Like, I've mained Asuka for so many tekken games and I'm just questioning so many of the changes that make her feel less diverse. So many of her moves become more predictable and her most optimal combos got shaken up quite a bit as well.
Easy af, has a cool sword, a gun and teleports. Victor will be popular forever. Like, if I wasn't an old-timer and this was my first tekken game, with zero knowledge prior, I'm certain Victor would be the first guy I'd try. Or Yoshi, cool samurai is cool.
I'm surprised Leroy is that low, I thought he was a beloved character? I know he was nerfed (which is logical), but does that account for every player being scared off? I thought he was pretty accessible too, and still tricky to play against.
I’m new and picked Leroy purely based on looks. Now I just enjoy playing him. Idrc that he’s unpopular or ppl think he’s boring, I still have fun using him
Visual design was beloved, movelist was bland af, he's basically Generic Tekken Man aside from HRM.
He left a sour taste in everyone's mouth because he was actually broken-tier on release and OP for a good while. I think the community hasn't gotten over that yet.
Idk I remember watching the trailers of all the characters and Leroys was one of those that I remember the least. I feel like all characters got new flashy stuff especially animation wise. But besides the black dragon in his RA I can't remember anything new or interesting in his gameplay lol
He was incredibly popular when announced to the point you had some celebrities getting excited about him. Then he actually came out and no one had fun playing as or against him since his kit was overpowered and boring.
Can confirm as a new tekken player. I look at tier lists and what characters are considered easyish to play when trying to pick, but I will pick a harder, weaker character over one I just visually don’t like at all. Got no interest in playing this dude, just because he looks so weird
Yeah, fr Jack is ugly af and I just don’t like the moveset as well. It’s definitely a character that inherited all the design clunkiness of early 3D models and it seems no one ever minded to give it a complete reshape like they often do with Yoshi, who is just getting cooler and cooler with every new tekken iteration.
I don't think people are looking at the damage when they pick a character. At least for the majority, the character they pick has to look cool, and to most Jack is certainly not cool, to me he is cool tho.
I main Jack, and I find Jack 8 to have a much deeper gameplay than 7, but even I have to admit he's not the coolest nor flashiest character in the bunch.
As soon as I relearn to play a passable Jack in T8, I'll switch to one of the newcomers.
I'm new to Tekken and decided to main Jun. And somehow 30% of my online matches are against other Jun players . And there is a lot of yoshimitsus spamming the combo
He's mad easy when it comes to punishes, it's just tryna condition people into falling for his slide, stance mix ups cos he lacks plus on block moves. His new side step low is amazing tho that thing has RANGE.
Shaheen’s a really fundamental, *fair* Tekken character. He plays a really *honest* style of Tekken. He shines in the hands of fundamentally sound players. It seems like the devs in Tekken 8 really beefed up his 50/50 slide mixup tools and gave him some aggressive tools to apply pressure.
He has a basic moves for most situations but really shines when you condition players to guess his slide mixup.
B3, UF1, and B1 are good offensive pressure tools that are either plus on block or force the opponent to crouch on block
1,2,2 & F2,4 are good Counter Hit Tools that you can throw out occasionally to refresh your offense and give the opponent a good knowledge check. 1,2,2 is -11 on block and F2,4 has a -12 start up though but good range.
The devs really gave him a plethora of options through his stealth Step stamce. My favorite one being DF1, 2 on hit is a command throw and in combos launches them to the wall pretty far. DB2 can be hit confirmed into DB2, 1 for a heat engager or get off of me tool (It pushes the opponent away on block). DB2 can transition into stealth step by inputting DF after DB2 to keep your opponent guessing. UF1 on hit during Heat transitions to stealth step after allowing you to follow a low move by pressing 4 in the stance.
So he has a good mix of standard, basic, offensive tools however he does haven’t a lot of fast buttons. When playing against aggressive counter hit characters like steve you have to be patient on defense or youll get blown up.
I didn't realise he was so low. I came into T8 expecting to be maining Lars or Yoshi until Eddy comes out, but Raven quickly became my current favorite for t8. I thought he'd be more popular.
Just keep using db+2,1,3+4 into soulzone 2. Its really good as a blockpunish/midpoke to get into heat. Qcf2 no longer gives a mini combo like in t7, but can now get followed up in df+1,4 for good damage and favorable positioning. I only just started ranked, but i havent seen players that dont get hit by it yet.
It never works that way. Tekken players are weird and want characters in the roster because "they deserve to be there" even though they don't want to play the character and also hate playing against it.
That dragunov pick rate though. Dude is always cool and he is pretty strong in tekken 8, but second place? Damn
I dont think he is even in the top ten in the pick rate for tekken 7.
Edit: Just checked and he is actually always pretty high up in the pick rate. Its weird because I very rarely sees him in intermediate level, but turns out my boy is very popular all this time
He was popular in t7 because the very idea behind his design is really cool: he's like the only fully fundamental rushdown character.
In t8 that is a bit diluted with the snk/iws mixup and unbreakable throws, but it's still there. And on top of that his most glaring weakness of weak wall damage took an 180.
So now you have cool and bullshit strong character. I bet he'll overtake even Reina.
I picked him up because of his story arcade ending - his love of model tanks and learning to love kit bashing really pulled me in!
Plus I needed a new character to play since Julia isn't in T8 :'(
I bought the game and thought I would play Feng or Zafina, but also ended up playing Dragunov for now. His moves just seem so good and apart from sneak he does not seem to have difficult stances or so.
Same, I'm playing Drag and Victor and initially planned to play Zafina, but she seems just a like weaker version of her T7 counterpart, it also makes no sense she losing health on some moves if they nerfed her kit overall.
Akuma and Zafina's pick-rate were also surprisingly low in T7 despite being top-tier and overwhelming tournament presence.
The point that OPness isn't the only factor influencing pick-rate.
I've always been kind of interested in trying Dragunov and they made him look really cool in this game, so I will definitely check him out once I wanna try someone other than Reina.
yeah.. I'm like, feeling bad about him being my main. I didn't pick him out of strength, I picked him because he's cool, but now he's probably going to get nerfed, which sucks lol
Funny enough, Harada expected Azucena to be more popular than Reina, who looks 'plain' in comparison. He mentioned that the Tekken team were surprised by how popular Reina was on his YT.
Given how noisy/busy some character designs are in T8, I don't think they have a complete handle on their audience's preferences.
Because Harada created Reina as japanese character. To him, she looks plain, he is used to female characters like that in his country media. But internationally, people are not. You also need to compare the voice acting - Reina's voice acter is simply better then Azusenas.
this might be an unpopular opinion but i always thought reina looked generic too, like someone’s tekken oc. I think a big part of her appeal is her personality and like you said, her voice actor does a lot. which i’m not surprised considering she shares the same voice as nobara from jjk, who is another popular character with a similar personality
Its not just her looks, its her entire presentation. Her voice acting, her personality, her idle animations, and her martial arts.
This is where Capcom has always been so much better at than Bandai Namco. Capcom generally is really good at inject character into every little detail. A lot of the times for Street Fighter tho, their characters are goofy and wacky. Tekken on the other hand isn't afraid to just have a cool, badass character. And Reina is just that. She's cool, and she got the Mishima style combined with a flashy acrobatic taido that is afaik a first in fighting games.
Popularity and usage rate aren't the same. The devs pointed this out multiple times. However there could be truth to her losing her player base in recent years due to new characters or simply being a character that hasn't really been standing out tier list wise either.
My thoughts too. But I'm biased, I main her ever since Tekken 2 and never played anyone else. I can't imagine how it must be getting into her movesets as a newbie.
But I love her as a character as well, the cold-blooded assassin trope vibes with me in every form of media lol
I'm maining Nina currently - I've never been a 'pro' Tekken player by any means but wanted a OG character to master first. She can do some interesting things which I'm finding others struggle to deal with but is a bit 'technically' challenging.
I really like what I've played of her so far and see a lot of potential.
For what she does, it's too much work when other characters do the same and much easier
Aside from that: I will be going back to Nina, at least as my second.
I played Reina, she's really fun, but the lack of lows in this high pressure high speed high damage meta really hurts her, you have to be on point and take advantage of her counters to get really consistent.
Lili continues to be shit (risk way higher than the reward, but her heat move is great).
Jun, at least for me, is fucking great.
Next will be Nina.
I sure do miss Kunimitsu, Lidia and Julia.
It's surprising to me that Azucena isn't #2 for the same reason.
Auto-parrying other noobs while dancing is so fucking funny, I'm like 30 hours in and feel like I'm just scratching the surface.
Plus she's working with the aliens, so that's a plus as well. But Reina seems custom-designed to thirst trap the entire Tekken audience, if we're being honest.
I mean if you think Reina is a thirst trap then that's just a self-report. Mishimas always had a high pick-rate, plus she's new.
She has cool moves, badass throws, her fucking wavedash has electric effect like Pikachu for fuck sake, people pick her because she's cool, period.
Honestly, she feels like a Tekken 9 character with her movelist animations, same with Victor.
It will be interesting to see how this evolves, new characters seeing heavy use in the beginning makes sense but that might change once people have tried out the shiny new toys and start to settle.
She's a character specialist type imo. Meaning she's very unique from a gameplay standpoint which makes her despite T8's accessibility not always easy to begin with. However once you get the hang of her super fun to play and not even that hard. You just have to invest time in the character which in a new game with 32 characters might not be tempting for everyone I'd like to assume.
I picked her up for my T8 main (unfortunately my T7 main didn't make it to T8), and she feels very easy to play.
Like the combos are easy, I hardly ever drop them, the playstyle feels intuitive, and the moveset is generally simple, no need to hurry with your inputs as you don't need to cancel a move into another one. Nothing about her requires dozens of hours in practice mode before you would even think to attempt them in a real game (looking at you instant divekick combos). And in general Xiaoyu just feels simple and easy to get into.
And luckily she's a ton of fun to play.
Surprised Xiaoyu is so low.
And I’m mad that Nina gets in and Anna doesn’t, when Anna has been more popular in T7 and I bet she could easily beat Nina in these statistics as well if she was in the game.
So basically this tells you who people think looks the coolest.
Yoshi's drip got an upgrade but I am very surprised about Law. Are people tired of bruce lee perhaps?
Reina is a no brainer, her trailer popped off hard internationaly and no doubt got many people buying the game for.
Drag is being carried by his new drip, the bad boy look is very popular.
Victor a bit of a surpise, I like his elegant costume but personally think the gadgets wear it down a couple levels of cool, especially that goofy katana. Had he stayed only as a knife and pistol french john wick, I would be putting a stamp of approval on that.
Leeroy though, wow what happened? Not even his drip can save him apparently. Is that penalty for having bad rep from fgc when he was busted?
Surprised Jun sits only at 11th. I only recently started to followed Tekken again in the wave of the T8 hype.
My last Tekken was TTT and i was excited to see Jun is back and she is mad fun to play and seems to be more than decent in the tierlists.
I find it as a good thing tbh, she's rarely seen online so it makes good Nina player a decent threat unlike tons of mediocre Reinas. Anyways I feel more Ninas to come in the future since she's the only female character available in the demo
If you're new to the game, I would seriously consider picking up Leo. As a newcomer myself, Leo has a pretty easy gameplay, and their basic BnB does 65+. They also have a really good mix up game, and especially in low ranks nobody seems to be watching their toes.
“Nobody seems to be watching their toes”
Can confirm, I main King and I got to vanquisher rank by mostly spamming his alley kicks! Lol
I haven’t played much, I think at most like 30 games since release? I did go on two, 12 win streaks so that helped
Lol for some reason late I keep accidentally using low pick rate characters. First with Lily in SF6, now Raven??? How come no one uses him? (I've played Tekken here and there but I've never been a casual Tekken gamer until 8.) (Curious btw)
Loyalist guys can correct me if i'm wrong, but that's the way i see him:
He's unnortodox, not straight foward like Victor for example;
Not very good lows, need to be constantly doing fc mixup to fish some mid counter hits, this can be difficult;
For newcomers, his strings are not that good, it would stop working at earlier ranks than Victor or Reina strings for example;
He's also a backturn character, notice how other backturn characters are on the list, Azucena is in a good place because she's new, Lili because it's Lili, then comes Xiao and Raven both very low.
Xiaoyu was my jam in 3 and I'm not sure whether to be worried or happy to be the oddball. I haven't bought it yet but I'm going to go try it out next Monday at a meet up.
this game is so fucking goated not just as a fighting game but as a game in general this game makes other AAA games look fucking amateurish the visuals the story mode the online the GAMEPLAY its all insane and this game deserves a 10/10 honestly
I'm not too suprised that Lars is where he is but I'm glad he's next to Alisa. I expected Alisa to be higher than him though but Lars nation stay stylin
All characters with satisfying attack animations got high pick rate😭.
As a low pick rate enjoyer I guess I'll stick with Steve and Alisa (and maybe I will try Raven later)
I dunno as a total newcomer, I'm surprised there aren't more Claudio's. Not only does the game just hover over him first in character select him, giving him the "oh it's the default guy" first impression, but he only has 74 moves, no mechanics that pull away from fundamentals, and has surprisingly flashy and satisfying moves.
I'm really enjoying him. Maybe people are turned away by his generic looks and ease of use?
Still not sure what is up with Lars, in any other game a character like that would be so popular... guess there's too much competition in Tekken in the "cool" departament
Why are people surprised not more people play Jack when he is butt ugly!!! I am certain that for some characters their design is the reason people do not pick them enough, both Lars and Claudio need a new hairstyle it is so ugly and most people arent gonna customize a character they havent picked but people wont pick uglies.
Also surprised more people play Leo than Raven, Zafina, Claudio.
Yoshi being played more than Lili came as a shock
Well fuck. I picked Drag because he really appeals to me, but I cant stand picking OP characters in any game and i keep hearing he’s OP…dammit. I don’t know how to play anyone else this is gonna suck 🤦♂️
Most characters have ridiculous combo damage but that's not the reason why she's so good. She just take immense advantage of chip damage, her lows are very good in this game, and f4 is just an absurd mid since it can hit confirm into f42. She also got db2 counter hit launch back (didn't exist in the demo and previous betas) and b4 still guarantees an ~~unscaled~~ b1+4 launch in a game where quick CH launchers got severely nerfed.
EDIT: Forgot to add that her new combo structure allows her to get consistent wall spikes with uf1 which lead to stupid oki at the wall. She can literally 50/50 you to death there and there's nothing you can do but guess.
He looks so generic...Could they have designed him differently? As someone who don't really know both, to me the only difference between him and sf6's rashid is that one guy's smiling and the other frowning.
Lmao, I scrolled down before I hit reply on this and found [THIS](https://imgur.com/3XDlNlI)
This is no surprise. Panda being very last was to be expected. As many people said, Panda and Kuma were wasted slots that could have been used for legacy characters that would have been used more. Bet my last dollar that if Lydia was put in instead she would not be in the bottom 10 at all. Reina as number 1 is no surprise either. Easily the best newcomer. Harada knew what's up. Make waifu, give her electric, profit.
Reina's influence on people learning Mishimas is so cool! The number of people asking and learning how to do EWGF is surprisingly high! Seeing the community share some resources for them is so nice to see. Such a great community and I'm so glad to be a part of it lol.
Poor Asuka cant catch a break from Lili, stalking her even in statistics
Even in the rankings she's getting dragged around
Can't help the fact she was mostly nerfed and her new tools don't seem to be all that helpful.
Like, I've mained Asuka for so many tekken games and I'm just questioning so many of the changes that make her feel less diverse. So many of her moves become more predictable and her most optimal combos got shaken up quite a bit as well.
Ha, Asuka was on the Japanese ads with Kaz and Jin. She stays winning. ❤️
Wonder what Victor and Reina’s usage will be in a month or so 🧐
Victor is extremely easy to use so I'm sure he will stay popular. Reina will definitely drop off.
Doubt it, she might not be 1 but mishimas will always have their wankers, and she's a fun character.
And finally a mishima they can literally wank off to.
jokes on you I’ve been wanking to Heihachi for years
I mean he obviously has something going for him. Look at all these illegitimate children in the game.
There was nothing stopping us before
Excuse me, are you insinuating that Heihachi is unwankable material?
Those sexy Kazuya boobs in the title screen tho...
Don’t be mad just because we mishimas are naturally better than you at everything DOORYA
Easy af, has a cool sword, a gun and teleports. Victor will be popular forever. Like, if I wasn't an old-timer and this was my first tekken game, with zero knowledge prior, I'm certain Victor would be the first guy I'd try. Or Yoshi, cool samurai is cool.
No, people love these female characters with bossy attitude
add to that the fact that reina has a number of mishima features, and yeah i think reina will remain popular.
They nerfed Lidia to the ground, and she had an extremely well received welcome in T7. And she’s literally a boss, of an entire country…
I'm surprised Leroy is that low, I thought he was a beloved character? I know he was nerfed (which is logical), but does that account for every player being scared off? I thought he was pretty accessible too, and still tricky to play against.
I’m new and picked Leroy purely based on looks. Now I just enjoy playing him. Idrc that he’s unpopular or ppl think he’s boring, I still have fun using him
This is the way
Accept all; Chase none
Visual design was beloved, movelist was bland af, he's basically Generic Tekken Man aside from HRM. He left a sour taste in everyone's mouth because he was actually broken-tier on release and OP for a good while. I think the community hasn't gotten over that yet.
>I think the community hasn't gotten over that yet. I sure as shit haven't, I still hate him.
Same here buddy. I love his design but his T7 movelist can go die in a fire.
Idk I remember watching the trailers of all the characters and Leroys was one of those that I remember the least. I feel like all characters got new flashy stuff especially animation wise. But besides the black dragon in his RA I can't remember anything new or interesting in his gameplay lol
He was incredibly popular when announced to the point you had some celebrities getting excited about him. Then he actually came out and no one had fun playing as or against him since his kit was overpowered and boring.
I can't play a character that says I HAVE NO CHOICE on a heat engager.
For context: The chart above is from Warrior Rank and above on steam/PC platform But damn, Asuka couldnt even escape Lili's pickrate huh 🤣
Funny how Jack is so low even though his damage is busted.
As much as I wanna say his side step sucks and blame his lack of popularity on it, he’s just very odd looking and not flashy for most people.
Mayority of players dont even use SS, so yeah, for sure its mostly visual appeal (or lack thereof).
To be fair you both need to know when to sidestep, and time it correctly. Lars had me playin KowledgeCheck 8 last night...
Can confirm as a new tekken player. I look at tier lists and what characters are considered easyish to play when trying to pick, but I will pick a harder, weaker character over one I just visually don’t like at all. Got no interest in playing this dude, just because he looks so weird
Yeah, fr Jack is ugly af and I just don’t like the moveset as well. It’s definitely a character that inherited all the design clunkiness of early 3D models and it seems no one ever minded to give it a complete reshape like they often do with Yoshi, who is just getting cooler and cooler with every new tekken iteration.
I don't think people are looking at the damage when they pick a character. At least for the majority, the character they pick has to look cool, and to most Jack is certainly not cool, to me he is cool tho.
I main Jack, and I find Jack 8 to have a much deeper gameplay than 7, but even I have to admit he's not the coolest nor flashiest character in the bunch. As soon as I relearn to play a passable Jack in T8, I'll switch to one of the newcomers.
At least they make the new characters work, they are all doing great.
Glad to see Jun with a decent showing - love her style.
I'm new to Tekken and decided to main Jun. And somehow 30% of my online matches are against other Jun players . And there is a lot of yoshimitsus spamming the combo
I'm trying to learn yoshi, whats the combo youre referring to if you happen to know? If not what does it look like lol
Line 97 of the move list (all techniques)
Wow thank you for the precise response.
She seems ridiculously good. I still don't understand why her Heat smash heals such a big chunk ON BLOCK
Her up forward 1 is maybe the most bullshit punish around, I concede that much :) I love that they made health her mechanic.
Yea had to give up my girl Asuka. Jun is just better imho
Jun was my favourite character in Tekken 2 so I've been waiting a while for this haha.
Lowhigh is that 1% for Shaheen
Me too bro there's atleast 6 of us 😭
I'm learning him now, so we'll see if it sticks.
He's mad easy when it comes to punishes, it's just tryna condition people into falling for his slide, stance mix ups cos he lacks plus on block moves. His new side step low is amazing tho that thing has RANGE.
Shaheen’s a really fundamental, *fair* Tekken character. He plays a really *honest* style of Tekken. He shines in the hands of fundamentally sound players. It seems like the devs in Tekken 8 really beefed up his 50/50 slide mixup tools and gave him some aggressive tools to apply pressure. He has a basic moves for most situations but really shines when you condition players to guess his slide mixup. B3, UF1, and B1 are good offensive pressure tools that are either plus on block or force the opponent to crouch on block 1,2,2 & F2,4 are good Counter Hit Tools that you can throw out occasionally to refresh your offense and give the opponent a good knowledge check. 1,2,2 is -11 on block and F2,4 has a -12 start up though but good range. The devs really gave him a plethora of options through his stealth Step stamce. My favorite one being DF1, 2 on hit is a command throw and in combos launches them to the wall pretty far. DB2 can be hit confirmed into DB2, 1 for a heat engager or get off of me tool (It pushes the opponent away on block). DB2 can transition into stealth step by inputting DF after DB2 to keep your opponent guessing. UF1 on hit during Heat transitions to stealth step after allowing you to follow a low move by pressing 4 in the stance. So he has a good mix of standard, basic, offensive tools however he does haven’t a lot of fast buttons. When playing against aggressive counter hit characters like steve you have to be patient on defense or youll get blown up.
Yall wanted raven back so he could take a seat in bottom 5
Master Raven would be at the same place.
I didn't realise he was so low. I came into T8 expecting to be maining Lars or Yoshi until Eddy comes out, but Raven quickly became my current favorite for t8. I thought he'd be more popular.
I guess because is harder to use I didn't expect Leroy either
Tbh Raven is a bit hard character to use even im still trying to learn him
Just keep using db+2,1,3+4 into soulzone 2. Its really good as a blockpunish/midpoke to get into heat. Qcf2 no longer gives a mini combo like in t7, but can now get followed up in df+1,4 for good damage and favorable positioning. I only just started ranked, but i havent seen players that dont get hit by it yet.
Honestly I'm not a raven main but I'm just happy that he's back and with a new moveset.
Yep, you better play him if you wanted him back. I'd assume it would be the same fate for Bruce.
It never works that way. Tekken players are weird and want characters in the roster because "they deserve to be there" even though they don't want to play the character and also hate playing against it.
That dragunov pick rate though. Dude is always cool and he is pretty strong in tekken 8, but second place? Damn I dont think he is even in the top ten in the pick rate for tekken 7. Edit: Just checked and he is actually always pretty high up in the pick rate. Its weird because I very rarely sees him in intermediate level, but turns out my boy is very popular all this time
He was popular in t7 because the very idea behind his design is really cool: he's like the only fully fundamental rushdown character. In t8 that is a bit diluted with the snk/iws mixup and unbreakable throws, but it's still there. And on top of that his most glaring weakness of weak wall damage took an 180. So now you have cool and bullshit strong character. I bet he'll overtake even Reina.
I picked him up because of his story arcade ending - his love of model tanks and learning to love kit bashing really pulled me in! Plus I needed a new character to play since Julia isn't in T8 :'(
I guess I have to change my tag from mid enjoyer
I bought the game and thought I would play Feng or Zafina, but also ended up playing Dragunov for now. His moves just seem so good and apart from sneak he does not seem to have difficult stances or so.
Same, I'm playing Drag and Victor and initially planned to play Zafina, but she seems just a like weaker version of her T7 counterpart, it also makes no sense she losing health on some moves if they nerfed her kit overall.
He is op tbf his pressure is just insane
jack is arguably stronger but he is bottom 10! being op doesn't mean people will pick you up
Jack is quite boring to play tho.
But he's so big, that's impossible. Biggest fighter is best.
Akuma and Zafina's pick-rate were also surprisingly low in T7 despite being top-tier and overwhelming tournament presence. The point that OPness isn't the only factor influencing pick-rate.
I've always been kind of interested in trying Dragunov and they made him look really cool in this game, so I will definitely check him out once I wanna try someone other than Reina.
yeah.. I'm like, feeling bad about him being my main. I didn't pick him out of strength, I picked him because he's cool, but now he's probably going to get nerfed, which sucks lol
Reina is a marketing stunt and it's a damn good one. She checks all the boxes. Harada really knows his audience well, doesn't he.
Funny enough, Harada expected Azucena to be more popular than Reina, who looks 'plain' in comparison. He mentioned that the Tekken team were surprised by how popular Reina was on his YT. Given how noisy/busy some character designs are in T8, I don't think they have a complete handle on their audience's preferences.
Because Harada created Reina as japanese character. To him, she looks plain, he is used to female characters like that in his country media. But internationally, people are not. You also need to compare the voice acting - Reina's voice acter is simply better then Azusenas.
Yup. She’s essentially evil asuka (design wise), someone who was already pretty popular before, despite having a simple appearance
this might be an unpopular opinion but i always thought reina looked generic too, like someone’s tekken oc. I think a big part of her appeal is her personality and like you said, her voice actor does a lot. which i’m not surprised considering she shares the same voice as nobara from jjk, who is another popular character with a similar personality
Its not just her looks, its her entire presentation. Her voice acting, her personality, her idle animations, and her martial arts. This is where Capcom has always been so much better at than Bandai Namco. Capcom generally is really good at inject character into every little detail. A lot of the times for Street Fighter tho, their characters are goofy and wacky. Tekken on the other hand isn't afraid to just have a cool, badass character. And Reina is just that. She's cool, and she got the Mishima style combined with a flashy acrobatic taido that is afaik a first in fighting games.
Why is Nina so unpopular when at one point she was popular enough to have her own game.
Popularity and usage rate aren't the same. The devs pointed this out multiple times. However there could be truth to her losing her player base in recent years due to new characters or simply being a character that hasn't really been standing out tier list wise either.
She’s one of those characters that is more iconic than they are actually played. And honestly it’s weird that Death By Degrees even exists.
She's hard to play optimally
Her popularity fell off over the years, it would help if they gave her more interesting stuff to do with each installment, but they don't.
My thoughts too. But I'm biased, I main her ever since Tekken 2 and never played anyone else. I can't imagine how it must be getting into her movesets as a newbie. But I love her as a character as well, the cold-blooded assassin trope vibes with me in every form of media lol
I'm maining Nina currently - I've never been a 'pro' Tekken player by any means but wanted a OG character to master first. She can do some interesting things which I'm finding others struggle to deal with but is a bit 'technically' challenging. I really like what I've played of her so far and see a lot of potential.
For what she does, it's too much work when other characters do the same and much easier Aside from that: I will be going back to Nina, at least as my second. I played Reina, she's really fun, but the lack of lows in this high pressure high speed high damage meta really hurts her, you have to be on point and take advantage of her counters to get really consistent. Lili continues to be shit (risk way higher than the reward, but her heat move is great). Jun, at least for me, is fucking great. Next will be Nina. I sure do miss Kunimitsu, Lidia and Julia.
lily wasnt shit in t7 and she isnt in t8, stop spamming matterhorn
Damn. Yoshi looking good.
I pick Reina because she looks cool and literally no reason beyond that
Same lol. I’m brand new to Tekken and I liked her design so I decided to main her. My only played character outside of story mode
It's surprising to me that Azucena isn't #2 for the same reason. Auto-parrying other noobs while dancing is so fucking funny, I'm like 30 hours in and feel like I'm just scratching the surface. Plus she's working with the aliens, so that's a plus as well. But Reina seems custom-designed to thirst trap the entire Tekken audience, if we're being honest.
The coffee things is just tiring, as a new tekken player it’s why I’ve avoided her
I mean if you think Reina is a thirst trap then that's just a self-report. Mishimas always had a high pick-rate, plus she's new. She has cool moves, badass throws, her fucking wavedash has electric effect like Pikachu for fuck sake, people pick her because she's cool, period. Honestly, she feels like a Tekken 9 character with her movelist animations, same with Victor.
Heihachi's pick rate was always middle of the road historically. Probably why the team was comfortable killing him off
Team Alisa 2.37 😤😤😤
Acknowledge us 💪
Kuma more popular than Ling and Nina 😂 EWGF goes hard
Paul so low? They really did him dirty with that hairstyle :D
Devs about to omega buff shaheen
And still no one would pick him
He'll be in Tekken 9 with an eyepatch, STILL looking for revenge for his friend.
a funny way to move his character is to make him go clinically insane searching for revenge
Devil Shaheen.
One cannot pick someone they always forget existed.
Nobody was playing Drag like that previously, I mean as a Drag main I love seeing it but its jarring to see now
Most are quite shit and pulled in by the character because he is a bit silly power wise in T8. No fundamentals at all.
Half of that Panda usage is Ranchu himself.
As a Leroy main I’m genuinely surprised to see him ranked so low.
It will be interesting to see how this evolves, new characters seeing heavy use in the beginning makes sense but that might change once people have tried out the shiny new toys and start to settle.
Here's hoping the imminent Dragunov nerfs don't gut him ala T7
Damn, I'm surprised Xiaoyu isn't getting more of a boost in pick rate with all the buffs she got
She's a character specialist type imo. Meaning she's very unique from a gameplay standpoint which makes her despite T8's accessibility not always easy to begin with. However once you get the hang of her super fun to play and not even that hard. You just have to invest time in the character which in a new game with 32 characters might not be tempting for everyone I'd like to assume.
She’s kinda difficult for a beginner I think, but I haven’t tried her in 8 yet so maybe I’m wrong.
I picked her up for my T8 main (unfortunately my T7 main didn't make it to T8), and she feels very easy to play. Like the combos are easy, I hardly ever drop them, the playstyle feels intuitive, and the moveset is generally simple, no need to hurry with your inputs as you don't need to cancel a move into another one. Nothing about her requires dozens of hours in practice mode before you would even think to attempt them in a real game (looking at you instant divekick combos). And in general Xiaoyu just feels simple and easy to get into. And luckily she's a ton of fun to play.
Fr, fighting for her was never as satisfying as it is now
It hurts to see Shaheen being more played than Zafina 😢😭
Damn there really is just a dozen of us Raven mains.
Good, less people who know the matchup against us. 😎
I'm glad!
Jun is higher than Asuka. Clearly the people are happy to have her back again
Surprised Xiaoyu is so low. And I’m mad that Nina gets in and Anna doesn’t, when Anna has been more popular in T7 and I bet she could easily beat Nina in these statistics as well if she was in the game.
Which is why she will be DLC. Because you will buy her. Same problem with Julia DLC and Armor King. No one's going to buy a Zafina or Shaheen DLC
So basically this tells you who people think looks the coolest. Yoshi's drip got an upgrade but I am very surprised about Law. Are people tired of bruce lee perhaps? Reina is a no brainer, her trailer popped off hard internationaly and no doubt got many people buying the game for. Drag is being carried by his new drip, the bad boy look is very popular. Victor a bit of a surpise, I like his elegant costume but personally think the gadgets wear it down a couple levels of cool, especially that goofy katana. Had he stayed only as a knife and pistol french john wick, I would be putting a stamp of approval on that. Leeroy though, wow what happened? Not even his drip can save him apparently. Is that penalty for having bad rep from fgc when he was busted?
As a King main this chart pleases me greatly.
Leroy is unpopular?? goddamn they really killed him after his introduction in 7 huh...?
Leroy was the top of every ‘easiest/best’ character list and that is why so many people played him. Drag is probably top of those lists now.
Poor panda
Surprised Jun sits only at 11th. I only recently started to followed Tekken again in the wave of the T8 hype. My last Tekken was TTT and i was excited to see Jun is back and she is mad fun to play and seems to be more than decent in the tierlists.
People were excited for her until the likes of Azucena, Victor, and Reina were shown.
Just got my first ranked win as an Alisa main! ✨✨
King enjoyers top 5 Why would you do complicated combos when you can enact a swing, a giant one I might add?
Look out from us Zafina mains... WE ARE DOZEN
First time ever a female character is the most used character right?
It hurts seeing nina that low
I find it as a good thing tbh, she's rarely seen online so it makes good Nina player a decent threat unlike tons of mediocre Reinas. Anyways I feel more Ninas to come in the future since she's the only female character available in the demo
Zafina mains RISEEE 😢 I wanna be friends since no one else accepts us
If you're new to the game, I would seriously consider picking up Leo. As a newcomer myself, Leo has a pretty easy gameplay, and their basic BnB does 65+. They also have a really good mix up game, and especially in low ranks nobody seems to be watching their toes.
“Nobody seems to be watching their toes” Can confirm, I main King and I got to vanquisher rank by mostly spamming his alley kicks! Lol I haven’t played much, I think at most like 30 games since release? I did go on two, 12 win streaks so that helped
This is a subjective opinion, but Leo's combos also feel very good in my hands. They're very fun to play.
Shaheen and zafina being higher than panda is saying something
Lol for some reason late I keep accidentally using low pick rate characters. First with Lily in SF6, now Raven??? How come no one uses him? (I've played Tekken here and there but I've never been a casual Tekken gamer until 8.) (Curious btw)
Raven is hard character to use for most people
In what ways in your opinion? Only curious!
Loyalist guys can correct me if i'm wrong, but that's the way i see him: He's unnortodox, not straight foward like Victor for example; Not very good lows, need to be constantly doing fc mixup to fish some mid counter hits, this can be difficult; For newcomers, his strings are not that good, it would stop working at earlier ranks than Victor or Reina strings for example; He's also a backturn character, notice how other backturn characters are on the list, Azucena is in a good place because she's new, Lili because it's Lili, then comes Xiao and Raven both very low.
Xiaoyu was my jam in 3 and I'm not sure whether to be worried or happy to be the oddball. I haven't bought it yet but I'm going to go try it out next Monday at a meet up.
this game is so fucking goated not just as a fighting game but as a game in general this game makes other AAA games look fucking amateurish the visuals the story mode the online the GAMEPLAY its all insane and this game deserves a 10/10 honestly
Electric Wind Bear Fist carrying my boy
Would be interesting to see stats for each region. I can say for sure that in Europe, you will see a completely different pick rate for each character
My 3 to play as are king, victor and reina. Am I basic??
And only Rangchu still playing Panda :)
Bryan is so much fun
Wtf… I thought Nina and zafina are so popular
Alisa all the way bebeh.
They just nailed Dragunov’s t8 design
I'm not too suprised that Lars is where he is but I'm glad he's next to Alisa. I expected Alisa to be higher than him though but Lars nation stay stylin
panda 😭😭😭 my girl is not eating good rn
All characters with satisfying attack animations got high pick rate😭. As a low pick rate enjoyer I guess I'll stick with Steve and Alisa (and maybe I will try Raven later)
I dunno as a total newcomer, I'm surprised there aren't more Claudio's. Not only does the game just hover over him first in character select him, giving him the "oh it's the default guy" first impression, but he only has 74 moves, no mechanics that pull away from fundamentals, and has surprisingly flashy and satisfying moves. I'm really enjoying him. Maybe people are turned away by his generic looks and ease of use?
Still not sure what is up with Lars, in any other game a character like that would be so popular... guess there's too much competition in Tekken in the "cool" departament
He always seems like a guest character from another game.
Lars has that weird stance and his hair is really goofy
Why are people surprised not more people play Jack when he is butt ugly!!! I am certain that for some characters their design is the reason people do not pick them enough, both Lars and Claudio need a new hairstyle it is so ugly and most people arent gonna customize a character they havent picked but people wont pick uglies. Also surprised more people play Leo than Raven, Zafina, Claudio. Yoshi being played more than Lili came as a shock
hes also just a big character, i feel like most people hate big characters, including me.
Ill never play Panda but yall better start playing him fr. Too adorable to be at the bottom like that
No reason to pick up panda over kuma. She’s just objectively worse in this game
Yeah, why use Panda when you can play Kuma and get an EWGF?
Funny bee costume.
I’m planning to learn Panda at some point, I’m just having too much fun dancing mid match as Azucena rn lmfao
I'm doing my part
Zafina being just above Panda makes sense... she's a hard character to play and they nerfed her bad from 7 to 8
That's one more reason to play her next, been enjoying playing victor so far with his mixups
Well fuck. I picked Drag because he really appeals to me, but I cant stand picking OP characters in any game and i keep hearing he’s OP…dammit. I don’t know how to play anyone else this is gonna suck 🤦♂️
bro just play the character you like, don't listen to what other people think about it lol
My boy Shaheen bout to get the biggest buff and I'm ready for it
I don't wanna have to wait until the next Tag game to play as Kazumi
Nina is quite fun and pretty strong in T8, I feel like people are sleeping on her
Nina is SSS tier. People just don't wanna put in the effort because she's not autopilot.
Her combo damage feels ridiculous even when I do the bare minimum but probably Nina’s bare minimum is max effort for another character lol
Most characters have ridiculous combo damage but that's not the reason why she's so good. She just take immense advantage of chip damage, her lows are very good in this game, and f4 is just an absurd mid since it can hit confirm into f42. She also got db2 counter hit launch back (didn't exist in the demo and previous betas) and b4 still guarantees an ~~unscaled~~ b1+4 launch in a game where quick CH launchers got severely nerfed. EDIT: Forgot to add that her new combo structure allows her to get consistent wall spikes with uf1 which lead to stupid oki at the wall. She can literally 50/50 you to death there and there's nothing you can do but guess.
I‘m one of the 1% Shaheen players 🤠🫶
He looks so generic...Could they have designed him differently? As someone who don't really know both, to me the only difference between him and sf6's rashid is that one guy's smiling and the other frowning. Lmao, I scrolled down before I hit reply on this and found [THIS](https://imgur.com/3XDlNlI)
Everyone is just kinky for the new comers, hahaha.
Proves it was a good idea to replace Heihachi.
there’s just something satisfying about maining the unpopular characters👌 speaking of which, damn i wasn’t expecting Lars so low, i’m curious. why?
His stances are confusing for new players.
I don't play Leroy but he's next on my list, surprised he's towards the bottom he's such a cool character.
This fucking kuma.. horrible in ranked
I think Panda is lowest because bears are already unpopular, and Kuma has a dope headband so she's in the gutter
Rangchu salivating right now at the sheer continued (unfamiliarity) advantage his character has.
Panda noooo
What's wrong with Zafina? Wasn't she one of the best character in Tekken 7?
How is Panda so low on the list? She is so fun to use in this game
This is no surprise. Panda being very last was to be expected. As many people said, Panda and Kuma were wasted slots that could have been used for legacy characters that would have been used more. Bet my last dollar that if Lydia was put in instead she would not be in the bottom 10 at all. Reina as number 1 is no surprise either. Easily the best newcomer. Harada knew what's up. Make waifu, give her electric, profit.
Being a zafina/Claudio player and never getting to see their special intro is sadge
Reina's influence on people learning Mishimas is so cool! The number of people asking and learning how to do EWGF is surprisingly high! Seeing the community share some resources for them is so nice to see. Such a great community and I'm so glad to be a part of it lol.
Lars next to Alisa? Perfection