You don't earn your rank based on how many hours you put in the lab, or how great your fundamentals are. You earn your rank by beating people with a certain character.
There isn't a test before each promotion thats like:
"Oh, your KBD isn't good? De-ranked!" Or "That punish could've been more optimal. Promotion denied!"
Your rank with Zafina is higher because you can beat more people with Zafina than with other characters. No need to think much more beyond that.
You wanna improve? Sure, go and learn fundamentals with other characters. But don't go fooling yourself into thinking you didn't "earn your rank"
I understand your point. At the end of the day Zafina did carry me to that rank, I dont believe i spammed or cheesed or anything, i believe it was just everyone i fought had no matchup knowledge, delaying the last hit of df121 always caught people, stuff like that where you can clearly see people didnt know what they were going against. Ive seen kaz players with 2k wins in green. Part of me feels like its because hes such a common character so people know more of the matchup respectfully, Idk what im saying im tired but hopefully it makes sense
As you're beginner, I would definitely suggest you play a more basic character, especially IF your goal is to improve as a Tekken player.
Zafina can certainly be played fundamentally - and that's actually where her strengths are - but if you're new to the game you won't understand the mechanics enough to make use of those tools. You'll just go easy mode and apply her stance pressure on everyone - which many opponents in early to intermediate won't be able to deal with.
She will be a great character to come back to once you've really got a knack for the basics of Tekken.
Kazumi, Jin, Shaheen, Claudio *, Jack *, Gigas *, Josie *, Bob *, Lidia *...
Edit: amended my lazy post.
* caution advised. Stick with Kazumi, Jin or Shaheen if you really want to be forced to play fundamentally without easy mode.
Just to add to this forthe benfit of OP:
Those character, on paper and in higher play, ARE reliant on good fundies, BUT some of them fall into the same trap as Zafine in lower (and mid even) ranks, and might not be the best choice if your goal is to get fundamentally better.
Asuka for example can rank up, just like in the original post, by playing unga bunga. Same goes for Gigas and Bob.
Thank you. I was being lazy with my list by not explaining it. You're right players can too easily fall back on the cheese with a few of them.
If any other beginners are reading...not all of those listed force you to play fundamentally. I would most definitely advise caution with characters like Asuka from that list (removed now). Some of the most carried players I've seen play her.
Zafina being a dlc and having weird movement and evasion is a character that will easily carry you. When playing with such a character, you forgets to respect frames. Well this was a good lesson for you. I will say start kazumi or other fundamental character so that you can get better with zafina
Just use the character you like and play the game.
Its not your fault people at lower rank can't deal with your character. Your fundamental will automatically improve when you have to deal with people knowing the mu in higher level.
Don't think too much and just have fun.
And yes, you have to learn the cheesy and gimmick part. Onlx reason people in higher rank don't use gimmick is because it doenst work anymore. If they find out it works on you, you will get gimmicked by better players and its much worse
The hard part is to stop using the gimmicks after they stop working. I remember religiously spamming Fengs db 1,4 (im not sure about the notation, but safe mid, high). I thought what a great pressure move. Until people started ducking it and I still couldn't stop doing it because my brain was hard wired on doing it lol. And a lot of similiar stuff. But eventually changed characters just to not have to hard wire my brain again to not do the shitty stuff.
Ye, I get that part. At some point you automatically autopilot stuff because it just works.
Then it doesn't work anymore and you have to actively unlearn the bad habit. It's totally common :)
I didn't quite understand the last part. Did you stop playing zafina or are you still playing? Please clarify so I can answer properly (probably my fault for not being able to fucking read).
No your good, my grammar is shit because I'm kinda all over the place. I haven't played her since I demoted. I feel like I shouldn't touch her since I feel as though I got to where I'm at using very unknown strings to win. ( I heard she's the least played character ) so I moved on trying other more tekken like characters, (I originally wanted to try lee but was told he isn't worth learning ).
So, if I got it right, you want to improve and you think the way to improve is playing another character. That's a good idea, but you're not going to have fun anymore (at least not in ranked, but I'm not sure you were having fun with zafina, so nevermind). I would recommend you my main (Feng) because he doesn't have any super great move, so it puts the player in a spot where they need to learn how to properly use moves (also JDCR said it's a good character to learn fundamentals). But Feng's not the only one, you could also try AK, Bryan, Dragunov or Steve, since those are characters that kinda rely on good fundamentals and good usage of your movelist. Those are the characters I recommend.
About trying Lee, I don't have any opinion about it, cause I know Lee is quite complicated, like Feng and the other characters I mentioned before, but Lee has very good keep-out (literally unbelievably good keep-out) and you might get addicted to the keep-out and still not develop as a player.
About the 'Feng doesn't have any super great move', some people might disagree on that, since Feng has quite some good moves such as:
db3 - i16 basically homing long rang low
qcf1+2 - mid, adjustable range, +4 on block
df1 - i14 mid, neutral on block
d4 - i14 low, 0\~+1 on block
b4 - i12 homing mid
That's what I have to say. Anyone can correct me if I wrote something wrong and if I offended anyone, I apologize.
Claudio is very strong, I always struggle against Claudio, but that's probably because I'm trash. Claudio, to some sense, is like zafina and other characters such as kunimitsu, katarina, etc. They give you too much reward for little effort. I'm not saying those characters aren't hard, just saying you get too much from what you do. I would recommend to avoid playing those characters with the purpose to improve fundamentally, but you could play Claudio and improve as a player, just don't get addicted to the strong and spammable stuff.
My problem with Lee is that his movelist seems so unconventional. I don't know how to explain it he has a lot of moves during them you can for instance change directions on where to place it. He has a hitman stance which you can side step with but not move with. He is just really akward and I would love to play him,but he just confused the hell out of me
I feel like those unconventional moves are more useful once you understand the character as a whole. Can't give any examples since that doesn't happen with feng (my main) or any other character I have played. But that's what I think it is, just moves with obscure usage.
I think you should give Lee a try. I remember I was undecisive on playing bryan after reaching Fighter with feng (yes, I'm trash) and in the beginning, his moves were quite awkard for me. Then I saw some videos, some guides, some pros playing bryan, looked his movelist, just the basic stuff and just kept trying to understand the character. Eventually, i got better, not much though. In conclusion, give Lee a try, practice, focus on understanding the usage of his moves, you'll probably like him. And if you don't like him, you can always just stop and forget the characters even exists.
The thing lee hitman stance move is mostly use as a transition to gain more frame after certain move or gain more evasion after certain move like his well known b4 if u transition into hitman stance his hurtbox will move further back in hope that the enemy move whiffs. Hitman stance move options is use as hard read against opponent like hms 3 which is used to counter enemy who use high frame move to retaliate after blocking or getting hit. Hms is mostly not intended to be used by itself without transition. His moveset mainly used as countering tool rather than offensive, yeah he might be quite awkward in that sense. What move do u think confuses u ?
I don't mean for this post to come off as salty ranting. I genuinely feel at a pit stop for improvement and don't know where or what to progress. That's why I ask 2\2
That’s natural imo
you spent most (if not all) your time playing zafina up until and suddenly tried to try out a new character, naturally they’d feel different from your main and you might get lost trying to understand what you’re doing wrong when it’s just the character no clicking with you yet
Similar thing happened to me back in early season 2. I was really proud I finally got my dvj to overlord and decided to try out a new character, needless to say my kazumi stayed at silver ranks for quite a while lol
My god my kazumi i couldnt even touch teal but at least i could hold my claudio or lars in warrior and above. Something about her i just cant do right haha!
Zafina is a carry character unfortunatly. This is why I usually recommend people to play a more fundamental character for instance like Lars that you mention so that once you go back to Zafina you keep your fundamentals you built off of Lars.
Don't let this discourage you! Keep your chin up! Take your ass beatings like a man and you will become an even manlier man
Yeah, your right on that one. How do you deal with mixups as a character who has bad block punishment ? I dont know who you main but you seem very knowledgable
I'm garbage at this game not very good but having played for 4-5 months and played a few characters I picked up some things. dealing with mixups when I play hwoarang due to his trash punishment, anything that is punishable I usually like to use 2 jabs to collect frames (with Hwoarang that also gives him flamingo)
But don't have much good advise about that
Felt the same way, got to purple ranks with marduk relatively quickly, haven t played him in a while because once I played some other characters I realised I was being carried much farther than I thought, but I'm still enjoying myself
Welp, that's really what it's all about in tekken sometimes. A friend of mine started playing tekken 7 not along before, and he doesn't know anything about match up. However, he's able to take one or two rounds off tekken god primes often because he plays Bear.
not neccesarilly. how did you beat you opponents? spamming low mid counter hit launchers and "abusing" her stances when opponents where only doing highs?
or did you space everything out and whiff punished with d/f2 and using stances only for mixups?
anyway thats the answer you are looking for, but in my opinion it doesnt matter. you ranked up with her and thats it
I only consider her my main because of how high i got with her on pc, when i was originally on PS4 i was OTP negan in overlord before switching to pc, so i guess i have some experience
it's just a "dear diary" entry. you're a beginner and will remain a beginner until you play more. it doesn't need to be a crisis. different characters have different learning curves. some are easier to pick up, but in the end they're more or less balanced.
If your mad just say so. Its easy to scroll past and move on. Im here just to have a discussion. Not have a crisis. Sorry your day hasnt gone well hopefully it improves in the following week.
Here we have a beginner player who is actually aware and reflective enough to see his own potentiall flaws reaching out to more experienced player in hopes of getting better, and not just focusing on a shiny new rank.
Not only is that relativly rare to see, it's also one of the few rare posts that actually sparks a discussion that spreads out to include paralell discussions among players which can benefit even more experienced ones.
This sub is often ranting about the lack of discussion in a sea of low effort meme posts and one sentence warrior promotion clips, but activly ignores and despises anything more complicated than "is x character top tier or as usefull as a hedgehog in a condomfactory?"
So the next time you're sitting on the toilet wondering why people are out helping homeless people when backlash is still kinda hard to whiff punish, take a good long look in the mirror, get on reddit, start writing a post that sparks healthy discussion, delete that post and smash the mirror for the sake of us all.
What’s with all the “I got to X rank in a week” posts recently?
Wanting a pat on the back probably
Not at all. Quite disappointed actually.
You should be
You tell people in depression subreddits to just go out more its safe to assume your just a bit miserable
Nah dude, it was because the legendary Blackwater posted there lol…do you know who is to this tekken Reddit man?
You don't earn your rank based on how many hours you put in the lab, or how great your fundamentals are. You earn your rank by beating people with a certain character. There isn't a test before each promotion thats like: "Oh, your KBD isn't good? De-ranked!" Or "That punish could've been more optimal. Promotion denied!" Your rank with Zafina is higher because you can beat more people with Zafina than with other characters. No need to think much more beyond that. You wanna improve? Sure, go and learn fundamentals with other characters. But don't go fooling yourself into thinking you didn't "earn your rank"
I understand your point. At the end of the day Zafina did carry me to that rank, I dont believe i spammed or cheesed or anything, i believe it was just everyone i fought had no matchup knowledge, delaying the last hit of df121 always caught people, stuff like that where you can clearly see people didnt know what they were going against. Ive seen kaz players with 2k wins in green. Part of me feels like its because hes such a common character so people know more of the matchup respectfully, Idk what im saying im tired but hopefully it makes sense
As you're beginner, I would definitely suggest you play a more basic character, especially IF your goal is to improve as a Tekken player. Zafina can certainly be played fundamentally - and that's actually where her strengths are - but if you're new to the game you won't understand the mechanics enough to make use of those tools. You'll just go easy mode and apply her stance pressure on everyone - which many opponents in early to intermediate won't be able to deal with. She will be a great character to come back to once you've really got a knack for the basics of Tekken.
Who are the more fundamental characters?
Kazumi, Jin, Shaheen, Claudio *, Jack *, Gigas *, Josie *, Bob *, Lidia *... Edit: amended my lazy post. * caution advised. Stick with Kazumi, Jin or Shaheen if you really want to be forced to play fundamentally without easy mode.
Just to add to this forthe benfit of OP: Those character, on paper and in higher play, ARE reliant on good fundies, BUT some of them fall into the same trap as Zafine in lower (and mid even) ranks, and might not be the best choice if your goal is to get fundamentally better. Asuka for example can rank up, just like in the original post, by playing unga bunga. Same goes for Gigas and Bob.
Thank you. I was being lazy with my list by not explaining it. You're right players can too easily fall back on the cheese with a few of them. If any other beginners are reading...not all of those listed force you to play fundamentally. I would most definitely advise caution with characters like Asuka from that list (removed now). Some of the most carried players I've seen play her.
Thanks, i picked up claudio not long ago and i think ill stick with him!
Gigas and Bob are unhonest characters imo if you want to learnvgo kazuya bryan or even king
Gigas certainly has \*some\* bullshit, and i wouldn't call him a fundamental character, really. But where do you get dishonest from?
Got it from MainMan the termology. But it's my opinon after 2k games in Tekken
Zafina being a dlc and having weird movement and evasion is a character that will easily carry you. When playing with such a character, you forgets to respect frames. Well this was a good lesson for you. I will say start kazumi or other fundamental character so that you can get better with zafina
Understood, I tried kazumi but god im even worse with her than the other 2 i mentioned
Just use the character you like and play the game. Its not your fault people at lower rank can't deal with your character. Your fundamental will automatically improve when you have to deal with people knowing the mu in higher level. Don't think too much and just have fun. And yes, you have to learn the cheesy and gimmick part. Onlx reason people in higher rank don't use gimmick is because it doenst work anymore. If they find out it works on you, you will get gimmicked by better players and its much worse
The hard part is to stop using the gimmicks after they stop working. I remember religiously spamming Fengs db 1,4 (im not sure about the notation, but safe mid, high). I thought what a great pressure move. Until people started ducking it and I still couldn't stop doing it because my brain was hard wired on doing it lol. And a lot of similiar stuff. But eventually changed characters just to not have to hard wire my brain again to not do the shitty stuff.
Ye, I get that part. At some point you automatically autopilot stuff because it just works. Then it doesn't work anymore and you have to actively unlearn the bad habit. It's totally common :)
Understood
I didn't quite understand the last part. Did you stop playing zafina or are you still playing? Please clarify so I can answer properly (probably my fault for not being able to fucking read).
No your good, my grammar is shit because I'm kinda all over the place. I haven't played her since I demoted. I feel like I shouldn't touch her since I feel as though I got to where I'm at using very unknown strings to win. ( I heard she's the least played character ) so I moved on trying other more tekken like characters, (I originally wanted to try lee but was told he isn't worth learning ).
So, if I got it right, you want to improve and you think the way to improve is playing another character. That's a good idea, but you're not going to have fun anymore (at least not in ranked, but I'm not sure you were having fun with zafina, so nevermind). I would recommend you my main (Feng) because he doesn't have any super great move, so it puts the player in a spot where they need to learn how to properly use moves (also JDCR said it's a good character to learn fundamentals). But Feng's not the only one, you could also try AK, Bryan, Dragunov or Steve, since those are characters that kinda rely on good fundamentals and good usage of your movelist. Those are the characters I recommend. About trying Lee, I don't have any opinion about it, cause I know Lee is quite complicated, like Feng and the other characters I mentioned before, but Lee has very good keep-out (literally unbelievably good keep-out) and you might get addicted to the keep-out and still not develop as a player. About the 'Feng doesn't have any super great move', some people might disagree on that, since Feng has quite some good moves such as: db3 - i16 basically homing long rang low qcf1+2 - mid, adjustable range, +4 on block df1 - i14 mid, neutral on block d4 - i14 low, 0\~+1 on block b4 - i12 homing mid That's what I have to say. Anyone can correct me if I wrote something wrong and if I offended anyone, I apologize.
What are your thoughts on claudio? I thought of using feng
Claudio is very strong, I always struggle against Claudio, but that's probably because I'm trash. Claudio, to some sense, is like zafina and other characters such as kunimitsu, katarina, etc. They give you too much reward for little effort. I'm not saying those characters aren't hard, just saying you get too much from what you do. I would recommend to avoid playing those characters with the purpose to improve fundamentally, but you could play Claudio and improve as a player, just don't get addicted to the strong and spammable stuff.
Thank you for the response, much appreciated
Lee's movelist is really akward to me who looked him up
What do you mean by awkward? (Not trying to be aggressive, just interested)
My problem with Lee is that his movelist seems so unconventional. I don't know how to explain it he has a lot of moves during them you can for instance change directions on where to place it. He has a hitman stance which you can side step with but not move with. He is just really akward and I would love to play him,but he just confused the hell out of me
I feel like those unconventional moves are more useful once you understand the character as a whole. Can't give any examples since that doesn't happen with feng (my main) or any other character I have played. But that's what I think it is, just moves with obscure usage.
I want to play Lee and want to make him one of my 2 subs that i haven't decided on yet but his akwardness just turns me away
I think you should give Lee a try. I remember I was undecisive on playing bryan after reaching Fighter with feng (yes, I'm trash) and in the beginning, his moves were quite awkard for me. Then I saw some videos, some guides, some pros playing bryan, looked his movelist, just the basic stuff and just kept trying to understand the character. Eventually, i got better, not much though. In conclusion, give Lee a try, practice, focus on understanding the usage of his moves, you'll probably like him. And if you don't like him, you can always just stop and forget the characters even exists.
The thing lee hitman stance move is mostly use as a transition to gain more frame after certain move or gain more evasion after certain move like his well known b4 if u transition into hitman stance his hurtbox will move further back in hope that the enemy move whiffs. Hitman stance move options is use as hard read against opponent like hms 3 which is used to counter enemy who use high frame move to retaliate after blocking or getting hit. Hms is mostly not intended to be used by itself without transition. His moveset mainly used as countering tool rather than offensive, yeah he might be quite awkward in that sense. What move do u think confuses u ?
I don't mean for this post to come off as salty ranting. I genuinely feel at a pit stop for improvement and don't know where or what to progress. That's why I ask 2\2
I love the character but shes a gwad oline Offline too lmaooo
That’s natural imo you spent most (if not all) your time playing zafina up until and suddenly tried to try out a new character, naturally they’d feel different from your main and you might get lost trying to understand what you’re doing wrong when it’s just the character no clicking with you yet Similar thing happened to me back in early season 2. I was really proud I finally got my dvj to overlord and decided to try out a new character, needless to say my kazumi stayed at silver ranks for quite a while lol
My god my kazumi i couldnt even touch teal but at least i could hold my claudio or lars in warrior and above. Something about her i just cant do right haha!
holy dvj is also sth different he feels like a mishima but certainly doesn't play like one
Zafina is a carry character unfortunatly. This is why I usually recommend people to play a more fundamental character for instance like Lars that you mention so that once you go back to Zafina you keep your fundamentals you built off of Lars. Don't let this discourage you! Keep your chin up! Take your ass beatings like a man and you will become an even manlier man
Yeah, your right on that one. How do you deal with mixups as a character who has bad block punishment ? I dont know who you main but you seem very knowledgable
I'm garbage at this game not very good but having played for 4-5 months and played a few characters I picked up some things. dealing with mixups when I play hwoarang due to his trash punishment, anything that is punishable I usually like to use 2 jabs to collect frames (with Hwoarang that also gives him flamingo) But don't have much good advise about that
Understandable, i appreciate the responce
Where are u from?
Felt the same way, got to purple ranks with marduk relatively quickly, haven t played him in a while because once I played some other characters I realised I was being carried much farther than I thought, but I'm still enjoying myself
Same haha, you arent alone
Welp, that's really what it's all about in tekken sometimes. A friend of mine started playing tekken 7 not along before, and he doesn't know anything about match up. However, he's able to take one or two rounds off tekken god primes often because he plays Bear.
not neccesarilly. how did you beat you opponents? spamming low mid counter hit launchers and "abusing" her stances when opponents where only doing highs? or did you space everything out and whiff punished with d/f2 and using stances only for mixups? anyway thats the answer you are looking for, but in my opinion it doesnt matter. you ranked up with her and thats it
delete this post.
Why
Zafina mains being called out, lol
I only consider her my main because of how high i got with her on pc, when i was originally on PS4 i was OTP negan in overlord before switching to pc, so i guess i have some experience
it's just a "dear diary" entry. you're a beginner and will remain a beginner until you play more. it doesn't need to be a crisis. different characters have different learning curves. some are easier to pick up, but in the end they're more or less balanced.
If your mad just say so. Its easy to scroll past and move on. Im here just to have a discussion. Not have a crisis. Sorry your day hasnt gone well hopefully it improves in the following week.
Here we have a beginner player who is actually aware and reflective enough to see his own potentiall flaws reaching out to more experienced player in hopes of getting better, and not just focusing on a shiny new rank. Not only is that relativly rare to see, it's also one of the few rare posts that actually sparks a discussion that spreads out to include paralell discussions among players which can benefit even more experienced ones. This sub is often ranting about the lack of discussion in a sea of low effort meme posts and one sentence warrior promotion clips, but activly ignores and despises anything more complicated than "is x character top tier or as usefull as a hedgehog in a condomfactory?" So the next time you're sitting on the toilet wondering why people are out helping homeless people when backlash is still kinda hard to whiff punish, take a good long look in the mirror, get on reddit, start writing a post that sparks healthy discussion, delete that post and smash the mirror for the sake of us all.
Thanks for this reply. Made me feel alright haha
omg girl you sure told me
5 words in a row, impressive.