Ever face a figure or team you can't seem to take down? Then this is the series for you. We take a deeper look into those problematic pieces and Exploit their Weaknesses! In this edition, we take a look at the beast of a villain responsible for the death of Superman!

Click "Full Story" below as we analyze these awesome figures and Exploit their Weaknesses.

Thanks for joining me in another installment of Exploiting Weaknesses! As with the other articles' precursors, Pulse Wave will not be discussed as it is almost always effective. If it isn't effective, I will point out why.

Here is the dial for reference.



Things that tell me I need to look in the sky for help:

- Charge/Exploit
- Good-Great combat values
- Indomitable and Giant
- Wicked Traits
- Hideous Evolution Experiment on every click

Exploiting Doomsday's Weaknesses

Alright, so there isn't a ton to unpack here but it is an interesting dial that can give lots of people fits if they don't know what to expect. I will focus on the 300 point dial as opposed to the 200 and 100 that you see from the dial above. Though you more than likely won't see him at 300 very often, it gives you a better sense of his capabilities.

Right off the bat, we can see the lovely Charge/Exploit Weakness combo. This is one of my top 3 favorite combos in the game because it is so easy to use and has devastating results. It is only a 10 attack and 3 damage but in all honesty, any damage you are able to do is good damage. You never know when a Crit Hit will help boost his effectiveness. The one thing in our favor here is he can't be the target of perplex. That means if he does have teammates (other point dials or larger point game), they will not be able to increase these stats - only empower will help him. That being said, there are a few ways to combat this. Indoor maps with blocking will allow you to hide as a Giant cannot ignore indoor blocking. You can also use barrier to trap him in if you'd like! If you are caught outside, you can stay 7 squares away. He has Charge of 4 squares with Giant Reach:2 so he can hit you 6 squares away. This should be an easy distance to keep away but also keeps you, in theory, within striking distance for the alpha. You can also outwit his charge to keep him at bay. Just be prepared because if you put Doomsday in a hard place like this, he is liable to run up those 7 squares and just base you. He has traited Plasticity so he can keep you close and wail on you next turn.

We also can see that he steadily increases his stats as he goes up the dial. From 10 attack to 12 attack, from 17 defense to 19, and from 3 damage all the way up to 6!!! Played at the lower points, he only gets the first 3 or first 6 clicks of life. The stats are manageable at that point. When it comes to full value, he can be a 1 man wrecking crew (maybe they should recruit?). Again, he can't be targeted by perplex so we can't mitigate those printed values. We will need to be creative. Combat Reflexes will make it harder for him to hit. We can help that out further by using defend to give us a higher raw number to increase. Prob Control is also effective because even if he needs a 3 or better to hit you or you need an 11 or better to hit him, there is always a chance the roll goes your way! Just because he can't be targetted by Perplex doesn't me we can't target ourselves. Use that perplex to increase your defense higher or the attack in attack mode (you'll need it against a 19 def). Similarly, RCE and CCE can help get the attack or damage (not as effective, more on that later) high enough to make you effective. Remember, hitting will be the key here! Briefly mentioning his defense, when he is attacked and takes damage, he gives an Adapated token to the attacker. Moving onto his Ultimate Survivor trait, he gets to modify his defense by +1 for each Adapted token on the attacker. So if you are running a tentpole style team, be careful as you will quickly find him at +3 defense. You can mitigate this by having a swarm of figures, using Outsiders, or figures that disallow modifiers.

Speaking of his traits though, we have a couple that are pretty solid. I mentioned the Adapted tokens above but that trait also allows him to be placed 1 square closer to the attacker. This could help him reach you on his next turn when before you thought you were out of reach. Something to be aware of for sure! The other meaningful trait is his traited Plasticity along with PROTECTED: Perplex (new game terminology). We have discussed these aspects but there is one more portion of the trait. When he KOs a figure, he may heal himself 1 click and it is the only way he can be healed. So that's a pretty cool trait that we can't really do much about. Only thing is to do what we have done before and protect our team as much as possible. Just remember that with his penetrating damage and high damage values, he can get damage through reducers pretty easily and in doing so you risk being KOed. Don't rely on these things for long as he will punch through them!

Lastly we shall discuss this little issue we have called Hideous Evolution Experiment. It is his defense power that he has all the way down his dial. It provides him with Invulnerability which is your middle of the road damage reducer. This is great because things like any 3 damage attack, Psy Blast, Exploit, RCE, CCE, etc will help us get damage through. However, it is also a STOP click...on every single click...meaning 8 attacks to KO him...fun. This not only means that he will take a beating and dish it out in greater proportions but it is STOP so that means Protected Outwit, Pulse Wave. No getting around this in our usual fashion. We need quantity over quality here. Swarms will do marvelous so long as they have the attack value to back it up. Flurry, Duo, or Multi-Attack are things that can help get you started. Just remember that you will get an Adapted token so he will get a stat bump for your follow up attack. Some way of dealing penetrating damage outside of attacks will be really good. Mystics TA is useful in this instance and penetrating poison can work too, though a much lower likelihood unless playing in silver/golden age. Knockback would normally be a good idea but because he is a Giant we can scratch that one out. Something fun like Anarky and his bombs or other fun powers that can deal damage without an attack are going to be great for dealing with this. Since I opened the can of worms of using specific figures, Chase Green Arrow from Elseworlds states he can't use his defense powers when attacked by GA here. That means anything appearing in the slot during the attack can't be used. Not Outwit so it gets around STOP and you can damage it with a big attack. Same goes for figure like Nick Fury who can shut things off without having to use outwit.

So, what are we doing to Doomy?

- Indoor blocking or barrier to help keep him at bay
- Stay outside his 6 square threat range
- Outwit his non-defense powers
- Stat bump yourself since you can't do it to him
- Ways to remove his modifiers from Adapted tokens, like Outsiders
- Swarms of attacks with multiple figures or multiple attacks per figure to get past STOP clicks
- Non-attack damaging powers to limit the number of adapted tokens and deal extra damage without taking actions away

That's all I have this time! Until next time, always look for the chinks in the armor and Exploit your opponent's Weaknesses!

A swarm of monsters and these guys would ruin Doomsday's day:



That trait would mean that every time Doomsday takes damage he's taking one extra to check for the KO and not able to heal due to his trait. So each time you damage him he'd be taking 2 clicks!

I had these guys in mind just the other day, thanks for the add!

My venue is having a monster theme game next week and these guys were the reason i decided not to play Doomsday.

Killing Joke Joker, Mr Freeze, Firefly destroyed him without taking any damage. Freeze and Firefly can do 2 off him every round if they hit. Put Riddler on the team and so can the Joker. Outwit willpower and blam 2 action tokens.

Goblin King loves doomsday for monster theme teams, just TK him up and "support" him the best you can.Also, Mole Man may be starting to like him too.

Son of a... i've been using these guys a lot with Halloween (it's all i pull from Undead. i'm up to FOUR of the Reapers...). It didn't even register Doomsday couldn't heal back!!

You could always bring along Dead Girl if you know you are playing against Doomsday. An X-Force team with her on it should be able to take him down.

What a great piece, one of the biggest combats I ever see was agaisnt Brainiac Ship.

Right after I got my hands on him I brought him to an event. I won the first 2 matches, but then fought a horde of Dire Wraiths with their queen thingy.

Doomsday was absolutely mutilated.
The adaption tokens are great against single targets, but when a swarm happens he falls apart. A token went on one, fine, move on down the line.
Add to that they all had Precision Strike, and it was a short battle.

This was my experience playing against (200-point) Doomsday. I was very worried about facing it, but a mobile swarm with attack bonuses (and some means of cracking the Invulnerability) was able to ping him. I think the trick with him is to play very aggressive to be able to bring the healing into play.

So he heals when he KOs an opposing fig, is this once per action or is it per KO'ed fig? since he has Quake and could gain if from something like Harleys Hammer. Or if he ganed flurry from some other source and KO'es 2 different figs in the same action?

Looks like he heals each time he KO's a piece.

I've played him at all 3 point levels, and this is true pretty much across the board.

I've not made him work at 100 at all for either a 300 or 400 point squad. Maybe there is a way - but he seems to get decimated quickly. I feel that maybe I need to soften people up with other figs and then bring him in, but he really struggled at that point level. Focussed fire in one turn will drop him relatively easily.

At 200, it is pretty easy for a well structured team to hit 18/19 defences. It is seldom at that point level that people get more than 1 adapted token before he suffers the 5 hits to be dropped. He has done okay, but invariably he loses. In particular, if you have 3 moderately powerful pieces, with 3 damage or penetrating damage, he can be dropped quite efficiently. As an example of a consistent pattern, last night I lost to the 70pt mystics WW, Captain Atom at 130 and Element man. Deep enough dials you can't take them out fast enough to heal, and not enough in tokens builds up before he is dead. Deadshot and Harley backing him up hardly made a difference. Maybe there is a team configuration I'm missing - but I haven't found it.

The 300 point one is the only one I've really made sing in the 300/400 point environment. At 300 he is a monster, and by the time you get deep in the dial, a moderate sized team will be more loaded with adapted tokens meaning you are shooting a 20/21 and sometimes 22 DV. And a larger swarm team, like JSA, you are often 1 shotting characters and healing back up.