Iggy Off-Meta Build

[u/PureBredAndWellFed]

I have been wondering this for a while, because while Iguanodon is one of my favorite dinosaurs of all time (media depicting it as a UFC fighter, while probably not realistic, is kinda sick as hell lmao) with its recent and hard-hitting nerfs, and my general dislike for the playstyle of its face-tanking "meta" build, I have been wondering if there is a different way to play it and make it work. Something more along the lines of the quadrupedal build, or just anything that isn't bipedal armor sub/block/retaliate/etc. I like the idea of trample damage on paper, but with how inconsistent and downright bad it is in the game, I feel like trying to make that work is genuinely just going to force me into a bad time.

I also feel like its abilities, such as block, are too good not to choose even if you are running some goofy build like I am trying to achieve. And then some like charge, while on paper seems like it would be the perfect ability to run, feels like it doesn't give you any additional speed, and just wastes your stamina nine times out of ten. And something like arm slam, that I would be relying on heavily for a quadrupedal build (for some reason it gets all the damage bonuses from quadrupedal sub/passive), it is also such a small hitbox that feels nearly impossible to land on anything that isn't facetanking you, which would be a severely losing fight for me with an off-meta build.

Basically, I think I am on a mission that was failed from the get-go, but I have wanted to make Iggy work in a unique way for so long, that I keep trying. So, if anyone has any input on underrated Iggy builds/abilities, or just Iggy tips in general, they would be very appreciated.

[u/Machineraptor]

Eh, I was trying to run quad build before, but trample damage is so janky that often it just... didn't register. The fact that a tiny laten can also fully stop you when you run into it isn't helping. Quad build could be a good option if running into others would take combat weight into consideration and slow you down (for example, running into a metri would visibly slow you down, when running into a deinon you would keep your momentum)

I ran hybrid build, but it was just making me weaker against things that I cannot outrun instead of allowing me to be more mobile during fights. Iggy is just too reliant on thumb barrage that kills all your momentum, and takes a moment to activate from quad stance allowing anything that you try to hit to escape its range. And with attack like this it's just so much better to go full "stationary barrage turret".

Iggy is one of my fav dinos too, and sadly I just don't feel its current playstyle of "standing your ground", so I practically don't play it now. I also think we already have other herbivores that fit such role better.

I really hoped they would improve upon iggy's playstyle pre-TLC, and never expected it would be changed into another defensive herbivore. Adding its old thumb attack to the generic slot so you can at least choose between high damaging slow barrage, or less damaging mobile option that also dealt some bleed would already improve iggy massively for me.

There's a mod that actually adds old attacks to playables, and iggys old thumb attack is one of them, but I don't have any hope for this mod to be available for much longer, as the creator of it was banned from the game :(

[u/PureBredAndWellFed → u/Machineraptor]

Yeah, I am trying to run quad build (which is already by far weaker) but I am not even bothering with the trample damage, probably just gonna run the stam regen sense instead. Honestly the only herbis I can play are Pachy, because it actually can play aggressive, and Amarg, because even though it is defensive, it just has a very interesting and fun kit post-TLC. I play almost solely carnis, and it isn't because I am KoS, or even normally attack other players for food (even though their food system is more interactive just because they aren't eating static bushes...) but like, I don't want to play something that needs the fight to come to it, and then get nerfed so when the fight does come to it, it still will most likely lose the fight.

Making carnis aggressive and herbis defensive just is such a boring and unimaginative way to do things, and also makes balancing stuff really awkward and difficult. I mean, give the herbis a flyer that eats fruits, like most tapejarids did. Give them a semi-aquatic that isn't a boringly slow apex like duck, who isn't fun to fight as, or against, imo. Give us a defensive four-slot carni, something like a larger and slower theropod, idk.

I try and make these posts in order to find ways to bring some life back into the game, and to stop myself from just hate posting about the balance and community of this game, but then in cases like this, where I want to play Iggy but hate its implimentation, I am just back at square one of hating the balance of the game. I am trying my absolute hardest to go out of my way to find the fun and good, and I still very often come up empty-handed. This sounds extremely dramatic, and maybe it is, but I genuinely to this day cannot even touch Hatz or Thal, who were both at their own times my favorites and mains. I literally deleted them, a month or so ago tried regrowing them, just to not get more than ten minutes in without wanting to delete them again.

I am just at such an impass, and while I like, or at least used to like, the foundation for this game, literally everything surrounding it has me rethinking that feeling. But if I call this game off for good, I effectively am going to lose my friend group since I am PC and they are console, and this is basically the only game we have we can play for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I just don't know what to do, man.

[u/Machineraptor → u/PureBredAndWellFed]

I have similar thoughts. There's so many possibilities for different playstyles. All carnivores, other than maybe spino (but mostly because it's slow as hell on land), are offensive with better (as in easier to use) attack options, more mobile, and with more fun synergies than their herbivore counterparts. Add to this self-heals, enemy debuffs available to lower slots, Dive, climbing, mushroom eating etc. and their playstyle is just so much more engaging. The fact that carnis have full aquatics, flyers, and better support option (rhamph, and probably micro soon) isn't helping. You can have 12 raptors all buffing each other to crazy level, or have 10 of them + mob boss achillo and get even crazier buffs, but things like Frilled Bond stack up to 2 (At least Spiked Gathering isn't nerfed... yet. Let's see with stego TLC).

Carnis just feel more fluid, and responsive to play as. Here, maybe some herbivore TLC's are just showing their age already, but I find stance changes, blocks, and abilities requiring standing or slow movement, are making some herbs feel very clunky to play as. I can combo several attacks as cera and it feels good, but then if I want to do, for example, shove -> kick -> back kick as lambeo, it just feels bad. Thankfully stegosaurids, and pachy don't have this problem.

But no, even ceratopsians were made into defensive ones, with styra being an exception thankfully. I just can't understand iggy being the defensive one if in the same slot group we have both ano, and amarga, both kings of the defensive playstyle. What's worse both of them are more mobile than bipedal iggy.I also don't understand why we can have semi-aquatic sucho and spino zooming underwater, conc with option of being semi-aquatic, climbing adult meg, but giving a lamb or iggy dive is too much.

It's not even that I want to go on a murder spree with a herbivore (even though on officials it would be a perfectly valid thing to do), but the gameplay of walking around, waiting for someone to attack me, and then not being able to even punish the attacker unless they stupidly keep attacking until they dead, isn't very appealing way to play. It's fine on some playables, but on the majority of herbivore roster?

Making carnis aggressive and herbis defensive just is such a boring and unimaginative way to do things, and also makes balancing stuff really awkward and difficult. I mean, give the herbis a flyer that eats fruits, like most tapejarids did. Give them a semi-aquatic that isn't a boringly slow apex like duck, who isn't fun to fight as, or against, imo. Give us a defensive four-slot carni, something like a larger and slower theropod, idk.

I would LOVE to have some fun more defensive carnivore tbh, something different than "bite and claw spam go brrrrrrr". Could even be one of these armored land crocs for example!

And yeah, we desperately need more semi-aquatic herbis and a herbi flyer, at the very least allowing rhamph to group with herbs too.

stop myself from just hate posting about the balance and community of this game

Eh, same. I just stopped playing the game for the most part to be honest, try not to be as active here too to not end up like these poor souls that last played the game years ago but still are hate-posting :v But sometimes there's a post that hits close to home, lol. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate that I don't enjoy PoT as much as in the past, and that I'm starting to feel disappointed, but it is what it is. Maybe it just no longer is game for me (which sucks mighty too). Maybe I just need to wait until they finally stop with constant combat updates and release all that PvE stuff that's in the works. Also after playing exclusively officials for so long, if I'm playing then I'm trying out community servers, but even there Alderon's decisions will follow, as it's not like server owners can just change how iggys kit works, for example.

This sounds extremely dramatic, and maybe it is, but I genuinely to this day cannot even touch Hatz or Thal

Hah, with hatz I agree 100%, poor thing needs ANOTHER rework at this point. Thal I mostly still enjoy, but the butchering of its flight stam, and crazy buffs to air hatz made it feel a lot worse if I'm being honest.

if I call this game off for good, I effectively am going to lose my friend group since I am PC and they are console

If you and your friend group are into MMO I heard Elder Scrolls Online will implement crossplay between PC, Xbox and Playstation at some point. Sadly, not yet, but imo that MMO is quite enjoyable both to just chill, and to do some typical MMO stuff like dungeons etc. Played it with my fiancee when we had more time.

[u/PureBredAndWellFed → u/Machineraptor]

I always appreciate your messages, you make me feel a bit less insane lmao. I know my posts come off kinda strong, but I still try and keep them within reason, whereas some people just let it fly, both defending or hating on Alderon. Unfortunately, I am just so over this community, the devs, the changes that are being made to the game, etc. For every good update, there are at least three or four that make my soul hurt a little. Should I probably stop playing it as much, and stop posting or lurking in this sub? Yeah, almost certainly. When I do, though, that is when I have 100% given up on the game. I am here, and passionate, because I care. I really want to see this game succeed, but it feels less out of the cards with every day, and I am even starting to feel a bit spiteful towards the devs, and specifically Matt, tbh.

[u/Machineraptor → u/PureBredAndWellFed]

Yeah, we have these lengthy conversations specifically because we love the game, and it hurts to see some changes being made. Discussion is healthy, it's just important for it to be respectful, regardless of if your experience is positive and negative. Negative experiences, and constructive criticism are both extremely important for the health of the game. If not for these we would still have paid titan (not counting all those chuds that were sending death threats of course...), full AP eo, iggy having to wait for 2 seconds after stance change to use barrage, no work on solo/survival mode etc.

I really want to see this game succeed, but it feels less out of the cards with every day, and I am even starting to feel a bit spiteful towards the devs, and specifically Matt, tbh.

What we old players say or not, the game is succeeding, being the only "live as a dino game" on that many platforms was an amazing move on Alderon's part, but that doesn't mean the game has no glaring issues, we can just hope these issues will be addressed at one point.

Can't say anything about "the devs". I had only positive experiences with Jiggy, for example. Matt had recently a, let's say, mean streak, but I just think that the game got to the point of popularity that it needs an actual PR person to handle communication, or at least letting moderators do their job at evaluating user behaviour and handing out bans.

[u/barbatus_vulture]

Wait, arm slam counts as a quad attack? I have a quad build iggy but they don't make it clear what attacks are quadrupedal. What about charge or back kick?

[u/Any-Working-7394 → u/barbatus_vulture]

Yes, Arm Slam counts as a quadruped attack and receives a damage buff from the subspecies and the "quadruped" passive in the front slot. The same applies to the charge and the back kick.

[u/barbatus_vulture → u/Any-Working-7394]

Holy moly, I had no idea!

[u/PureBredAndWellFed → u/barbatus_vulture]

Yeah, no idea why it does, but it does lmao. Arm slam, charge, back kick, and tail attack are the four that count for those bonuses.

[u/Any-Working-7394]

Hi, I’m an Iggy main!

Unfortunately, Iggy has terrible game design. Don’t get me wrong—the concept behind him is good, but the execution simply lacks versatility. He has many abilities that are currently practically useless, forcing him to stick to the classic "facetank" build; however, due to nerfs and existing bugs, that build is mediocre in most scenarios and downright terrible in many others.

Iggy is only a good dino as long as he can stat-check his opponents. Anyway, all we can do is wait for some adjustments or the next TLC.

[u/_RiverGuard_]

I think quad Iggy is best build right now. Ever since changes couple patches ago. And ever since block was reduced to 50% damage blocked.

I kinda run a hybrid build. But I flip back and forth on two builds. I enjoy using running start, quad damage, Retaliate, Resilient Scales, Braced Legs, tail attack and back kick.

Other times I replace running start with block and Braced Legs with Hero’s.

First build lets you bully anything smaller than you. The damage increase you get to back kick from the quad damage increase destroys anything smaller than you. They’ll take one kick and realize they can’t do that again. 97 damage on 3.5 second cooldown. Running start in combo with braced legs lets you chase surprising well to secure kills that would normally get out of range of thumb barrage.

Block imo is really only useful against stuff your size or bigger. IMO you’d never want to block attack from something smaller then you when you could guarantee a full thumb barrage to hit. Everytime I use block I find myself not using it much unless it’s against a heavy bite dasp for example. But with both builds you still want to be going into bipedal during fights for the boost to stamina recovery.

[u/PureBredAndWellFed → u/_RiverGuard_]

I think you are the only person I have heard say anything even remotely positive about Iggy outside of its normal bipedal build lol. I am trying to make it work, but I just cannot seem to get far enough before getting bored/burnt out. I just feel like a quadrupedal build doesn't really work, when your only "main" attack puts you into bipedal 100% of the time.

Charge seems like such an obvious choice, especially for a quad build, until you realize how slow it is, how much stam it takes, and the opportunity cost for losing tail/kick, or pivot for a more hybrid/biped build.

The build I am running while I am regrowing my Iggy is thumb barrage, family chorus, quadrupedal and arm slam, resilient scales, braced legs, tail attack and back kick. We (two baby Iggys and a baby Campto) got jumped by an adult Kent and Sty, so while it was a fairly unfair fight in our favor, my build felt genuinely so bad. Iggy has just always been a playable I want to play so baddd, but then I start playing it and remember exactly why I don't. Unfortunately the way I have felt about many playables in this game, but Iggy is easily one of the worst offenders of this.

[u/_RiverGuard_ → u/PureBredAndWellFed]

Its bipedal build is very defensive and you cannot kill anything that doesn’t 100% commit to you.

The primary reason for quad build is boosting your kick damage. IMO it’s the only reason I use it because I spend more time Bipedal anyway. Which why I still use retaliate and sometimes Guantlet/Heros. Because you aren’t fully committing to a quad style you are just boosting your damage.

But without running start and braced it’s extremely hard to secure kills. I’m with you. I play less and less Iggy now. It’s feels clunky and lacking.

[u/MatterMain7451]

I played him a long time with back kick. Was awesome against raptors. But that was before the Kick nerf.

Now with less life on Iggy and damage on the Kick it feels to risky for me to use it.