Character Overview (T7)

Postat inițial de Fergus:

My name is Fergus and I go by CKT-Fergus or Fergus2k8[www.twitch.tv] as my IDs. I’m an Asuka player from Ireland and I came up with this idea after a SF player in my local community asked me, “If play x character in SF, what character would suit me in T7?”. So I decided to make this primer to break down each character’s playstyle to as simplistic as I can while capturing the essence of their playstyle. This primer is made for people with pre-existing FG experience but are new to Tekken. Hopefully, it will help you guys out, and make deciding on a character less of a chore for T7.

I am aware that the game is still in a changing state, I will update the primers if there are any balance updates that contradicts what I have down. I have left out Eliza as of 16/05/2017 as she is not yet released, but I will write her in as she comes out.

If you are unsure of any terms in the primers, I have written a glossary which hopefully includes it and will explain it for you.

Thanks to so many people who have helped me with this project, in terms of giving me information on the characters I’m not familiar with, providing me with renders and proofreading my work. More info on these beasts at the end.

This guide was originally created by Fergus. Edited and uploaded to steam by mscupcakes with his permission.

Quick Info

1. Left Punch (Square/X)
   
2. Right Punch (Triangle/Y)
   
3. Left Kick (Cross/A)
   
4. Right Kick (Circle/B)

• High - A move that can be blocked standing and whiff on crouching
  
• Mid - A move that can be blocked standing and hit crouching
  
• Low - A low that cannot be blocked standing and gets blocked by crouching

Fastest moves are 10f (like 3f in SF games) with exceptions

Most tekken players refer to startup frames as “Impact Frames” so 10f startup would be just called i10 in tekken jargon.

Glossary

• Backdash Cancel (BDC) - is basically cancelling your backdash with db to cut the recovery period and allowing you to perform another action. This is done via (b,b db~b, b, db~b b….). This is a variant of the BDC called the Korean Backdash Cancel (KBC). BDC is good for creating space between yourself at the opponent quickly and to escape mixup situations. There are a few ways to perform a BDC but this is the preferred one as it works with backsway characters such as Bryan, Paul and Nina.
  
  
• BT = Backturned, it’s basically just your character putting their back towards the opponent. Some characters have a unique movelist out of BT such as Chloe, Feng, MRaven, Xiaoyu
  
  
• Crush - a property of a move where it is designed to go cleanly through a move depending on high or low crush property.
  
  
• High Crush - a move that’s designed to be “invincible” to high moves.
  
  
• Homing move - a move that is designed to shut down sidestepping.
  
  
• Hopkick - a standard low crush launcher that most characters have. Usually i15 and done by either uf3 or uf4.
  
  
• Launcher - a combo starter, usually the fastest launcher is i15 for most chars.
  
  
• Low Crush - like high crush moves, low crush moves just simply hops over lows.
  
  
• FC - Full Crouch , a state where the character is in crouching and there is an exclusive moveset in this state.
  
  
• Mishima - when people refer to Mishimas in-game, they are referring to the playstyle rather than the surname. So this includes Heihachi, Kazuya and Devil Jin (even though Jin is a Kazama by name). In TTT2, Angel was considered a Mishima under this term. This comes with shared tools such as EWGF, Hellsweep and wavedashing.
  
  
• Rage - a state a character is in with 25% or less health remaining. It gives your character a very slight damage increase and access to Rage Art and Rage Drive. It’s indicated by a red aura around the character and red glowing lifebar.
  
  
• Rage Art - Basically Tekken 7’s version of a super. Fully armoured but still absorbs damage so can still get KO’ed if absorbed move kills. Uses up your rage and every chars RA is different in terms of speed.
  
  
• Rage Drive - another option you can spend your rage on. It’s basically a juiced up version of an existing move and it’s unique per character on how good it is and it’s usage.
  
  
• Range 0/1/2/3 etc. - Range 0 is point blank, Range 1 is a single backdash away. Range 2 = 2 backdashes etc
  
  
• Power Crush - an armoured move available for all chars. What the actual move is, is unique to the character.
  
  
• Screw attack - a move that causes them to spin and fly away in a juggle allowing for enders. This replaces the bound from T6/TTT2 and is usually given as s! in combo notations. You may also see tailspin which is the older name for it.
  
  
• Seeable - means it’s reactable, usually referred to with lows.
  
  
• SS - sidestep notation so a SS1 move would be Sidestep + 1
  
  
• SSL - Sidestep left - performed by tapping up on P1 side and down on P2 side.
  
  
• SSR - Sidestep right - performed by tapping down on P1 side and up on P2 side.
  
  
• SWL - Sidewalk left - basically a longer but more vulnerable step, done by tapping for SSL then holding down the button
  
  
• SWR - Sidewalk right - same as SSR but tapping then holding down the button..
  
  
• WS - While Standing, a state where the character transitions from crouching to standing, there is an exclusive moveset in this state.
  
  
• WS Punishment - When I refer to this, it’s when you block a move from crouching (lows) or blocking a move that leaves you in crouch, it’s your punishment from crouching essentially.
  
  
• WR - While Running, a state where the character is considered running.
  
  
• Wall Carry - a combo that is designed around taking your opponent to the wall.
  
  
• Wallsplat - a move designed to splat the opponent vs the wall for a followup combo.

Alisa Bosconovitch

Difficulty - Easy

Alisa makes her return in T7. Alisa is a very poke oriented character. She excels at slowly chipping down the opponent with good ranged low and mid pokes. Combine that with her strong sidestep and she's perfect for players who like to play a slow methodical paced game. She has an incredibly strong homing move in 4, a i13 CH launching homing move; this is really good at discouraging the opponent to step allowing Alisa to bully them with pokes. She can also get aggressive and cover space quite quickly with WR2, a high-damage ranged attack that puts her in a very favorable position if blocked. Opponents have to try to predict this attack and either duck or sidestep it which leaves them vulnerable to her poking game. As Alisa is very poke centric, her damage can fall behind as she doesn’t have a lot of moves to make comebacks with.

Pros

• Decent poking game
  
• Safe launchers
  
• Strong jab punishes
  
• One of the best stepping in the game.
  
• One of the best homing moves
  
• Strong homing moves

Cons

• Poor whiff punishment
  
• Poke game is low damage, she struggles on a life deficit.
  
• Has to play very risky to make a comeback.

Recommended to players who like

Simple poking game
Low execution
Defensive gameplay

Akuma

Difficulty - ????

Akuma is the SF guest character in T7. His design is completely unique from other Tekken characters due to his SF origins. Similar to the SF games, he has a meter gauge, where he builds the meter via doing moves on the opponent, using special moves or getting hit. He can use the meter to extend his combos and pressure or burn them on approach tools like fireballs. Once he’s in, he can abuse his powerful low options one of which that can be cancelled into fireball or tatsu point blank for a huge damaging low option as well as his sweep which knocks down for strong oki. He has a demon flip with a bunch of moves out of it that can be used to approach the opponent and to initiate pressure. Akuma gets a lot of his big damage via jumping; quite the sin in Tekken as jumping can be interrupted into big combos, It can be hard for some characters to stop this flip. He’s a very all or nothing 50/50 character and with meter, his mixups become incredibly damaging. He has a shoryuken which is invincible at the start, meaning he can disrespect a lot of pressure and make the opponent be wary about applying pressure on Akuma. With meter, his jabs become the best punisher in the game as he can do jab cancels into shoryuken meter cancel for huge damage on anything unsafe.

Pros

• Has a shoryuken for a panic move
  
• Best punishment in the game with meter.
  
• Strong 50/50 game
  
• Strong oki
  
• Huge damage output

Cons

• Needs meter for damage
  
• Unsafe on his mixups
  
• Has poor range, needs to be up close a lot of the time

Recommended for players who like
Street Fighter
Unique characters

Asuka Kazama

Difficulty - Easy

Asuka is an extremely defensive CH oriented character in T7. She is quite strong at keeping her opponent at a distance with her ranged mids and lows. This makes it hard for the opponent to approach Asuka with her plethora of keepout tools and to top this off, Asuka has one of the game’s best and easiest whiff punisher with f2 to punish any whiffs at a huge range. Once the opponent makes it through Asuka’s keepout, they’ll find themselves struggling to get hits on her due to her having the best panic moves in the game; including a safe i14 CH launcher that low crushes early, a safe evasive move and her reversals, as well as being a relatively safe character overall. Asuka’s offense is decent at best, the main idea behind it is “mental frame advantage”, meaning that she’s very good at making the opponent second guess their turn to attack. While Asuka bullies the opponent down with her amazing jab strings and upclose pokes, they have to challenge her eventually and with her strong anti-button tools, they can pay the price dearly for it. She has some of the game’s best mid launchers, both on normal hit and CH. Her okizeme has been buffed a lot in T7 from TTT2, gaining access to an extremely strong grounded hitting move with her Rage Drive and a mid unblockable. However, Asuka does have one of the worst WS punishment in the game as her fastest launcher is i19 from WS, so it’s encouraged to try and read lows with her and crush them as opposed to blocking them. Her jab punish is the worst i10 punish in the game meaning it can be hard for Asuka to steal the lifelead back from her opponent if they play safely.

Pros

• One of the best whiff punishers in the game
  
• Strong okizeme
  
• Best arsenal of panic moves
  
• Strong keepout
  
• Big arsenal of safe mid launchers and CH launchers.
  
• Strong CH game

Cons

• Worst jab punish
  
• One of the worst WS punishers
  
• Struggles vs defensive players

Recommended for players who like
Defensive characters
Strong and unique oki
Easy and effective characters

Bryan Fury

Difficulty - Advanced

Bryan is renown for his amazing blend of keepout and rushdown, and Tekken 7 is no different. He has plenty of tools to keep his opponent at range with ranged CH launchers, backsway evasive moves if they approach recklessly and a safe mid launcher that low crushes with quick recovery. He also has a mid CH launcher with huge range and + frames if he needs to put himself at the opponent’s face. Once he is in there, he can work his opponent down with hard hitting lows, a fast CH mid launcher that’s neutral on block, powerful jab strings, hitconfirmable strings and so on. His offense is not only damaging but also relatively safe. Moreover, he has some of the best spacing tools the game has to offer. There is a steep execution curve to Bryan if you want to get into the really silly stuff available to him, such as the infamous “taunt jet upper” which is forcing your opponent to eat an unblockable taunt into a guaranteed launcher followup. This is extremely hard to pull off but it’s very practical to be able to do consistently. A noticeable flaw that Bryan has is that he is very weak to his left so the opponent’s right, but he has strong hitting homing moves to cover this.

Pros

• One of the best space control
  
• i14 launcher standing (standard is i15)
  
• Damaging and relatively safe offense
  
• Huge comeback potential
  
• Strong CH game
  
• Damaging homing moves.
  
• Good whiff punishers
  
• High combo damage output

Cons

• Weak tracking to his left
  
• Not much going for huge + frames on hit
  
• Weak standing punishing until i14

Recommended for players who like
Well rounded characters
High execution curves/flashy stuff
Strong defense oriented playstyle

Bob Richards

Difficulty - Easy

Bob is an extremely well rounded character that can allow the player to play a variety of playstyles. He has a very strong poking game with good mids, CH launchers and low pokes. Not only is he a strong poking character, Bob can up the tempo and go in with hard hitting lows. One of his lows db3+4,4 is one of the most infamous lows in Tekken. It does big damage for a low and leaves the opponent in his face at a huge disadvantage. This makes his wall game one of the best in T7 as the opponent cannot backdash followup pressure. He has plenty of safe mids to complement this, one of them being super evasive as well. Furthermore he has a command dash allowing him to close the gap quickly between himself and the opponent, along with having good tracking; meaning it can be hard to move around his pressure. He has very strong punishment but he does lack a launcher for -15 from standing. However he does have a i14 WS launcher to punish lows harder than most.

Pros

• Very versatile playstyle.
  
• Super strong poking game
  
• One of the best wall games
  
• Good approach
  
• High damage output at wall
  
• Strong punishment outside of no i15 launcher

Cons

• No i15 launcher

Recommended for players who like
Well rounded characters
Easy and effective
Versatile playstyle with tons of options

Claudio Serafino

Difficulty - Easy

Replacing Lars as the most anime character, Claudio is the first of the new additions to Tekken 7. Claudio is unique in the fact that he gains something close to a “devil trigger install” from connecting with certain moves. His hand gains a blue flame called Starburst which grants him a one time buff for specific moves. Claudio is infamous for having the best hopkick in the game with huge range and quick recovery, therefore it’s awkward to block/whiff punish making it a strong keepout tool. He also has one of the strongest approach tools with his WR2, a hugely + on block high that forces his opponent to duck at a range and Claudio can start using ranged mids such as the aforementioned hopkick to condition them. Claudio’s main gameplan is to get into Starburst as soon as he can to use the juiced up versions of Starburst compatible moves to overwhelm his opponent. His poking game isn’t amazing as his generic mid poke is slower than most and his fastest mid is a bit unfavourable on block. His main lows are damaging but they are quite risky (launch punishable) on block except one making his offense a dangerous one for him to take.

Pros

• Best hopkick in the game
  
• Highest damage output with STB enabled
  
• Good homing moves
  
• Strong keepout with hopkick
  
• One of the best approach with WR2

Cons

• Limited poking game
  
• Mediocre lows
  
• Unsafe offense for the most part

Recommended for players who like
High damage output chars
Unique powerup character

Devil Jin

Difficulty - Advanced

Compared to the other Mishimas, Devil Jin can be considered the “well-rounded” one of the 3. He has stronger pokes than Kazuya and better safety and lows than Heihachi, but he’s not as hard hitting as Kazuya or as CH heavy as Heihachi. As a Mishima, he has access to the standard Mishima tools, EWGF (+5 on block high launcher with good recovery), hellsweep (hard hitting low, his version trips the opponent up for a combo), strong jab hitconfirms and a wavedash to close the gap between himself and the opp with ease. His poking game is quite strong as he has a variety of lows to choose from depending on the situation. Whether it’s hard hitting with hellsweeps, simple poke pressure with db2 and d4 and plenty of strong mid poke strings to complement this. He has the usual Mishima strong space control with EWGF and his own unique ranged mids to dictate the pace with. He also has a strong panic move in u4 which can be a mixup on block vs specific characters.

Pros

• Strong poking game
  
• Strong space control
  
• Strong mixup game
  
• Great mobility
  
• High damage output
  
• Good panic moves

Cons


Recommended for players who like
Strong poking chars
Well rounded chars
Ability to change up pace at player’s own discretion.

Eddy Gordo

Difficulty - Medium

Eddy is arguably the most unorthodox character in the game. He has access to a few stances, but a lot of focus is put on one which is called RLX stance. This stance is very evasive and can be used to enforce 50/50s on the opponent with comboable mid and low options when used properly. Eddy has access to strong low pokes: SS4 can be very hard to whiff/block punish, and df4 has pretty good reach, making him strong at chipping the opponent down with all the various low/mid pokes. while looking for moments to enforce the RLX mixup. He has pretty strong keepout with moves like df2 (i15 CH launcher with pushback), SS4, uf4 (ranged mid) and good usage of his stances to evade. He has a canned 50/50 mixup with uf3 string which puts the opponent into a mid/low guessing game with rewarding options. He has access to a i13 WS launcher which is tied fastest with Kazuya & Josie, meaning doing low pokes on Eddy with certain characters turns into a big risk. However, he does have a pretty bad SS making him prone to more offense, but also one of the best backdashes in the game.. He is encouraged to enforce RLX mixups on his opponent to rack up damage along with having a good understanding of Tekken’s oki system.

Pros

• Strong 50/50 game
  
• Good chip poke heavy style
  
• i13 WS launcher
  
• Strong okizeme
  
• One of the best backdashes

Cons

• Poor punishment outside of i13 WS launcher
  
• His mixup options can be punished heavily
  
• Bad SS, takes more pressure than most chars

Recommended for players who likes
Unorthodox characters
Chip poke heavy style
Strong okizeme

Feng Wei

Difficulty - Medium

Feng is one of the most open-ended characters in the game, meaning he can be played in a variety of playstyles. His offense is scary with strong low pokes that high crush, leaving him in the opponent’s face for followup pressure. It can be difficult to mash and move out of Feng’s pressure as he has a i10 CH move with a damaging followup and a quick mid with strong tracking. Feng has a low out of his sidestep that trips up opponents point blank for a combo, and he has plenty of strong mids to complement him in this mixup scenario. He has a good selection of risk/reward situations so he can choose freely depending on the situation. He has strong movement and approach with his qcf dash allowing him to close the gap between himself and the opponent with ease, and threaten with hard hitting lows and good mid pokes from the dash, giving him extremely strong space control. He’s also very hard to pressure as he has a plethora of panic and evasive moves including a stance where he moves backwards as well as an autoparry stance and his aforementioned i10 CH move. However, his punishment is below average as his hopkick has poor range and his ws punishment isn’t great as he lacks a good punish until i14 WS. He also has low combo damage output but his damage from his pokes more than makes up for this.

Pros

• Strong damaging offense
  
• Very hard to pressure due to panic/evasion moves
  
• Some of the best lows
  
• Insane space control and approach

Cons

• Low combo damage output
  
• Below average punishment

Recommended for players who like
A completely varied playstyle
Tons of options to work with
Heavy hitting poke chars

Gigas

Difficulty - Easy

Gigas is a pretty unique character in T7 in terms of playstyle. He has strong grabs and hard hitting pressure which makes rushdown the preferred style of play. This makes him unique for a big character, as bigger characters tends to focus on more defensive-oriented gameplay. That said, due to his long reaching arms, he can be played as a defensive keepout character as well depending on the situation. He has one of the best grabs in the game with hcb 1+2, a huge damaging throw with the ability to buffer it; meaning you can do the input pre-emptively during animations to make it come out as soon as the move is done. Gigas also has really funky pressure with his rage drive, where he starts charging at his opponent and gets enough frame advantage to force a 50/50; between an unblockable high and a wallsplatting mid, this is great in terms of closing rounds out with a canned mixup. His block punishment is pretty polarized, he has a really really strong jab punish and an i15 launcher with huge range making whiffing against him dangerous, and he has the ability to punish certain moves that most characters struggle to punish. However the rest of his overall punishment is quite poor. While he has strong mids, due to his stubby legs, he has poor range on his lows, making it easy to backdash away from his pressure.

Pros

• Strong throw game
  
• Long reach on his arms
  
• Very strong jab punish (maybe the best)
  
• Strong, fast and easy whiff punisher
  
• Canned powerful mixups with rage drive
  
• Good damage output with or without a wall

Cons

• Extremely poor overall punishment outside of jab
  
• Lows have poor range
  
• Poor sidestep
  
• Takes more damage in combos due to hitbox

Recommended for players who like
An extraordinary playstyle
Grappler like character

Heihachi Mishima

Difficulty - Advanced

Heihachi can be defined as a powerhouse character in T7. He is a Mishima so that comes with the perks of Mishima chars with a dominating space control with EWGF, hard-hitting lows, strong jab hitconfirms and a wavedash which allows him to cover the gap between himself and the opponent at his own pace and allows him to vary the timing on his pressure. Once he is in your face, he has access to some of the best mids in the game to allow him to score CHs on his opponents and harass them with jab strings. However he does lack low pokes meaning he relies more on his powerful CH game to open his opponents up or he can choose to play a high risk/high reward with his hard-hitting lows.


Pros

• Strong CH game
  
• Explosive damaging 50/50 mixups
  
• Great mobility with wavedash á la Mishima
  
• Strong comeback potential
  
• One of the highest damage outputs in the game

Cons

• Poor crouching punishment
  
• No lower risk lows for poking

Recommended for players who like
Execution based characters
Balls to the wall rushdown
Explosive mixup characters

Hwoarang

Difficulty - Advanced

Hwoarang is back with an interesting...costume change. Hwo would be classified as a pure rushdown character. His offense upclose is centered around fast paced mid/low and CH mixups through the use of his various stances. He forces the opponent to make fast defensive decisions or be looped in Hwo’s offense. He kills people who tries to mash out of his pressure but vs people who accept it with good defense, he has to hit his opponent more often than they do him. His difficulty stems from remembering all the options he has in his stances and knowing what move transitions into which stance. He encourages creativity in his pressure with all the possible mixup routes he can take. He is easily one of the most complex characters to learn in the series. The game has blessed him with some of the best Rage Arts and Power Crushes. Hwo has the game’s only safe mid Rage Art but it is only accessible out of a stance. While his offense is so strong and overwhelming, his ranged game and approach is lacking although he got a new move to help out a bit. He doesn’t have good high crushes in his neutral stance, he needs to access his other stances to have them available.

Pros

• Insane mixup game
  
• High combo damage output
  
• Racks damage up fast in offense
  
• Safe mid Rage Art
  
• Amazing power crush

Cons

• Punishment game is a bit meh
  
• Ranged game is weak
  
• Poor high crushes in default stance

Recommended for players who like
Pure rushdown character
Fast paced gameplay
Having tons of options for varied offense

Jack 7

Difficulty - Easy

Yet another model to the Jack series. While bigger characters in 2D FGs tend to be more stereotypically rushdown and grappler like, this is not the case in Tekken. Jack is arguably the biggest turtle in the series. He has huge reach on his arms allowing him to effectively keep the opponent out with jabs and mids. His main low pokes are extremely fast at i12, do good damage as well as granting decent frame adv on hit. If Jack has you trapped at the wall, be prepared to lose quite a bit of life fighting out of his poke game. For a defensive character, he plays the passive aggressive game pretty well and can keep up with a fast paced game. He’s good at making his opponent frustrated at range trying to get in and punishing their mistakes with his ranged whiff punishers. He has a really strong throw game as well to sneak in at times including a wallsplat throw. As a big character, he has a bad sidestep meaning he has to put up with a lot of pressure that most chars wouldn’t have to, and is more vulnerable to extended combos. He also doesn’t have good evasive panic moves or parries/reversals to counter pressure. Due to his poor homing moves, he has to make commitments to stop the opponent just doing SSL vs him upclose.

Pros

• Amazing keepout
  
• Strong throw game
  
• Strong whiff punishment
  
• Some of the best low pokes in the game
  
• Can punish certain stuff that most chars can’t with his reach

Cons

• Bad sidestep, prone to pressure.
  
• Bigger combos are possible on him due to size
  
• Weak to SSL, has to take risks to stop that.

Recommended for players who like
Defensive oriented characters
Simple and effective poke game
Good throws

Jin Kazama

Difficulty - Medium

Jin excels in a lot of areas. Has a very high damaging poke game. Has extremely strong space control with f4, a CH launching mid with huge range which can be made safe on block. Has great mobility as a result of wavedashing and can close the gap in an instant. Has great tools out of the wavedash such as a comboable low, a mid launcher mainly used for whiff punishing or as a mid option. He is a very versatile character, can be played offensively with his strong poking game and wavedash mixup or defensively with f4 keepout and strong block/whiff punishment with the ability to change the pace as he wishes. He has the best parry in the game, a parry usually loses to elbows/knees/headbutts/weapons but Jin’s counters all so he forces his opponent to second guess their offense at an advantage. One of the best poking game with damaging lows with one being a CH launcher, safe mids that knockdown and his 4 which is one of the fastest homing moves in the game at i13 which knocksdown on CH. However, he can struggle to punish certain stuff as his punishment lacks range.

Pros

• Great mobility
  
• Very strong rewarding mixups and poking game.
  
• One of the overall best punishment in the game
  
• Very flexible character.
  
• Can be hard to pressure offensively due to his parry and evasive moves.
  
• One of the best homing moves in the game.
  
• One of the fastest Rage Arts in the game

Cons

• Lacks range on some of his punishment.

Recommended for players who like

Versatile playstyle, being able to dictate the pace at any given time
Ability to punish opponent’s mistakes heavily

Josie Rizal

Difficulty - Medium

One of the new additions to T7 and Bruce’s replacement. Compared to Bruce, Josie is a bit more of a “stringy” character with lots of new canned string mixups to break the opponent down with. Her poking game is a bit unorthodox as she lacks a generic i13 df1 mid poke that most chars have, but she makes up for this in other ways. Upclose, Josie is strong at chipping the opponent down with her poke lows and strings. She can use feints in her strings and a manual backsway to psych the opponent out and mix her offense up. Josie has access to a command dash which gives her 2 extremely strong tools amongst others; a hard hitting low (CD3) and a strong mid whiff punisher (CD2). This gives Josie a powerful approach from range to start offense with CD3, or to bait out whiffs at range and whiff punish with CD2. With her feints/string pressure and her ranged pokes/whiff punishment, she can switch the pace from an offensive style to a defensive style in an instant. Something to note about Josie is her punishment, she has some of the best punishment tools in the game; especially an i13 launcher from crouching so she can punish poke lows harder than almost anyone else. She punishes mistakes hugely, on block and on whiff, making her defensive aspect very strong. While her neutral and block punishment damage is strong, she has relatively low damage output in infinite stages. Her tracking is pretty weak to her left (opponent’s SSR) but she has decent homing moves to shut this down.

Pros

• Top 3 overall punishment
  
• Strong string oriented offense
  
• Strong CH game
  
• Strong whiff punishment

Cons

• Low damage output walless
  
• Weak tracking to her left (opponent’s SSR)

Recommended for players who like
Unorthodox poking game
Huge damage through punishing opponent’s mistakes
Versatile playstyle

Katarina Alves

Difficulty - Easy

Katarina can be defined as an “all or nothing” character to an extent. She has damaging lows at the risk of getting launched for a combo on block. She has strong CH tools in her 444 string which is a fast CH launcher, d2 with a huge hitbox and high crush potential and df4 a knee CH launcher (being a knee is good as it will beat parries and such). She’s a high risk high reward character for the most part in her mixup situations due to her lows being slowish and risky and her safer lows being not very rewarding and limited. Whilst her lows are a commitment, she has very strong mids in terms of poking and mixups and she has amazing jab strings to bully your opponent with and + frames on block from quite a few moves to complement her frame trap game. Her homings aren’t the best due to their speed meaning she’s forced to rely on her moves tracking to stop the opponent stepping.

Pros

• Strong mids
  
• High damaging mixups
  
• Strong CH frame trap game
  
• High damage output in combos

Cons

• Lows are a commitment, kinda lacks a reliable good low poke
  
• Slow homing moves

Recommended for players who like

Explosive mixup characters
CH heavy gameplay
Easy execution

Kazumi Mishima

Difficulty - Easy

Heihachi’s mysterious wife finally makes her appearance. Kazumi has an extremely small moveset to work with to be effective. She is based around offensive pokes and likes to be up in the opponent’s face to chip them down with her strong hitconfirm mids. She has the Mishima 1,1,2 which is the best jab check hitconfirm in the game. She has good poke lows which leaves the opponent in her face at a significant disadvantage. She is a very “sticky” char as in she can loop her poke situation over and over until you challenge her. Kazumi has access to a projectile which causes chip damage on block, not very useful but it’s a novelty. She has access to one of the strongest i11 WS punisher in the game as it wallsplats to make her opponents wary about using poke lows on her. She has a decent approach with WR2 which is - on block but it has some pushback allowing Kazumi to use the space created freely and it knocks down on hit. She’s also one of the very few characters with a wallsplatting throw which complements her offense quite well with the opponent’s back to the wall. However since her lows are more centered around poking rather than hard hitting lows for more damaging mixups, she can struggle to steal the lifelead back from the opponent.

Pros

• Strong “lockdown” offense
  
• Wallsplatting WS i11 punisher
  
• Easy and damaging whiff punisher with DF2

Cons

• Poor WS punishment beyond ws44
  
• Bad range on hopkick, struggles to launch punish certain moves
  
• Lacks hard hitting lows so can struggle to make a comeback
  
• One of the lowest damage outputs

Recommended for players who like
Short moveset and simple gameplan.
Easy execution
Rushdown oriented poke heavy playstyles

Kazuya Mishima

Difficulty - Advanced

The poster boy of T7, Kazuya is a character that is designed around punishing his opponent for mistakes with huge reward either through whiff or block punishing, and picking moments to go in with his hard hitting mixups. As a Mishima, he shares the same traits as the other Mishimas: Devil Jin and Heihachi. His wavedash grants him the ability to cover the gap between himself and the opponent at his own pace, combined with his EWGF (+5 on block high launcher with good recovery), hellsweep (a hard hitting low with strong okizeme) and strong jab confirms to allow him to vary the timing on his pressure. Unlike the other 2 Mishimas, his poke game is pretty weak. He also has access to a Devil form that he can manually access once he has rage, this changes properties on certain moves like his hellsweep. If he burns his rage drive in a combo, he automatically switches into Devil form. It is encouraged to adopt a defensive playstyle when playing Kazuya due to his aforementioned, weak poke game. He is centered around punishment more than the other Mishimas as it is among the best in the game. For example, he has his ws12, an i13 ws launcher, which allows him to punish low pokes harder than other cast members.

Pros

• Strong space control
  
• Top 3 overall punishment
  
• Great mobility with wavedash
  
• Good damaging mixup with hellsweep + complementary mids

Cons

• Poor poking game

Recommended for players who like
Defensive punishment based playstyle
Execution characters

King

Difficulty - Medium

Bah gawd King! King is the closest you will have to a grappler in Tekken 7. He has a plethora of throws with some of them being quite damaging. He has chain grabs, which is a series of grabs that forces the opponent to guess between a 1 break or a 2 break to get out of them, or suffer increasing damage; Giant swing with a 1 break that looks like a 1+2 break animation and does beefy damage with his back to the wall. He has a wall ender which allows him to go for a Ground Throw (GT) 50/50 where they have to guess between 1 or 2 break which can add on a lot of damage on a right read while still retaining strong guaranteed damage if the player wants to opt for that and his Rage Drive as a combo ender gives a (GT) attempt. His low game isn’t the best but he encourages ducking via his grabs because his lows are his throws due to misleading break animations. If you enjoy a character with strong throws and forced 50/50 situations, King is the one for you. However, his whiff punishment is quite poor due to no reliable ranged launchers.


Pros

• Best throw game in T7
  
• Strong okizeme with ground throws.
  
• Can rack up damage pretty fast through guessing games (GT)

Cons

• Poking game is pretty mediocre
  
• No strong lows,
  
• Poor whiff punishment.

Recommended for players who like

Strong throw games
Forcing opponent through 50/50s

Kuma/Panda

Difficulty - Medium

The iconic duo makes their return to T7. Despite Kuma and Panda having separate character slots, they are the exact same character; the only difference lies in their Rage Arts. The bears have access Hunting Bear Stance (HBS) which is a very momentum based stance. They have access to a fast low string, damaging knockdown lows and strong mids with the ability to lower their hitbox to go even under a lot of mids. Good usage of this stance is required to play Bears well as they can get a lot of mileage off it. This can be achieved with good reads and conditioning the opponent well. Due to their extensive reach on their arms, any attacks involving 1 or 2 input has extended reach. This gives them a very strong jab keepout game and they have various mids/lows involving those punch inputs. Combine this with one of the best and easiest whiff punishers in the game with df21 and the Bears can effectively keep the opponent in check at range. This allows them to choose their moments to approach with HBS to rack up damage. Bears have stubby legs. This can be a double edged sword; whilst the reach in their legs is poor, certain lows whiff where they would hit other characters and certain characters must use shorter combos due to their shorter leg length. Because of their hitbox, they are vulnerable to bigger wall combos and specific combo starters but some characters are forced to use shorter combos on them in the open due to their short legs. They also have a pretty bad SS so they are prone to more offense than other characters.

Pros

• One of the best whiff punishers if not the best.
  
• Strong offensive stance
  
• Short legs so can be hard to judge range vs them
  
• One of the best hopkicks.

Cons

• Poor offense outside of stance
  
• Amongst the worst for SSing
  
• Prone to bigger wall combos and Bear specific combo starters

Recommended for players who likes
Conditioning and hard reads
Easy whiff punishment
Party kinda style

Lars Alexandersson

Difficulty - Easy

If there was ever a char in tekken that would be the closest to Ryu from Street Fighter, Lars most certainly fits into that role. He is arguably the most well rounded character in Tekken 7 and perfect to learn the game with. He has very strong basic tools and a low for every situation. If you need a hard hitting low, a high crush low, a poke low, pressure low etc. Lars has them all. He’s one of the very few characters with a mid launcher that low crushes and is also safe on block making his opponent be wary about using lows vs Lars. He also has one of the highest wall damage output to slap on the damage on your opponent after a wall carry combo or direct wallsplats. Similar to Jin, Lars is also a very versatile character that can be played in any way the player wishes to. His clearcut weakness would be that he is quite weak to SSR so homing moves are encouraged with Lars.

Pros

• Great set of lows for various usage
  
• One of the highest wall and walless damage output
  
• Strong punishment

Cons

• Weak to SSR
  
• Lack of strong CH tools

Recommended for players who like
A well rounded playstyle
A fundamental based character

Lee Chaolan and Violet

Difficulty - Advanced

T7’s first palette swap character. Lee Chaolan and his alter-ego Violet, make their return in T7. There are very little to no differences between the two so I will refer to Lee for this primer. Lee is a very CH orientated character. He has one of the best keepout moves in the game with b4, a CH launcher with fast recovery, which will interrupt the opponent’s approach for big damage. B4 can be cancelled into his HMS (Hitman Stance) to make it harder to whiff punish. Upclose, Lee has plenty of tools to work with. His close ranged game consists of a very heavy poke style whilst having strong CH tools such as 223; a CH hit-confirmable jab string which leads into a lot of damage and wallsplat. His df1 has an extremely good hitbox and high crushes well so it can be hard to fight out of Lee’s pressure. His WR34 is extremely good for initiating offense from range as its + on block and is a good lead into Lee’s CH game upclose, this complements his slide (ranged knockdown low) very well. His aforementioned stance HMS has a few exclusive moves to it, and can be used as an evasive stance for Lee after certain moves to punish retaliation from the opponent. Lee has one of the best wall carries in the game with his b2 loops allowing him to carry to the wall further than most characters. While Lee is strong upclose and has good keepout tools, his whiff punishment is amongst the worst in the game as he has poor ranged moves to whiff punish with. As a result of this, it's recommended to stay in your opponent's face with Lee to enforce his CH offense. That said, due to his offense being CH heavy, it can be hard for Lee to take the lifelead off a defensive opponent as his lows are very poke orientated.

Pros

• One of the best keepout tools in b4
  
• Strong CH game upclose and further out.
  
• Strong punishment
  
• Tied best wall carry with Nina.

Con

• Really poor whiff punishment
  
• Slow homing moves
  
• Can be difficult to make comebacks

Recommended for players who likes
CH heavy characters
Execution characters
Chip based playstyle

Leo Kliesen

Difficulty - Easy

Leo is an extremely well rounded character with strong basics making her a good beginner character. She has strong mids to poke with in various situations after being forced to duck vs her scary lows. One of her main low pokes qcf1, is a high crush giving a mini followup on CH making it a damaging low to poke with. Her stronger lows are more geared for hard hitting mixups as they give strong knockdowns. Once her opponent is on the floor, Leo has a new powerful move to hit them with in T7. She has excellent wall carry to get Leo’s infamous wall game going. Leo’s wall game is extremely strong as she has plenty of safe mids to wallsplat with, and her low options are even scarier at the wall due to free followups on hit. Her keepout is quite good as she has df2, a ranged launcher that can be spaced to be safe vs most characters (and a really good whiff punisher) and a qcf dash making her a mobile character to interrupt the opponent’s attacks at range or to start offense. She has 2 stances; a KNK stance which is used more for combos and a BOK stance for neutral usage. Her BOK stance greatly lowers her hitbox and she can threaten the opponent with followups so this is a good way to approach them. Her punishment is significantly above average for standing and crouching (WS) as she has one of the strongest i11 WS punishers in the game; as well as her df2 which makes for an excellent punisher on moves with pushback. Her CH game is average or a bit below average as she lacks a fast rewarding safe mid.

Pros

• Strong mixup game
  
• One of the best wall games
  
• Strong wall carry
  
• Strong punishment, especially her ws i11
  
• Extremely well rounded

Cons

• CH game is a bit weak.

Recommended for players who like
Well rounded characters
Punishing mistakes hard on block/whiff
Simplistic fundamental characters

Lili Rochefort

Difficulty - Easy

The French speaking (but not actually French) daddy’s girl makes another appearance. Lili is a bit of an extreme character. She has a very powerful but linear gameplan which suffers against those who sidestep. This is because overall her tracking is weak. Very few of her moves track and her homing moves either lack range or are slow. However to make up for this weakness, she has the best sidestep in the game allowing her to get around sequences that other characters can’t avoid. She can make the opponent hesitate and second guess their retaliation to her offense due to the threat of her stepping and forcing them to whiff. She has some of the best punishment in the game and high damage output. She excels at constantly applying + frames on her opponent with moves like df3 and qcf3+4 and thus making them freeze up and respect her ff4, a high damaging low. She can be an awkward character to pressure as she has plenty of options to crush the opponent’s attacks such as d3+4 which can go under some mids for a launch, a backswing blow, a move that goes airbourne fast and again her sidestep.

Pros

• Best sidestep in the game
  
• Very strong punishment
  
• Strong wall carry

Cons

• Poor tracking and homing moves
  
• Lacks moves for keepout
  
• Doesn’t have a fast CH launcher.

Recommended for players who like

A “lockdown” type of character
Utilizing the sidestepping game

Ling Xiaoyu

Difficulty - Medium

Ling is an okizeme monster. Although okizeme has been nerfed in Tekken 7, she still retains that aspect of her character. She has a strong poking game with tons of poke lows for various situations including hugely + hit, a ranged CH launcher and a heavy hitting low in her stance. Her stance Art Of Phoenix (AOP) allows her to evade a lot of moves and offense from your opponent reducing their moveset by a lot depending on the character. She's a character for lab monsters. Her small hitbox along with her evasive stance can make her extremely hard to approach especially with her main mid poke going under highs. She has a very strong Rage Drive from Backturned stance that acts as a low launcher making her mixup game scarier than before. She does however have poor reach on her jabs as her limbs are short; meaning she can struggle to punish certain moves.

Pros

• Strong poking game
  
• One of if not the best oki in T7 especially off throws.
  
• Ignores a lot of the opponents offense.
  
• A very easy and fast whiff punisher with huge range in df2,1.
  
• Strong CH game, upclose and from range.
  
• One of the best Rage Drives in the game

Cons

• Small range on some of her pokes especially jabs.
  
• Can struggle to punish certain moves.
  
• Bad jab punish and crouching punishment is weak other than WS4.

Recommended for players who like

Playing around with setups and experimenting
To freestyle with all the stance options Ling provides
A very mobile character

Lucky Chloe

Difficulty - Medium

Chloe is a very aggressive, poke-oriented character. She’s good at bullying her opponent with quick mids, lows and jab strings, to break them down bit by bit. She has a few moves which leaves her backturned. This gives her access to the one of the most damaging combo starters in the game, as well as being hitconfirmable. Her Rage Art is unique in the fact that there’s a rhythm to it that allows her to get extra damage as well as different poses/animations to end with. Her range is lacking a little on her arms so it’s encouraged to get in the opponent’s face with Chloe to initiate her poke game. She has the only launchable on block hopkick in the game, so hopkicking with Chloe is a huge risk, hurting her panic moves. She doesn’t have much in the way of rewarding whiff punishers and her block punishment is quite poor in terms of damage. While her poke damage is quite low, her combo damage is high to make up for it.

Pros

• High damage output
  
• Decent poking game
  
• Huge burst damage through BT launcher

Cons

• Poor whiff + block punishment
  
• Only launchable hopkick in the game
  
• Arm range is limited

Recommended for players who like
Aggressive poking chars
High damage chars

Marshall Law

Difficulty - Medium

Law is a very “in your face” poke centric character. He excels at rushdown upclose as his ranged game is quite weak. Law’s offense is based around using small poke strings to harass you and force you into making a mistake by pressing a button at the wrong time due to his plethora of CH launchers of all kinds. He has access to a stance called Dragon Sign Stance (DSS) which he can go into from certain moves to continue his pressure. He has tons of delayed strings and some of them even go into DSS to catch your opponent out and force a CH out of them. He is very good at keeping his opponent on their toes and respecting his offense, allowing him to continue. While his whole gameplan is focused on small damaging pokes and CH fishing, he does have some hard hitting lows in his slide and Dragon Tail albeit the latter being seeable. He has one of the highest wall damage outputs and average walless damage. As aforementioned, his ranged game is quite weak and he doesn’t have many tools to approach the opponent with so he likes to be constantly on the opponent. In previous tekkens, his whiff punishing was one of the least rewarding but now in Tekken 7, he gained access to a fast and ranged launcher as a whiff punisher which helped him out a lot.

Pros

• Strong standing and crouching punishment
  
• Above average damage output walless and huge damage at wall
  
• One of the strongest whiff punishers in the game

Cons

• Doesn’t have good approaching tools
  
• Can be hard to make a comeback
  
• Poor keepout tools.

Recommended for players who like
CH orientated characters
Rushdown playstyle
Bruce Lee clones

Master Raven

Difficulty - Medium

Raven’s boss makes her debut in T7. She essentially has the same moveset as Raven from TTT2 with some minor changes and additions. Like Raven, she also has a strong space control with various keepout tools and good whiff punishment. Keepout with Master Raven is a bit more unorthodox as it often involves whiffing certain moves on purpose as they have better recovery that way than on block. Her punishment has improved from Raven, as even thought she does not have a i15 launcher, she still has strong punishment overall. Master Raven allows for a variety of playstyles ranging from poking and counter hit fishing to high risk mixups. Most of the mixups come from either her crouch dash or from back turned stance. The crouch dash is a great tool since it allows MR to approach her opponent and have access to her moves not only from crouch dash, but also from while standing, full crouch and certain standing moves. Her back turned stance has unique moves much like Ling or Feng. Her parries are also fairly unique and function differently compared to the rest of the cast. She is however sometimes forced to take risks when trying to open up an opponent with her stronger lows.

Pros

• Strong space control
  
• Huge damage output, one of the best.
  
• Very versatile toolset, can be played in many ways.

Cons

• No launcher for -15 moves like most characters
  
• Stronger lows are often pretty risky

Recommended for players who like
A well rounded playstyle
High damaging characters
Ability to control space well

Miguel Caballero Rojo

Difficulty - Easy

Miguel is a poke monster meaning he has a plethora of pokes that leads into mixup opportunities. His db3 low is extremely good for initiating his CH/mixup game as it leaves him at frame advantage point blank. His df1 is one of the best in the game as it has delayable extensions with mixups built into them, so he’s very strong at making the opponent hesitate upclose and respect his offense. Miguel has a stance called Savage Stance (SAV) which gives him access to stronger lows including a beefed up version of his db3 (more damage, better frame advantage and tracking), a plethora of strings: some are delayable, some are quick CHs and some are wallsplats. SAV can be accessed from many of his moves like his df1 strings, his db3 and others. As a result, Miguel excels at making his opponent freeze up with varied timings, while having the ability to cancel into SAV from certain moves to continue his offense. He can take chunks off the opponent’s life very fast if he’s allowed to. His Rage Art is the most damaging RA in the game and his Rage Drive gives him a barely unseeable low launcher His punishment is quite strong other than his jab punish, he has 2,1 at i11 which does massive damage for i11 and has huge frame advantage on hit and his hopkick is one of the better hopkicks in the game due to the range. However, Miguel does struggle to punish moves that have pushback as his range is lacking. His ranged whiff punishment also suffers as a result of this as he doesn’t have much for further out whiffs. Due to this, it's recommended to stay in the opponent’s face with Miguel to enforce his poke heavy offense. Miguel’s tracking is weird in the way that his main mids track one way and his main lows track the other way and to make matters worse, his homing moves are quite slow.

Pros

• Extremely strong poke heavy offense
  
• One of the best hopkicks
  
• Most damaging Rage Art in the game.
  
• One of the stronger Rage Drives.

Cons

• Poor whiff punishment at range
  
• Struggles to punish pushback moves
  
• Slow homing moves.

Recommended for players who likes
Poke heavy offensive characters
Simple and easy to play

Nina Williams

Difficulty - Advanced

Nina is a very “sticky” rushdown character in the way that she can keep prolonged offense going. She excels at point blank range; with a lot of her moves having the ability to cancel into a sidestep, allowing her to continue her offense. Her SS1 cancel in particular has huge + frames on block and can be looped to make your opponent freeze up, especially at the wall where they cannot backdash away from it. This allows Nina to bully the opponent with mid and low pokes to break them down and use her hard hitting low if she wishes. She also has a strong CH game with fast wallsplatting CH strings and launchers. Nina has arguably the steepest execution curve of any character due to her butterfly loops, which is the best wall carry in the game; as well as her unique backdash called: “Hayashida Step”; where she crouches during it and has the potential to go under moves. Throws as a whole got nerfed in Tekken 7, but Nina keeps her strong throw game with a plethora of throws to choose from, with each of these throws having good oki. While Nina’s upclose game is powerful, her ranged game is lacking so it’s encouraged to remain in the opponent’s face with her.

Pros

• Queen of lockdown offense
  
• Fast and damaging CH launchers
  
• Best wall carry in the game
  
• Great throw game
  
• Good whiff punishers
  
• Strong wall game
  
• High damage output

Cons

• Poor space control
  
• Lacks decent keepout moves
  
• WS launcher punish whiffs on a lot of moves

Recommended for players who like
Fast paced gameplay
Execution heavy characters
Pure rushdown

Paul Phoenix

Difficulty - Medium

Paul is the 50/50 powerhouse of the game. Paul is a character that wants to be in his opponent’s face constantly and enforcing hard hitting mixups on them. Between his demoman (a damaging knock-down low) and a variety of mids, he puts the fear into the opponent. His most infamous mid would be Deathfist (qcf2), an explosive damaging lunge punch. Since his demoman only knocks-down point blank, it is encouraged to take the opponent to the wall as soon as possible as Paul, as they cannot backdash away from the demoman allowing him to loop his mixups. It’s hard to step Paul as his homing moves are extremely strong with a + on block high homing, a i12 high homing (fastest in the game) and a super damaging CH mid launcher. He has a backsway which can be accessed from his df1~b cancel and has its own moveset. Paul’s punishment is way above average with strong standing and WS punishment as he has a i14 standing launcher and a very strong WS i13 punisher. However, Paul’s low pokes are pretty bad as they’re mostly - on hit, poor range or lacking crush properties so it is encouraged to pick his moments wisely to force his demoman/mid mixup to obtain damage.


Pros

• Damaging 50/50 game
  
• Strong punishment
  
• Powerful wall game
  
• High damage output
  
• Extremely good homing moves
  
• Plethora of safe launchers

Cons

• Poor low pokes
  
• Takes risks to get big damage via lows

Recommended for players who like
Burst damage 50/50 characters
Rushdown characters
Strong punishment on block/whiff.

Sergei Dragunov

Difficulty - Medium

Dragunov is a pretty relentless character in T7 in terms of pressure tools. He has the best approach tools of any character with his WR2, a hugely + on block mid that CH launches. It can be scary to approach Dragunov as it is a very flexible tool in terms of rushdown + keepout, it forces the opponent to really choose their moments to go in. This allows him to be constantly in your face while chipping away at you with effective low and mid pokes. He has access to a low launcher which is very hard to see and this goes hand in hand with his strong approach. Outside of his WR2, Dragunov has some very strong mids to use upclose for keeping + frames on the opponent and keeping them in check. Drag is deadly vs the wall as you cannot backdash his lows and + on block mids and punish your mistakes hard with fast splats. He also has one of the best WS punishment of any character in terms of damage and early wallsplat punishers, and his standing punishment, while not as strong, is still above average. To complement his block punishment, Drag has strong whiff punishment as well with various moves. He doesn’t have any obvious flaws other than no hopkick but he has a lesser replacement for it which can do the job. Due to his taller stature, most of his mids have a “highish” hitbox so certain moves and stances can go under them.

Pros

• Best approach of any character
  
• Top 3 WS punishment
  
• Strong wall carry
  
• Powerful wall game
  
• Amazing poking game
  
• One of the best pressure characters
  
• Huge comeback potential
  
• Strong whiff punishment

Cons

• No hopkick
  
• Slow CH launchers
  
• High hitboxes on some of his mids meaning they can be crushed easier.

Recommended for players who like
Simple and strong characters
Punishing mistakes heavily
Relentless rushdown

Shaheen

Difficulty - Easy

Shaheen has a very straight forward gameplan. His goal is to frustrate the opponent by staying as close to them as possible whilst poking them down, in the hope that they will press buttons to escape. Shaheen’s 4 strings (4,1, 4,4 and 4,3) are extremely fast and damaging CH launchers with easy combos afterwards. He can also threaten the opponent with his slide, a knockdown low from crouching with strong okizeme afterwards. This encourages the opponent to duck into his mid options, one being a safe mid launcher. He has a cancel from some of his moves which puts him into crouching, a perfect position to enforce his slide/mid mixups. This can force the opponent to retaliate in an attempt to challenge the mixup which again, just plays into Shaheen’s CH game. While his offense is pretty strong, he does have good defensive aspects. His hopkick has good range for a whiff punisher, his block punishment is very strong, especially from WS. While his mids are pretty strong, his lows are mediocre outside of slide in terms of frames and range.

Pros

• Strong CH game
  
• Good hard hitting mixup
  
• Strong punishment
  
• High damage output
  
• Good safe mid launchers

Cons

• Low pokes are mediocre.

Recommended for players who like
A pretty 50/50 character (from crouch)
Strong CH gameplay
Simplistic chars.

Steve Fox

Difficulty - Advanced

Steve is a unique character in tekken in that he lacks kicks for the most part, instead he uses sways for the designated kick buttons. While pretty much every character has some form of CH fishing game, Steve is notoriously designed around it. He has some of the best CH tools the game has to offer. He has an unorthodox way of opening his opponent up as rather than relying on mid/low mixups to get damage, Steve relies on using his powerful CH tools to score a big opening. He has a fast CH launching high in b1, a homing mid CH launcher in df2 and a ton of delayable strings to catch his opponents pressing buttons. He comes with a few stances that can flow into each other through transitions via string cancels, to keep his offense varied. Peekaboo, Flicker and Duck are his main stances to be utilized in his frame trap game. Steve’s ws1,2 as his i11 ws punisher is arguably one of the best for that category, making doing low pokes on a defensive Steve extremely risky. Just because his main gameplan is centered around CH fishing doesn’t mean that he is lacking in lows. Steve’s lows are good enough to chip away at your opponent and frustrate them into retaliating, playing into Steve’s game. Steve has a move in extended duck f2 that if blocked, gives him guaranteed hits on block forcing his opponent to challenge it and again, playing into Steve’s game. Steve doesn’t have many flaws other than his actual punishment. He lacks a i15 launcher from standing and crouching, making certain moves strong on him risk/reward wise. For whiff punishers, he has a good ranged one but it doesn’t do a lot of damage.

Pros

• One of the best i11 ws punishers
  
• Amazing CH oriented game
  
• Strong wall carry and damage

Cons

• Lacks a i15 launcher
  
• Unrewarding whiff punishers
  
• Very poor ws punishment other than i11 ws

Recommended for players who like
CH oriented characters
Good space control

Yoshimitsu

Difficulty - Advanced

Yoshi is a pretty unorthodox character. He relies on the player’s creativity to get openings with his unique tools, as a result he can be defined as a pretty freestyle character. He doesn’t have many solid tools to work with in terms of poking and such; so he has tons of situational moves and thrives on creating unusual situations with them. He has a plethora of unblockables and stances in his arsenal and it is up to the player to find moments to sneak them in. His most infamous one is his sword sweep unblockable which grants a combo and can be landed guaranteed in specific situations. He has a move 1+4 (Flash) which is a i6 launcher in one stance and i8 in another. This move can be used to both interrupt overly aggressive opponents as well as acting as a strong defensive punishment option against safe moves (-9 or less) assuming he is in range for it. Yoshi has a lot of unique tools that gives him unique movement and evasion, allowing him to escape some specific situations where most other characters wouldn’t be able to. He is unique in the fact that he is able to take his own health away, giving him a better control of his rage activation. A steep learning curve in terms of knowledge is required with Yoshimitsu to make the most of his tools as his basic tools aren’t up to snuff with most other “normal” characters in the game. His combo damage is quite low so it’s encouraged to get creative with his unblockables and setups to make up for that.

Pros

• Best set of unblockables
  
• Strong okizeme
  
• Ability to punish “safe” stuff
  
• Amazing panic move with flash

Cons

• His basic tools are weak
  
• Poor poking game
  
• Low damage output

Recommended for players who like
Unorthodox characters
Setups
Freestyling

Credits/Thanks

• Adnanish for Josie info
  
  
• Alexander - for help with Claudio + Steve info
  
  
• Cris4thewin - for help with Gigas info
  
  
• DeadlyPoisonBeauty - for providing some of the cutout renders. Her deviantart can be found at http://deadlypoisonbeauty.deviantart.com/
  
  
• Leflonen - for cropping out some renders for me.
  
  
• MBA Ez - for providing renders
  
  
• MrAdam0 - for help with Katarina + MRaven info
  
  
• mscupcakes - for formatting and editing the steam guide.
  
  
• Nemouik - for helping to proof read
  
  
• Sento - for help with Chloe info
  
  
• SolidRose - for helping to proof read

Original Guide[docs.google.com]

[Łukasz]

very outdated, also i dont think jin is medium difficulty he is very demanding

[AniMagi]

A little outdated but a great and well made guide all around. Really helpful for a beginner such as myself!

[Schwipsdi]

Paul is a safe poke oriented rushdown character with excellent tracking
your paul entry is a bit wrong

[Schwipsdi]

bruh just say with feng that he is op. Good combo damage, best lows, good evasion.
Also very op pokes and mids. Good ch game too

[isolated1]

Can you add info about Lei?

[Fishy]

Alisa has amazing whiff punishment man.
b4,4
b3+4
f2,3
bf2
Rage drive

[ChubbyChubsWithoutChub]

Steve = don't play unless you are tournament level player. It's so unrewarding to play this game. I lost so many hours to try to master that guy. I regret that.

[Geek_Haven]

DariusDrift Nope. Eleonore Klissen ))

[BALTBVLL]

Leo is a guy

[SuperWeeabo]

you should put FOR WEEBS in LC Tab LOL