Marvel’s Avengers: Iron Man Best Build Skill Upgrades and How to Use Guide

Need to know Tony Stark’s best moves and the options of the skill trees that you should upgrade? Check out this Iron Man guide.

Author:

Ben Chopping

Started off as a sports writer with a focus on football, ice hockey, boxing, and American football. After leaving RealSport, I diversified my writing substantially, kept with sport, but also leaned much more heavily into pop culture, iGaming, travel, business, tech, and especially gaming. Later, I co-founded Outsider Gaming, was the primary writer and editor-in-chief, and helped to train and bring on the writing talents who also had a passion for gaming. Now, I’m writing everything and anything, from sports to gaming, SEO-optimised content to reviews and previews.

Published on: Sep 6, 2020 | Updated on: Sep 14, 2023

Contents

1 Using Iron Man’s basic moves
2 Iron Man’s strengths and weaknesses
3 Best Iron Man Primary Skills upgrades
4 Best Iron Man Specialty Skills upgrades
5 Best Iron Man Mastery Skills upgrades

By the time that you get to play as Kamala Khan in Marvel’s Avengers, you will have already experienced the power of the five core Avengers.

Shooting forward in time, to avenge the events of ‘A-Day,’ you’ll seek Tony Stark and the scraps of Iron Man prototypes that he has lying around, unlocking his suit’s powerful energy blasts, repulsor rays, and the ability of flight.

While the basic controls for using Iron Man are mostly the same as with the other superheroes of Marvel’s Avengers, his moves and special abilities differ significantly.

Here, we’re looking into his starting moves, strengths and weaknesses, available skill upgrades, and the best Iron Man build upgrades in Marvel’s Avengers.

Using Iron Man’s basic moves

Before using your skill points in Character Menu to upgrade your Iron Man build, Tony Stark already has a tremendous set of attacks and special abilities for you to use.

Iron Man’s primary asset is his ability to fly. By holding X/A, you’ll start to hover, then being able to ascend (X/A), descend (O/B), or fly at speed (L3).

While several enemies can attack at range and meet you in the air, hovering around and timing dodges (O/B) can put you at a tremendous advantage in battle.

Hand-to-hand combat isn’t Iron Man’s specialty, with the light attacks being fairly weak. Tony Stark’s ranged ‘Repulsor Shot,’ ‘Power Blast,’ and heavy ‘Hand Cannon’ moves, however, are powerful from the start.

Iron Man also has one of the best ultimate heroic abilities, too, with L1+R1/LB+RB summoning the Hulkbuster armour, which absorbs damage when worn and can be deployed for any team member to use.

Iron Man’s strengths and weaknesses

Iron Man has two main weaknesses, one of which you can work your way past through playing as Tony Stark more often.

It can be challenging to get the hang of hovering and flying while trying to shoot enemies and evade attacks, but eventually, this weakness fades as you get the hang of using Iron Man in the air.

Light attacks (Square/X) aren’t particularly fast, are rather weak, and the melee upgrades tree doesn’t offer much improvement to the Iron Man build.

As for strengths, Iron Man is incredibly agile thanks to his flying ability and is powerful from a distance – via both his heavy and ranged attacks.

Furthermore, his support heroic ability, ‘Arc Overload,’ is very useful to the team if the right upgrades are selected, and the assault heroic ability ‘Unibeam’ is very powerful.

Once you’ve got the hang of using Iron Man’s flight controls, you’ll find Tony Stark to be a mighty superhero who suits just about any combat situation.

Best Iron Man Primary Skills upgrades

Iron Man has five potential melee upgrades, seven repulsors upgrades, eight lasers upgrades, and six rockets upgrades within the Primary tab of the Skills menu.

Playing as Tony Stark in Marvel’s Avengers gives you a great many number of ways to battle and build the superhero, but it’s best to pick a preference and then upgrade accordingly.

As such, the best Iron Man Primary Skills build upgrades are based on what is generally the most effective way to use the superhero.

Primary Skill	Upgrade	Requirement	Description	Info
Repulsors	Slingshot	None	Press Triangle/Y while dodging to perform an evasive spin that fires back-to-back repulsor blasts at the target.	Damage: medium Impact: low Stun: medium Reaction: stagger Energy Cost: low
Lasers	Laser Beam	None	With lasers equipped, hold L2/LT and hold R2/RT to fire a laser that does more damage over time. Press Left or Right on the d-pad to switch to lasers.	Damage: increases over time Impact: low Stun: low Reaction: normal Energy Cost: low
Lasers	Energy Lance	Laser Beam	With lasers equipped, hold L2/LT and hold R2/RT to power-up the laser and make it pierce through enemy targets for additional damage.	Guard: breaks block Damage: increases over time Impact: medium Stun: high Reaction: stagger Energy Cost: medium
Lasers	Photon Samurai	Laser Beam	With Lasers equipped, press Triangle/Y to activate a sweeping beam that cuts through enemies to inflict stun damage.	Damage: low Impact: low Stun: high Reaction: normal Energy cost: low, medium
Lasers	Laser Scythe	Photon Samurai	With Lasers equipped, press Triangle/Y in midair to pull enemies up and then attack them with a three-hit heavy combo. The last move slams enemies to the ground.	Guard: breaks block Damage: low Impact: low Stun: high Reactions: launch, stagger, slam Energy Cost: low, medium
Lasers	Magnetron	Laser Scythe	With Lasers equipped, hold Triangle/Y in midair to fire both lasers forward.	Guard: breaks block Damage: medium Impact: medium Stun: high Reaction: knockback Energy Cost: high
Rockets	Javelin	Scorched Earth	With Rockets equipped, hold Triangle/Y to fire sticky rockets that attach to nearby targets and detonate. Hold the button for longer to fire more rockets.	Guard: breaks block Damage: high Impact: medium Stun: low Reaction: launch Energy Cost: medium

Best Iron Man Specialty Skills upgrades

Iron Man’s Specialty Skills upgrades menu offers 12 options to upgrade the support heroic ability, 11 assault heroic ability upgrades, 12 ultimate heroic ability upgrades, and 14 defence upgrades – eight of which are already unlocked.

Each heroic ability upgrade tree features two branches where you use a skill point to select one of three upgrades. This section is where many Iron Man builds will start to branch out from one another.

These are the best Iron Man Specialty Skills upgrades to unlock for your build with some skill points.

Specialty Skill	Upgrade	Requirement	Description
Support Heroic Ability	Arc Field	Arc Overload Specialisation I	Arc Overload generates a one-directional protective bubble which allows ranged attacks from within to pass through the Arc Field.
Support Heroic Ability	Defensive Field	Arc Overload Specialisation II, Arc Field	Arc Field frequency modifications reflect projectiles back at the enemy who launched them.
Assault Heroic Ability	Omega Beam	Unibeam Specialisation I	A concentrated beam that combines both Repulsor and Unibeam firepower into a single, massive energy blast. Breaks blocks, is high damage, high stun, high impact, and causes flyback.
Ultimate Heroic Ability	Hyper Coils	Hulkbuster Specialisation II	Allows the Hulkbuster to be deployed for five extra seconds.
Defence	Energy Barrier	Energy Pulse	Hold R2/RT to create an Energy Barrier that blocks all incoming projectiles until it takes enough damage to be destroyed.
Defence	Stronghold	Energy Barrier	Increases Energy Barrier duration by two seconds.

Best Iron Man Mastery Skills upgrades

The Iron Man Mastery Skills selection features three selectable upgrades in combat, ranged, intrinsic ability, and utility.

Each heroic ability upgrade tree features three branches where you use a skill point to select one of three upgrades, allowing you to further customise your Iron Man build.

These are the best Iron Man build Mastery Skills upgrades to unlock on Marvel’s Avengers.

Mastery Skill	Upgrade	Requirement	Description
Combat	Weapon Efficiency	Ranged Attack Mastery	15% reduction to intrinsic energy metre cost for all ranged attacks and weapons.
Ranged	Laser Efficiency	Ranged Weapon Efficiency	Decreases the intrinsic energy cost for laser attacks by 10%.
Intrinsic Ability	Stun Intrinsic Boost	Arc Reactor Advancement	Stunning an enemy instantly boosts intrinsic energy by 25 points.
Utility	Air Superiority	Flight Mastery	Increases the damage of ranged attacks while flying by 15%.