I sometimes use it as an emergency exit when my opponent is close to me in panther (it´s a bit faster than mk>f.mp>lp>mp>X). You can also throw it out after a blocked Razor Rush when your opponent is trigger happy. Scratch is his fastest stance follow up after razor so you may be able to get a counterhit there. Doesn´t lead to big damage though so it´s use is really limited (at the moment).
There are different ranges for each stance AA though. With my experience I wouldn’t use panthers AA when the jump in is for the snake ranges and vice versa. You really have to be able to know what the other person is gonna do for it to work properly, or bait it. I guess this all goes without saying, but just so people know I had to say something.
Yup, thats right. Good thing is this gives him an AA for nearly every situation:
Close: DP, [DRG] lp
Right outside DP range: [Panther] mk / hk
Far jumpin range: [Snake] hk
Really far / neutral jumps: [DRG] hp — I love to catch neutral jumping chuns with this. BIG damage on counter hit (350+meterless, ~500 for 1 meter).
He basically has everything, it´s just a matter of being in the right stance at the right time.
I hate to ask this but … HOW DO I USE LEI?
I know that sounds dumb, but he has so many options that I don’t really know what to do. I want to play him because learning how his stances work sounds very fun, but I always get blown up when I try to use his stances. I know his j.MK is really good but I don’t have much outside of that.
That’s a pretty good question actually.
I think you sort of answered your own question. IMO Lei is character whose strength lies in the sheer variety of his options. The fact that a lot of his options aren’t overly strong doesn’t matter too much, because he has access to so many of those options in various ways.
One of the main things to focus on first is how effective his stances are in certain situations. Doesn’t matter if you force them and get blown up for it, as long as you are taking note of where they succeeded and where you got blown up with them. The main point is just to gain experience with them.
Just figuring out how they function is a big first step, so don’t worry about whether your applying it all right.
A couple examples on where specific stances shine:
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Snake is a solid gap closer due to its walk speed, and can often get you into a range where comet kick and jump in become threats. It also has a couple lows to dissuade wavedashes, and a very solid AA with HK (with DP as back up.) This means it can be good at getting into ranges that you want, while stopping the opponent from mounting his own offense. However, it’s pretty shitty against solid spacing/standing pokes/defense.
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Crane is fantastic up close, specifically just out of reversal range. Has a built in counter to crouching attacks, as well as several safe moves that beat high/low pokes. It’s absolute garbage versus jump ins though.
I can go into it with all stances, but that’s just sort of the basics of what you should look into with each stance. Learn what they do and don’t do well first, then worry about successfully applying them later. I think it goes without saying to know his regular stance too. Most of Lei’s big damage his going to come from comet kick. So always be on the look out for badly spaced fireballs or low pokes, anything that’s going to keep your opponent grounded. Whiffed comet kick = huge punish, so be careful. If the comet kick is blocked, you have three main options: overhead, block, or back turned poke. Overhead is super unsafe, but you have to let them know you’re willing to do it. His back turned LP and LK are good pokes and can link into other normals.
EDIT: Hope this helped and wasn’t too much of a mess >___<
I think one of his best features are the moves that edge him forwards, like his cr. mk. You can wiff them to apply pressure and they recover quickly, no? I like that his cr. fierce and cr. MP are special cancellable and can lead into backstance easily. Makes his combos feel a lot like xiaoyu, and he can pull meterless 400s with fairly easy links.
What moves are best for him to tag out on? Can he combo off of his anti-air DP, or is it best to just follow it up?
Tag out options. I was actually working on this about a week ago and forgot to post it.
Reverse Lotus- I tag out Lei from the first hit of his DP, anti-air or otherwise. If it’s not an anti-air DP, you can tag most opponents in to start with a jumping attack, especially useful for Dudley or anyone else who has a ground bounce air attack. And with Law as teammate, if you’re FAST (I cannot get this consistently) you can do the follow up from Lei’s DP, tag cancel and land the b.mp to ground bounce TC and keep going.
Tornado Kick- You can tag a teammate in on tornado kick’s last follow up depending on who you have.
Backturn- After the second or third rep of backturn mk~hk I tag in my partner if I want Lei out.
Comet Kick- Tag cancelling the overhead of comet kick is NOT safe if they block high, if your opponent tries to do anything, you will probably get happy birthday’d.
Razor Rush- I tag in just to get Lei out and go for dirty mix ups. Razor rush low, tag in Dudley and make them guess whether I’ll go low or high
Drunken overhead combo- in drunk stance, st.mp, st.mp xx f.pp I’ll tag in. This sets a ground bounce on hit, so your teammate can have fun with that. Typically I just do the same thing I would from a launcher tag in, experimenting with ideas for resets, nothing concrete yet. You can sit at 400 damage, depending on what your partner does with it, so that reset could kill if I find a way to pull it off.
Stance target combos - Any of the stance TCs that end in a juggle you are free to tag in on. On block using your knowledge of the frame data to from frame traps will get you further than you think. Eg. Crane TC is +4 on block. Tagging gets you even more than that, enjoy.
Orchid Palm- You COULD tag someone in from a cr.hp>mp orchid palm. As I’ve mentioned in this thread already, I hate the palm loop and it’ll get fixed so don’t bother getting comfortable with it. You can however use cr.hp>mp orchid palm to Pandora for a big, bad NaCl inducing finish if you can get a guaranteed kill of the other half of the combo.
What does Lei have for grounded tag-cancels?
He doesn’t. All his tags are either in a juggle state or ground/wall bounce.
OMG…doing Lei testing right now for my Lei/Paul team.
He is so awesome, st.LK has enough hit stun for st.LK, snake cancel, LP to connect. It’s difficult, but will be so useful for st.LK and his offensive pressure. The panther scratch cancel is super weird. I’ve gotten super, lotus, and rekka kicks to come out put for some reason I can’t get palm or qcf+K. I’ll have to keep trying.
Panther forward walk speed is pretty good too, and his overall buff to Snake is much appreciated. More to come…
EDIT: Back turned walk speed feels a lot faster. [DRK] MP, MP has HUGE reach and always connects with the second hit. If you are just barely out of reach for the first, the second can hit easily. Drunken pokes feel great, with LP actually setting up for a 50/50 on hit. [DRK] is fantastic as an AA too. Juggles on normal hit, and gives you LK, MP, HK combo afterwards.
Okay, and I just figured out panther scratch. It’s a very late cancel with not a lot of hit stun. None of his palms combo, but lotus and rekka kicks do. Same with super and cross art.
Trying to figure out a way to incorporate that snake crumple with Counter Hit Snake HP. Already found some good resets though. It doesn’t matter if I can’t find a practical use though.
EDIT: Played around with Drunk HK and Dragon HP. I can see Drunk HK as a bait and combo starter but I can’t see Dragon HP used for anything right now. Maybe it can be frame trapped. Idk. Hopefully we can find something. It can be used for swag combos though.
Good stuff. I actually landed the counter hit tiger P and got the wall bounce. I played with it and I don’t think you can combo after it. But the Tiger sweep cancel and Tiger Crumple buff is great!
I think the low key nerfed the SRK/Tiger Palm trade. Lei used to be able to take the hit and the opponent still be crumpled. Now the opponent doesn’t crumple anymore.
Yea you can land a crouching fierce into lotus for a tag cancel just like orchid plam
Lol. I know that. Your thinking of another move. I’m talking about how the regular Counterhit Tiger Strike creates a wall bounce. Not the crumple version
Yea I know, after the wall bounce on counterhit, you can continue the combo is what I’m saying
The more I think about it, I may run lei on point now with the new buffs as I feel like his juggles are still kinda meh. Also with his damage nerfs he may not be as viable as an anchor. Thoughts?
Yeah so I’m kinda interested in Lei, but at the same time I feel
Like learning him is a really daunting task. Just from reading some of the posts I feel like this fool is constantly canceling his strings into other stances and going into more strings and a forever circle of mindfuckery. I feel like there’s so much to learning him that you can’t really dedicate any time to another character. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel you have to learn SO much to be effective with him…
All this being said, I’ve never played the character and the is based solely on reading
Uhhhh yes and no. While the stances seem like a daunting task they really arent so bad. The biggest help for me was the wooden dumy instruction posted in the stance thread. The idea is be comfortable with his stances so you’ll know what you want to do and do it. Muscle memory is your friend here.
A lot of lei players picked him up when the DLC came out and were waiting for it. Youll find a lot of ppl in here bought this game exclusivley toplay lei. That being said it is a bit of an uphill battle getting ised to everything, but like i said before once you get confortable with the stances you can start to branch out and work on spacing, setups, and general strategy. He is by far the most fun at least in my opinion. If you’re thinking a tutorial video is worth while I know some ppl ate in here expressing interest in doing one. Let it be known and something might happen!
Lei is great and there is probably an endless amount to learn with him. That doesn’t mean that you need to learn all of it though. Lei is a pretty solid character and you can probably get by just fine with him if you only know 2 or 3 of his stances. What’s always been fun about Lei is that you can kind of play him however you want. That’s true in tekken and it’s true here.
If it makes you feel any better, I’ve played as lei quite a bit but he’s not my main character and I still do well with him.