Introduction
Victor Von Doom, better known as "Doctor Doom", is a villain originating from the Fantastic Four comics. He rules the fictional nation of Latveria, and is a master of both science and magic. The armor he wears gives him access to a variety of abilities, allows him to fly, and lets him fight toe-to-toe with superpowered characters.
In UMvC3, Dr. Doom is a strong all-rounder, but his high mobility and variety of useful projectile attacks slant him more towards being played in a keepaway style. Doom prefers to flee to superjump height, where few characters can effectively catch him thanks to aerial specials like 214X, and his infamous j.5S "Foot dive!" attack. Doom may not be as fast or aggressive as other 8-way airdashers like Magneto or Nova, but he deals high damage and has very strong mixup potential when he needs to use it.
Strengths |
Weaknesses
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- Mobility: Doom has top-class mobility, with access to both a Flight mode and a very quick 8-way airdash. His mobility is further compounded by his ability to dash- or airdash-cancel almost all of his normal attacks, allowing Doom to quickly attack or retreat as the situation demands.
- Amazing Support Value: Doom brings incredible team support potential. All three of his assists are excellent, with each one being a contender for best assist in the game. He also brings two very powerful level 1 hypers for DHCs. Photon Array is a safe hyper that his teammates can DHC to in order to escape danger, while Sphere Flame deals huge damage and can be used to secure a kill. His fast OTGs also allow him to easily be tagged in and used as a damage engine.
- Versatile: Doom is an all-rounder with tools for almost any situation a player would find in UMvC3. He has strong projectile/keepaway tools, plenty of options for crafty mixups and offense, an excellent throw game, and some of the best damage.
- Amazing OTG: Doom has arguably the best OTG tools in the entire roster. His 5M and 5H normals both hit OTG, and he can naturally combo after them using a normal magic series chain. Combined with his naturally great damage output, Doom gets exceptional value off of almost any Hard Knockdown, including ones caused by assists, throws, his own j.5S, or even when brought in mid-combo via Hard Tag or DHC.
- Footdive: Doom's "Footdive" attacks - j.6H and j.5S - are a nearly impenetrable wall of hitbox that will stuff most other aerial attacks clean. j.5S also causes a very lengthy Hard Knockdown, which Doom is adept at converting into big damage. The sheer threat of being footdive'd makes opponents hesitant to chase Doom into the air, further enhancing his keepaway game.
- Air-to-Air Conversions: Doom is exceptionally strong at converting air-to-air hits. His j.5S always forces a Hard Knockdown on hit, while most character's j.5S only cause one during a Launcher combo. He can also take advantage of the naturally large untech time on all of his aerial normals, airdash-canceling them and "staircasing" his opponent down to the ground as part of the conversion.
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- No Invuln: Doom has virtually no invincible or armored attacks except for his level 3 hyper.
- Everyone Knows the Matchup: Doom is probably the most commonly picked and most heavily played character in the game. It is very likely that any opponent you play has good knowledge of the Doom matchup, and a large amount of experience fighting against him.
- Limited Ground Mobiltiy: Doom's unique ground dash can not be canceled, except by jumping. As a result, Doom cannot wavedash or plinkdash on the ground, and loses access to some basic offense tools that most of the cast can use, like cross-under dashing 5L. Doom can mitigate this to some extend by using Triangle Dash (see Unique Mechanics below), but this is a more committal option.
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Unique Mechanic
All of Doom's grounded normals and command normals - except for 5S and Hidden Missiles (4H) - can be dash-canceled on hit or block. Similarly, Doom can cancel all of his aerial normals and command normals, except for his j.5H "Butter Gun" into an airdash.
Doom can combine his ability to dash-cancel normals with his ability to Triangle Jump in order to effectively cancel normals directly into a Triangle Jump. This allows Doom to maintain very strong pressure on a defending opponent, and continue to be aggressive even through pushblock. An example input sequence for this technique is shown below:
(on block) 2H > 9M+H > j.3M+H > 6H > 9M+H etc.
If done correctly, Doom will dash-cancel his blocked sweep, then instantly cancel that dash into a jump, giving the appearance he directly jump-canceled his 2H. He will then airdash back down, remaining close to the opponent. If this sequence was done quickly enough that the opponent is still in blockstun, or tried to jump out of pressure, Doom will then attack with a 6H High Kick, which can itself be Triangle Jump canceled to continue the offensive. If the sequence is delayed slightly, the 6H input will instead throw the opponent.
Unique Movement
Doom's grounded dashes (both forward dash and backdash) are fixed duration "hop" dashes. Unlike most characters, he can not cancel his ground dashes into crouching, or into attacks. However, Doom can still cancel his ground dashes by jumping. This gives Doom a rather unique method for traveling across the stage, called Triangle Jumping. To Triangle Jump forward, input a forward dash, then input a forwards jump with the desired timing. Lastly, as soon as Doom reaches the minimum airdash height on his jump, perform a down-forward airdash to return back to the ground. In terms of raw speed, it is fastest to jump-cancel roughly halfway through Doom's dash animation, but jumping earlier takes less overall time per repetition and is thus less risky to do in neutral.