I often play video games and give them a great score based on a lot of factors. Story, graphics, mechanics, you name it. However, it's one thing to enjoy a game's mechanics and then write about it. It's another to understand why a game is so enjoyable. Overwatch lately has me thinking a great deal about game development since it's currently on the forefront of the most talked-about games out on the market. To add, it's definitely easier to think about since new characters are added often. This gives an opportunity to learn more about how mechanics work within a game, and since they're isolated to a new character it's easy to work with them rather figuring out an entirely new set of mechanics with a new game.
Doomfist is heralded by the Overwatch development team as an important leader of Talon. Nigerian in origin, he dedicated his free time to competitive martial arts. He lost his arm during the Omnic Crisis, the world war pitting the Omnic robots against mankind. His company fitted a prosthetic to replace his arm. I took some time playing with Doomfist over the weekend. I'd argue he's a difficult character to play. 250 health, "rolling" reloads for shots, a fairly large physique (easy target), and six abilities. Damn, one complex offensive character. One shot from his knuckles can do a total of 66 damage--not a lot if you're facing off against a tank. The main attack is best used to boost his passive ability--generating personal shields. It's clear that his strengths lie in chaining his abilities together.
I found myself charging forward with his rocket punch, chaining in a rising uppercut (Street Fighter, anyone?), and then following up with a seismic slam, finishing with a blast from his hand cannon. The combo can potentially do a max of 325 damage, with 66 damage for each hand cannon shot. Once again, not much if you're facing a tank. It'll definitely occupy a tank for awhile and get them off of a player's back, but targeting weaker characters for elimination is probably a better method of using his abilities--which, by the way, all have short cooldowns. Doomfist is around to use his abilities.
However, I found that using this combo listed wasn't very effective. Charging forward can take care of those pesky shields that are all the rage from Orisa and Reinhardt, but then what? If you knock down a shield you'll be likely surrounded, so it's either a matter of using rising uppercut to stay swift on your feet, or pulling off meteor strike--and I don't yet know if he can be shot out of the air, much like Pharah. Granted I've only used his abilities in some "chain" fashion and I've yet to find the slight nuances of his character, but I just feel he's too weak in his current state. His abilities keep him pretty agile around maps, almost as if he's a Pharah without a jetpack, but I think the pinnacle of usage hits hardest when taking down shields.
Doomfist is clearly not a character for me right now. Maybe he's been introduced to make a lot of alterations to the balance seen as it's been a hot topic as of late, but I can't see him playable because he's just far too weak for my tastes. Maybe that's more of an inexperienced development aspect from my standpoint, but that's how I feel about Doomfist. We'll see how he changes over time.