Iron Heart and Jack O' Lantern
Fryday
Member Posts: 1,334 ★★★★
Hello everyone,
Hoping to get some advice from our experience Summoners.
For anyone that got both Jack O Lantern and Iron Heart, apart from the prefight DoT option between Incinerate and Rupture, are there any other advantages Iron Heart have over Jack?
Many thanks for any insight you can share.
Example of of match up that Iron Heart can take that Jack can't and vice verse would be amazingly helpful.
Hoping to get some advice from our experience Summoners.
For anyone that got both Jack O Lantern and Iron Heart, apart from the prefight DoT option between Incinerate and Rupture, are there any other advantages Iron Heart have over Jack?
Many thanks for any insight you can share.
Example of of match up that Iron Heart can take that Jack can't and vice verse would be amazingly helpful.
1
Comments
But outside of more particular situations, I'm probably using Jack. He's just a tiny bit more straightforward and can just do his thing from the start.
I dont have jack. He looks more of a great BG attacker from my point of view.
There seen to be huge overlaps in their utility...
Immunities
Both champs share Incinerate immunity, and both have reversed control immunity. Ironheart is also blessed with Coldsnap & Frostbite immunity. Ironheart therefore has more of these; although they require her to maintain an Armour buff - not a big deal, so I'd say Ironheart wins here.
Armour
Ironheart has Armour, which is probably a positive at least as often as it's a negative. Great against Havok, useful against Gambit; it's less helpful against Cosmic opponents such as Galan. With her Armour Up buff, Ironheart has an Armour rating of 2200, compared to Jack's 427. Assuming that you see Armour as a good thing, Ironheart is clearly better in this department.
General Utility
- Both can parry projectiles, although Ironheart needs to maintain Target Lock with debuffs. Jack is slightly better at this, as his ability doesn't have preconditions.
- Reduce danger of attacks through block. Jack's ability isn't conditional, but it's limited to damaging effects. Ironheart requires you to be Target Locked; but it's far more broadly applicable, as it covers non-damaging effects like Armour Break and Daunted; and it can prevent shrug-off opponents from shrugging off your parry-stuns, or stun-reflect nodes doing their thing. The utility Ironheart gets here is clearly superior; although it takes a little more work to maintain.
- Bypass opponents immunities: Both can switch out Incinerate for other effects. Jack can only do this against Mutants; whilst Ironheart can do it for everyone, through a prefight ability. Also, against most mutants, Plasma is a less good option than Rupture. So Ironheart wins on this.
- Doesn't inflict Crits - Jack doesn't crit, he inflicts instant Incinerates instead. Which is useful in certain circumstances; and it's something that Ironheart can't do. Although with so much damage tied up in his Incinerate effects, he's pretty rubbish if a non-mutant opponent is Incinerate immune (there's 19 champions fitting these criteria in the game)
- Energy resistance - Jack gains Energy Resistance with his Inflamed passives, which is good.
- Bypass Miss - this one is just for Ironheart, and is incredibly helpful. She needs to maintain enough debuffs for Target Lock on the opponent; but still, it's incredibly useful against multiple annoying defenders and nodes.
Anti-mutant abilities
- Jack automatically switches Incinerates to Plasma. Which is great, but high Energy Resistance from Bishop, Havok and Emma Frost will still slow him down against them.
- Block Unblockable - with Target Lock, Ironheart can block Unblockable specials from mutants. Jack can't.
- Prowess removal - Ironheart can Invalidate Prowess on a Heavy attack. Jack can't do this at all.
- Cowardice - Jack can inflict Cowardice easily, which shuts down Kitty Pryde, and gives him some minor AI manipulation against Mutants. Ironheart can't do this.
Power Control
Ironheart can inflict Suppression to reduce the opponent's Combat Power by a useful chunk; and she has a decent Power Drain on her SP3.
Jack can't control power at all.
Special Attacks
Basically Jack's special attacks do potentially lots of damage, but have very little utility aside from contributing to his damage ramp-up.
Ironheart can inflict Vulnerability on SP1, and it'll Pause her debuffs. SP2 is just damage (like Jack's); but her SP3 inflicts a solid Power Drain, and indefinite debuffs.
Signature -
These two champions have very similar Sig abilities: primarily, both provide Bulwark+ Regeneration.
Ironheart has quite a powerful regeneration that can activate in every fight, if/when she gets to low health. Jack's Regen is significantly weaker, and only works when suffering from passive Energy DoT - passive Shocks, Coldsnaps, and Neuroshocks. Those really aren't things you'll run into very often. Ironheart is definitely more broadly applicable, and better for Questing.
Ironheart's Bulwark is stronger than Jack's; and works against both basic and special attacks; where Jack's only works against Special Attacks.
On the whole, I'm going to say that Ironheart's Sig is substantially more desirable than Jack's.
Masteries
Because she gets lots of debuffs, Ironheart can make really good use of the Despair and Inequity Masteries, which Jack can't do. With her superior armour and superior Bulwark, she'll be a lot tankier if she also runs Inequity. In the unlikely event you're running Collar Tech, it'll work well with her Suppression ability, whereas you'll hardly notice it, with Jack.
Tags
Jack has two big advantages here - he carries #Psychic Shielding, and he doesn't carry #Metal.
Damage
Now, I'm fairly sure that Jack's damage is higher; although (like Ironheart) a lot of it is centred around his SP2, and the associated damaging debuffs. Jack's ramp is also substantially easier, and he can basically just repeat SP2s; whereas Ironheart needs a proper ramp like SP1-SP1-SP2.
So, Jack is definitely stronger here; as long as his SP2 debuffs don't get shrugged off, and non-mutant opponents aren't immune to Incinerate.
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So, what does this add up to?
Basically, I think they're quite similar champs, tuned for different environments/fighting styles.
Jack is designed for Battlegrounds: he's got better damage that's easier to access; and he's purpose-built to counter almost everything about Onslaught, who's a threatening BGs defender.
Ironheart is designed for - well basically, everywhere else. Anywhere that time isn't a factor, I think she's better than Jack in so many ways, it's ridiculous. And whilst Jack is well-designed to take out Onslaught and Mister Sinister (no Crits...), I'd rather have Ironheart to manage Sauron, Bishop, Havok, and Dust.
I took Ironheart to r3 before pulling Jack; and tbh I don't really see much reason for me to rank him up.
If I could make one change, I'll rather have her sig ability increase her energy resistance instead of block proficiency. That will help her more in target matchups.
Current her rotation is strict cuz her sp1 debuff pause is only 8 secs so it's tough to reach sp2 with many debuffs. To avoid this, it would be better if her sp1 refresh debuffs instead of pausing them. If this would make her too op, they could make her sp2 consume her debuffs.
Much though I like Ironheart, if Battlegrounds are of any interest at all, you'd get a lot more mileage out of giving it to someone like Shocker, Sentinel or Arcade.
I have Sentinel. Just really would like Prowler. Would really prefer to use my AG on an attacker. But holding the tech gem might be blocking me from ever getting Prowler.
As an IronHeart user, this is one of the best "TL;DR's" I've read. I normally just scan through or completely skip them. Lol. But I thought "this could be interesting" and it was. It gave me more insight on a champ I use, and one I have, but DON'T use.
I really enjoy using IronHeart all over the game, but missed some of her other abilities with the Despair and Inequity masteries.
Thank you for taking the time to write this!
Otherwise, I think Ironheart will age nicely and continue to be useful while Jack o Lantern will get eclipsed in a year by the next Tech champion du jour.
I'd got most of it drafted, intending to write my own thread asking if Jack was worth ranking, in the context of having already got r3 Ironheart. But by the time I'd done that, I'd pretty much made up my mind on it, so didn't need to ask any more 😂
Then, the OP wrote their question, and I thought I'd see if my analysis might have some value as an answer, so I re-purposed it.
Really glad it was appreciated 😃👍