Movement and Neutral Options
Triangle Jumps
Doom's grounded dashes can not be canceled into attacks or crouching, meaning he is unable to Wavedash or Plink Dash in the traditional ways. Doom's primary way to move when close to the ground is to Triangle Jump (aka Triangle Dash, Tri-dash, Tri-jump, etc). Triangle Jumping is done by jumping and then immediately airdashing back down towards the ground. Repeatedly alternating between forward jumps and down-forward airdashes allows Doom to travel forward fairly quickly, for example. Doom can also Tri-dash backwards with up-back jumps and down-back airdashes, or use any other combination.
Additionally, Doom can still jump-cancel his regular grounded dash, meaning that he can transition directly from a ground dash into a Tri-dash for a very quick burst of speed. The input for a dash like this would look like 6XX > 9 > j.3XX and it can be looped into itself as much as desired. Doom can also dash-cancel his normals on contact, which means he can effectively cancel his normals into Tri-dash movement, which is a core part of his offense.
From a regular jump, Doom reaches minimum airdash height after 6 frames. From a superjump, Doom reaches minimum airdash height after 3 frames. Note that Doom can not cancel a dash into a superjump, so the 6f timing is more generally applicable.
Flight Movement
Flight is a key part of Doom's neutral game, as it supports his general goal of staying above the opponent, where Photon Shot (j.214X) and Footdive (6H/j.S) are most effective. Flight also gives Doom access to multiple uses of his fast, 8-way airdash, letting him reposition more effectively.
In general, when wanting to retreat to superjump height, it is better to perform a regular jump, then airdash upwards and activate Flight once at superjump height. Superjumps disable assist calling for the duration, but Doom can utilize his upwards airdash to reach this height without superjumping. This gives Doom an immediate edge over characters who would want to rush him down; they can not pursue him without losing access to their own assist calls, while Doom still has access to his own. The disadvantage to using an airdash to reach superjump height is that Doom now can not airdash-cancel an attempted Footdive, meaning any attempted footdive is much more punishable, and this option needs to be used more cautiously compared to a Doom who has preserved his airdash.
Once Doom is in Flight mode, he can chain airdashes together freely, so long as those airdashes are not in the exact same direction. For example, Doom can quickly chain j.9XX > j.6XX > j.3XX to airdash forward three times in a row with some additional vertical movement. Doom can not normally chain an airdash into another airdash in the exact same direction, but even this limitation can be circumvented with Plink Dashing.
Doom's j.H Buttergun is fairly unique in that it can not be kara-canceled into a dash. This means that you can not Plink an H input into a dash input to Plink Dash with Doom. However, it is still acceptable for H to be part of the actual dash input. Although it is more common to Plink Dash with an H~L+M input, a reversed L~M+H input allows Doom to Plink Dash in the air instead. As explained in the linked video, binding an extra L button to the right of your usual inputs allows a player to do this with the same right-to-left plinking motion they normally use.
Alternatively, Doom can plink dash in the air by using only the L~M input, omitting any H presses. This has less leeway for error than a regular Plink Dash input but otherwise works the same way.
Keepaway Tools
j.214X Air Photon Shot - Doom's most common and reliable long-range tool. Safe and spammable, Doom fires a spread of projectiles that fan out below and in front of him. If Doom is above a grounded opponent, they will basically be forced to block at least a few of these projectiles. Chip damage dealt is very underwhelming, but Doom can throw these out constantly to wear out an opponent's health and patience while remaining non-comittal. Additionally, Doom can airdash down behind his own Photon Shots in order to approach while covered by the porjectiles and begin an offense at any time.
Characters with teleports that place them above or behind the opponent, such as Dante or Vergil, will be looking to punish predictable Photon Shots with a teleport, so be more cautious about using this move against those characters.
214X Ground Photon Shot - Dangerous to use against characters with good projectile options of their own, especially fast projectile hypers, but provides a very huge amount of screen coverage. Characters like Haggar and Wolverine would like to approach Doom at regular jump height, and Photon Shot can snipe them out of the air. It can also provide some protection against characters who can teleport behind Doom such as Wesker or Dante. If Photon Shot tags an airborne opponent, it tends to create scramble situations which Doom excels in due to strong air normals like j.M and his very strong 6H Throw OS both on the ground and in the air. That said, Ground Photon Shot has bad frame advantage, and if used repeatedly the opponent will be able to approach Doom incrementally and eventually hit him, so it ideally should be used only ocassionally, when your opponent is worried about avoiding Doom's other options.
j.6H/j.S Footdive - Ideally, rushdown-focused characters would like to jump at Doom and either airthrow him or stuff his zoning attempts with a fast air normal, but the threat of Footdive shuts this down almost completely. If you feel an opponent is getting uncomfortably close or aggressive while trying to zone them out, Doom can usually perform one of his two Footdive versions. Footdive can either be used to contest an opponent's attack by stuffing it or trading favorably due to its excellent hitbox, or it can be used to reposition sliding across the stage to safety. For example, if Doom is cornered at superjump height and an opponent is below him, j.6H can be used to escape to midscreen, then Doom can freely cancel the Footdive into Flight mode at his convenience.
Footdive (both versions) is Airdash-cancelable on contact, which turns the move from "fairly punishable" on block to being fully advantageous on block. However, this requires Doom to still have his airdash unused in the current jump state. Since both versions of Footdive end flight upon activation, Doom can not utilize his multiple airdashes during Flight mode to work around this limitation either. Once Doom has used his airdash, he is notably in a weaker position because he can not safely rely on Footdive to create space for him against aggressive opponents.
236X Plasma Beam - Doom beam has fairly poor coverage which makes it fairly easy to avoid for any character with any kind of aerial mobility, but it is not completely useless. Plasma Beam has very good chip damage potential, and this damage can add up if you make use of it during every opportunity you can secure it. A simple strategy is to do Air Photon Shot, airdash straight down to the ground behind the projectiles, then throw out a Plasma Beam while the opponent is stuck dealing with photons. If an opponent is hit by Plasma Beam and knocked down (or put into a Soft Knockdown by basically anything else), you can put a meaty Beam over them as they get up for free chip. Be ready to cancel Plasma Beam into Photon Array (214XX) if your opponent dodges the beam in order to avoid punishment.
j.5H Buttergun - Situationally useful at mid-to-long range, but when done close its slow startup and limited vertical reach make it very vulnerable to being airthrown. Characters with long-range "sniping" hypers like Spencer's Bionic Lancer or Dormammu's Chaotic Flame would also love to punish this on reaction. Buttergun is mainly notable as a zoning tool because, unlike all of Doom's other projectiles, he is not stuck in place during the animation, and so Doom can put a projectile out on screen while simultaneously either advancing or retreating. Used sparingly, j.5H can clip an opponent who expects to be positioned safely above Doom's more common zoning tools, and thanks to its very high untech time, a prepared Doom player can even convert a stray j.5H hit into a full combo at surprisingly long range.
j.5M - Generically strong normal with a deceptively large hitbox that can hit opponents in front of, below, above (!!) and behind Doom. In the context of Doom's keepaway game, it is helpful for giving Doom some protection while he respositions using airdashes. You can Unfly Glitch (214S+M) to transition directly from repeated airdashes in Flight into a falling j.M while keeping a lot of momentum to land quickly and safely.
4H Hidden Missiles - In a vacuum, calling missiles is very slow and committal at a minimum 55 frames even if you only shoot one missile. You may be able to pull out some missiles at fullscreen if the opponent is being very passive or if they are locked down by assists and/or other projectiles. It is mainly notable because it can be THC-canceled into Photon Array (assuming Doom is running Beam or Missiles assist). Missiles canceled into Photon Array is difficult to contest unless the opponent has an equally durable projectile hyper or very invincible hyper available to counter-call with. If Doom calls ~3-4 missiles and then THC cancels, the missiles will fall onto the opponent just as Photon Array ends, keeping them stuck in blockstun. Doom can even dump meter to loop Missiles -> Photon -> Missiles -> Photon -> Missiles in order to deal nearly unavoidable chip damage, stall out buffs like X-Factor or Devil Trigger, or try to score a win by Time Out.
214XX Photon Array - Generic emergency cancel option. If any of your other keepaway tools is about to be punished, Doom can cancel into a Photon Array to attempt to protect himself with a wide coverage of High Priority projectiles. Keep in mind that this hyper has a "safe spot" directly above Doom, and sufficiently fast Flight-mode characters can maneuver into this spot to punish Doom's recovery. If Doom has lots of meter to burn, repeated Photon Arrays can be used to stall out dangerous temporary buffs like X-Factor or Morrigan Astral Vision, or to deal a good amount of chip damage in order to secure a win or early X-Factor activation. Photon Array can also be used to call out and punish an opponent's assist calls; if Doom snipes an opponent and their assist with Photon Array, he can react by activating X-Factor and dashing up for a Happy Birthday combo, which is a huge momentum swing. Even if Photon Array hits only the assist character and not the Point character, Doom can still X-Factor to kill a key assist while the opponent is locked down by Photon Array.
Mixup Theory
Much of Doom's offensive potential comes from his ability to Dash Cancel almost all of his normals on hit or block to skip their recovery and maintain continual pressure. Doom can then, in turn, jump-cancel his dash to transition seamlessly from blocked normals into Tri-Dash pressure. Through Tri-dash, Doom has access to High/Low, Strike/Throw, and Left/Right mixup options. Doom's most common normals to Dash-Cancel for pressure are:
- 6H - Throw OS, Very high blockstun, Anti-air hitbox to catch people Chicken Blocking, can be reliably hit-confirmed into a combo even if Dash-Canceled
- 2H - It hits low.
Generally, you will want to have the opponent block one of these normals, and then cancel immediately into a dash using a 9M+H input. With this amount of frame advantage and the ability to quickly attack from either the ground or the air, Doom has a huge amount of ways to potentially mix up the opponent. Here are some basic examples:
6H > 9M+H 2XX~j.H, land, 2L To hit Low. You can replace the 2XX~j.H with a regular 3XX down-forward airdash which is easier, but inputting it the hard way is Air-tight and will punish Chicken Blocking attempts.
6H > 9M+H 6XX j.M To hit Overhead.
6H > 9M+H 3XX, land, (short delay) 6H to throw. Without the delay, the opponent will still be in Blockstun and Doom will perform another 6H High Kick, which can then loop into more pressure.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of this pressure, you should be able to hit-confirm 6H. This is complicated by the fact that you are buffering a 9M+H input after your 6H pressure, meaning you will not be able to superjump to pursue the Launcher hit of 6H. A fairly easy and reliable hitconfirm from this pressure looks like this:
6H > 9M+H 8XX j.M j.H, rejump j.M j.6H 3XX, land, 2L 2M 2H 5S etc.
Video Example. This setup is popular due to its reliability, but using the multi-hitting j.H Buttergun for the confirm applies significant Damage Scaling which makes the follow-up combo weaker compared to more optimized confirms. See Doom's Combos page for more examples of 6H confirms. [Note: this page doesn't exist yet :^(]
Oncoming Mixups
Doom has access to a very powerful assistless setup in the corner, which tags the opponent with a meaty hit and then keeps them in blockstun (with Doom at advantage) until they have already landed on the ground.
After any Snapback or kill in the corner, dash into the corner, then Jump Cancel the dash with TK Flight activation. TK Flight causes Doom to hover much lower to the ground than a normal Flight activation, which in turn allows Doom to land more quickly at various points in this setup. As the opponent enters the stage, meaty them with j.M and then chain into j.6H j.L. If done correctly, Doom will end up behind the opponent, and the j.L will hit on the opposite side.
Although the cross-up j.L may knowledge-check opponents who are not prepared for it, there is no actual mix-up element to this setup. The advantage is that the opponent is trapped in the setup until they touch the ground, at which point Doom can transition into any kind of High/Low/Throw offense he wants. The most basic way to do this would be (after the j.L is blocked):
- Cancel into an Airdash Down and then 2L upon landing for a fast Low.
- Delay chain into j.M for an Overhead at roughly the same timing as the above.
- Against certain characters, a delayed j.M can also cause Doom to float back to the original side before connecting, adding a Left/Right element to the mix.
- Cancel into an Airdash Down and then 6H Throw OS.
If the opponent pushblocks the meaty j.M, then 6H Footdive will almost instantly land-cancel itself, allowing Doom to rejump and airthrow the opponent out of Advancing Guard Delay for an easy Guard Break. This is a large part of why using TK Flight is important: to guarantee Doom lands quickly enough to airthrow punish a mashed pushblock. If either of the other two hits in the setup are pushblocked, Doom's unique position as being behind the opponent but facing the wrong way will cause him to be pushed into the opponent, instead of away from them. Consequently, this setup is immune to pushblock at any timing if input correctly and if you are capable of reacting to a Pushblock on the first hit.
Doom has another strong meaty hit against Incoming opponents in 6H Hard Kick. Doom can attempt 6H (Call Assist) 9M+H j.S, land to transition from a meaty hit into large frame advantage. Not only is Doom essentially immune to pushblock with this setup, he can airthrow the opponent out of Advancing Guard recovery if they try for an easy Guard Break. Video Example.
Counterplay
Video Guide - FChamp and ShadyK talk about how to fight Doctor Doom.
Summarize Later.
