Disclaimer: This is going to be a very long theory-fighter post, wherein I will hopefully lower Doomsday's placement on the current community Tear List. I realize most people here probably have never read one of my in-depth breakdown style posts, so I just wanted to clarify that in the harsher bits of what I'm about to say, I'm not trying to be an asshole and nothing is directed to any one person specifically; "It's just the way I talk!"
I'm going to respectfully disagree here by stating that Doomsday's trait is NOT broken. I actually believe it's one of his weaker tools, and could use a buff.
First, let's look at what it does:
- Gives Doomsday Stoneskin for a limited time. When stoneskin is up, Doomsday cannot be knocked down or launched, or hit by something that will lead to either of those states (throws).
Then, let's examine its uses:
- Activating when being zoned makes it easier to "plow through" said zoning and get in
- Forces your opponent to change their offense since certain normally safe moves on hit are now punishable
The first usage is self-explanatory. If you're getting zoned hard, trait up and try to close the gap.
I keep seeing people refer to it as "armor." Simply put, that is not true, or at the very least a misleading or poor usage of the terminology. You know what the major distinction between actual armor and Doomsday's trait is? Real armor is not interruptible. If you MB b3 and someone hits you, your b3 still happens. With Doomsday, your attack is immediately stopped and you recoil in a brief hitstop animation. Now, this can be a good thing for Doomsday in that he can punish moves that are normally not punishable. For example, if his opponent uses something that would normally be very plus on hit but with a long recovery animation, DDay's short recoil animation will recover before their move's entire animation, letting him get a nice punish.
If you were to stop after those two points, then yes, it would probably seem pretty broken. But did you realize what we did not just cover? Its downsides:
- The trait lasts 5 seconds, takes 15 to recharge. The absolute maximum you can use it in a match is 5 times (99 seconds plus a few for the round transition, which counts toward resetting trait timers), and once you're in, you're probably not going to be riding that timer hard enough to get all five potential uses, if the match even goes that far. Realistically, you're probably looking at 2-3 uses per match.
- The trait has poor startup time. Doomsday has trouble creating enough breathing room to apply the trait against a player applying tight offense pressure, including zoning.
- Doomsday takes full damage from all non-blocked hits while trait is up.
- The recoil can be combo'd from, meaning if you hit him with fast or multihit moves just as his trait wears off, you get a full length, full damage combo.
- Doomsday cannot use real armor during his trait--for example, hitting him out of MB Venom will interrupt and cause the recoil instead of him absorbing the attack and continuing the Venom.
- Stoneskin is vulnerable to supers.
- In the Superman matchup specifically, Superman's moves performed while his strength boost is active will break Doomsday's stoneskin, greatly impairing its usefulness.
Now that its weaknesses have been explained, let's reflect on WHY the advantages granted are necessary, albeit with the heavy restrictions above:
- Doomsday is a pure rush down character--he MUST get in to run his gameplan (knockdown > oki > put them in the meat grinder, possibly corner pushing first for added effectiveness). At full screen he has nothing but MB Supernova, an overrated and easily punished gimmick. He has no other way to deal with good projectiles aside from jumping them, but his jump is slow and floaty, making him anti-air bait or causing him to fall onto another projectile. His forward dash covers great range, but the animation itself is lengthy and DDay is vulnerable (at least until the hop is completed, at which point he could jump cancel). A smart player will merely poke you out of it as you dash in, or even worse, coerce you into dashing in for that very reason--Pig can be seen doing this to me in the later portion of our BnB sets, where he would intentionally bait me into dashing forward, then hit me out of it with Sinestro's standing 3 (I might be wrong on the move name here; it was the upward axe swipe normal).
Got all that? Good. If you didn't, re-read everything so this next part will make sense:
Doomsday's trait isn't broken, but 99% of Injustice players are not dealing with it correctly.
Doomsday's full screen. You're zoning him and he traits up. What do you do? Actually, we don't even have to explore that hypothetical since I main Doomsday and have seen what many players do in that very situation. They either:
- Keep throwing the same projectile like I DIDN'T just activate a trait whose very purpose is to marginalize those
- Pushblock. Since Stoneskin negates this, they just threw away a bar.
- Hold up back and jump away like morons, which of course I have no problem with since I can take my pick of MB b3/jd3/Venom/Up Venom/Supernova/Super anti-air
- Think "TIME TO GO ALL OUT" and go straight into a heavy-hitter string, handing me 40% + corner carry on a silver platter when I block or recoil through it
- Use some big special for the same reason I just mentioned with the same result
- Ignore it completely and fight as if the trait isn't up, at which point I ignore that they're a human opponent and treat them like a training dummy
- Ragequit... lol.
However, all of that is merely what most players do. What some players do is realize doing any of that is giving me a free pass to slaughter them, so instead they do one or more of the following:
- Turtle or play keep away long enough for the trait to wear. They only have to do this for a whole 5 seconds. At the very least, they can stall and make me waste some of that 5 seconds. Note: this does NOT mean jump away when in my anti-air range. Try back dashing or using an evasive special move that won't easily be Venom'd.
- If I do close the gap, they man up and block it out, then escape or push me away so I'm back at step one (or maybe step zero since now I have to wait 15 seconds to use my trait for another attempt).
- d1 or another quick move. Doomsday's fastest normal is his own d1 at 7f. Many other characters have faster normals; using them will hit me out of whatever I'm doing and force me into recoil. This makes a typical d1 very effective at shutting down DDay's momentum once he's traited and in.
- Wait for me to do anything, then super. Remember what I said about his forward dash?...
- Use a quick multihit move or string to keep me locked in recoil until the trait is over. MB Gatling Gun with Green Lantern is great at this. Bonus: if you do this just before the trait wears, you might be able to pick up a combo by continuing it out of Doomsday's recoil!
- Before I can even get Stoneskin up, they hit me out of its startup. A really easy way to do this is to pay attention to when the Doomsday is using trait. Example: notice him immediately traiting after a blocked projectile full screen? MB it next time to hit him during startup.
To summarize: Again, Doomsday's trait is not broken. What's broken, in the sense that it doesn't function as it should, is the mindset of so many players who refuse to theorize or experiment with counterstrategies, then knee-jerk react and claim "Well since I can't get around it, CLEARLY the mechanic or move is overpowered." Doomsday's trait isn't overpowered--you are underpowered.
The counters above are what smart players do, but it's what ALL players should do. Just because someone thinks playing a game at high level doesn't involve figuring out and adapting to their opponent's varied strengths and weaknesses, but instead shining the Nerf Signal in the skies above Netherrealm City, doesn't mean their strategy or move is broken--it means you aren't even experienced enough yet to make that judgement. "Broken" is a term applied to moves or strategies which have zero/very minimal drawbacks or counter strategies, not something you're too lazy to realize you can spam d1 against.
