UMVC3/Iron Man

Overview Combos Strategy/Counterstrategy Resources Data

Introduction

A billionaire, and genius-level engineer, Tony Stark suffers a heart injury when he his caught in an ambush. In order to prevent the leftover shrapnel from killing him, he is forced to develop a special chestplate reactor. He eventually expands this chestplate into a full-fledged pilotable combat suit, creating the persona of Iron Man.

In UMvC3, Iron Man is a keepaway character with a variety of projectile attacks to harass the opponent and deal chip damage. Although he lacks the sheer volume of projectiles that other zoning characters like Viewtiful Joe or Arthur can produce, he compensates with some very strong mobility options. With both an 8-way airdash and a flight mode, Iron Man can run away from opponents or even go on the offensive with some nasty high/low mixups.

Strengths

Weaknesses

High Mobility: Flight and airdashes allow Iron Man to outmaneuver many characters and can be utilized for both a solid offensive and defensive gameplan. Versatile Utility: Several great neutral game tools with an excellent j.5H and multiple projectile options, which are also usable in the air. Incredibly Strong Assist: Uni-beam is one of the game's best assists. It is almost identical to Doctor Doom's popular Plasma Beam assist, being only 1 frame slower but having 5 more active frames.

Tricky Normals: Iron Man's grounded normals have inconsistent and awkward range, often not chaining into each other properly. His 5S is particularly particularly bad, with almost no horizontal reach. Iron Man's confirm routes have to be very specific, and this harms his damage potential. Limited Dash Potential: Iron Man has restrictions on his ground and air dashes which harm his neutral game. His dashes have an 11 frame window at the start where it cannot be canceled into attacks, a limitation most characters do not have. His diagonal airdashes start slow, then accelerate to full speed over time. This is usually worse than the "standard" airdash which starts at max speed and decelerates over time, as it is harder to Iron Man to quickly juke enemy attacks or throws. These restrictions do not apply to his straight-up or straight-down airdashes, which behave normally.

Health	950,000
Invulnerable Reversal(s)	214XX
Grounded Magic Series	Full
X-Factor Damage Boost (1/2/3)	25% / 50% / 75%
X-Factor Speed Boost (1/2/3)	15% / 20% / 25%
Air Movement Options
Air Actions	Air Jumps?	Air Dash?	Flight?	WallJump?
1	No	8-Way	Yes	No
Minimum Attack Scaling
Normals	Specials		Hypers
10	30		45

Move List

Assists

Unibeam
Assist A

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
20,000 x8	47	25	108, 78
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	Mid	Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 8 frames
THC Hyper: Photon Cannon. Very strong general-use assist. Provides full-screen horizontal coverage with very good total hitstun/blockstun. The startup can be misleading, as Iron Man's beam does not instantly cover its full range upon being active the way that certain other horizontal assists do. In total, it takes 56 frames from call for the beam to reach full-screen distance, making it a little harder to use for long-distance sniping. As a consequence, it also hits fewer times at long range - only hitting 6 times from fullscreen instead of the maximum 8 hits.

Repulsor Blast
Assist B

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
30,000 x5	40	55	103, 73
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	Mid	Invuln (as Crossover Counter) frames 1-???, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 3 per frame for 5 frames
THC Hyper: Angled Proton Cannon. Iron Man causes beams to appear and retract in a rotating diagonal pattern above himself. The repulsors always appear in the same order: Up-forward -> down-forward -> down-back -> up-back. Opponents hit by the repulsors are knocked towards the center of the attack, so the remaining beams will typically also connect no matter where the opponent was located. Has good defensive utility, due to its high total durability (beating beams and other common projectile assists), and can function as an anti-air. It also has use as a combo extender due to its high active frame count, although Uni-beam can serve the same purpose in most cases. If Iron Man is brought in using this assist as an Alpha Counter, he cannot cancel into Repulsor Spread.

Smart Bomb
Assist Y

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
20,000 x10	44	-	132, 102
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	Mid	, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 3 per frame per set for 5 frames
THC Hyper: Proton Cannon. Iron Man fires two sets of 5 bombs each directly in front of him. Despite their appearance, the bombs are not individual projectiles but instead form a beam, with two separate beams of five hits each being fired. The high total durability of each beam, combined with the fact that two beams in total are fired per call, gives this assist some of the highest total projectile durability in the game. Smart Bomb will easily blow through most assists and other projectiles. Works as a standard OTG assist for characters who struggle to use their own OTG tools, similar to Wesker's gunshot assist, or Sentinel's rocket punch. As it hits 10 times, it applies significantly more damage scaling than those assists, making it an unpopular choice.

Ground Normals

Stand Light
5L

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
47,000	5	3	8
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+2	+1	Mid
Rapid-fire standing light. Can be mashed as an anti-air in a similar way to Magneto's 5L, although Iron Man's follow-up potential here is much worse due to his poor grounded normals. If used this way, try to confirm 5L -> 5M -> 5S.

Stand Medium
5M

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
70,000	8	4	12
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+1	0	Mid	-
Very long range poke. Reaches so far that it often pushes opponents out of range of any of Iron Man's potential follow-ups.

Stand Heavy
5H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
90,000	13	5	32
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-14	-16	Mid	-
Great hitbox and high damage for a normal. Also actually causes a decent amount of hitstun unlike Iron Man's other normals. Awful recovery can be mitigated by canceling into flight or another special move. Causes significantly more pushback on hitting a grounded opponent compared to an airborne one. Whenever possible, Iron Man should confirm into this move from 2M, which will put the opponent airborne and prevent them from being pushed out of the rest of the combo.

Crouching Light
2L

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
45,000	5	3	11
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-1	-2	Low
Standard fast low attack.

Crouching Medium
2M

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
68,000	7	4	20
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-3	Low	,
Works as Iron Man's sweep, since his 2H is a unique projectile attack instead. Important way to get opponents airborne, which is needed for many of Iron Man's combo routes. While active, it is fairly low profile, but this does not last long enough to evade much.

Crouching Heavy
2H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	20	-	17
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+9	+4	Mid	, , deals chip, Priority: Low, Durability: 5, scales by 0.9
Unconventional "normal" that behaves more like a special move. Iron Man fires a missile that travels along the ground, reaching up to about 3/4 of fullscreen distance. On hit, it pops opponents into the air. This attack is a relatively low-risk projectile with great recovery (that can be improved by canceling into flight). Iron Man can fire this from a distance and then approach behind it, gaining a combo on hit or pressure on block.

Launcher/Special
S

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	14	3	30
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
Launch	-12	Mid	,
Awful horizontal range and underwhelming startup as well. One of the largest offenders when it comes to Iron Man's combos being finicky and dropping.

Aerial Normals

Jumping Light
j.5L

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
50,000	4	3	17
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+11	+10	OH	-
Can just barely connect as an instant overhead when set up via fuzzy guard against normal-sized characters, or naturally against big-bodies like Sentinel. Very fast, which allows Iron Man to link after flight-canceled attacks so long as he remains within its short range.

Jumping Medium
j.5M

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
70,000	8	8	17
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+15	+14	OH	-
Great range and frame data for aerial neutral.

Jumping Heavy
j.5H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	11	6	29
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+18	+16	OH	-
Fantastic neutral tool with a very large hitbox. Long recovery can be mitigated using fly/unfly cancels, and its narrow vertical range can be compensated for by paring it with its angled variants (see Command Normals).

Jumping Special
j.5S

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
90,000	13	10	27
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+15	+13	OH
Comparable hitbox to his grounded 5H (it's huge).

Command Normals

Focus Shot (Higher)
j.8H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	11	6	29
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+18	+16	OH	-
Holding any upward direction while inputting j.5H will cause the attack to be tilted upwards at an angle. Can be chained into j.5S. Compared to regular j.5H, this variant juggles the opponent higher than normal. This can be useful for adjusting the opponents height during air combos.

Focus Shot (Lower)
j.2H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	11	6	29
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
+18	+16	OH	-
Holding any downward direction while inputting j.5H will cause the attack to be tilted downwards at an angle. Can be chained into j.5S. Compared to regular j.5H, this variant juggles the opponent lower than normal. This can be useful for adjusting the opponents height during air combos.

Special Moves

Unibeam
236X

L +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	20,000 x5	18	20	15
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	0	-15	Mid	, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 5 frames
M +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	20,000 x8	23	25	15
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	+4	-11	Mid	, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 8 frames
H +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	20,000 x10	28	30	15
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	+5	-10	Mid	, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 11 frames
Standard horizontal beam projectile. Once active, it takes an additional 8 frames for the beam to travel across the screen. So, for example, L Unibeam will hit a fullscreen opponent on frame 26. Higher button strength takes longer to charge, but has more hits, more active frames, more durability, and better advantage on hit/block. When done in the air, Iron Man halts his aerial momentum and stays in place while charging. While the beam is firing, he floats downward very slowly, then starts to fall at normal speed during the move's recovery.

Repulsor Blast
214X

L +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	20,000 x5	11	50	10
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	-	-8	Mid	, Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 3 per frame for 5 frames
M +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	25,000 x5	16	55	10
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	-	-13	Mid	, , Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 3 per frame for 5 frames
H +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	30,000 x5	21	60	10
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	-	-18	Mid	, , Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 3 per frame for 5 frames
Iron Man causes beams to appear and retract in a rotating diagonal pattern above himself. The repulsors always appear in the same order: Up-forward -> down-forward -> down-back -> up-back. Opponents hit by the repulsors are knocked towards the center of the attack, so the remaining beams will typically also connect no matter where the opponent was located. The repulsor beams created by this attack are larger for heaver button strengths. Can typically be followed up with a linked 2M or another normal, allowing for combo extensions. Alternatively, cancel into its special follow-up attack: Repulsor Spread (see below).

Repulsor Spread
(During Repulsor Blast) 5H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	1*	6	24
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-9	Mid	, Priority: Low, Durability: 9
Special follow-up to Repulsor Blast, done by inputting 5H (regardless of the button used for the 214X input) during a window in the move's active frames. The window for each version of Repulsor Blast is as follows: L - From frame 20 onwards M - From frame 25 onwards H - From frame 30 onwards Repuslor Spread creates a single-hitting explosion above Iron Man, covering roughly the same range that Repulsor Blast does. On hit, it causes a quick spinout into a hard knockdown. Iron Man can follow this up either by canceling directly into one of his hypers, or by using an OTG Smart Bomb. If Repulsor Blast juggles high enough, Iron Man can link Repulsor Spread into another Repulsor Blast and catch them before they fall too far. When canceling into his Photon Cannon hyper, perform the cancel as quickly as possible. When canceling into Iron Avenger, delay the cancel slightly.

Smart Bomb
623X

L +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	35,000 x2	20	-	12 (17 in air)
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	+10	+8	Mid	, , Priority: Low, Durability: 1 per projectile
M +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	22,000 x6	20	-	16 (22 in air)
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	+10	+8	Mid	, , Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame per projectile for 3 frames
H +	Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
	18,000 x10	20	-	24 (28 in air)
	On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
	+6	+4	Mid	, , Priority: Low, Beam Durability: 1 per frame per projectile for 5 frames
Iron Man pauses for a moment, then fires a set of bombs, which fall towards the ground in a down-forward arc. The bombs hit OTG, and Iron Man can follow-up this hit solo, allowing him to convert hard knockdowns. This special is available in the air, and is almost identical except for slightly longer recovery. The aerial version of Smart Bomb is an excellent keepaway tool, and can frustrate opponents trying to superjump up towards a defensive Iron Man.

Flight
214S

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
-	12	108	0
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	-
Standard flight mode. While active, Iron Man hovers in place and can perform an unlimited number of airdashes and aerial specials without having to land, but cannot block. As with most flight modes, it ends automatically if the duration is spent, or if Iron Man attacks with j.5S. It can also be manually canceled by inputting 214S again, which is called an "unfly" and can be used to cancel normals in the same way as a normal flight activation. Iron Man recovers faster by flight-canceling all of his normal attacks, except for 5L and 2L. Because Iron Man's 214X special is not Air-OK, Iron Man does not have to worry about overlapping inputs when performing unfly cancels, the way that other flight-mode characters like Magneto and Doctor Doom would. Iron Man's unfly inputs can be much sloppier, and he does not need to perform the Unfly Glitch to achieve any specific attack timing. For this reason, Iron Man's TAC Infinites are often considered to be some of the easiest in the game to learn.

Hyper Combos

Proton Cannon
236XX (1 bar)

The initial appearance of the cannon has a fast-appearing hitbox above Iron Man.

"Here's the big one!"

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
30,000 + 10,000 x35 ~ x70	3*30+1	6*111	47
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-47	Mid	, mashable, Priority: High, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 35 frames, scales by 0.98
Iron Man summons a giant cannon, charges it, then fires a massive laser directly forward. The cannon's appearance is itself a physical attack that pops opponents up into the air with a fixed amount of hitstun, to guarantee the beam will connect. The cannon has a large hitbox which becomes active on frame 3, faster than any attack in Iron Man's kit except for Snapback, and is also active before the superflash. As a result, its a decent reversal for a character who otherwise does not have a good one. Besides the initial hit from the cannon itself, this hyper is very slow. If the cannon hit does not connect, it is very difficult to combo into, and vulnerable to being avoided or stuffed. The lengthy startup can be accommodated by using this hyper as part of a DHC chain

Angled Proton Cannon
623XX (1 bar)

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
30,000 + 10,000 x35 ~ x70	3*30+1	6*111	47
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-47	Mid	, mashable, Priority: High, Beam Durability: 1 per frame for 35 frames, scales by 0.98
Performing Proton Cannon with a DP input will cause a slightly different variant. Angled Proton Cannon has identical properties and damage, but is fired at an up-forward angle instead of straight ahead. This is mainly useful for accommodating DHC synergy, as some hypers knock the opponent too high for the regular Proton Cannon to hit for full damage.

Iron Avenger
214XX (3 bars)

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
430,000 - 475,000	10+3	11	41
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-31	Mid	Invuln until frame 22, , mashable, ignores damage scaling
Cinematic level 3 hyper. Iron Man rushes forward along the ground. On contact, he pulls the opponent into a cinematic where he blasts the with his reactor, dealing heavy unscaled damage. This ends with the opponent knocked down midscreen, approximately two dash lengths away from Iron Man. Solid reversal and combo ender. If Iron Man lands this hyper, he can always follow up with two quick dashes, then any version of Smart Bomb canceled into Photon Cannon.

Universal Mechanics

Ground Throw
6H, 4H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	1	1	-
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	Throw
Standard ground throw that results in the opponent knocked down. Both the forward and back throws knock the opponent very far away from Iron Man, and so follow-ups are very limited unless he throws them directly into the corner. In the corner, Iron Man does not need to wait for the hard knockdown at all, and can juggle his throw directly into 2L.

Air Throw
j.6H, j.4H

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
80,000	1	1	-
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-	Airthrow
Standard airthrow that results in a hard knockdown. Like with the ground throw, this pushes the opponent very far away from Iron Man. Air Smart Bomb -> Forward dash -> j.5M can convert at normal jump height.

Snap Back
+/

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
50,000	2	4	12
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	+5	Mid	Snapback
Animation and hitbox based on 5M.

Hard Tag
Hold 14f /

Damage	Startup	Active	Recovery
30,000	-	20	33
On Hit	On Block	Guard	Properties
-	-17	OH
-

Team Position

Iron Man's aerial mobility and toolkit of projectile specials may draw some comparisons to Magneto, and lead to people choosing him as a Point character. However, Iron Man has seen the most tournament success in the Anchor position, or sometimes in the Second position (and often making use of Level 2 X-Factor there). One of Iron Man's best assets is his Unibeam assist, which is almost identical to the very popular Doom Plasma Beam assist, except with 5 more total active frames. Putting him in the third slot especially allows a team to use his assist for as long as possible.

Additionally, Iron Man's damage boost in X-Factor scales well with his naturally high base damage. Iron Man in X-Factor can circumvent some of the longer, more technical aspects of his combo routes and push out one million or more damage with short, simple combos. This minimizes the amount of X-Factor duration he has to waste on extended combos, and allows him to quickly melt an enemy team with repeated oncoming mixups.

Notable Synergies

Sentinel: Sentinel Force (Charge) assist is a good tool for extending Iron Man combos. In particular, he can use it to get additional juggles from repeated Repulsor Blasts, which is his most damaging combo route. Sentinel's assist is also just a generically strong neutral tool to support Iron Man's keepaway game or lock and opponent down for airdash-focused mixups.

Players to Watch: Joker (Magneto/Iron Man/Sentinel), Dude123 (Captain America/Iron Man/Sentinel), CorkyJay (Jill/Iron Man/Sentinel)

Wesker: Although almost any character would benefit a beam assist like Iron Man's, Wesker is a character who particularly wants to run one. Wesker can call Unibeam assist and then teleport, creating a simple but effective left/right mixup almost anywhere on the screen that he can convert into a combo. Also, Wesker can use a beam assist to pick up after his OTG 3H gunshot, when he may not otherwise be able to. Lastly, Wesker is a character that is more likely to utilize THCs as combo enders, and Iron Man's Photon Cannon hyper adds a huge amount of extra damage to one.

Players to Watch: Alukard (Wesker/Vergil/Iron Man)

Other Players to Watch: DapVip (Dante/X-23/Iron Man), Danke (Magneto/Doom/Iron Man), Sothea (Firebrand/Iron Man/Doom, Deadpool/Iron Man/Doom)

Alternate Colors

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