When Doomfist was first revealed to the Overwatch player base, the hero was well-received by just about everyone—even if he didn’t end up being voiced by Terry Crews. However, in the time since his release, host of nerfs, bugs, and apparent neglect from Blizzard caused the hero to plummet in the usage rankings. At the time of writing, Doomfist is the least-selected character in all of competitive Overwatch.
When a post surfaced on the official forums last week detailing more than 18 of the bugs and glitches associated with Doomfist, the community collectively went up in arms (or fists, whatever). Luckily, this also caught the attention of Blizzard, who were apparently already hard at work ironing out some of the issues with the character—because, as of yesterday, a huge number of bug fixes have been released on the Public Test Realm.
Detailed by the lead balance designer Geoff Goodman, the patch sees some of the most egregious errors in the hero’s programming addressed. He mentions three categories of fixes: bugs that have been successfully culled, bugs that are still being worked on, and bugs whose origins are still being investigated.
The bugs that have been fully managed include the logic behind which angles of impact cause an enemy hero to be “slammed” against the wall after being punched, dealing exponentially more damage. Additionally, the signature Rocket Punch now accurately breaks destructible geometry once again. As for his Seismic Slam ability, it no longer cancels when used too close to a wall, and it also no longer stops Doomfist cold on a small slope when using the ability (note: this also applies to other “jumping” abilities like Winston’s jump).
As for the bugs in progress, they are concerned with the consistency of Seismic Slam near corners, the Rocket Punch going through enemy players, and corners causing Doomfist to “bounce” when punching near them. And finally, the bugs that need more investigation include the consistency of interactions between two opposing Rocket Punches or abilities like Reinhardt’s charge, and the reported triggering of the grounded version of Seismic Slam in the air.
Overwatch players have been clamoring for Doomfist fixes for months now, and it seems like Blizzard has finally delivered the goods. This could be the first step toward the hero finding viability as the professional scene ramps up and the Overwatch League begins next month.