THIS POST IS DISREGARDING HIS BUGS
To be fair, a lot of people agree with me that he is a weak choice. However, there has been a lot of people who think he is completely balanced as is. This thread is for those people. I’m going to attempt to do my best to explain my reasoning for believing he is in a bad spot.
1.) His original design philosophy
When Doomfist was first released he played much differently, Rocket Punch was his main damage tool and the other 2 abilities were his escapes. You may remember how large the hitbox for RP was back then, and how unfun it was to play against. I believe it was only because of his major exploitable weaknesses and large model hitbox that Rocket Punch was designed to be that powerful. To balance the power. However, the dev team swiftly shrank the size because everyone was (understandably) in an uproar. That’s all fine and good, but they nerfed Rocket Punch without doing anything about the reason it was allowed to be so powerful in the first place: Doomfist’s weaknesses. He was a flimsy knife with a sharp edge, they took away his edge and didn’t reinforce the body enough to make him a club. He’s just a useless piece of metal now, if that analogy makes any sense.
2.) Comparably Bad
This post I made comparing him to Genji/Tracer speaks my point:
"Say Doomfist was completely fixed and worked exactly as intended.You are in the hero select screen, you are equally good at Genji, Tracer and Doomfist. In what situation would you pick Doomfist over either of those 2? Let’s look at a few things:
What do they all have in common?
High burst potential, high mobility and heavy ability reliance.
What do Genji and Tracer have over Doomfist?
Small hitbox, More sustain (Tracer recall), More opportunities to escape (Genji reflect + dash reset), Ability to deal significant damage at medium range, Straight up higher value ultimates, More reliable damage as a whole, Many less counters, Abilities trigger faster, They both combo better with more heroes, Faster movement speed, and they both aren’t completely reliant on their cooldowns.
What does Doomfist have over them?
250 hp, A (POTENTIAL) 250 damage charge on a 4 second cooldown, Arguably more mobility, Faster burst than Genji, A way to gain (very temporary) shields, An ult that makes him immune to damage, and he has a lot of CC."
When you are looking to play a high mobility dps, in what situation would you see this comparison and say “Doomfist is the better choice”? If you know a scenario where he would be better than Genji OR Tracer tell me because I definitely can’t think of one, and I main the hero.
3.)Barely any sustain
I like the idea of his passive, it rewards good players for hitting their abilities consecutively. Sounds good on paper, but when you find out he only get’s 30 shields per hit and they drain faster than a dollar store battery, it becomes negligible in most situations. His passive has saved me a handful of times, don’t get me wrong, but more often it’s the case where it does virtually nothing. The problem is that after you get 30 shields they are already at 26 by the time someone shoots you from the natural decay, the majority of attacks in the game do more damage than the shields give, and most heroes can out DPS you before you get enough shields to matter. The only time his passive is worth anything is after his ult, but even then you are vulnerable for a second after you land. Even with 400 health I can still be bursted down in that brief period. Speaking of…
4.)His Ult is the worst DPS Ult in the game
Let’s examine everything Meteor Strike does:
Makes him invulnerable for 4 seconds, gives you 75 shields per enemy hit, let’s you move freely over the whole map, deals 300 damage at the center and less as it goes out, has a one second timer after you strike before you come down and finally, it leaves you vulnerable for approximately 1 second after you land.
Those first three functions of Meteor Strike are completely fine, but the last three are where our problems lay. 300 maximum damage is only 50 more damage than you could do with Rocket Punch and that’s on a 4 second cooldown. I know his ult has a lot more functionality for him, but only 300 maximum damage for an ult is pretty pathetic. The only thing it’s really good for is running away. Maybe you’ll say
“But Rightwardsky! His Ult isn’t really supposed to be used for damage, it’s supposed to be for quick assassination, escape, and for shields!”
You have a point, however, quickly assassinating a target is much more difficult than any other DPS Ult do to the easy escapes most heroes have, the low overall damage, and the brief period before you come down.
“Well you could always just get the shields and use your health to destroy!”
That’s when I would mention the moment of vulnerability after you land. If you miss and there is more than one enemy there, they can easily focus you down before you finish the Meteor Strike animation.
5.)Risk vs. reward
Doomfist has a very high risk to himself with very little reward to compensate. When he was first released, I would say the large hitbox on Rocket Punch WAS his reward to make up for the risk. Since it was shrunk, the amount of risk associated with trying to Rocket Punch an enemy has more than doubled with no extra reward to make up for it. Anybody who has played him for a few hours knows his shields from his passive barely do anything in most situations, so that doesn’t make up for the risk either. He could use Slam plus Uppercut to escape and make up for it, but the cooldowns of 7 seconds are just too long to be reliable.
If you look at Genji, the risk to himself is that he has to get close to the enemy to secure a kill. The reward for doing so is a reset on his dash to quickly make an escape. Doomfist has much of the same risk, but a bigger model, no cooldown reset, and no way to defend. Here is the part where I refer back to my 2nd reason, why would you ever pick Doomfist over Genji or Tracer?
6.)Counters
Doomfist has the most counters in the game by far. Here is a list of all of Doomfist’s hard and soft counters:
Hard: Mcree, Roadhog, Orisa Tracer, Sombra, Bastion, Junkrat and Torb.
Soft: Pharah, Mei, Genji, Doomfist, Lucio (due to boop canceling RP), Hanzo and Widow.
Debatable: Zarya (a well timed bubble on your target can mess you up almost as bad as a stun)
That’s 15 (16) counters in total. Tracer has debatably zero hard counters, and Genji has Winston, D.va, Moira, Sym, Zarya(?) Roadhog and (debatably) Mcree. That’s 7, unless I’m missing any, Doomfist has more than double the counters that Genji has, but less value.
All in all, he’s a hero that when mastered can feel unstoppable, but I hope that maybe some of my points may persuade you to believe that he really is in a bad spot. Thank you for your time. I will add more reasons why I believe Doomfist is underpowered in his current state as more come to me.
(Credits to Rightwardsky)
