Iron Fist is a Duelist hero in Marvel Rivals. He is an Ambush/Burst Damage hero who thrives in duels, disrupting enemy backlines, and finishing off weak enemies. He has unprecedented mobility and burst damage that can dish out exceptional damage over a short period. The Immortal Weapon gets four out of five stars in terms of difficulty, meaning understanding his cooldowns, kit, and particular playstyle does require a bit of time investment to make his fists of fury that your foes fear.
This guide is all about how to play Iron Fist in Marvel Rivals, offering some game-changing strategies to help you out. We’ll check out his abilities, share some insider tips you might not know, and help you really nail down his martial arts skills.
All Iron Fist Abilities In Marvel Rivals
| Name | Type | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Jeet Kune Do | Normal Attack | A series of punches and kicks he uses to strike enemies at melee range. |
| Dragon’s Defense | Defensive Ability | He assumes a defensive stance that converts incoming damage to bonus HP, grants him damage reduction, and unlocks a unique normal attack (Yat Jee Chung Kuen) |
| Yat Jee Chung Kuen | Normal Attack (Dash) | During the Dragon’s Defense stance, he can use a special dash attack that unleashes a flurry of fists. |
| K’un-Lun Kick | Movement/Dash Ability | After dashing forward, he performs two flying kicks. |
| Harmony Recovery | Healing Ability | He assumes a cross-legged hovering stance and slowly recovers HP. |
| Crane Leap | Movement Ability | He can perform triple jumps while airborne. |
| Wall Runner | Movement Ability | He can run on walls horizontally. |
| Chi Absorption | Passive Ability | Taking down enemies will grant him Bonus Health. |
| Living Chi | Ulitmate Ability | Grants him a powerful buff when it’s activated, increasing his speed, range, and damage. |
| Dragon’s Chill | Team-Up Ability | Grants an aura buff to Luna Snow when she uses her ice powers. |
To fully grasp Iron Fist, it’s essential to understand the important details about each ability.
Jeet Kune Do:
- This attack can chain 5 strikes.
- The first four come out faster while the last one is slower.
- The initial four strikes deal 32 damage each while the last hit deals 55. This amounts to a total of 183 damage for the entire combo.
- The last hit will knock back enemies.
- The attack itself has a range of 3m although Iron Fist will pull into the target automatically when used at 6m. The pull-in range is indicated by the yellow marker that appears on the enemy within the range.
- Each successful hit will lower Dragon’s Defense cooldown by 1 second.
- The attack combo can be performed while airborne.
Dragon’s Defense:
- This defensive stance only lasts 1 second.
- During the stance, he will block all incoming damage from every source.
- Iron Fist receives a 30% damage reduction.
- All damage received during this point will convert into Bonus HP, seen as the additional blue bar on the regular HP bar. This HP is temporary and will disappear after some delay if not utilized.
- The damage blocked into Bonus HP conversion rate is 1.5x. However, the maximum Bonus HP you can accumulate is only 150.
- The cooldown is 15 seconds, although Jeet Kune Do hits will lower it.
- During this stance, you can pull off the Yat Jee Chung Kuen dash attack.
Yat Jee Chung Kuen:
- You must use this attack before the Dragon’s Defense timer/stance runs out.
- It will replace Jeet Kune Do attack during this stance.
- The pull-in or dash distance of this attack is a substantial 11m. It can be seen as the same yellow marker for Jeet Kune Do.
- If used without a target, the dash will only reach 3m.
- The animation lasts for 5 seconds and you maintain control over the hero meaning you can target other enemies while it lasts once you are done with one.
- The attack unleashes 7 strikes every second, totaling 35 rapid punches for the entire duration.
- Each strike deals 19 damage, which amounts to a whopping 665 damage if you land the whole flurry.
K’un-Lun Kick:
- The kicks will either come out if Iron Fist hits an enemy while dashing or if he reaches the maximum range of 12m.
- The first kick will always deal 30 damage. The second kick’s 35 to 70 damage output will depend on the enemy’s HP. The lowest damage it will deal is 35 and if the target is below 50% HP, the second kick will deal 70 damage.
- Has a cooldown of 12 seconds.
Harmony Recovery:
- He will heal his lost HP and if he reaches the maximum, he will gain Bonus HP while the stance lasts.
- The stance lasts for 3 seconds.
- Lost HP will recover at 100 HP per second. If the HP is full, he will gain a maximum of 50 Bonus HP depending on how much time is left for the stance.
- Has a 12-second cooldown.
Crane Leap:
- While in the air, Iron Fist can jump three more times.
- Each jump will consume a charge, meaning there are 3 in total.
- Each jump charge will take 1 second to replenish.
Wall Runner:
- While holding the jump button on a wall, he will start running across it horizontally.
- The wall running speed, 9m/s, is faster than his regular movement speed of 6m/s.
Chi Absorption:
- He will gain 50 Bonus Health with each kill.
- This will work if you kill the enemy yourself and if you assisted, meaning if your teammate kills a target that you have damaged, Iron Fist will still receive the Bonus HP.
Living Chi:
- The ultimate lasts for 12 seconds.
- During this time Iron Fist will receive the following buffs:
- 20% movement boost
- 30% damage boost
- 100% bonus range to both the K’un-Lun Kick and Yat Jee Chung Kuen
- -80% cooldown reduction to Yat Jee Chung Kuen / Dragon’s Defense
Dragon’s Chill:
- You’ll need a Luna Snow in your team to take advantage of this Team-Up.
- This doesn’t unlock anything new for Iron Fist. He just grants Luna Snow a buff.
- Iron Fist does get a 15% damage boost with her on the team.
How To Play Iron Fist In Marvel Rivals?
This section emphasizes key points to remember when playing as Iron Fist in Marvel Rival:
- Iron Fist is the perfect backline diver. His mobility and burst damage allow him to disrupt the enemy support, deal a bunch of damage, and bail then heal for the next jump.
- Play to his nimble playstyle strength to get the best out of his fists.
- Since he is primarily a melee hero, he is extremely vulnerable if his mobility skills are on cooldown.
- Requires a ton of resource management to play effectively. His defensive skills are also his offensive skills thus forcing you to keep an eye on the cooldowns and picking the right times to use it.
- Iron Fist can win most one-on-one duels owing to his abilities. However, these opportunities are rarer than you expect so you really have to be defensive and escape if overrun by enemies.
- Don’t even bother engaging Vanguards when they are at full HP. Only go in for the kill if their health is low.
- It is highly recommended that you pick on isolated characters and focus on dueling rather than crowdwork.
- Stay airborne as much as possible and scout the arena. Jump from wall to wall, building to building, and roof to roof to carefully choose your next target.
- Wall running is a quicker way of traversing the map. He runs on walls faster than his regular movement so use that to your advantage.
- His wall run and jumping abilities allow him to scale most vertical surfaces with ease.
Pro Tips
After checking out Iron Fist’s abilities, let’s dive into how to really maximize his skills. Here are some handy tips and tricks from top players of Iron Fist in Marvel Rivals:
1) Sneaky Harmony Recovery
When your health is critical, retreat through a doorway to use Harmony Recovery healing, ideally using it above the doorway inside that room as opposed to on the ground level. You float in place when you use it, so going into a room and hovering over the same door you entered through is an amazing bait for anyone who’s attempting to chase.
Side note to this, don’t just double jump up over the doorway and use heal. If at all possible, gain your height, then touch a wall with a wall run for literally a millisecond, any amount of time, and use your heal after the wall run has engaged. Jumps will regenerate once you have engaged a wall run, even through your heal.
This way you’ll be completely healed and have a surprise element to startle anyone chasing you by getting a drop on them from the wall.
2) “One-Shot” Combo
As you know, the Jeet Kune Do combo can be performed while airborne. This is the best way of using this attack. This way you can stay glued atop an enemy, especially their healers like Cloak and Dagger, and they won’t be able to pin you down while you kick them to an early grave. This will also divert their attention from healing to dealing with your nuisance. It is hard to target someone airborne as opposed to one on the ground.
Now we’ll weave this into a combo that will help you propel through the ranks. You need to first get a jump on the enemy and perform 4-5 Jeet Kune Do hits mid-air and immediately follow it up with a K’un-Lun Kick and end it with another Jeet Kune Do strike.
This chain dishes out enough damage that it will guarantee you a squishy kill if you land all the hits. Not to mention, the constant airborne kicks and the knockback from the K’un-Lun Kick will keep the enemy nice and confused for you to complete the combo.
3) Kick And Jump Across The Map
The K’un-Lun Kick is a great tool for closing distance and engaging out-of-range enemies. However, most people fail to realize that it is an even better means of disengaging and escaping when overwhelmed. The dash distance is surprisingly long so you can easily flick the camera around and dash away when you see the enemies might have an upper hand in a battle.
What makes this movement skill top-notch is that you can aim upwards while activating it and you’ll travel even more distance (around 30 meters) at much faster speeds. Compared to the grounded dash that only covers 12 meters, you’ll know how well this can up your game. You can aim it towards a balcony and escape through the higher route.
This comes in handy in both engaging and disengaging scenarios. Pair this with the Crane Leap triple jump and you’ll be covering a vast length in mere seconds. You can even use this technique to surprise an enemy Black Widow, sniping from her safety.
4) OP Dragon Defense
The Dragon’s Defense shield shouldn’t be taken lightly. This one-second block can withstand every kind of damage coming its way. On top of that, it protects his whole body, so you shouldn’t worry about any incoming hits, even those coming from behind him. If you can time it right, you can block or cancel even other heroes’ ultimate (like Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Penny Parker, and Jeff) with this thing.
Speaking of Doctor Strange, do you know the Yat Jee Chung Kuen attack can destroy tanks like him within a single flurry. This attack can dish out an insane amount of damage if you can stick to a character while firing the whole barrage.
When you see a Vanguard, put up the Dragon Defense and immediately lunge at them with Yat Jee Chung Kuen. The block will buff you with a damage reduction buff, which will help absorb some incoming damage while you punch them down to a pulp.
5) Flanking Tactician
As Iron Fist you should consider a flanking loop. He can pretty much solo the entire match with this tactic. Scour the map on rooftops, try to locate an isolated target, and then jump on them from behind while performing the airborne combo we discussed above. Use the Dragon Defense to block any damage once you are on the ground and gain a bunch of Bonus HP then continue attacking until they are down.
In case you miss out on perfect blocking, don’t have sufficient Bonus Health, and have received damage, then quickly turn around and use either the K’un-Lun Kick or the triple jump to bail and look for a safe area to heal. Once healed, go back to finding your next target.
Only take the enemies head-on when you have a good amount of Bonus HP otherwise Iron Fist is an extremely squishy hero to face the enemies out in the open.
6) Living Chi Perfect Use
The Living Chi ultimate gives Iron Fist unbelievable power but the activation sound is so loud that as soon as the enemy hears/sees you popping it off, they are likely to gun you down or run away. You should use it while standing behind a corner, away from enemy vision/hearing, and utilize the wall run and triple jump to engage them from the air. This will let you surprise and attach to them while they scramble.
During this window, the Dragon Defense cooldown is significantly lower. Make sure to weave that in while you are going bonkers with the ultimate. The Bonus Health is a lifesaver when you are in the middle of a skirmish.
The ultimate is the right time to continually cycle between Dragon Defense and Yat Jee Chung Kuen. This way you alternate between blocking and dealing the maximum damage that this hero can dish out.
Iron Fist is not easy to pick up and play in Marvel Rivals. This martial artist requires a lot of forward-thinking and a predator mindset that prowls on unsuspecting enemies. The good thing about him is that he can sustain himself pretty nicely, and thus, he is ideal for players who like to do their own thing rather than work as a team.