===========================================================================
----------------- MARVEL VS CAPCOM 2: NEW AGE OF HEROES -------------------
------------------------- ICEMAN STRATEGY GUIDE ---------------------------
===========================================================================
Iceman Strategy Guide Version 0.1 - Last Updated 5 May 2000
FAQ written by David da Rosa aka Beta (
[email protected])
FAQ (c) 2000 by Beta Productions
Marvel Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Spiderman, Ryu, Guile, Iceman, etc,
are (c) to their respective owners.
Please do not use any part of this guide without prior consent of the
author. Any suggestions and contributions are welcome and credits will be
given.
____________________
/ Version History \_____________________________________________________
0.1 - The first appearance of Iceman's FAQ, taking the basic layout from
my other FAQs. Largely incomplete, only done up to Super moves section, as
well as ripping the Tagging and part of UCT sections from my other FAQs.
Expect an update soon!
____________________
/ Credits \_____________________________________________________
Zhen, aka Da-Z (
[email protected]) - He is a big help to all my FAQs
(now only Spidey and Guile, but I would expect more help from him ^_^).
Very seasoned player indeed, who has taught me the cheesy Air Combo
finishing with a Jab Web Ball, as well as tactics on crossing up with
Assists from Spidey and Iceman. Also, he seems to share with me the same
view on the Ultimate Cheese Team, as he has got 54 straight wins with that
team is his local arcade (wow). A big thanks to Zhen!
CJayC of GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) - For hosting my FAQs. Any updates of
my FAQs can be found there.
Al Amaloo of Video Game Strategies (vgstrategies.about.com) - Also for
hosting my FAQs. Updates can also be found there.
You - Well, if nobody reads my FAQs and sends me mail, I don't feel like
writing any more, but I received some positive response from you guys, so
I hope I can continue to write more useful FAQs!
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------------------------------ CONTENTS -----------------------------------
===========================================================================
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Basic Attacks
Chapter 3 - Special Moves
Chapter 4 - Hyper Combos
Chapter 5 - Assist Types
Chapter 6 - Strategies
Chapter 7 - Ultimate Cheese Team
Chapter 8 - Vs Human Players
Chapter 9 - Beating Abyss
Appendix A - Notations
Appendix B - Game Basics
===========================================================================
----------------------------- INTRODUCTION --------------------------------
===========================================================================
First of all, this guide is intended to teach players how to use Iceman,
at least effectively, in Marvel Vs Capcom 2. That's why you will expect to
find strategies in it rather than irrelevant information such as colours,
win poses, quotes, etc. The basics of the game as well as the FAQ notations
are located at the end of the FAQ (as most people just skip them, but there
you are for the beginners). If you need more background information of the
characters, win poses, etc, there are more good quality general FAQs at
GameFAQs (
http://www.gamefaqs.com).
Iceman has a single purpose in this game: chipping your enemy to death.
His close quarters games suck and he does not takes damage very well, so
you should basically play a keep away game with him. He also takes no
chipping damage from energy based attacks, so here you have another reason
for playing keep away. However, he has a surprisingly fast walking and
dashing speed, and his Air Combos does a lot of damage, so use them to add
a variety to your game.
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----------------------------- BASIC ATTACKS -------------------------------
===========================================================================
Iceman's basic attacks are more or less useless. They don't have much
priority and doesn't do too much damage, but nevertheless some of them are
pretty fast, which can help you escape tight situations and go back to the
keep away game.
____________________
/ Standing Attacks \_____________________________________________________
Jab - The run-of-the-mill jab which doesn't have much use. Used perhaps for
catching airborne enemies off-guard, but not that useful at all.
Usefulness [**---]
Short - This standing kick has quite a decent range and it is quick. Very
useful to initiate a ground chain and as a poke.
Usefulness [***--]
Strong - Nothing unusual about this punch. Just a used in combos.
Usefulness [**---]
Forward - Exactly like strong in terms of usage.
Usefulness [**---]
Fierce - Used in combos, don't try to use it to poke, but you can chain a
Icebeam or a Arctic Attack afterwards.
Usefulness [**---]
Roundhouse - Iceman kicks some sort of ice from his leg and has decent
range, so use it to finish ground chains if your enemy is out of reach of
other moves.
Usefulness [**---]
____________________
/ Crouching Attacks \_____________________________________________________
Jab - The crouching version of the S.Jab. What else will you want?
Usefulness [**---]
Short - This move hits low (obviously) and has some decent range, but I
would still consider using the standing version to poke, which although
does not hit low, has a better reach, but when already in close quarters,
use this instead.
Usefulness [**/--]
Strong - Again, nothing exciting besides used in combos.
Usefulness [**---]
Forward - The move to follow the C.Short. It has more range but you risk
pushing your enemy to far away for the C.Roundhouse to connect, so use it
with discretion.
Usefulness [**---]
Fierce - Similar to the S.Roundhouse but Iceman uses its hand instead. Not
much use I can figure out from this move.
Usefulness [**---]
Roundhouse - His launcher with little horizontal range but a lot of
vertical range, but it only aims at a little area and it is not that useful
against jump ins, as if your opponent is just above or past you, this move
will whiff leaving him plenty of opportunities to punish you. More useful
in combos and if it is blocked, cancel it into a Jab Icebeam.
Usefulness [**/--]
____________________
/ Jumping Attacks \_____________________________________________________
Jab - A diagonally down punch from the air. Useful as a starter for both
Air Combos or multi-hit jump ins but not really recommended unless your
enemy blocks seamlessly all your single hit jump ins.
Usefulness [**---]
Short - Similar in properties to Jumping Jab.
Usefulness [**---]
Strong - Used in air combos, not much to say.
Usefulness [**---]
Forward - Same as above...
Usefulness [**---]
Fierce - Iceman does a cut with a sword if ice connected to his hand. As
far as I can see this seams to be his best jump in move but it is not
really that good.
Usefulness [**/--]
D + Fierce - Iceman throws a ball of ice downwards, at about 60 degrees
from his front. I don't think this is useful at all but you may just try
it once for a while.
Usefulness [*/---]
Roundhouse - This move has crappy range for a Roundhouse so don't use it
often as a jump in move. Really, I mean it.
Usefulness [*/---]
D + Roundhouse - Iceman does a sort of blade kick with his leg which became
a blade sort of thing (of ice, of course). It has ok air to air properties
but still not that useful.
Usefulness [**---]
____________________
/ Throws \_____________________________________________________
F or B + Fierce
Iceman grabs his prey, charges him with ice energy and sends him to the
far side of the screen. He will still be frozen, which leaves enough time
for Iceman to connect with a Icebeam. Also useful to give yourself some
space for breathing. If done when he is in the corner, you can actually set
up a nice ground chain into an Air Combo finishing with Arctic Attack!
Usefulness [****-]
Any Direction except U or UB or UF + Roundhouse in the air
Same as standing throw, but it is hard to connect anything afterwards,
unless you are both near a corner and you land straight in front of him
after you connect the throw.
Usefulness [**---]
===========================================================================
----------------------------- SPECIAL MOVES -------------------------------
===========================================================================
Iceman has in his arsenal 3 different special moves, but quite honestly you
will be using only one of them, as the other two are actually quite
worthless. Therefore, try to get as much from his Icebeam as it is your
main weapon for the entire match!
____________________
/ Icebeam \_____________________________________________________
D, DF, F + Jab or Fierce (Can be done in air)
Iceman's projectile definitely sits on the top ranks in MvC2. It is fast,
it goes full screen and it is reliable. Comparing to other major chippers
in the game, Icebeam might be a little slower than Optic Blast, but
remember that Iceman takes no blocking damage, so who has the last laugh?
Jab Icebeam is mainly used to chip damage as well as to end ground chains
when you don't have a Super ready, and it does decent damage as well.
The Fierce version is only useful in air, when people expect you to do
the Jab one and they just dash into you, so they eat all of it. Vary your
tactics though
Usefulness [*****] for the Jab version
[***--] for the Fierce version.
____________________
/ Avalanche \_____________________________________________________
D, DF, F + Short or Roundhouse (Can be done in air)
This move is really worthless. Iceman will summon a big ball of ice from
apparently nowhere, which crashes into his foe. Short the ball comes in
the middle of the screen while Roundhouse releases it at the far end of the
screen. The bad thing is, this move, apart from the slow start up, will
leave you in move stun long enough for a HITED opponent to recover and
retaliate. However, it does have one single purpose. When your enemy is in
the far end of the screen and you want to chip him to death, do the
Roundhouse version of this move and immediately cancel it into the
Arctic Attack, leaving your enemy with no opportunity to Super Jump over it
to attack you from top, leaving them hopelessly to block your Super.
Usefulness [*/---]
____________________
/ Ice Fist \_____________________________________________________
D, DB, B + Jab or Fierce
Iceman pauses momentary to fit some sort of ice ball in his right hand,
causing his normal moves damage to increase by a bit. Sounds good, right?
However, after doing the Ice Fist, your normal moves will push your enemy a
bit more far away than usual, meaning that doing combos will become harder.
And the only way to wear it off is to tag out and tag in again. Really, I
don't recommend doing this
Usefulness [*----]
===========================================================================
----------------------------- HYPER COMBOS --------------------------------
===========================================================================
You thought Iceman has little special moves, but even worse he has only 1
Super! However, it is a good one and you should make good use of it.
____________________
/ Arctic Attack \_____________________________________________________
D, DF, F + Jab + Fierce (Can be done in air)
Iceman stands still and launches lots of ice fragments in all directions.
Great chipping move as well as being able to combo off from a Air Combo or
a ground chain. Don't try to pull it off alone as good players can Super
Jump over everything and punish you from behind. If you do it in the air
and you miss it, you will slowly float back to the ground but you will not
touch the ground, meaning you are immune to low attacks, but so what?
Usefulness [***--]
===========================================================================
----------------------------- ASSIST TYPES --------------------------------
===========================================================================
____________________
/ Alpha \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Beta \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Gamma \_____________________________________________________
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------------------------------- STRATEGY ----------------------------------
===========================================================================
____________________
/ Combo Theory \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Ground Game \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Air to Air \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Defence \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Tagging Out \_____________________________________________________
Changing characters. People tend to change characters when the playing one
is nearly dying. In this case, do not continue and rush in in any attempt
to pressure him to death, because he can simply switch out when you dash
in, hitting you, leading to a possible juggle afterwards. So what do you
do? Slow down, wait and crouch down and wait for your opponent, because the
slightest move will make him change the character. If he sits there without
doing anything and waiting for your dash, than simply walk in and throw
(now you understand the importance of throws, right?). As soon as you keep
calm, he will make a mistake and change character, which is free for you to
combo.
So how do you change? There are 5 safer ways to change.
1 - The safest way is to do a counter by inputting B, DB, D + Assist 1 or 2
(depending on the character you want to change). It wastes one Super bar
but you can hit your enemy and safely change.
2 - Do a safe Delayed Super Combo (one that pushes your enemy away without
too much recovery time). Not really recommended, but it is still quite
safe, and does some chipping damage.
3 - Launch and change. Your other character will jump in and kick the
launched enemy, but you wasted an air combo and it is quite difficult to
do. Not really recommended.
4 - Let him walk to you and when he is very near, change. Your character
will usually land on the other side and unless he has a far reach super,
you are pretty much safe.
5 - When he does a super jump, you change. Nuff said.
Also, when you change any other character into Spiderman and it hits,
sending your enemy high in the skies, just walk your Spiderman near the
enemy landing side and do a S.Roundhouse to kick him up for an Air Combo
before he can roll. Talking about roll, try to roll every time you get
knocked down, which avoids OTG combos and you can nail them back from
behind. To roll, when knocked down, immediately do B, DB, F + any punch.
There seems to be no difference between Jab and Fierce.
Oh yeah, by the way, if you see that one of your opponent helpers as got a
big chunk of red bar unrecovered, do the D, DF, F + Assist to force that
character out and he has can no longer recover the red bar.
That's pretty much the general strategies I can give you for using Spidey.
Just remember, although many of my tactics involve throws, they can be
escaped and besides, always throwing is very cheap. Don't over abuse it
unless really necessary. Use an helper instead and you look more fair. Also
don't taunt your enemy just because you are winning, only do so if he is
playing like a scrub or being a turtle. You want to play for fun, don't
you?
===========================================================================
------------------------- ULTIMATE CHEESE TEAM ----------------------------
===========================================================================
Why is it called the ultimate cheese team? Because using this team
guarantees me a 90% winning percentage in my arcade (I usually lose because
I am too tired of matches). This team consists of Spidey, Guile and Iceman.
Now let me explain why this is cheese. All three characters should use the
Alpha assist type. Spidey goes first, than Guile and finally Iceman. The
reason behind is that Spidey is a character which deals a lot of damage
without the need of supers, which is suitable for the first part of the
match. As well as it, he does a lot of chain combos which even blocked
fills the super bar like no tomorrow. Guile is good for the middle of the
match, as he does a fair amount of damage with supers (all of which are
comboable). Finally, as Iceman does not take block damage from most energy
type moves, and his Icebeam chips block damage like crazy, it is extremely
useful in the endgame, when the time bar is running out, as he is the king
of keep away ^_^. Besides if you can dish out an air combo with him, it
does heck a lot of damage as well.
(more on this on next update)
With this setup you can win most matches with ONLY Spidey as the active
player. But when he gets damaged a lot or dies, Guile fights decently and
can easily take the lead when Spidey is in trouble. Save Iceman for the
endgame, where you chip your enemy to death or wait for the counter to
reach 0.
However, Zhen has a slightly point of view with this team and here I quote
his tactics:
"How interesting, Spidey, Iceman, and Guile happen to be the team I got 52
wins the other day (then the place closed), however, I prefer to use iceman
before Guile for a lots reasons, first of all the weakest part of Iceman is
his close game and the fact that he doesn't have an anti air except for the
launcher which can hit the wrong way most times and get your self jacked,
when u play keep away with Iceman, you should always have a anti air assist
keep them on their toes, and once in a while jump in and do the cross over
web ball... also even if you do get caught due to your over abuse of
Iceman, you can always switch to 3rd char.. I prefer to do alpha counter
switch 70% of the times, and 30% of the times I switch with super
cancelling... due to the fact that each char have a different assist, it's
always better to have more options on your assists, therefore I strongly
suggest that you keep every char alive till they all have a sliver of life
left since a full bar isn't really that much in this game because of all
the crazy super cancelling you can do and the massive damage on air
combos... also since guile is strong, it's a good char to make a come back
with or keep your lead, if it ever gets to that point.. besides, most of
his damaging combo or punishes requires supers, while iceman can live off
chipping."
Wow, well, he has his reasons so judge your actions accordingly.
If you need more information on using Spidey or Guile, look no further at
the guides written by the same author (that's me, of course ^_^).
===========================================================================
----------------------------- BEATING ABYSS -------------------------------
===========================================================================
____________________
/ First Form \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Second Form \_____________________________________________________
____________________
/ Final Form \_____________________________________________________
===========================================================================
--------------------------- VS HUMAN PLAYERS ------------------------------
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
------------------------------- NOTATIONS ---------------------------------
===========================================================================
The following notations are assuming that the player is facing right:
UB U UF
__ Jab Fierce Assist 1
/ \ ( ) ( ) ( )
B \__/ F
|| Short Roundhouse Assist 2
|| ( ) ( ) ( )
DB D DF
Due to the new buttons configuration, in order to get Strong you have to
tap Jab twice and to get Forward you have to tap Short twice. In order
words, Strong and Forward are only used in combos.
S. - Standing
C. - Crouching
J. - Jumping
* -> * - Do one thing after another
*, * - Do one thing quickly after another
* + * - Press both buttons together
* or * - Press either button
Usefulness Chart:
* means 1 grade and / means half a grade.
[*----] - This move is useless. Avoid.
[**---] - An OK move. You will have to use it in combos anyway.
[***--] - A decent move. Should be used a bit more often.
[****-] - An useful move. Use it whenever situation allows.
[*****] - This move rocks! Use it and abuse it, but don't get predictable.
===========================================================================
------------------------------ GAME BASICS --------------------------------
===========================================================================
Dash - F, F or Jab + Fierce
Back Dash - B, B or B + Jab + Fierce
Super Jump - D, U or Short + Roundhouse or U after a launcher
Push Block - Jab + Fierce while blocking
Tag Out - Jab + Short for first character or Short + Forward for second
Taunt - Start (or Start + Short in DC)
Tech Hit - F or B + any button when being throw
Air Combo - Launch your enemy and tap U, than follow with a combo.
OTG Combo - Off The Ground Combo. When your enemy is down to the ground,
hit him with a low attack to kick him up and continue to
combo. Only 1 OTG allowed per combo.
Snap Back - D, DF, F + Assist 1 or 2, depending on who you want
to force out. Uses one level of Super.
Counter - B, DB, D + Assist 1 or 2. The chosen character will
jump out and do his assist and you will change
characters. Uses one level of Super.
Dual/Triple Super - Assist 1 + Assist 2. What comes out depends on the
number of characters left and amount of Supers
available.
Delayed Hyper Combo - Input the Super motion of the following character
when the playing character is doing a Super. Repeat
as often as Super meter allows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's about all I have to say about Guile now. Fell free to send me your
comments, suggestions, etc to
[email protected]. If you want to use any
information found in this FAQ please contact me first.
FAQ (c) 2000 by Beta Productions
End of FAQ
