration of his Armor Breaks and proc percentages, as well as the removal of any limiters on his SP2 and SP3 damage, should those exist.
Those things won’t make the character OP, in my opinion – it likely would take all of those things working in conjunction to make OG Iron Man feel like it hits as hard as the average character in MCoC, based on the last 18 months or so. After testing the character extensively, I think there’s something in the character’s kit that restricts OG Iron Man’s DPS that makes the character underperform significantly in that regard, even compared with characters in its same class.
OG Iron Man’s DPS has troubled me for years. I never understood why, in the days of only 2-stars and 3-stars, it was coded that way. The character has never felt like it hit very hard.
I also suspect his awakened ability with significant Regeneration was viewed as the tradeoff for more DPS. But as a longtime player…well. It’s too far that way – too little DPS.
I also understand power creep, so I understood that when 4-stars were introduced, then 5-stars and now 6-stars, that some older characters would be left behind. This happens in many games, so I get it.
So, to summarize thus far: I do understand that the character is old, is likely never going to get a full rework, and the awakened abilty is likely a factor in why the DPS is so low.
However, I think the character’s kit scales so poorly that at 3/30 and higher, OG Iron Man actually becomes almost painful to play, as if the damage cap almost becomes more restrictive the higher you rank the character.
I believed this so strongly, I actually brought a 5-star OG Iron Man to Rank 4/55 ON PURPOSE, for testing.
Long story short: The DPS is simply not good.
Here are some numbers:
With a support team of 4-stars Stark Spider-Man (for the 30 percent Special Damage boost) and red Cyclops, red Magneto and Wolverine (AKA the Mutant Crit Team), it took Rank 4/55 OG Iron Man 437 hits – that’s not a typo, it really was 437 – to put down Winter Soldier in Realm of Legends.
Even with the Stark Spider-Man synergy, the 4/55 Iron Man’s SP2 damage when it did not crit was not above 7800 until we hit Assassin’s range, when a non-crit would get it about 8200 damage.
When the SP2 did crit, it was never above 19,500.
The SP3 did not perform that well, topping out at around 13,500 damage.
The SP1s were a bit better, coming in around 3,500 or so on a crit. That’s…passable. You’d like to see a 4/55 hit harder, but again, this note isn’t a plea for DPS just for the sake of DPS.
I don’t want to play the sucker’s game of comparing apples to oranges, but I had to have some kind of comparison for argument’s sake. So I took a 4/40 4-star Star-Lord, Rank 99, and replaced the OG Iron Man in that team. I also took out the Stark Spider-Man and replaced him with Groot, so the Star-Lord could have a bit more Armor Protection to make sure I had enough stamina to beat the Winter Soldier, because I knew I would take more block damage in order to preserve the hit streak for the damage mechanic from Star-Lord’s awakened ability.
Again: I also understand that the Star-Lord mechanic is one of the most effective DPS mechanics in the game. I totally understand that it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
But even still, the difference in DPS was startling.
By 30 hits, the 4/40 Star-Lord was hitting almost as hard as the 4/55 OG Iron Man…harder with the Fury proc.
By 37 hits, the Star-Lord was hitting harder with basic attacks, no Fury. By 60 hits, the Star-Lord was so clearly outperforming the 4/55 Iron Man, it was depressing.
The Star-Lord put down the Winter Soldier…in 194 hits. It wouldn’t have taken that long except I got ridiculously unlucky and procced one Power Drain, then four Heal Blocks in a row, then another Power Drain from the Element Gun on SP2 – if even one of those had been the Armor Break or a couple of Shocks, it would have gone even faster.
Again: I get it. That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Star-Lord’s main function is DPS.
But at the same time, Star-Lord’s SP2 and SP3 can Armor Break, just like OG Iron Man. But the Star-Lord also can Shock, Power Drain and Heal Block, IN ADDITION TO hitting far harder than OG Iron Man.
My question is this: Does this have to be this way? Does the awakened ability of Regeneration for OG Iron Man truly offset that kind of DPS discrepancy?
It simply wasn’t fun to play the OG Iron Man. It wasn’t any more fun in fights with characters with smaller health pools – even at 4/55 – because the DPS lags so much that the character feels tedious to play, even with the mutant crit team.
My plea is simple:
1. Please increase OG Iron Man’s base attack by 20-25 percent – believe me, that character needs that as much as anything.
2. Please increase the length of each Armor Break by 6 seconds, and give each special attack a 100 percent chance to proc the Armor Break. That would help increase DPS as well.
3. Please increase special damage output of the SP2 and SP3 by 175-200 percent – the SP2 could hit around 45,000-50,000 max, the SP3 could hit around 25,000-30,000, with a longer Armor Break. That still falls far, far short of many characters in the game.
To be honest, that’s all I got. Anything else would enter into the realm of significant buffs and reworks that I know aren’t coming.
But please: Just take a few moments and play OG Iron Man. Anyone can do the tests I did.
The character is one of the most iconic in Marvel lore. I understand that every character can’t be Aegon or Namor, but there’s something in OG Iron Man’s kit that so severely limits the DPS that it renders the character not simply unsuitable for difficult content, but tedious and boring to play.
Thank you very much for any consideration you might give to this request, and thanks for reading it for those who did.
Thanks, in advance, for taking the time to read this note, if you do. I hope it will make sense and not sound entitled or like a complaint.
It is neither; it is honestly a request for someone at Kabam to hopefully take a few minutes, read this note, perhaps fire up MCoC and test OG Iron Man in one or two fights, then compare with other characters of the same rarity and rank.
My hope is that by doing so, Kabam might take a few more moments to assess the character and what its limitations are and perhaps address even one or two things that would make the character more fun to play.
This is important: I am not, repeat NOT, asking for a full rework of OG Iron Man. I realize that is simply not going to happen. The character is one of the originals, and an Infinity War version was released last year. I promise: I get it.
I am also not hopeful of the character getting a significant buff that would require valuable employee man-hours.
What I am hopeful of happening, as a result of this note and someone from Kabam possibly playing the character for a bit in 2019, is an adjustment to his base damage – which is extremely low – as well as increased duration of his Armor Breaks and proc percentages, as well as the removal of any limiters on his SP2 and SP3 damage, should those exist.
Those things won’t make the character OP, in my opinion – it likely would take all of those things working in conjunction to make OG Iron Man feel like it hits as hard as the average character in MCoC, based on the last 18 months or so. After testing the character extensively, I think there’s something in the character’s kit that restricts OG Iron Man’s DPS that makes the character underperform significantly in that regard, even compared with characters in its same class.
OG Iron Man’s DPS has troubled me for years. I never understood why, in the days of only 2-stars and 3-stars, it was coded that way. The character has never felt like it hit very hard.
I also suspect his awakened ability with significant Regeneration was viewed as the tradeoff for more DPS. But as a longtime player…well. It’s too far that way – too little DPS.
I also understand power creep, so I understood that when 4-stars were introduced, then 5-stars and now 6-stars, that some older characters would be left behind. This happens in many games, so I get it.
So, to summarize thus far: I do understand that the character is old, is likely never going to get a full rework, and the awakened abilty is likely a factor in why the DPS is so low.
However, I think the character’s kit scales so poorly that at 3/30 and higher, OG Iron Man actually becomes almost painful to play, as if the damage cap almost becomes more restrictive the higher you rank the character.
I believed this so strongly, I actually brought a 5-star OG Iron Man to Rank 4/55 ON PURPOSE, for testing.
Long story short: The DPS is simply not good.
Here are some numbers:
With a support team of 4-stars Stark Spider-Man (for the 30 percent Special Damage boost) and red Cyclops, red Magneto and Wolverine (AKA the Mutant Crit Team), it took Rank 4/55 OG Iron Man 437 hits – that’s not a typo, it really was 437 – to put down Winter Soldier in Realm of Legends.
Even with the Stark Spider-Man synergy, the 4/55 Iron Man’s SP2 damage when it did not crit was not above 7800 until we hit Assassin’s range, when a non-crit would get it about 8200 damage.
When the SP2 did crit, it was never above 19,500.
The SP3 did not perform that well, topping out at around 13,500 damage.
The SP1s were a bit better, coming in around 3,500 or so on a crit. That’s…passable. You’d like to see a 4/55 hit harder, but again, this note isn’t a plea for DPS just for the sake of DPS.
I don’t want to play the sucker’s game of comparing apples to oranges, but I had to have some kind of comparison for argument’s sake. So I took a 4/40 4-star Star-Lord, Rank 99, and replaced the OG Iron Man in that team. I also took out the Stark Spider-Man and replaced him with Groot, so the Star-Lord could have a bit more Armor Protection to make sure I had enough stamina to beat the Winter Soldier, because I knew I would take more block damage in order to preserve the hit streak for the damage mechanic from Star-Lord’s awakened ability.
Again: I also understand that the Star-Lord mechanic is one of the most effective DPS mechanics in the game. I totally understand that it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
But even still, the difference in DPS was startling.
By 30 hits, the 4/40 Star-Lord was hitting almost as hard as the 4/55 OG Iron Man…harder with the Fury proc.
By 37 hits, the Star-Lord was hitting harder with basic attacks, no Fury. By 60 hits, the Star-Lord was so clearly outperforming the 4/55 Iron Man, it was depressing.
The Star-Lord put down the Winter Soldier…in 194 hits. It wouldn’t have taken that long except I got ridiculously unlucky and procced one Power Drain, then four Heal Blocks in a row, then another Power Drain from the Element Gun on SP2 – if even one of those had been the Armor Break or a couple of Shocks, it would have gone even faster.
Again: I get it. That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Star-Lord’s main function is DPS.
But at the same time, Star-Lord’s SP2 and SP3 can Armor Break, just like OG Iron Man. But the Star-Lord also can Shock, Power Drain and Heal Block, IN ADDITION TO hitting far harder than OG Iron Man.
My question is this: Does this have to be this way? Does the awakened ability of Regeneration for OG Iron Man truly offset that kind of DPS discrepancy?
It simply wasn’t fun to play the OG Iron Man. It wasn’t any more fun in fights with characters with smaller health pools – even at 4/55 – because the DPS lags so much that the character feels tedious to play, even with the mutant crit team.
My plea is simple:
1. Please increase OG Iron Man’s base attack by 20-25 percent – believe me, that character needs that as much as anything.
2. Please increase the length of each Armor Break by 6 seconds, and give each special attack a 100 percent chance to proc the Armor Break. That would help increase DPS as well.
3. Please increase special damage output of the SP2 and SP3 by 175-200 percent – the SP2 could hit around 45,000-50,000 max, the SP3 could hit around 25,000-30,000, with a longer Armor Break. That still falls far, far short of many characters in the game.
To be honest, that’s all I got. Anything else would enter into the realm of significant buffs and reworks that I know aren’t coming.
But please: Just take a few moments and play OG Iron Man. Anyone can do the tests I did.
The character is one of the most iconic in Marvel lore. I understand that every character can’t be Aegon or Namor, but there’s something in OG Iron Man’s kit that so severely limits the DPS that it renders the character not simply unsuitable for difficult content, but tedious and boring to play.
Thank you very much for any consideration you might give to this request, and thanks for reading it for those who did.
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Comments
Seems like he is so slow to execute an SP1 now, that opponent AI has plenty of time to get into blocking stance.