I created a poll just to see what forumites are thinking with regards to the ever awful IM40.
I know the consensus is to keep him undercovered at 5/5/2. However, no champion rewards unless you add that last cover.
I pulled another yellow and while I have nowhere near the ISO to level him I feel I may one day like to after all my other 3* are there.
Thoughts?
I will not.
My Iron Man has been 5/5/3 for ages and will be championed soon. It’s not hard to find a use for that green Ap, and inte championed I might use a 5/4/4 build when I have a good purple outlet.
Yes, I will go from 5/5/2 to 5/5/3 just for the champion rewards. I rarely use him.
I guess I could have added a poll option for “My IM40 already has 13 covers”. Or better still, reworded the question “Is it now worth it to add a 13th cover to IM40”. Because that’s really what I was getting at.
I’m strongly leaning this way, only because I too never use him and can’t foresee a situation where that third yellow will prevent me from beating a node in which he’s essential (the only time I’d use him). Plus, aside from champion rewards, there’s always the slight chance that he gets rebalanced. Those seem like decent rewards for what amounts to minimal risk (an almost worthless character becoming more worthless).
IM40 is far from worthless, but his main worth is helping others through Recharge. He makes a good team with Human Torch - Recharge feeds a lot of Fireballs and Flame Jets, and Iron Man tanks red for Torch.
I said “near worthless”. He does have some niche uses but there are others who do what he does better. He’s an okay red/blue battery with Steve against PVE goons but I use 2* Mags and Cyclops as generators with much better results.
But if you champion him he can also generate green and (when needed) purple AP. I look forward to trying him out with Jean Grey or (when he’s at a decent level) Rulk.
Besides, I’d rather just let Cyclops feed himself as he is not a slouch in the damage departement. Magneto… Well, I rarely use two-stars these days outside of trivial and essential PvE nodes, they tend to die quite quickly.
Not a chance. I have a 5/5/2 and a 5/5/1 and plan to keep both just the way they are.
I pair my 5/5/2 with Captain America or Thor. Boost +2 red/yellow AP. Make two yellow matches and you’re chucking shields or Surging/Smiting chumps insanely fast.
5/5/1 is great with characters that only need red like the previously-mentioned Human Torch, Deadpool (either one), etc.
I just don’t see a place for a 5/5/3 in my roster. The extra match required to use Recharge would make him fairly useless to me.
There are much better purple generators in 3* land, namely SW
Which is fine If you only want purple AP. There are quite a few purple users that can also use green AP though.
Surprised no one has mentioned the obvious benefit of champion level hulk busters. That’s why i did it. So it was a modest amount of iso, maybe 30k. Should pay off in the long run.
btw Never play with him.
No he is the only 3* I would never consider championing. I use him a fair bit in PVE at 552 - lvl 153 and adding a 3rd cover to yellow would wreck him. People who talk about him being useless should try 4Thor and IM40 paired together in essentials..
So far we’re split right down the middle with the poll. 12 say add the cover, 13 say nope. 6 say he isn’t worth rostering.
Good discussion so far!
If you have nothing better to champ up, why not? The rewards for champing him are too awesome not to (Hulkbuster covers!), plus if you’re not using him for anything anyways…
Honestly, why keep a toon on your roster that you never use, and purposely keep him under-leveled?
Agreed.
Assuming you are not in 4 star land, he is worth champing due to the fact that he is only 1 of 2 characters with hulkbuster on his progression path.
If your plan doesn’t include needing hulkbuster, or you’re confident you will have him maxed by the time you get that deep in 3 
ironman’s tree then he isn’t worth champing, however.
voted no, but I might eventually. however, he is so far down my priority list that I hope he is buffed by then to make it worth it. I can see me possibly looking at him in maybe 8-9 months. my iso is taken for at least 6 months with the ~10 remaining 3s I want to max and all my covered 4s that are ready to go as well. by then, maxing im40 will likely be irrelevant, but who knows.
I already have him a 13 (for the green AP). I’m not sure that I’ll level him to champion him, though. He’s not very high. 130ish, IIRC.
I took this opportunity to sell my three worst 3*s for ISO, knowing that psylocke and IM40 were progression rewards and I could still get the single cover back for them.
IM40 goes from being worthless to being worth a legendary token and some hero points. Sounds like a win to me.
Unlike Steve, Cyclops doesn’t recycle his red… Anyway, I’ll try out Cyclops/Steve/MagNow in tomorrow’s Enchilada to see how it runs, as I’ve also been wondering about adding that yellow to my 5/5/2 IM40. (I mean, I’ve been gimping my ModHawk with about 4 of his covers in my queue because he’s at level 98 now and adding another level would award the IM40 yellow cover.)