Why Doomfist is so underpowered

General Discussion
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I’ll start off by saying I absolutely love playing Doomfist and love everything about his kit and playstyle, but I think we can all agree that he’s just not that good as a hero. I definitely have space to improve, if anything I suck at playing him, but after playing him for quite a bit (mostly in QP), I feel the need to share my view on him.

I really think what it comes down to is his counters. You really don’t need to even try to counter him, it just seems to happen. So, I decided to list off his counters and why they counter him.

HARD Counters
Brigitte - With the release of Brigitte, Doomfist is probably at his worst point because she seems to be in every match. Her utility just stops whatever he is doing whenever he is doing it. Her flail knocking him back can mess up a Doomfist pretty hard especially after he uses Seismic Slam. The real problem is her Shield Bash. With the bash being on such a low cooldown, she can use it whenever Doomfist tries to punch or get away and it almost never misses.
Mcree - This one’s obvious, medium/long range damage and a close range stun means Doomfist can’t ever fight a Mcree unless Mcree uses the stun, not as bad as some other heroes but enough to stop a Doomfist whenever he can.
Pharah - Doomfist can’t touch a Pharah when she’s in the air most of the time. If Doomfist sees her first, he can shoot her a few times but usually won’t kill her until she sees him and gets away while firing rockets that he can’t dodge.
Sombra - Her hack means Doomfist is stopped from doing anything for a solid 6 seconds and makes him super vulnerable. This can be stopped if the Doomfist notices it and shoots her as she tries to hack, but a good Sombra will always hack from somewhere Doomfist can’t reach immediately, not to mention her ult.

Soft Counters
Rein/Orisa - Barriers block his ult and Rein can move the barrier to wherever Doomfist is landing as soon as he sees where the ult will land and usually renders it useless, to a lesser extent Orisa does this too.
Torb/Bastion/Roadhog/Ana/Soldier/Tracer - I’ll put all 4 of these together because they’re pretty much the same reason. Doomfist’s hitbox and lack of defense makes him an easy target for a turret or Bastion, shots from long range, a Roadhog hook, or an Ana sleep dart.
Junkrat - Traps can be hard to spot and once Doomfist is stuck in one, he has nothing he can really do. Also, Junkrat’s bombs and mines are exceptionally easy to land on a Doomfist.
Mei - She can be a real pain because even her slow without the freeze can mess up a Doomfist hard and the freeze even worse with no way to stop it except for running away.

Overall, I feel that Doomfist really might need a change to his passive or a new ability to give him something against all his counters. When 14 out of 27 heroes can completely counter Doomfist in one way or another, it’s pretty much impossible to play a match without struggling against one or more of the things i described here. My solution: Doomfist could have something added to his passive giving him one block of a cc ability (on a cooldown). Could be called like Unstoppable or something (he’s definitely someone who would be able to ignore someone trying to stop him like in a movie or something). This would allow him to have a get out of jail free card every so often allowing him to continue fighting and requiring the enemy team to have to double down on him to stop him completely. Probably best to not allow it to block ults like Graviton or Earthshatter. If this passive would be too much, it would be nice to have some form of defense or a better escape (Genji, Tracer, and Sombra are all divers like Doomfist, but they all have an instant escape or a defensive ability).

Let me know what you think and feel free to offer suggestions about any other heroes that counter him that I might have gotten wrong or missed.

EDIT I see that some of the comments are claiming some of the counters such as Rein are actually countered by Doomfist but that’s mostly why they’re in soft counters because they really only have one thing that counters Doomfist that can sometimes work around but can still put Doomfist in a pretty bad spot.

EDIT #2 I guess lots of people disagree with some of my points, but a lot of the things i’m seeing are saying to work around the other heroes, which is a valid point, but I was mostly trying to make the point that if you mess up once and get hit by one cc ability you are punished way harder than other heroes. Also, yes, I know the soft counters aren’t all that bad which is why I made a separate section for all of them. I really think it would help a lot if I didn’t have to work around the enemies as much. For example, a Tracer or Genji doesn’t have to worry about as much and even if they do mess up, they can usually still escape with a recall, deflect, dash, etc. Doomfist has nothing once he goes in unless you sacrifice saving an ability for an escape but saving the punch means you’re not going to get a kill and using it to escape is how you get cc’d easily, saving slam makes it harder to go in and you lose a bit of damage that you would otherwise have in that fight, and saving his uppercut also makes you lose out on some damage and isn’t that great of an escape.

EDIT #3 Moved Mei to soft counters, guess I wasn’t really thinking when I put her in hard counters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9 Likes
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I feel like you’re overestimating how much these characters counter Doomfist. Soldier, for example, is countered BY Doomfist, not the other way around. I would also argue that Doom is very strong against Rein, and pretty good against Mei and Brigitte (though her stun is annoying).

A solid Doomfist can play around many of his counters - Roadhog is a fat punching bag if you can avoid his hook/track cooldowns (punch is great for interrupting vape), Mccree can be burst down with a surprise slam+uppercut combo, and even Bastion can be killed in a few ways. Nothing is more fun than punching the exact spot Tracer comes out of recall, or landing a headshot+melee instakill at point blank range.

8 Likes
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Yeah doom’s hardest counters are Mccree and Hog.

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If Slam and Uppercut had one second less cooldown each it would allow him to work more around his counters. 7 seconds is just too much downtime for a hero that’s supposed to constantly be in the fight and using his passive to survive. A passive that’s tied to his ability use.

5 Likes
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Doomfist is hard counter to Rein actualy…

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His hitbox to health ratio is abysmal. He should have as much health as other heroes that are as big as him.

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He is one if not the hardest heroes to play. That’s the main reason.

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Lets say doomfist merely gets his mobility tool as a buff to not get countered easily. Now all you have to do is get near and land that punch. The other player will never get a chance to fight back while the other player only gets to hurt you and your shield protects you well enough that you have enough gap to make an escape. The high risk for landing that punch is what makes it rewarding and having a good doomfist with less easy to counter can be hell for others.

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Because he has to compete with Genji and Tracer

It’s the same problem Sombra has

Both Doomfist and Sombra can be AMAZING and super powerful; but the effort to do so is SO much higher than the ease of Tracer/ Genji

Think about it

Doomfist has to use every ability to kill someone; Genji can as well HOWEVER; Nothing on Doomfist is safe, and once fully burnt Doomfist has 0 options of mobility or escape, Genji still has wall climb and double jump

Sombra and Tracer both have super strong horizontal movement, but if things go bad for Tracer, she can recall, regain health, and try again. If Sombra messes up she not only has to make sure her translocator is up, she also has to make sure that there isn’t someone waiting at the other end. Also Sombra doesn’t clear Ana’s debuff, Recall does.

Not to mention their ults; Sombra and Doomfist have powerful ults, but they can be SUPER inconsistent. Tracer and Genji don’t really have to worry so much about theirs as they can both farm theirs back up rather quickly.

So not only do Sombra/ Doomfist have to compete against Tracer/ Genji, they are ALSO actually able to be countered by more than 2-3 heroes as well

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DF is not a character that fear anyone, he should be fighting other people to ded or die himself, never back up
The passive make him tanky and thus able to keep fighting without dying, but his hit box is too big and his animation lock on make him vulnerable during cast skills and trying to escape
His skill ceiling is too high for dps mains to reach but some people can be really good at him
also his dps is really strong by one shot people and pass through barriers / DM so you cant buff him too much without making him OP
there should be a limit somewhere

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Brigitte - Rocket Punch beats Shield Bash. She does not counter Doomfist at all.

McCree - Doomfist can easily kill a McCree, even if he has Flashbang. The reason McCree counters Doomfist isn’t because he wins duels for free, it’s because his stun prevents Doomfist from doing his job.

Pharah - Doomfist can’t kill Pharah but she does nothing to stop Doomfist from doing his job. This is like saying Pharah counters Genji.

Sombra - Yep. Try and spam her with your 4 shots and hope you force her to press E before you run out. This matchup sucks.

Mei - No. Her freeze is way too slow. This is probably a case of Git Gud.

Reinhardt - No. This isn’t even a case of Git Gud. This is just no.

Orisa - Similarly to Pharah, you can’t kills her, but she doesn’t stop you from killing her teammates.

Torbjorn - No.

Bastion - Yes, but if you spam your abilities you might be able to kill him first.

Roadhog - Yes. Pro Tip: Hold your Punch till he tries to use Take a Breather.

Ana - lmao no. This is one of the easiest mus in the game, easier than Tracer v Zenyatta.

Soldier: 76 - Like Ana, this is one of Doomfist’s best MUs. Please stop.

Tracer: Yep, Tracer is cancer. A lot of Tracers forget that you can kill them with a low charged punch though, so try and use that if you can.

Junkrat: Yeah, but he isn’t impossible. You can pretty reliably kill him before he kills you, but you’re going to take a lot of damage no matter what.

3 Likes
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If he sticks with his team and functions to peel, he shuts down a lot of stuff.

I think that’s what I love about Doomfist the most. Even if I am hard countered by a good chunk of the roster. The value Doomfist has being next to an ally is just crazy.

The main thing is… He knocks characters around and forces them to move where they generally don’t want to be. Straight in the air, pulled forward, or pushed back.

A Genji or Tracer just have to go up in the air once before they generally decide to retreat. A Hog only has to go straight back and away from the barrier he tried to walk through before backing off even a brief moment.

Pharah is a really tough one, no matter what, you can’t really do anything about her, but I’ve found a lot of Doomfist counters feel like they apply more if I’m trying to 1v1 or go out of my way to stick out.

Edit: I still think his passive could add when one of his abilities connects then it reduces the CD of the other two abilities. He feels like he has zero issues to play when you just reduce the CD of Slam and Uppercut a bit, but you want to make it earned as well. Also, it’s a fighting game reference to gaining frames for combos you normally shouldn’t be able to pull off.

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Rocketpunch is his only really good ability imo,if you miss it youre screwed and anyone can kill you quickly. He should have a weaker attack but with no cooldown.

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While Doom is still underpowered these counter lists people come up with are wrong. Doom has maybe 5 real counters being

Roadhog
Junkrat
Sombra
Bastion
Slightly Cowboy and Orissa

Anything else is just you being a bad Doomfist compared to them playing there character.

1 Like
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I would say Sombra is his absolute biggest counter honestly.

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I still think it depends on positioning.

If you’re out somewhere, absolutely.

If I’m near my team, I haven’t found being hacked a death sentence. A huge inconvenience, but that’s about it.

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His biggest counter is a decent phara and mccree, if I see those in my games its going to be a annoying game with a lot of deaths

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I don’t get it why people say DF is underpowered.
In games i play and there’s a good DF he just destroys my team. He jumps in the middle of my team, kill 2 sups and leave.
I don’t think McCree counter Doomfist, i think it’s the opposite or maybe a 50/50 both ways

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That is Sombra’s biggest weakness. So it makes sense.

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wheres phara? Also roadhog is just ult charge for me most of the times