Doomfist Abilities and Strategy

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Role in the Current Meta
  • 2. Doomfist Synergies
  • 3. Doomfist Counters
  • 4. Doomfist Is Strong Against
  • 5. Doomfist TL;DR Tips
  • 6. Reading Further for Doomfist
  • 7. Changelog
• ×Abilities and Strategy
  • 1. Doomfist TL;DR Tips
  • 2. General Playstyle
  • 3. The Best Defense...
  • 4. Hand Cannon
  • 5. Rocket Punch
  • 6. Rising Uppercut
  • 7. Seismic Slam
  • 8. Meteor Strike
  • 9. Combos for Doomfist
    • 9.1. Damage Combo
    • 9.2. Mobility Combo
      • 9.2.1. Rising Uppercut and Rocket Punch
      • 9.2.2. Rising Uppercut and Seismic Slam
      • 9.2.3. Rocket Punch and Seismic Slam
      • 9.2.4. All Basic Abilities
      • 9.2.5. Using Your Ultimate in a Combo
• +Synergies and Matchups
  • 1. Synergies
    • 1.1. Zarya
    • 1.2. Ana
    • 1.3. Winston
    • 1.4. D.Va
  • 2. Counters
    • 2.1. Soldier: 76
    • 2.2. Pharah
    • 2.3. Sombra
    • 2.4. Orisa
  • 3. Strong Against
    • 3.1. Genji
    • 3.2. Reinhardt
    • 3.3. Ana

On this page, you will find a detailed overview of the abilities that Doomfist has access to. We also explain how to best use these abilities.

The other pages of our Doomfist guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

• Comboing abilities in any order is the most efficient way of finishing off enemies that you face. See our combo section on the abilities page for more details on this.
• Rocket Punch can be used as an efficient gap closer to put pressure on an enemy, regardless of the amount of damage coming from it.
• Overextending as Doomfist can be incredibly dangerous, especially when trying to engage an entire team. Focus on a target and bring them down before deciding if you need to retreat or not.
• If a fight is turning against you, use one of your mobility abilities to simply disengage and heal up. Doomfist has a huge hitbox for his health pool and can find himself being targeted down quickly.
• Use Meteor Strike to focus a single enemy, such as a backline support that can be quickly removed from the fight, rather than wasting it and trying to hit the whole enemy team.
• You can only use Meteor Strike to move to higher ground if there is a physical wall to climb up to it. If there is not one, you will move under it.

Doomfist is an incredibly punishing hero that has a very high-risk, high-reward playstyle. It is incredibly important to communicate with your team in regards to what target you are focusing as well as where you are diving.

When pushing a target, make sure to keep a close eye on what is happening in the rest of the fight. Doomfist rides the wave of success of his teammates and is excellent at pushing the advantage. When enemies are pressured by your team, support them and secure the kills, darting between the different fights.

When fights start to move against your team and you start losing the fight, you need to make a decision to retreat. With a large HP pool, especially with his shields included, Doomfist can feed ultimates incredibly quickly. You will need to disengage when the fight starts to become lost, especially since you have such a large variety of movement abilities to escape with.

Perfecting your playstyle as Doomfist relies on your ability to pay attention to how a teamfight moves, similar to how Genji is mastered. Keep a close eye on the killfeed and the ultimates used by each team to decide whether the fight is being won or lost.

This is Doomfist's most defensive skill and, with proper management of it, you can hugely extend the amount of time spent sitting on the enemy backline. The shield will trigger and grant +30 HP as a shield for every enemy hit with one of your non-ultimate abilities (this does not include your ultimate or primary fire). The ability will grant +75 HP as a shield for every enemy hit with your ultimate. It is worth noting that you will not receive the shield immediately as there is a 1 second delay before it is applied.

This ability is key to surviving as Doomfist, but it will not make you invincible. You need to keep a very close eye on the decay of the shield, which occurs at a rate of 3 shield HP per second. There are times when, while escaping from a fight, you are more likely to survive if you trigger this ability while fleeing. Moving slightly backwards to re-engage an enemy just to trigger the shield will potentially allow you to survive while escaping.

Doomfist's primary fire deals 66 damage per use, with each shot firing 6 pellets. There are a total of 4 shots in each clip of the gun and, with a strong damage output per second, it has a large spread of fire when used, similar to the shotguns of Reaper. It is worth noting that this gun cannot be force reloaded and instead generates shot charges over time.

This is your only real ranged ability that can be used from safety and it can be used in two main ways. With the spread on it, it can be used to poke the enemy prior to engaging them in the hopes of lowering their HP, or it can be used to finish an enemy off after you have used your combo.

Doomfist's alternate fire propels him forward after a period of charging, dealing 49-100 damage depending on the amount of time spent charging. With a cooldown of 4 seconds, this ability provides a huge amount of mobility to Doomfist and can be used to separate enemy teams swiftly. Rocket Punch will displace you from 10-23 metres in the direction you are facing and then knock an enemy back. If they hit a wall, you will deal up to 150 damage, depending on the charge time.

This is an incredibly potent ability that can not only be used to reposition enemies, but also to completely remove them from a fight via environmental kills. From an offensive perspective, this can be used at full charge to completely remove an enemy from a fight by instantly killing them with the wall impact effect. To do so, you need to aim well and ensure you position yourself to slam them into a wall.

Defensively, you can use this ability to completely halt an enemy push. When enemies dive onto your backline, you can position yourself to knock them back and away from your healers instantly. This is an incredibly potent defensive move when helping heroes like Ana that simply cannot move away themselves when being targeted by a big dive hero, such as D.Va or Winston.

Given the short cooldown, this ability is absolutely perfect for both engaging an enemy and also removing yourself from a fight.

While this ability still has a relatively short cooldown of 7 seconds, it only deals 50 damage and is often best used to survey a fight or in a long combo. Given the low output, it can give you a perfect vantage point to view what is happening in a fight and to see, from what is a bird's eye view, which heroes are either out of position or far enough away to be picked off. It also allows you to see who is placed perfectly you to Rocket Punch them into a wall.

With such a low amount of damage, keeping Rising Uppercut off cooldown in order to use for mobility is often the best choice. It allows you to also position yourself away from enemy attacks, such as by dodging the Charge of Reinhardt or a Dragonstrike from Hanzo.

For use of this ability as a potent damage spell, refer to our combo section at the bottom of the page.

This is another ability that Doomfist can rely on as either damage-focused or mobility-focused and, with a cooldown of 7 seconds, it lines up perfectly with Rising Uppercut to be used as a combo for either goal.

It launches Doomfist forward and he slams into the ground, dealing up to 125 damage and pulling enemies towards him when he lands. This can be used to neatly combo with a few ultimates of allies, like Halt! from Orisa, but it does not add the slow that Halt does. With good enough timing, it is still possible to secure a kill inside a friendly Dragonstrike, for example, but it is much harder to pull off than with Orisa.

It is worth noting that Seismic Slam does not have a particularly long range, so take care when using it to return from an environmental hazard. You can use it to move around maps when used in the mobility combo at the bottom of the page.

Meteor Strike allows Doomfist to launch himself into the air for 4 seconds in which he can move a circular cursor around the map. After the timer has finished, Doomfist will slam into the ground and deal damage in a circle around him, with those in the epicenter being hit for 300 damage.

This ability is incredibly potent when used correctly and can remove an enemy from a teamfight before it has even started, given that it can one-shot the majority of the hero roster outside of the tanks. With careful planning and a strong use of your other abilities to navigate through the map, you can sneak up behind an enemy backline and immediately eliminate one of, if not more, of their supports or damage dealers.

When used in combination with Graviton Surge, this changes from an incredible mobility ultimate to an unhealable damage dealer which, most notably, cannot be stopped by a Transcendence from Zenyatta, since it deals the damage in one hit.

Your best time to use the ultimate is once a fight has actually begun, since enemies will be less likely to be ready to react to you and more likely to make an error in where they move.

Doomfist is a character that allows for the perfect meshing of his abilities. There are two main categories of combo that can be used and we have covered them below as the mobility and damage combo.

This combo is the best way of dealing burst damage with Doomfist and should be mastered as soon as possible. It is an incredible way of efficiently eliminating an enemy in any engagement.

To execute this combo, you will use the following sequence of abilities:

1. Use Rising Uppercut on an enemy.
2. Use Rocket Punch to slam the enemy into a wall or an open area.
3. Use Seismic Slam to land on the enemy and finish them off.
4. If the enemy still survives, use your primary fire to finish them off while your cooldowns reset.

This is an incredibly important part of playing Doomfist effectively and if it is not properly mastered, your damage output in high impact situations will be far below what is required. This combo should be second nature to you so that you are not worrying about the sequence of abilities when you need to focus on other things.

There are a variety of combos available to Doomfist depending on the distance that needs to be travelled, as well as the height difference that needs to be overcome. It is advisable that you are aware of all of the combinations, regardless of how you choose to use them.

This combo is best used when trying to move to a platform that is either far in distance, higher than you, or both. You can use the moves in any order, but it will depend on where you want to reach. If you are trying to reach something that is far away, but on the same height level as you, use Rising Uppercut first. If you are trying to reach something that is far away, but on a higher height level than you, use Rocket Punch first. This is due to the slow descent that follows Rising Uppercut, meaning you will not be able to charge Rocket Punch quickly enough.

This combo is primarily used to reach a ledge above you. You can use Rising Uppercut to jump up, followed by Seismic Slam to jump forward onto the ledge.

This will only ever be used to travel a long distance forward from a high location to a much lower one. You can Rocket Punch forward and then use Seismic Slam to jump the rest of the distance to the location.

By combining all three basic abilities, it is possible to perform a large mobility combo to reach areas that are far away. Combine the different combos above to perfect a variety of combinations that can make you close distances and flank the enemy team without ever having to engage them.

There is not much point in going through the steps of mastering the combos without learning how to effectively make use of them. After positioning yourself perfectly, you can easily execute a deadly ultimate with the correct timing. Use the combos above to navigate difficult passageways, such as under the map on King's Row or above the point B on Temple of Anubis, and scout the enemy team as you move. When you find a target, simply weave your ultimate into the end of a combo and unleash it. They normally will not have any idea you are coming and you are certain to get a few kills out of it.

About our Author

Blainie is a Grand Master Support and Tank player, with a focus on analysis of gameplay and the meta surrounding Overwatch. He regularly streams his ranked games on Twitch, where he can answer any questions you may have about the game or guides.