Dormammu and Missiles: wtf is up?
Missiles. Missiles are up.
1: Protecting Doom
To be able to use missiles effectively, you have to be able to get them out on the screen. And unless you are calling them under some unique and infrequent circumstances, you are liable to be under some kind of pressure when you call Doom out. Because of this Dormammu often has to create situations where the opponent is ideally unable to challenge the Doom call.
Left/Right based protection:
The goal here is generally to keep the opponent from being able to attack your assist by placing the assist behind them.
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Teleport: This is in general one of the stronger techniques to protect an assist. It allows you to place the opponents back towards the assist, making it very difficult for them to punish Doom. Teleporting carelessly is however a good way to get punished, so make sure to keep your opponent on their toes, and keep them from predicting your teleport.
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Jump~ADU~Fly: This tech is currently lesser used, and hard to see when it is being used. But this allows you to plink dash in the air at SJ height for a cross-up while still being able to call an assist.
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SJ~ ADDF: If Dormammu is starting from a position closer to his opponent he often cannot challenge their attacks safely. This is mostly due to his relatively slow startup frames on his normal and special attacks. As such when starting from a closer distance Dormammu cannot protect his assists as easily either. You don’t want to risk getting a happy birthday, but you aren’t going to be able to make space against a Wolverine without some help. In this case you can call your assist followed immediately by a SJ, and then ADDF when trigonometry tells you that you will pass over the opponents head narrowly. Feel free to push H as you soar past them for an overhead cross-up which protects Doom AND starts a combo. When doing that dash, it should be performed with an attack button and H for the option select. As an added bonus in this situation, Doom’s missiles will OTG the opponent after the throw based on when missiles were called and a few other variables.
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Normal and special attacks: Dormammu just happens to have slew of solid attacks to use while calling missiles.
a. His projectile nullifying normals obviously. Whether you choose standing, crouching, or air variants of these moves is situational.
b. Purifications when chosen wisely will ensure the opponent won’t move and may possibly set you up for a missiles/teleport cross up.
c. Dark holes are pretty excellent as well; it is recommended that you tiger knee them for improved recovery. Again, a correctly placed TK Dark hole may set you up for a missiles/teleport cross up.
d. Flame carpets work well, however some characters mobility options allow them to avoid the flame carpet and attack Dormammu. His hand charges may also be used as cover for Doom, however, keep in mind that all but 2D1C and 2C1D can be interrupted and can often lead to somebody’s birthday coming early.
e. Dark Matter- What’s great about dark matter is its ability to be special move canceled. So you can send a horizontal projectile and shortly after, cancel into a vertical control move like purification, hopefully boxing in the opponent while Doom safely launches missiles.
Putting it all together: what makes Dormammu so good at protecting his assists is not any singular setup, movement option, special or normal, but the fact that you can cascade chains of assist defending events creating fields of bullshit for the opponent to navigate before even thinking about hurting Doom. The fact that you can cancel a normal into a special, dark matter into a special and all of that into chaotic flame for a full screen interrupt/punish makes Dormammu a good buddy to have.
2: When not to call Doom
Unfortunately, there are probably more times you shouldn’t call Doom as opposed to times you should, and a lot of this knowledge is based on matchup wisdom. Use your best judgment. If you aren’t sure, chances are it’s a bad time to call Doom. If a character is rushing you down and are within 2-3 character lengths and you haven’t started a special move or any otherwise means of protecting Doom, that’s a bad time to call him. Calling Doom without premeditation against teleporters can also put you in a very bad situation very quickly. Remember, Doom is out there for a significant amount of time and if he gets hit you may not be able to call Doom again until after your opponent has had a chance to retaliate.
3: Combos
In general Doom allows you to perform at least one extra launch, or even an extra launch AND some hand charges. Typically this is accomplished by calling doom at the same time as pressing S for your launcher. This will have Doom’s missiles OTG the opponent, during which time you can perform two hand charges and still launch the poor SOB. You can similarly go for a reset by ticking them into a throw, or just timing the recovery from the missiles for a throw.
4: Zoning
Missiles give an added layer of frustration, lockdown and movement limiting BS to Dormammus already oppressive zoning game. They allow him to charge his hands when they are in play. They allow him to keep an opponent locked down and suffering from chip damage by combining them with Dark Holes or Purifications. The list goes on. For example, if you are getting your hand charges close enough together to where Dormammu is saying “Power of…” you can virtually get all 3 spells in one string of missiles. As far as timing goes for lockdown sequences, you’ll want to call missiles before you release your spell charges. And when I say spells I mean specifically 2D1C and 2C1D. The best way to give you an idea of what this looks like is Dark Matter xxx call assist x Dark Matter x Charge spells. The timing difference between the sequence for meteors and inferno is when you call Doom. For meteors, you will call Doom just before you release your 2C1D. For Inferno , you will wait a while longer before you deploy missiles.
5: Rush down
The idea behind missiles rush down is creating an opening for all or a majority of the amount of missiles Doom launches, letting said missiles do your dirty work of oppressing the opponent allowing Dormammu to maneuver into your choice of mix-up. HOWEVER. Missiles is a true block string, simply put, you will not get a left right mix-up off a blocked chain of missiles. Which actually may work in your favor because other than setting up a high/low or unblockable, you may choose to wait until the end of the missiles blockstring and throw or setup yet another mix-up. While the block string of the Hidden missiles is long, it recovers quickly after the last missile.
6: Combo Breaker
For this portion of the guide, a poem.
Sometimes you get hit
It’s ok, you have missiles
Fire and forget!
You’re going to call missiles sometimes, and you might and will get punished. The great thing about missiles is once they’re out, even if you do get hit, there is a significant chance your opponent will be interrupted by at least one missile. What’s more, if enough missiles get launched, then you stand a good chance of scoring a combo off being hit. Ridiculous.
But…there is a downside to missiles…and boy is it glaring at some times.
Doom is like Mr. Magoo, good intentions, but is prone to mishaps. An improperly timed Hidden Missile assist can likely result, depending on the characters combo string, in a broken combo. GASP. You’re first thought may be that it’s no big deal. Well, it can be. If your combo gets broken at the right time, typically in the air, your opponent may recover in air and come down with an overhead or mix you up left/right.
Don’t fret, or at least not too much, as long as you remember when you called doom you can adjust your combos accordingly. This sometimes means delaying your hits slightly prior to the launcher, after the launcher or even sometimes adding an extra jump loop while the missiles keep the opponent at the perfect height. When these adjustments pan out, it looks cool and can often add damage. Learning the adjustments and timing really takes match-up experience as it will vary widely based a number of variables.
7: What to do while missiles are in play
WHATEVER YOU WANT! If you safely call missiles and you see that the opponent has ceased their meta because of what you did, you now have all kinds of time to do dastardly things.
So Doom’s been hit….now what?
DON’T PANIC. Take a deep breath. Okay, now panic. Panic the fuck out.
Just kidding really, fortunately for you and unfortunately for your opponent you are playing Dorm. This means that you have a plethora of options at your disposal of which any number can result in Doom surviving whatever the opponent is doing – of course if you fuck up here you just gift wrapped this game for your now arch-nemesis. Most of the options that Dormammu has for protecting Doom in the first place can be applied here. What is most important is to be aware of your opponents options, specifically their supers as they will often try and hit Doom with as much of their meter as they can burn reasonably. This means that at times you have to burn x-factor or sit back and watch Doom die. It can also result in you punishing them with a well-timed chaotic flame. Take it from us, watching Doom die can be likened to putting down your favorite family pet. Be prudent in your assist calls.
A final word:
This guide was written with best-case scenario in mind and very very sober. Your opponent is not just utterly defeated at the might of your Dormammu and missiles. We accept no responsibility for increased sodium intake while playing Marvel. Your enemy has options, while limited, but still can shift the momentum in their favor. You’ll have to use matchup knowledge to fill in the gaps. This is by no means definitive, and will undoubtedly be improved upon by others. There’s still plenty more to be discovered and experimented with.
