Akande Ogundimu was born into a rich Nigerian family, an heir to a company that specialized in prosthetic technology.
After losing his right arm in the Omnic Crisis and applying cybernetic prosthetics to his body, Ogundimu fell into a dark world as a member of the mercenary organization Talon, eventually taking on the mantle of Doomfist.
Doomfist would eventually lose a battle to Overwatch hero Winston and become imprisoned. Now, he’s been broken out by Reaper and the rest of Talon to retake his place as one of its leaders and continue wreaking havoc on the world. Nothing will ever be the same.
Here’s how to master the gauntlet and wreak your own havoc as Overwatch’s 25th hero, Doomfist, after his rework to become a tank in Overwatch 2.
“Every battle makes us stronger”
In Overwatch 2, Doomfist has been reworked to the tank role after spending several years as a damage hero, and he can be quite a difficult one to master.
He’s extremely ability-dependent, much like Orisa who was released before him. His bread and butter is using his abilities to create combos the way that a character might in a fighting game—and they can be incredibly lethal when executed correctly.
First, Doomfist’s default primary fire is his Hand Cannon—literally, a cannon in his left hand—which fires four shotgun-like projectiles from each knuckle in his fist. Each shot fires six pellets and each pellet does up to six points of damage, but its attack range is short.
Since the magazine of the ammo in his hand cannon is limited to just four shots, it’s important to manage each one and get used to the cadence of their fire rate and the following 0.65-second automatic reload animation that comes after the magazine is empty.
Hand Cannon can do a decent bit of damage up close, but the range falloff is steep. It can be used to do chip damage from a distance, but he’s not a sniper by any means. Its main function is strong burst damage at short range. Thankfully, he’s able to close the distance quickly with his gauntlet.
“Does anyone else want to try me?”
At a base level, each of Doomfist’s abilities is strong. But when they’re combined, he becomes a master of disruption that now must be used in a frontline assault as opposed to being a backline assassin as before.
Bound to alternate fire by default, Rocket Punch is his most powerful and most useful ability since it can be used in a variety of ways. When held down and charged, Doomfist will launch himself a distance of about 20 meters, dealing damage to those he hits and knocking them back.
Get to know Rocket Punch well. If it lands a hit on a target and knocks them back into a wall, it deals massive damage, one-shotting the majority of the cast. It has a short cooldown of just four seconds and can be used as both a main tool of offense and a great way of escaping when things aren’t going your way in a fight.
Seismic Slam can be used as both a combo starter and a finisher. Doomfist leaps forward with a high, arcing attack and smashes the ground, dealing damage to enemies and slowing them. It has incredible height and range, even further than Rocket Punch, and is great for closing the gap or escaping the enemy.
His newest ability for the tank role is Power Block, replacing his Rising Uppercut ability. Bound to E by default, Doomfist will use his gauntlet to block all frontal damage. The damage he takes while using Power Block will charge up his next Rocket Punch.
Getting to know these three abilities is key since using them like a combo in a fighting game will lead to much success when it comes to dealing damage as Doomfist.
Experiment with combos. Go into the practice range and see which ones work best in which situations.
For example, Doomfist can use Rocket Punch to deal damage to an enemy, Seismic Slam to close the gap on others, use primary fire to chip away at enemy health, Power Block to protect himself from incoming damage and charge himself up, and then use Rocket Punch again to return to his team thanks to its very short three-second cooldown.
With these abilities, Doomfist is one of the most mobile heroes in the game, despite his size. Using a fully charged Rocket Punch is a great way to quickly reach an objective and combining it with Seismic Slam will allow him to travel great distances in a short period of time.
“It’ll take more than that to stop me”
Meteor Strike, Doomfist’s ultimate ability, remains largely unchanged.
When triggered, Doomfist launches himself high into the air—and out of sight. The player can then zoom out to get a better view of the map and the large blue circle that denotes his target area on the ground below.
When triggered again, Doomfist crashes down to the ground after a short delay, dealing reduced damage compared to when he was a DPS hero. But it will now slow enemies affected by it.
This ultimate has a lot of potential for a variety of uses. It’s great for clearing out enemies who are packed tightly together. It can be somewhat easy to dodge, though, since there’s time to move out of the way as Doomfist reaches the ground. But the attack is deadly when it lands.
Meteor Strike is great for zoning as well. Enemies will be forced to vacate the area unless they want to be pummeled by Doomfist’s gauntlet. It’s a highly telegraphed move, however, since enemies have a decent amount of time to clear out of an area while he’s in the air.
Doomfist’s ultimate is strong on Assault and Control maps since the attack covers a large portion of the objective areas. Most importantly, it can land inside of buildings, regardless of whether there’s a roof.
The matchups
Strong against
Supports
Using his abilities well, Doomfist can dive in and quickly dispatch of any squishy backline hero like Mercy or Zenyatta. Whether it’s a combination including his Hand Cannon or one well-timed Rocket Punch with a wall splat, healers have another hero to be worried about jumping on top of them.
Slow-moving heroes
Basically, any hero that lacks mobility will have a hard time against a good Doomfist since he’ll be able to dive on them or line them up for a Rocket Punch pretty easily. Heroes like Ana, Symmetra, and Torbjorn will have issues with him.
Weak against
Sombra and Orisa
If Sombra hacks Doomfist, he’s going to have a bad time. Since he’s so ability-dependent, having the strongest parts of his kit taken away will make things tough for him.
Orisa almost seems like she was built as a Doomfist counter. Her Fortify ability will prevent him from dealing lots of damage or knocking her back with his Rocket Punch, and she can bully him away from her teammates by using her Javelin Spin.
High maneuverability heroes
Tracer, Genji, and Pharah will have some fun with Doomfist since they’re all able to keep a decent distance from him while quickly dodging his attacks with their maneuverability. Tracer and Genji, especially, are able to move quickly while simultaneously charging their ultimates and dealing quick damage to him, thanks to his large hitbox.
Heroes with long-range attacks
This list is long, but anyone who’s able to keep their distance from Doomfist and still do damage will be able to handle him pretty well. Sure, he can close the distance easily, but well-aimed shots from Widowmaker, Soldier: 76, Bastion, or Hanzo can quickly dispatch him.
Roadhog
Hog will decimate Doomfist, considering his combo isn’t nearly enough to deal the necessary damage to take the pig down. Plus, Roadhog’s hook will easily pluck Doomfist from out of the air.
It was almost three years between the first mention of Doomfist in Overwatch’s reveal trailer at BlizzCon 2014 to his release in the summer of 2017, but the game’s world finally has its first true supervillain. When Overwatch 2’s PvE content hits, Doomfist is looking like one of the main antagonists of the storyline.
He’s here to stay in the meta moving forward—and rightfully so. He can be a devastating menace in the right hands and circumstances.
