There were two Pauls in the top 8 of KOIFT 2016 (Rushcash and AK), and he’s commonly considered to be a top 10 character. He’s not been highly represented recently, but in all honesty I’d say it’s because the guys that travel don’t play Paul, not because Paul isn’t good.
Also, I don’t quite get why people say Paul is unsafe. He doesn’t need to gamble with deathfist/demoman at point blank you know, and most of his other options are actually quite safe on block. Hell, a properly spaced deathfist is safe against a huge portion of the cast. He needs to take risks to open people up (like everyone else), but he also has one of the better punish games in the cast and can do a bunch of tricky stuff when poking up close. Being overall solid, but having the ability to switch to complete retard mode for high damage when necessary, is the sign of a good tournament character, not a bad one.
As an aside, a Paul that didn’t know what backdash canceling was made top 8 at our locals last weekend. He had almost no movement, but his punish game and conditioning were both excellent, and because he was playing Paul he could put even our best players into bad situations and force them to guess. Occasionally he got blown up for that, but that’s how it goes when you UNGA.
Also, in regards to non-Asian top players: I’m not sure how active he’s at Tekken any more, but Ryan Hart really deserves a mention. Historically he’s one of the most successful Tekken players at EVO.
Although wild, he’s pretty exciting to watch… Great reflexes and his movement with Hwoarang is really good. He won several big tournaments for Tekken and Virtua Fighter way back. I think he still has it in him if he wants to compete again. Whether or not he’d play Hwoarang for a whole tournament is questionable.
Hwoarang makes me fucking furious.
How do you deal with taht fucking character?
I can’t memorize his million strings for shit. With everybody else I at least know when to block, his strings seem endless and whenever I try to interrupt, duck, hopkick or block low I get fucking counter hit, swept or eat a launcher.
I don’t want to give away free shit against my character lol but if you upload a video, I can point out mistakes or provide suggestions.
I have a hard time against Paul with Hwoarang actually.
After going to an offline meet up session last weekend, I’ve been losing confidence in hwoarang as a consistent character. I’ve been playing Bryan more .
Gotta side walk him
It’s cool I still get blown up but a lot of his strings can be stepped
His homing move from flamingo can be punished only backlash is safe as a homing
He has a guard break move from right stance
If he does d 3,4 or the high into low kick don’t press nothing he’s plus 17 on hit you should block the first and duck the second but if you block both he’s like plus 13
There any Hwoarang player from Europe on this forum that would FT10 or 20 me?
If not I’ll have to wait until I get that dude that destroys me in quick matches on my stream, so I can upload those matches and review them myself and have evilj look over it.
Thanks by the way for that offer.
I feel like at my current skill level I’ll see better results if I learn all those gimmicky strings and how to fuck them up, instead of grinding backdashing all day. it’s just so much to remember.
Also Jesus Christ punishing lows is so tough. I got that WS+2 engraved into my muscle memory even if I can’t punish regular low pokes with that. I bite my ass every time I do that instead of WS+4.
Honestly , just block high most of the time. Use down jabs to interrupt him when you think he’s going high .
That will make him question himself and his strings and possibly resort to low crushing moves .
You never want to interrupt him except with basic moves…
If you block a jab comes out of flamingo stance …you can’t jab him back because he will beat you . But you can duck it.
Blocking a flamingo jab is completely different from blocking a standing jab…
Block high …react to lows . Don’t preemptively duck or block low.
If you’re gonna duck and hope to block, you might as well down jab instead .
Iron mountain that shit to (Paul’s d+1+2)
I love running into hwoarangs with my low ranked characters and I’m literally just standing there blocking 5-6 attacks in a row until he commits to an attack that leaves him negative frames, then backdash away or start your pressure .
Edit: hwoarang is such garbage man. I think I’m gonna switch .
Screwed up my left hand from too much pad play and too much labwork (as in, actual laboratory work), so now I have to go back to stick again temporarily. Somehow my hand doesn’t hurt from playing stick, but it does from pad.
Movement on stick is haaard in comparison. Gah. I seriously struggle with having my BDC-inputs clean, and I have a tendency to get jumps whenever I try to sidestep into the background. I can’t wavedash properly on P1 side either. At least electrics are easier.
I feel Tekken is really calling out how unclean my left hand execution is on stick. In 2D-games I could often get away with sloppier inputs, in this game I have to be very clean in comparison.
Stick is not for everyone, and it does require a few months of practice to get truly used to. People can often do stuff in training mode and they think they are good to go, but there is a big difference between doing stuff in training and in the clutch. I have had to find ways to get consistent df and the like, just takes time.
knee vs jdcr winner’s finals and grand finals was AMAZING. been a long time since those two have publicly sorted their beef but it was a great moment.
the matches were top notch with a good assortment of characters in the top 16 and i noticed jdcr didn’t pick hei against knee.
guess jdcr figured his heihachi would get fucked up somehow and went with the safe choice lolol
lot of really good Filipino players in that pool too, lot of tech and insight on playing against various characters all in one tourney.
overall an excellent tourney with the most obvious result: JDCR wins it. AGAIN