Ironfist is probably one of the most unique DPS characters in the entire game as of season 3.5 and season 4. If you look back at season 0 to season 2, you will remember Ironfist use to be an absolute menace. You could counter flyers effortlessly, dive the backline and instantly get picks. This is not the reality anymore, however, despite being kind of a middle of the pack DPS, he can still be an S tier rage bait character. A good Ironfist can cause massive tilt, melt tanks, and harass the enemy DPS on off angles with ease. With this short introduction out of the way, lets move onto his abilities.

Disclaimer: A lot of these abilities have asian-esk names so, I am going to be explaining thing is a bit more of a modular way because honestly the in-game descriptions confused the hell out of me.

First of all, his basic left click ability. This ability seems very underwhelming at first, and... it really kind of is if you just use it. The first 4 strikes deal 30 damage, with the last one dealing like 50 and causing knockback. This ability however, is very important, because it reduces the cooldown of your dragons defense, aka your parry ability. It can also be useful to just jab at a target a little to get them to react(We will cover this later). If you are close to a low health enemy you can also maybe get an easy finish in some situations where your team is cleaning up. Also this ability has autotracking on your target to help you stay on target.


Dragons defense is what makes Ironfist probably one of the most unique DPS characters in the game, and this ability is really his bread and butter. Dragons defense, when activated, you will hold down your right click for 1 second, any attacks that hit you in this 1 second are parried, giving you overhealth. This is great at the start of engagements, because you can bait the enemy into giving you a buttload of overhealth by parrying their attacks, then.. you immediately enter a state where your punches are super super rapid, and it also autotracks your target a bit for you. You will also lunge occasionally as you punch, which helps you stay on targets that are very fast and can even help you stay in the air to kill flyers. So, to recap, you press right click and parry your enemies attacks that are incoming, then, after you parry, you unleash a storm of punches onto your target, rapidly depleting health. Another thing to note, that it also does percent based damage, doing 2.7 of your targets base health. Might not sound like much right? Wrong... you will absolutely melt tanks. No amount of healing is going to stop these dive tanks from catching this smoke.


Okay, so we have the Parry and basic punches down, what else can Ironfist do? Well, I would say the other ability that makes Ironfist a great DPS is his Dragon Kick. This kick will launch you in the direction you're going, making it a great escape tool. Lets see you see a low health enemy trying to escape however, well, you can also finish them off very easily with this kick. The kick occurs in 2 stages, you hit the target once, for 35 damage. Subsequently, you will then spin around and kick again, the second kick actually scales with how low your targets health is. So the lower your targets health, the more damage you do, for a maximum of 70 damage. Really really excellent ability for finishing low health enemies.


Ironfist also has some pretty neat movement abilities. He has the ability to wallrun infinitely, and this ability is very very very very very useful, and is usually what is going to separate an average ironfist from a great ironfist. Most people fail to look up a lot of the time, so dropping in on enemies can be very unexpected. It can also be used to escape if you have overextended, as you run a lot faster on the walls than you do walking on the ground. However, the movement can be a bit of a challenge, as you are always going to be running up the wall diagonally. However, with some practice, you can get the movement down pretty easily.


Another movement ability you have is a double jump ability, that has 3 consecutive charges. That means that you can jump up, then you can jump 3 times. This is another great escape tool, and it even charges while you're wall running so you can run on the wall, jump 2 times, then wall run on a different surface, and do it again and again as long as you charge your jumps while wall running. Extremely useful for getting out of hairy situations.

Ironfist also has an ability where when he presses the E button, he gets to heal himself. Excellent. So, any ironfist players out there that are complaining about heals, they might be right sometimes, but, at the same time, they can self heal so, they are probably just as braindead as their healers. You also get overhealth for any extra time you spend in meditation to bring your health up to a whopping 400 health. Luna snow also has a teamup with ironfist that allows ironfist to use his meditation to health nearby allies. People scoff at this teamup, but its actually EXTREMELY useful. If you see a low health healer, then FREAKING HEAL THEM YOU IDIOTS! YOU STUPID GARBAGE DPS PLAYERS! MY GOD JUST PLAY WITH YOUR TEAM! Woah, what was that? Moving on.


You also have his passive, which allows him to absorb the Chi of any target he gets a KO on(Not a final hit, a KO on, you just have to participate in the kill). Very useful, you get some overhealth, Ironfist is very surviveable.


Finally, you have the CHEAPA TOWN HALL! Also known as the Living Chi ability. This is Ironfists ultimate. Ironfist's ultimate usually goes 1 of 2 ways. It is either a gigantic wet fart that does absolutely nothing and you immediately get focused down. On the other hand, it can also be absolutely devastating and result in a complete teamwipe. So, what does this ability actually do? Well, you know how after you parry you get to release a fury of punches at your enemy, that happens like all the time when you're in your ultimate that lasts for 12 seconds, with a 30% damage boost. You also get your parry on a 3 second cooldown, which is very useful considering the enemy team is probably going to be panic focusing you. You also receive a 20% movement boost. So essentially, this ultimate makes all of ironfists abilities a whole lot better. It can be absolutely devastating, and I find the most value out of using it in 1 of 2 ways. First of all, combing with a strange or groot ult can completely wipe out an enemy team. Unless the enemy team has a support ult they can pop like Luna, everyone trapped or stunned is gone. Another great way to use this ability is to bait out enemy support ults to set up for bigger plays. Finally, it's great when the enemy team is down a player, and you want to confirm a teamfight. Very useful, but you can get shut down in it. It's best to PLAN OUT YOUR ULT instead of panic popping it at low health.(Don't worry, I've done it, I think we've all done it, it happens, just don't let it happen again).


Combos section.


Not too much to learn here, my usual combo is to go in and punch them with the regular punches, bait them into attacking me, then I right click, parry to get overhealth, and do most of my damage with the punches that occur after the parry. If the enemy gets away and has low health, easy, just use the dragon kick and finish them off. If you have any other combos, put them in the comments, and we'll all make fun of you if they're bad so you better watch what you say.

First of all, Ironfist has great synergy with prettttty much everyone. He works great with dive characters like Cap, Venom, Bp, Psylocke, etc because he can assist them in the dive, and can also counter enemy dive very effectively(He is the best anti-dive DPS in the game, aside from Namor).

He also works great with sustain characters like Squirrel Girl, Ironman, Moonknight, etc. He can protect the DPS on their off angles from enemy dive trying to contest them, as well as finish off any low health targets the sustain characters manage to whittle down. Ideally in a comp like this, you might not have much damage dealt, but you will most likely have more final hits.


Ironfist also obviously works extremely well in brawl comps, considering Ironfist is like 80/20 brawl dive at this point(We will explain this later. I can already see the angry ironfist lords in my comments). Thing, Hulk, Wolv, you can deal some serious frontline damage and pressure with a comp like that.

Ironfist CAN play with poke characters effectively, protecting them on off-angles they decide to take, but if you are running a poke comp, it's better to probably choose a sustain character like Ironman or SG that don't take much effort to play, or if you have good aim play hitscan yourself. However, if you insist on playing in a poke comp, it will be in an anti-dive role. You will probably be protecting your other dps from threats like Venom, Hulk, etc.


Alright, with synergy down, what kind of comps do you counter? Well, starting off with the biggest hard counters, dive tanks. Ironfist at the moment is the BEST anti-dive tank DPS. I hold the opinion that he even stomps out characters like namor in this regard. (Namor is better at stopping dive DPS like psylocke, spidey, and some of the lower skill BP players). Dive tanks are usually going to have higher health and better survive ability options. Which actually works heavily against them when facing you, as you deal percent damage. Tanks like Hulk, Thing, Venom, Cap, all of them you will absolutely farm.


Tanks in general(Aside from penni and emma), are great ult farming devices for you. You will shred through Mag, Strange, anyone really. Ironfist use to be a dive DPS, but now, he is probably one of the best tank busters in the game right behind Wolverine.

He also counters a lot of DPS, Black Panther's dash is actually canceled by your parry, you you will basically catch him with his pants down if you cancel the dash. Allowing you and your team to gank him, however, this takes a bit of skill to pull off so, we will put Bp in the skill matchup catagory. You can also scare off psylocke pretty easily. Flanking Namor might give you some trouble, since his squids are very effective, and he has that get out of jail free card ability that surrounds him with water.

Poke DPS are skill matchups, usually you can pressure them on off-angles and get out quick with your mobility. Sustain like mk, you can also melt. SG can present some challenges with her stun so be wary of that. Most DPS matchups you will most likely win. You can even counter flyers like Ironman and Torch, just make sure not to overcommit.


So, it sounds like Ironfist has no hard counters right? WRONG! SO VERY WRONG! CC is how you defeat Ironfist. You CC him after he parries and he explodes. Emma Frost and Penni Parker are the two biggest counters I can think of. Penni with her stun and Emma with her grab. If either Penni or Emma are shutting you down, and you are a jobless DPS instalocker, learn how to play Ironman and shut them down.

Lastly, I am going to mention support matchups. In short, the only 2 that will give you trouble are Loki and Mantis. Mantis has her stun and can hit you with her primary fire as you escape. Loki has his clones and lanterns which can also screw with you a bit. No supports however hard counters him.


Recommended bans: If you are banning just for yourself, I would obviously go for emma first, even in season 4. Ban Emma Frost. You COULD ban penni, but I think it's better to swap if Penni is giving you trouble. You could ban namor, as the gamma teamup can give you some trouble at times. But the only MUST BAN is emma frost I would say. If you can get your team to ban penni that would be even better. (Though penni is a weak tank NGL, she still counters you, and you should always ban around counters, not around what Flats says to ban on youtube)

Right, very long matchups section, but how can we apply this to gameplay? I mean, I know you've said all this stuff about matchups and abilities, but how do you PLAY ironfist? Well, lets get into that.

Starting out with where you will be playing, most of the time it will either be right in front of or right behind your frontline tank. You will look for openings and mistakes, and then punish them. Usually it will be the tank trying to overextend, and when that happens, you can punish them very severely. Ironfist is going to stand out a lot in the neutral, as his burst damage output is very very high.


That being said, ironfist is a COOLDOWN BASED hero. Your primary fire does not do much damage at all on it's own. He is very similar to Spiderman and BP in this regard, as both of them are very cooldown based. This means that you need to make good split second decisions. For example, your parry ability is used to block incoming attacks, but you also use the parry ability to unlock your main damage dealing ability. So, do you use your parry to attack the Jeff(Which you counter) in their backline, or do you save the parry and engage the jeff until someone attacks you. Or, do you save the parry and pressure frontline. All of these decisions make Ironfist pretty hard to play. He is very similar to characters like Hulk when it comes to the decisions you have to make. In fact, if you are a hulk player and want to learn a DPS, Ironfist is probably your best bet. He has very high skill expression, great at peeling, and can also attack the frontline or backline of the enemy. However, that being said, knowing where to be on the battlefield, where the pressure is needed, and what targets to prioritize is a must with ironfist.


All of this might seem kind of confusing, so, what role does Ironfist really play on the battlefield? Because in previous seasons like 0 to season 2.0 he was a dive character. Nowadays, he is a brawler that disrupts the hell out of the enemy. Ironfist is all about disrupting your enemies tempo and pushes. He is great on defense because tanks tend to overextend a lot more on offense, so you can punish them. A lot of tanks(rightly) think they will win a 1v1 against a DPS because most of the time they are right. However, if a Strange tries to get in a 1v1 with you, he will lose EVERY time. You simply do too much damage too quickly, and your parry will also give you a lot of overhealth to work with. So Ironfist really puts the duelist in the name duelist. Other than that, he is a disruptor, he makes enemy tanks and frontline DPS uncomfortable.


However, there is plenty of dive potential with him, you can easily challenge their backline if you notice their tanks aren't paying much attention to them. It's important to note however that Ironfist should never hard commit to ANY engagement, you need to be able to bail out easily at any time. The most you should commit to any dive is light. If you are brawling frontline, I would only commit a medium amount of resources to it, and still save my kick for escapes(or easy finishes).


So, a recap, Ironfist is a former dive DPS the devs have transformed into probably the best tank buster and brawl DPS in the entire game(yes, wolv included, he is still countered by Thing). You can shred tanks with your punches, punish out of position and overextending enemies, and peel for your backline with impunity. This character really is a hidden sleeper pick.

Mistake 1: STOP PLAYING HIM LIKE A DIVE CHARACTER! HE IS NO LONGER A DIVE CHARACTER! PLEASE STOP FEEDING THE ENEMY ULT CHARGE! I've literally had full on Lord ironfist players who are still playing this character wrong. The character had a rework, so either move on to another character, or play the character properly. Because if you try and play him full on dive, you will get CC'd, caught in the backline, and melted.


Mistake 2: Over-committing to fights. You are NEVER going to hard commit to a fight. NEVER I REPEAT NEVER! You HAVE to preserve your cooldowns for escape, play your life. You are useless to your team dead, and it's better to cycle out and refresh your cooldowns.


Mistake 3: Wasting your parry is another very common mistake. The best way to engage an enemy is to hit them with your primary fire a few times, make them attack you, then parry their attack. After you parry their attack, your primary fire will change obviously and you will be able to unleash a storm of punches, keep an eye on your health, if you see it getting below 1/3rd, you need to kick out and heal.


Mistake 4: Speaking of healing, STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT HEALING OUTPUT! YOU HAVE A SELF HEAL ABILITY! YOU TROGLODYTE! YOU CAVEMAN! YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER BRAINROT TROLL! Okay, if your tanks aren't getting healed, that's one thing, right? BUT YOU HAVE A SELF HEAL! YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO A SINGLE INKLING OF HEALING! Healing is a LUXURY for ironfist. However, since he has a SELF HEALING ABILITY! Anytime you die it's ON YOU! NOT YOUR HEALERS! NOT YOUR TANKS! IT'S ON YOU! YOU! ONLY YOU! Can you still lose matches because your team is doing something stupid, of course, you can't do everything. Is there still swaps healers have to make with you on their team? Of course, Mantis and Adam are great, and can actually work with dual heal comps with you on the team, however, sometimes healing output needs to be greater. If you are blaming the healers for your deaths though, you need to take some accountability, because you overcommited to a fight, you get CC'd, you got bamboozled.


Mistake 5: Bad ult usage is VERY easy on Ironfist. You are going to be tempted to panic pop it, but you need to overcome it. ONLY POP YOUR ULT IF YOUR TEAM CAN SUPPORT YOU! This is the ONLY TIME you can complain about not getting healed, because you obviously can't heal and get effectiveness out of your ult at the same time. You can still parry attacks, but your healers do need to actually focus you. Before you ult, COMM IT TO YOUR TEAM! Ask Mag if he has a bubble for you, pop ult, Mag bubbles you, you teamwipe. Horray.


Mistake 6: You have a wall run, it makes you faster, your default walking speed is super slow, so wall run. You need to wall run constantly. When you go to point, you wallrun, when you are looking to engage, you need to be wall running or behind cover.


Mistake 7: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” Don't be predictable, if you are setting up for a dive don't be obvious. If you see Cap looking to cycle into your backline, hide for a bit and make him feel comfortable, if you catch him out you are going to at least scare the crap out of him, if not get a pick.


Mistake 8: Bad target priority will absolutely kill your value on this character. I've noticed from my best games, the majority of my picks are going to be on a single one of their players. In my best game so far, I've gotten 10 final hits on the same guy out of 24 final hits I pulled off in the game. (Kind of hilarious actually, he went from Thing, to Punisher, to Strange, he basically did everything except try and counter me). So yeah, scatterbrained target priority will kill your value. Even if you don't overcommit to fights, you aren't getting any picks, and you aren't disrupting them like you're suppose to.

Ironfist is almost certainly the most slept on DPS in this game right now. I don't normally rank things on tier lists, but lets just say that if played right, Ironfist has very few counters, excellent mobility, and crazy burst damage output. You also have plenty of survive ability and escape options open to you, so you can exfiltrate from enemy fights.


Flow like water, strike like steel.