HulkBuster, the overlooked buff.

NerdNerdNerd1

Okay another champion overview, this time i will be going over specific niche lanes in act 6 where HB excels, and i will also be looking at his ability to clear both V2 and V3 incredibly fast.

So before i go into this, i wanna refute a common talking point ive heard used against HB, this is that he relies too heavily on the AI. to people struggling with this, have no fear because there is a simple solution.
If you finish a combo with your opponents back against the wall, press block and then immediatly throw l2 99% of the time the AI will hold their block, and you will get the power drain off the l2, or longer stun off the l1.

So first, lets look at act 6 and some very difficult problems that Hulkbuster can demolish.

Starting off with Energy adoption ice + bubble shield + diss track, the problem fights on this lane are rogue, KM and iceman (soon to be changed to havok)

HB works for energy adoption ice with armor breaks off every special attack, since armor breaks stop the coldsnaps from applying and obviously with his shocks and armor breaks he works excellently for diss track, now the main reason i mention this lane is because of the Nerf (that is actually going to make it much much more difficult, iceman does not insta kill you with the coldsnap due to the lowered attack values, you have about 50% health so most options that work for this lane work for ice man) that is happening to this lane, where iceman is being replaced by havok, this is going to lower the numbers of proper counters to this fight by quite a large amount to i believe only 4 champs, HB, havok himself, quake (but hard to use against havok), and warlock but he really only gets damage after l2s with the armor breaks stacked and is quite hard to make work with diss track. so that is an incredibly niche fight in act 6 that many people may be forced into ranking HB for if they dont have the other options.

now moving on from that, there are 2 thunderstruck lanes/fights in act 6, both of which HB works excellently for, having shocks is obviously quite a niche utility and being a usable champion alongside that is even more rare, for the lane in 6.3, the list of champions that work well is quite small already without any shrug off abilities or annoying bits like power sting and power drain that are provided on king groot, but have no fear, HB can reliably solo this, i have done it myself unboosted quite a few times.

HB is also an excellent option for any armor break havoks (6.2.2 lane, v3 3.2 lane, and 6.3.3 havok boss all have this) due to his power drain and unblockable off of special attacks, allowing you to basically press a panic button and stop yourself from losing the armor up, and also having 2 refreshing armor ups on top of this makes it quite hard for havok to do any detonations on you provided youre playing well.

now onto variant, HB is able to just melt variant healthpools in one l2 cycle, and has insane survivability to go through whole paths by himself.

Erocks

Ayuh! He's pretty cool. Main problem I have is that his heavy whiffs sometimes and I get comboed to death. He's great with suicides as well when duped as the extra sustainability is really nice. Do you have him duped?

NerdNerdNerd1

Erocks said:

Do you have him duped?

... stfu, i know you know i dont have him duped we talk on discord all the time, also gib tech ag ;-;

Iron_Patriot_is_lit

@Mcdonalds

Saiyan

Mcdonalds said:

One thing people do is that they play loosely, which I understand when you first get a character. That explains the heavy comments. His heavy is really good as he stays in the corner after an sp2, and he always can just heavy, after heavy, after heavy until the opponent has a bar of power, then you launch an Sp1 into their block, and more heavies, then Sp1 regularly then more heavies and a combo

See the thing is that's not true. The "after an sp2, and he always can just heavy, after heavy" comment is not true at all. I know you and many players have had it happen where you use a SP2 then go for the normal heavy play aaaaand it somehow misses cuz at random times the SP2 pushes him further back, the enemy somehow dex's even close to the corner and worst of all somehow at random times when you charge a heavy the enemy gets up so fast and counter attacks you before the heavy comes out even if you hold it just to use it right away.

These are my biggest issues with HB currently. His heavy spam after SP2 is NOT reliable alot of the time.

Here's a KT1 video I remember watching where it happens way to often. KT1 blames himself for "not being fast enough" but that ain't it, it happens no matter what. Plus the AI dexing it when it clearly supposed to hit in content where there are no masteries in play is silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LSsrt-GgZY

The counter attack happens at 5:22, 5:48, 6:14, 6:40, 8:07, 8:29, 12:45 (RH and OML gets up way to fast for HB to use his heavy)
The enemy dexing his heavy happens at 6:22, 9:04
Heavy attack or SP2 pushing HB to far to chain on happens at 11:11, 11:40

I really like HB after his buff but this stuff makes him way to unreliable to me to play him. This happens even VS ROL WS. They need to make him SP2 recover faster and give his heavy attack more reach to fix these issues.

Saiyan

I understand @Mcdonalds and it took a few mins yes. I noticed you said most of the opponents and I agree. Most of the time HB is fine but the issue is that little 10% of the time when one of what I showed happens, it's not in ROL or low attack areas, it's stuff where you're dead. Case in point since they are changing act 6.3.6's boss Capiw to no longer be stun locked by Ronan I figured I'd 100% it so I wouldn't have to worry. The Thunderstruck path where you need to have a shock on the enemy, well i don't have much shock champs but i do have a 6 star HB so hey np. That was until Venom The Duck AND Cable both recovered way to fast for HB to use his heavy after his SP2.

It upset me enough to just stop using this strat with HB. Played him differently and it was fine. I think players need to badly stop telling people to use the heavy after SP2 style cuz it'll work most of the time, but that odd time where it doesn't will get you killed.