Marvel Heroes Iron Man Guide

Marvel Heroes Iron Man Guide by Winny

Congratulations of your purchase of Iron Man! Before you begin your new hero there are somethings that you should know. Iron Man is a ranged hero, this means that he deals the majority of his damage from a distance; as such,you’ll often be holding back rather then on the front lines of a combat. Despite this, Iron Man is still a durable hero he can survive the stray shots that hit him with out much trouble.
What are Iron Man’s Pros and Cons?

• Pros:
  • Range and Mobility
  • Good Survivability
  • Good Single Target Damage
  • Easy to Play
• Cons:
  • Next no Crowd Control
  • Shield Tree
  • Lacks Any Team Utility or Support

This makes Iron Man a very good as solo play due to his survivability and damage. In group play he’ll generally be left out in favor of a hero who can bring more to the team. You can circumvent this by running a “tank” build based on Iron Man’s survivability.

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• [C000] Change Log
• Guides:
  • [G001] F.A.Q.
  • [G002] General Tips
  • [G003] Iron Man Tips
• Builds:
  • [B000] Leveling Build
  • [B100] Solo Build
    1. [B101] Missile Build
    2. [B102] Unibeam Build
  • [B200] Group Builds
    1. [B201] Tank Build

Guides

F.A.Q. [G001]

I will add more as I see questions being asked

• Q- Is there a “Best” Build?
• A- No… there is a best build for your play style but not an all round best build. Since I don’t know how you like to play games I can’t tell you witch is the best for you. Try reading through the builds section to see witch one sounds the best to you.

• Q – What Core, Artifacts, or gear should I use?
• A – This is covered in the “Builds” section.

• Q – What do the artifacts you listed do?
• A – To save me from writing them all out here’s a link to the Marvel Heroes Wiki
• Due to the major changes to all artifact done last patch, artifact listed might not still be as good or some might be better. I will continue to test.

• Q- I have a question should I PM you or ask you here?
• A- I’d like you to ask here so everyone can see. (As they might have a similar question) but I will try to get back to PMs when I can.

General tips: [G002]

Moving will keep you alive

• This is an Action Role Playing Game, as such the best way to not take damage is to not get hit. Movement is a very important part of the game as is knowing when you can stand still. Many attacks in the game can be avoided and should be.

Have Patience

• Don’t be afraid to stop at time to let your health and, more importantly, you spirit refill. Rushing in head first can often result in your Hero being defeated.

Focus on your important skills

• Putting points into all your skills results in you having lots of weak powers rather then having a few strong ones. It not such a problem early levels to get a feel for what your character can do but spreading your self too thin will hurt you in the long run.

Saving your points isn’t a bad thing

• To expand upon the last tip, don’t be afraid to save your points when you level. There will be times when you will be unable to place points into the skills you want so to save your self from needing to buy a retcon it’s advised that you just hold onto them for a level or two. Well leveling this is less important, I advise you to try out all Iron Man’s skills to see what you like before settling on a build.

Use Gear appropriate to your level

• You should always try and find gear that is close to the level of your character. With patch 1.2 many stats were changed to a rating system meaning that lower level items offered less benefit to high level players

Iron Man tips: [G003]

Watch your Spirit

• This almost made it into general but I left it here so I could go into more detail. Iron Man is very reliant on his spirit to deal damage, mitigate incoming damage, and move quickly. You should always save enough spirit so that you can dash to safety or re-apply your shield or else you’ll find that you’ll find your self in trouble. Don’t be afraid to run away, it not very heroic but it can save you. This goes hand in hand with Patience from the General tips. Shield Shutdown goes a long way to helping with your spirit.

Keep your Shields up

• You should always have a shield up when you can and you should match the shield for the job at hand. You should switch and re-apply your shield as need be. Given how the synergies of your shields work investing in Kinetic and Energy is the best but investing in all shield will improve them. When solo or in situations where enemies are too many to control Kinetic Shield offers the best defence since most attacks are physical. In situations where you in a group attacking from a range or can reliably avoid damage Energy Shield offers better rewards. (spirit regeneration) You should always use shield shutdown before recasting your shield if you can.

Shield Overload is the most powerful attack in the game!

• Well yes, and no. Shield Overload does bonus damage based on the amount of damage your shield has taken. Your supposed to use this skill right before your shield runs out to maximize it’s damage but since Kinetic Shield and Energy Shield do not loose and capacity when taking damage from the appropriate type the more damage you take the more damage your next Overload will do. If you loose your shield the damage is reset. This is really more of a cool extra rather then being a practical way of doing damage.

Your Missiles will auto-target

• Your Mirco-Missiles will fly out and seek out targets on their own when you are not targeting anything. This is both good and bad. You have very little control over what they attack but you have no need to stay still when firing them and are free to move around well doing so, witch you should. You can also use other abilities when your missile are on cool-down; use this to your advantage so deal extra damage.

Moving around the Field

• Hyper-Velocity Charge is a great skill. But you’ll only ever need to put one point into it. The damage it does is negligible as you’ll only be using it to rapidly cover ground and/ or move out of the way: Something that putting more points into it will not improve. Jet-Boot Flight is in a similar boat. Putting more points into the skill will increase your flight speed but just one point in often enough.

Know when to use your Ultimate

• Iron Man has a powerful Ultimate but you should know when are where to use it. You should use the power for bosses and only when the boss will not move very far from it’s current location and when there are few to no other enemies nearby. This is because the the suits that you call down will not move from the area that they deployed and they pick up targets rather slowly really diminishing their damage output if there are groups of enemies. As such, your Ultimate is largely useless in areas like Manhattan but great in green and red terminals.
• When you summon your Ultimate they also come with any temporary stat buffs you may have had. (Such as a cosmic proc or a Venom Medal) You can use this to have them deal even more damage. (Credit to @Kennyboyy for the tip)

Builds

This is the meat if the guide. Here I’ll go into detail about the various ways to play Iron Man and how you should gear and spend your points. Builds in this guide are considered to start at level 30 (Once you have access to all skills)until then the “Leveling Build” is for you.

Leveling Build [B000]

Leveling Iron Man can be slow at times so be prepared for that. The large problem here comes from a lack of a powerful area attack so if you have problems with not being the most powerful character on screen then you may take issue.

Stat Priorities:

• One point investments:
  • Hyper-Velocity Charge
• Remaining points:
  • Jet-Assisted Slam -> Disruptor Beam -> Kinetic Shield-> Energy Shield -> Force Shield -> Repulsor Ray -> Freon Ray

Your main focus when leveling Iron Man is to choose an area attack ( Jet-Assisted Slam, unlocked at level 6) Then just go down the list to see where you should spend your points. (Can I put a point into Shield Overload? No? Kinetic Shield? No? Energy Shield? No? Force Shield? Yes! Then place a point into Force Shield) You’ll want to focus on your basic attacks and shields after your chosen Area Attack.

You may also want to pick a single target attack. Both Repulsor Barrage and Unibeam work well.

You will mostly be spamming your chosen attack in to groups of enemies to kill them. You can either rush the enemies your self since both your attacks are close range or range them down with your basic attack until they get close. If you’re investing heavily in your shields you should have little problem surviving but you should always carry a large number of Med kits since Iron Man has no active healing skill.

For gear you should focus on items that give +ranks to your most used skills. The two affixes you should look for on your weapon are gain spirit on hit and gain spirit when defeating an enemy. Both will reduce the downtime you have from using your spirit heavy area attacks. Critical Chance is the best stat you can stack stack form gear but really anything at this point in the game is workable. As for what medal to use it’s really up to you. The only penalty for trying out the medal is binding it you the character so feel free to experiment and choose the one that you like the best. (You’ll get it again for each character you play through the story)

Solo Builds [B100]

Builds in this section focus on Iron Man’s solo builds. All of these preform best when running solo but can be used in groups. Their main focus is dealing damage.

Missile Build [B101]

Link to Build

This build focus on your Micro-Missiles to deal damage while on the move. With this build you’ll have great mobility and, as such, high survivability.

Gear:

• Costume Core: +1 Strength, 25% Health and Spirit from Medkit
• Costume Affixes: Damage
• Medal: Magneto Medallion

Even more so then with other builds, you’ll want to try and find gear with +ranks to Macro-Missiles. This not only increases the damage but also the number of Missiles fired. Because the damage you gain from items is very good for you missile builds you`ll want to focus on Damage Rating when gearing, then Critical Chance. (Critical Damage is the worst stat) Like with any build that uses a spirit costing attack as it’s main source of damage +Spirit and -%Cost are good stats to watch out for. Movement speed is also rather nice to have since you spend much of your time running around but is not a priority. The costume core is there to improve your damage output with missiles. Restoring Spirit when using a medkit is also good but can be replaced with another.

Artifacts:
+Damage is the best stat for this build so you should try and find artifact that grant that.

Game Play:
When you use Micro-Missiles you’ll fire out a small homing missile that will try and damage a target on your screen. (It will focus on the target you have your cursor over, then near by enemies) What’s more is that the more points you invest in to the skill the more of these missile you’ll fire each time you press the key. Due to the nature of the missiles being capable of doing the targeting them selves, all you need to do is worry about moving Iron Man around the battlefield to avoid enemy attacks. For Area attacks you’ll be using Missile Salvo. This powerfull attack is only limited by it`s animation letting you spam the skill almost as fast as you can press the key. It can and will eat your Spirit very quickly so be ready for that but can do immense amounts of damage is a burst.

You can use Death From Above paired with Hyper Velocity Charge as a very effective way to escape danger or distance your self from enemies. Just stun them all with Death From Above then Run away.

Changes to the build: Swapping your points in Kinetic Shield for Energy Shield is an option if you have a tank to keep enemies from attacking you or are really good at avoiding damage. Also Moving points from Disruptor Beam to Freon Ray will slow your targets giving you longer to damage them before they can attack you but at a huge loss of damage.

Unibeam Build [B102]

Link to Build

This build focuses on the powerful Unibeam to deal damage. Unibeam is very powerful capable of killing most enemies in the game in only a few hits but it comes with some major drawbacks. The attack will require you to stand in one place to charge the attack before it will fire meaning you can’t avoid attacks. This build is best for Solo.

Gear:

• Costume Core: +1 Energy Projection
• Costume Affixes: Critical Chance
• Medal: Magneto Medallion / Lady Deathstrike Madallion / Madame Hydra Medallion

(Bullseye Medal and Sauron Medal work well too)

There are really only two things that you should look for on gear. +ranks to Unibeam and Critical Chance. Both of these will increase your damage more then any other affix. You should also look for +Spirit and -% cost on gear to decrease your downtime while you wait for your spirit to recharge. +Damage and Critical Damage are both good but are out classed by stacking Critical Chance. The Main reason for this is simply due to how hard Unibeam hits; the %damage gain from Critical chance is more then you can reach with +damage. You shouldn’t put a core that does not have Energy Projection into your costume. Become invisible when using a medkit is also really good since you can fully charge a Unibeam in that time.

Artifacts:
You`ll want a Kree Hyper-Optics or a Shield Motion Tracker to show enemies on your map as explained in the game play section below. Beyond that you should take what ever gives you the most critical chance.

Game Play:
Unibeam is very powerful. Even more so than other range attacks you should use this at a range; in fact, you should never use this at close range; run if you have to. The main reason for this is that the attack will root you in place as it charges then leave you vulnerable. To get the most out of Unibeam you should line your self up so that enemies come at you in a line. This way you will be able to kills multiple targets with one use. If you have a SHIELD Motion tracker or a similar effect from another item (Gorgon medal etc) you can use your radar to snipe with Unibeam as I find that it’s range is sightly greater then the screen. This means that enemies will be unaware of you and you’ll be able to fully charge the attack without fear. For bosses you’ll need to give your self opportunities to charge the attack of just fire it off without charging. Since the amount of shield you have left directly translates into how much damage you do you`ll want to watch you shield closely and reapply them as often as you can. (Shield Shutdown can help with that, giving you the needed spirit) Use Kinetic or Energy Shield as the situation calls for.

You can use Death From Above paired with Hyper Velocity Charge as a very effective way to escape danger or distance your self from enemies. Just stun them all with Death From Above then Run away. This can give you time to charge and fire a Unibeam. You’ll be using Macro-Missiles to deal damage when using Unibeam isn’t an option.

Changes to the build: The only real change you can make it to the points you have in Micro Missiles. You can move them to any other attack you want, (I recommend not putting them in to Shield Overload) just make sure that it’s an attack or else you will find your self unable to deal damage at times. (Freon Ray is a good skill)

Group Builds [B200]

Builds in this section focus on Iron Man’s group play options. They are very limited and the only real option he has is to tank for the party. That is to say, try and keep enemies focused on attacking him.

Tanking Shield Build [B302]

Link to Build

Iron Man can take a hit and this build tries to use that fact to turn Iron Man into a tank for other heroes. Warning! Iron Man lacks many of the basic tools to be a tank so you will have to use Artifacts and Medals to gain the required effects.

Gear:

• Costume Core: +1 Durability
  Costume Affixes: Dodge /or/ +Health
• Medals: Venom Medallion / Madam Hydra Medallion / Juggernaut Medallion / Taskmaster Medallion

Since you’ll be the target of most enemies defenses should be you main target well gearing. Dodge gives the best reduction but does leave you prey to the random number generator so if you fear that you should focus on +Health and +Defences on your gear. Health Regeneration is nice but can’t keep up with the damage at higher levels so there is no need to worry about stacking it. For your Core Durability is the bets but +Health and +Defence work as well.

Artifacts:
You’ll need a Gravitron Generator or a Hellfang of Zarathos to taunt enemies so you should always have one of them equipped. Beyond that, you’ll want any artifact that improves your survivability.

Game Play:
This build is only really good for group play and as the guy getting hit your main goal is not damage but letting everyone else deal damage uninterrupted. To do this your main tools come from either Gravitron Generator or Hellfang of Zarathos to taunt enemies into attacking you. You’ll want, and need, to keep your shield up at all times. Kinetic Shield is your main shield due to most attacks being physical and the health regeneration but you should use energy shield if the attacks are all energy based. You should still try and move out of the way of attacks as much as you can to reduce incoming damage and always carry lots of health kits with you. Jet Assisted Slam is your main area attack and Disruptor Beam is you main single target attack.

Changes to the Build:
There really isn’t much to change here since most of your points are into your survivability. You can move points from either attack to a different attack of the same type (Single Target / Area) but the two I give are the best suited for tanking.