Paul: what’s missing from his game? His df2 crushes most highs. Damage output on a per-hit basis is one of the highest in the game (one DF on CH can turn the match). Decent SW, 32 is a great poke, b12 is fast, safe, leaves the opp in NC on block,his juggles are reliable, etc.
He’s simple, but he’s effective. Hell, Chet (Paul) won the US Nationals with him, right?
I think Raven’s highest damage juggles do have problems, but he still has good 60+ damage juggles that seem very consistent. Pretty much every character has juggles that need major changes needed depending on axis and the sort. So, juggle inconsistency is not as big of a deal as it was in past Tekken’s. Aside from being a risk, inconsistent juggles, and so few players picking him up it is hard to spot why he is so low tier. His sidestep weakness is managable and he makes up his block punishment with strong whiff punishment. I am not saying he is top, but to put him lower than Xiaoyu/Zafina/Yoshi is almost a laugh.
A weakened sidestep, backdash, and including a rage system all work in Paul’s favor. In previous Tekken’s it was a strong strategy to just run away and walk circles around anything Paul tried. Now you really have to respect him and stay on point until the KO, because Paul can end a round in a flash.
Love Julia in BR. Has alot more tools and deserves her high spot, but it’s alot of work to realize her potential(more than DR required).
On Yoshi v Raven and to correct myself: I think they’re both crap, but Yoshi’s slightly better off. Both of them have terrible whiff issues, and while Raven can get by with whiff punishment (true), Yoshi gets by with block punishment and frame advantages, and while both have moves that are safe-ish (Raven’s df1, df2>etc.), I’ll say that Yoshi’s got faster (better?) options to CH, and on CH, less likely to drop a juggle. I’ll concede that his ff4 on CH does have whiff issues when off-axis too though.
On Zafina: I honestly think she’s the most underrated character because of all the on-paper frame discussions, citing how unsafe she is, etc. While I’m not saying she’s probably top tier or anything, she’s got some good decent tools. Try her out and see.
On Xiaoyu: serious? Raven better than Ling? Or is it more of a match-up issue? e.g. Bryan REALLY has Lars’ number for example. Bryan can completely shut down/frame trap/block punish Lars.
Yoshi has bad tracking, unsafeness and does his best damage from setups. Yoshi also has bad matchups with any offense oriented character because he has no great ways to get pressure off him (flash does not cut it). Based on matchups alone, Raven wins so much more against the top tiers than Yoshi because Law, Steve, etc can lock Yoshi down. Yoshi gets by with better setups. His punishment is not that strong given pushback moves are unpunishible due to Yoshi ff+4 losing it’s speed. The only place Yoshi really shines is where he always has and that is his ground game.
Being a Zafina secondary player I can say that her greatest strength is her good backdash. Zafina’s block punishment is weak with no Raven WS+1 to really help. She gets no launcher at -15 and Zaf d/f+2 is hardly the 4~3 that Raven has. So her whiff punishment and block punishment are lacking. Another thing to note is she struggles a bit with her SSL weakness.
Raven vs Xiaoyu is both a match up and tier issue. In terms of matchup Xiaoyu has no good answer for Raven’s d/f+1 or FC 3 which are a double dose of her worst nightmare with Feng b+4 and Jack d/b+1 all in one character. The only hope Xiao has is CH iWS+2~f to keep him from getting in range for the moves, but that is so much easier said than done without eating 4~3. In tiers Raven’s whiff punishment, damage, lows, backturned mixups, and pokes are just better than Xiao’s.
Re: Yoshi / Raven - Hmmm… I see your point actually. Raven db21, df1, etc. Although in the end, wouldn’t it just end up being him and Yoshi on the same bracket? Raven with better punishment, Yoshi with better setups, but both still lacking go-to tools and attributes that can turn matches around? (juggle reliability, wall juice, strong oki, refloats, etc.)
Re: Zaf - agree totally on the block punishment. I don’t think that’s her game though. I never really saw her as a wait-block-punish type of character. (Bob doesn’t get a launcher at -15 either).
Re: SSL - I stopped using regular SS unless it had an evasive move (Bob SS1+2) long ago. IMHO, Zaf’s SW options are decent enough.
Re: Xiaoyu - I’ll take your word for it. I don’t use her but I play against a pretty good Xiaoyu player on a regular basis.Maybe my opinion on her is a little biased because of him.
I guess what we’re ending up with looks something like this?
Top 3:
Bryan, Bruce, Alisa
Top Others:
Bob, Lars, Steve, Law, Nina, Julia, Jack, Paul, Baek, Lili
Strong:
King, Lee, Leo, Eddy, Feng, Miguel, D.Jin, Roger, Kaz, Hei
Sorta mid tier-ish:
Lei, Wang, Anna, Asuka, Christie, Ganryu, A.King, Dragunov
Not that great, but still dangerous in the right hands:
Jin, Hwo, Kuma, Marduk, Zafina, Ling
If you’re feeling lucky:
Raven, Yoshimitsu, Mokujin
If you are feeling lucky, are you serious? Yoshi and Raven are not that bad. Both of them have strong ground games. Especially Yoshi who can become quite the beast if he gets you knocked down at the wall. His sword sweep, mids and unblockables spark fear in any opponent downed near a wall. Raven’s mixups are more than enough to turn a round completely around, being in a not so big list of characters that can juggle off hard to see lows makes him far from worthless. I think the balance of Tekken is much better than that.
My opinion on tiers
A: Alisa, Bob, Bruce, Bryan, Jack, Julia, Lars, Law, Lee, Lili, Nina, Paul, Steve
B: Anna, A.King, Asuka, Baek, Christie, D.Jin, Dragunov, Eddy, Feng, Ganryui, Heihachi, Kazuya, King, Lei, Leo, Marduk, Miguel, Roger Jr
C: Hwoarang, Jin, Kuma, Mokujin, Raven, Wang, Xiaoyu, Yoshimitsu, Zafina
that move is -12. I don’t know what “NC on block” means. On block they’re standing there with 12 frames to punish and no pushback.
Hmmm… I wasn’t aware of that. I always thought on block b12 left you in FC. (FC, not NC on block sorry)
9thPixel: Kinda disagree with your B… Baek and Asuka on the same tier? Along with Marduk? Marduk’s the type of character that if you’re familiar with his move set, he’s left with close to no pressure tools outside of d4 and throws, and to stop his opponent’s momentum, has to rely on anticipating in order to reverse/counter/ch df3 d1. His juggles are also pretty crap. The most damaging and reliable (it’s not even 100% on some characters/instances) non-wall one is: launcher, 2,d1+2, df32 B!, qcf12, from where he gets no follow up.
A lot of his success comes from unfamiliarity.
Re: Raven n Yoshi:
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree here. It could be our comp (you’re playing against a good Raven for example, while all the good Raven’s around me have quit and moved to a different character), but I just can’t see Raven being able to make a difference when it counts with what he has. Yoshi is similar, and though I feel he’s better than Raven, he’s still not as good as Jin and the others.
P.S. Maybe I disagree because I don’t feel that wall pressure against Yoshi. Bob has an answer for everything he has so… probably explains why.
No they’re FC on hit.
Questions.
Marduk is Top 10 or Top 20?
Alisa is Top 5 or Top 10?
Zafina is Mid or Low Mid? She is much better than the usual bracket she is paired with.
Why is Kazuya not considered Top Tier or at least Upper Mid if he is considered the best punisher in the game overall? That really doesn’t makes sense. Best punisher at least makes Upper Mid in almost all fighting gams with very few exceptions.
Legend:
According to the Koreans, Alisa is the best character in the game… of course, that’s what they say. If you look at the character rankings / tournament results chart though, Alisa appears more like top 5-10.
Marduk? I can’t say. While I think there are 20 characters who are better than him overall, against those same 20 characters, he actually has some good match-ups (e.g. he can deal with Lars, Jack, Miguel, etc. pretty well.)
Kaz: I asked that same question to a Mishima player friend (former local TTT champion, so he knows his shit), and he said it’s because 1) the BR system punishes Kaz’s “new” linearity (his words, not mine), and 2) his pressure/properties have been nerfed from T6 to BR, so while he can punish like crazy, the options he has in order to create those situations aren’t as good as they used to be (and are generally punishable as well).
Again, if you go by tourney results over tier discussions, you’ll see that the Mishima’s are still ranked highly. I guess it’s just that he’s more of an expert’s-only character now.
16 bit: Cheers for the info. Bob f23 time then. :badboy:
Thanks XL.
Interesting that I make the same question in Zaibatsu and never get real answers or information of any kind, just mocking and e-thugging. :lame:
About Marduk, his launchers suck but his high damage juggles, wall carry and wallsplat game and VTS mixups are definitely noteworthy. That’s why I’m curious.
His juggles aren’t as high damage as you think. Lili actually deals more damage than Marduk. However, against “spammy” or straightforward characters (Miguel, Lars), he can stop the spam via his reversals, his d1+2 is a real high crush (but unsafe), and his other moves (df42, db2, d1) are great at creating block stun advantage.
What sucks for him really is that all of his launchers are unsafe, his juggle damage isn’t what it should be, and lastly, he has crap wall juice: he doesn’t have any wall-friendly strings, and his wall throw is crap because he reaches really high, which means sometimes it whiffs, and even if it connects, he recovers too slowly for any real oki.
In my experience (according to other people, my Marduk is decent - I can beat some of the better players here with him), using Marduk feels like a struggle. because at no point in the match will you feel you are completely dominating, as you don’t have any quick tools outside of 1,d2 or df31, and df2 to create pressure. You’re relying on reversals, crushing, whiff punishing and throws, of which the the last two aren’t so great within the Tekken system because 1) better players are adept at escaping throws, and 2) it’s hard to create opportunities that make the opponent whiff due to Marduk’s size, and his crap punishment tools (df1 is 16f, df2,1 is only NCc, and df42 can whiff if the axis is a bit odd).
Lei is really hurting in the contribution part of his forums any info on how or why Lei is “sorta-Mid-Tierish” He’s a complicated character and I think most people don’t take the time to invest in mastering him. ANy Lei experts who believe he should be in that bracket?
lei is a good character imo, probably a little over mid tier. He has some good juggles and stance shenanigans are always enjoyable.
i dont think yoshi is much better off then raven though, theyre both crap characters. If yoshis flash were in its prime i think he would be a contender, but flash sucking so hard has killed alot of his game.
that being said ive grown to love raven. he is super unreliable though unless you really know how to juggle with him… which im learning.
Ling is good. People who say she’s not have no idea how to play her.
She is good compared to her low tier peers, but that is it.
You’re a moron. She’s solid mid at worst. I would like to hear some of your logical reasons why she’s low tier cause I’m pretty sure you don’t have any. She’s got great lows, great throws, a 10 frame magic 4, good overall punishment, great Oki, fantastic pokes and run away tactics, solid wall game, she really has very few holes in her game at all and those that she has are minor. The only reason she isn’t higher up on the tier list is because she isn’t amazing at lots of stuff. She’s no Bruce, Nina, or Bryan but she certainly is on par if not better than Bob who scrubs seem to believe is really good.