Marvel Rivals: Ultimate Iron Man Guide

Iron Man is a Duelist hero in Marvel Rivals. He is a Flanking and Disruption Expert, who uses his flight capabilities to keep the enemies guessing where he’ll attack next. His plethora of splash damage and single-target attacks makes him ideal for taking out enemies in most situations. The Armored Avenger gets two out of five stars in terms of difficulty, meaning it is easy to pick this hero and master his relatively straightforward playstyle which can change the tide of battle in mere instances.

This guide is about how to play Iron Man in Marvel Rivals, offering game-changing strategies to help you out. We’ll check out his abilities, share some insider tips you might not know, and help you harness his suit’s power.

All Iron Man Abilities In Marvel Rivals

Name	Type	Details
Repulsor Blast	Normal Attack	He fires projectiles from his hand cannons. This attack is buffed with the Armor Overdrive ability and Gamma Overdrive Team-Up Ability.
Unibeam	Alternate Normal Attack	He fires a straight beam from his chest. This attack is buffed with the Armor Overdrive ability and Gamma Overdrive Team-Up Ability.
Armor Overdrive	Buff Ability	Buffs Iron Man for a short duration, boosting the damage Repulsor Blast and Unibeam.
Hyper-Velocity	Movement Ability	While airborne, Iron Man uses his jets to fly forward swiftly.
Micro-Missile Barrage	Offensive Ability	He fires multiple small missiles on his sides along his flight path while using the Hyper-Velocity ability. Or fire it while stationary when Armor Overdrive is active.
Invincible Pulse Cannon	Ultimate Ability	Charges up his cannons and fires a massive projectile that causes a huge explosion on impact, dealing great damage.
Gamma Overdrive	Team-Up Ability	When there is a Hulk in your team, Iron Man’s Armor Overdrive ability will receive a significant boost in power, resulting in increased damage from Repulsor Blast and Unibeam.

To fully grasp Iron Man, it’s essential to understand the important details about each ability.

Repulsor Blast:

The projectile deals splash damage on impact. It has an AoE range of 3m.
When fired consecutively, Iron Man fires a single projectile twice in a row and then fires two-handed projectiles at the same time when fired the third time.
A direct hit deals 40 damage. The AoE deals 50 damage to anyone caught in it.
The AoE has a 40% damage falloff at 3m.
The two-handed projectile deals 50 damage on a direct hit and 65 AoE damage.
The two-handed projectile’s AoE has a 40% damage falloff at 3m.
The two-handed Repulsor Blast has a slightly faster projectile speed.
The two-handed blast has a slightly slower fire rate.
It does not deal Critical hit.
It has an ammo capacity of 100. A single-handed Repulsor Blast consumes 10 ammo per shot and a two-handed blast consumes 16 rounds.
The Unibeam also shares this ammo count.
Armor Overdrive will buff this attack. (Check its section for more info).

Unibeam:

The Unibeam is a hit scan type attack.
It deals 140 damage per second.
The beam only has a range of 25m.
It has an ammo capacity of 100.
The Unibeam consumes 10 ammo per second of use.
The Repulsor Blast also shares this ammo count.
It does not deal Critical Hit.
Armor Overdrive will buff this attack. (Check its section for more info).

Armor Overdrive:

When Armor Overdrive is active, it will buff most of Iron Man’s abilities: Repulsor Blast, Unibeam, Hyper-Velocity, and Mico-Missile Barrage.
The buff lasts for 10 seconds.
It has a cooldown of 20 seconds.
Repulsor Blast (Buffed):
- The ammo count is infinite while the buff is active.
- Every Repulsor Blast has a faster projectile speed.
- A direct hit will deal 50 damage.
- The AoE has an increased radius of 5m.
- The splash damage will deal 65 damage.
- The 40% damage falloff has an increased range of 5m.
- The Repulsor Blasts have a slower rate of fire.
Unibeam (Buffed):
- The ammo is infinite.
- The damage output is boosted to 190 damage per second.
- Everything else is the same.
Hyper-Velocity (Buffed):
- The fuel is infinite at this point, meaning you can continually jet around while the buff is active.
- The flight speed and everything else remains the same.
Micro-Missile Barrage (Buffed):
- During the buff, Iron Man can launch these missiles in the direction of his crosshair without needing to use Hyper-Velocity.
- The missile count is increased to 18.
- The projectile speed gets a significant bump too.
- However, the damage per missile is decreased to 15.
- The AoE radius remains the same, 2m.
- The cooldown is lowered to 6 seconds.

Hyper-Velocity:

Iron Man activates all of his jets to gain 100% forward flight speed.
You can control his flight path as you wish.
It can be canceled anytime mid-flight.
The jets consume fuel, indicated by the white bar on the right of the reticule.
The maximum fuel is 120 and it consumes 15 for each second of use.
The fuel recovers at a rate of 10 per second.

Micro-Missile Barrage:

This attack can only be used while Iron Man is flying using Hyper-Velocity.
While flying forward, Iron Man will launch 16 missiles underneath him, much like carpet bombing.
The missiles’ trajectory and impact are random.
Each missile’s explosion has an AoE of 2m.
Each missile and its AoE deal 20 damage.
Has a cooldown of 8 seconds.
It can also be used while hovering/stationary only when the Armor Overdrive buff is active. (Check its section for more info).

Invincible Pulse Cannon:

The projectile causes a massive 10m explosion upon impact.
The blast deals 1000 damage to anyone within its radius.
The AoE has a 5% damage falloff at 10m.
As the projectile travels, it deals Damage Over Time on nearby enemies caught in its radius.
The damage over time is 300 per second.
The ultimate has a slight charge-up before it’s fired.

Gamma Overdrive:

You’ll need a Hulk in your team to utilize this buff.
This will only impact the Armor Overdrive ability.
The Repulsor Blast will get a direct hit damage boost to 60 and slightly lower the AoE to 60.
The Unibeam gets a damage boost to 220 damage per second.

How To Play Iron Man In Marvel Rivals?

This section emphasizes key points to remember when playing as Iron Man in Marvel Rival:

Iron Man can stay airborne indefinitely using his jets. Holding the jump button will allow you to ascend and press the crouch key to descend.
Use his flight capabilities to always have a high-ground advantage on the enemy and get a jump on them when they least expect it.
His hovering speed is pretty lackluster so you’ll need to find a high cover for effective engagements.
Iron Man is great at dealing with single targets and groups of enemies.
Iron Man’s quick and unrestricted movement allows him to zip between assuming the role of a frontline attacker to backline support in mere seconds.
Iron Man can easily disrupt enemy backline Strategists by jetting to their location and either taking them down, breaking their formation, or diverting their attention.
Even though his attacks deal splash damage, it is highly recommended that you land your shots directly on the enemy. This will deal considerably more damage and will ensure more kills.
For the most part, you can ignore the Micro-Missile Barrage. This ability is highly unreliable and doesn’t dish out enough damage to be worth it. Stick to Iron Man’s other abilities and you are golden.

Pro Tips

After checking out Iron Man’s abilities, let’s dive into how to really maximize his skills. Here are some handy tips and tricks from top players of Iron Man in Marvel Rivals:

1) Iron Man Aiming Tips

One important thing to note is that anyone in the Unibeam’s path will take damage. It’s not just about where your crosshair is aimed but where the laser beam points. Understanding this makes hitting your shots and tracking targets to deal maximum damage is much easier. It also allows you to learn how to shoot multiple players at once with the laser beam.

Firing and forgetting the Repulsor Blast is easy due to its blast radius. However, if you hit a player directly, it will deal more damage. It’s effective to use blasters on clusters of enemies to rack up damage and keep healers like Adam Warlock busy. If you’re aiming for kills, try to target directly. The best approach is to aim slightly ahead of the enemy’s movement and then fire at their center of mass. Practice leading aim at the practice range at different distances.

2) Who To Target?

With all these aiming tips in mind, who should you be targeting? Iron Man’s attacks excel at sneaking damage into the backline, especially against healers, since the laser beam can go through targets. You can easily pick off healers in the backline while shooting through tanks like Doctor Strange in the front.

The best way to play Iron Man is to constantly look for unorthodox angles to get kills on the support characters. Whether it’s with the laser beam or the blasters, you can always exploit an angle to shoot into the backline that other heroes can’t access. Iron Man truly becomes one of the best duelists for shutting down healers, as he can deliver damage from the frontline while also being effective at flanking.

3) Iron Man Iron Clad Combos

These combos work even better with the Hulk’s Gamma Overdrive Team-Up buff. However, they can still be effective in normal and Armor Overdrive mode.

The first combo is the Gamma Rocket combo. Activate your Overdrive, aim at the target, and fire your Micro-Missile Barrage immediately. Then, melee to cancel your rocket animation and quickly spam your Repulsor Blast twice. This can result in an instant kill on most squishy targets, so it’s worth mastering—it’s the best burst damage you can achieve with him.

The next combo is the Squishy Killer. Two Repulsor Blasts alone may not be enough to kill a squishy target, but if you deal some laser damage first, it will be sufficient. The challenge is that the laser activation animation is quite long, so start with the laser to ensure the initial animation occurs before you deal damage.

Do enough damage with the laser, and then follow it up with two Repulsor Blasts. This combo works best when you’re flanking opponents and attacking them before they notice you’re there.

4) Iron Man Positioning Tips

There are two main ways to play Iron Man when it comes to positioning. You can either play him as a traditional duelist, leading the charge in battle alongside your team, or as a flanker, taking off-angles and hidden routes to sneak up on the enemy’s backline.

First, you should never fly freely through the sky when playing as a traditional Duelist. Instead, utilize the cover to peek in and out while always staying protected. If the cover isn’t available, use your Hyper-Velocity ability to reposition.

There are three significant benefits to this approach. Firstly, you only have to peek when dealing damage, making it harder for enemies to hit you. Secondly, you can peek from different heights and angles, complicating the enemies’ attempts to pre-aim you, especially against snipers like Black Widow. The third benefit is that Iron Man’s blaster attacks are area-of-effect, meaning you don’t always need a direct line of sight to inflict damage. You can cause consistent harassment to the enemy with a barrage of blaster shots without exposing yourself.

If you lose cover, you can always use Hyper-Velocity to reposition. Just make sure to spam left and right while retreating to make it harder to track you.

Now, let’s talk about the flanking playstyle with Iron Man. This technique works best on specific maps where you can fly outside the map and create sneaky angles. Iron Man is a great flanker because he moves through the air silently when he is not using his Hyper-Velocity.

Unlike characters like Black Panther, who can be heard approaching, Iron Man’s silent movement lets you catch enemies off guard. You can easily circle behind the map and make quick work of the enemy healers.

One important consideration: as soon as you activate Armor Overdrive, it creates a noticeable sound that alerts players to your presence. In my experience, using the basic Repulsor Blast and Unibeam without Overdrive is often more effective for securing kills. The loud activation noise alerts opponents before you can launch your attack.

5) Iron Man’s Ultimate Tips

The Iron Man Ultimate is the easiest to use incorrectly. There are two main points to understand about it: it has a slow travel time and a long animation, but it also features a very large blast radius. This means that as soon as you activate it, players will be looking to counter it, whether it’s with Doctor Strange’s shield, Cloak and Dagger’s Terror Cape, or simply dodging out of the way.

Remember that Iron Man moves silently through the air to execute it successfully. You want to position yourself without alerting the enemy. This usually means flanking quietly into the enemy’s backline or setting up above their heads, where they are less likely to be looking.

The second key is getting as close to the enemy as possible. Since the ultimate’s projectile moves slowly, you must minimize their reaction time to achieve successful kills.

Finally, if enemies notice your ultimate and it ends up being poorly timed, you can still make use of it. Players typically move out of the way if you’re aiming at them or put up a Doctor Strange shield to block it. However, you can flick the ultimate at the last second of the animation to change its trajectory and potentially catch players who may be outside of your initial aiming area. The ultimate will always fire from the angle you’re targeting during the final part of the animation.

Another underrated tip is that the ultimate actually deals damage as it travels through the air. While this isn’t particularly useful in most situations, you can achieve more damage if you fire it at the same level as your target rather than from above. In theory, using the ultimate at ground level could be more effective than launching it from the sky, though I often find it challenging to make that work.

Sometimes, getting multiple kills with the ultimate isn’t the most important aspect. What truly matters is achieving results that change the flow of gameplay. Therefore, utilizing the ultimate to knock out a tank that is preventing objective capture instantly can sometimes be the best use of it. It’s fine to get just one kill with the ultimate if it can significantly influence the game.

Iron Man‘s aerial tactics and many damage-dealing abilities make him one of the most sought-after heroes in Marvel Rivals. He is easy to understand and with little time and practice, his powers in the right hands can impact the match. He is great at many things if you only know how to maneuver him.