Tekken 8

Victor:

Will definitely be at least mid-tier

Has many moves to open up the opponent

People say that his lows aren't very good, but it's surprisingly difficult to block them

Not sure how strong he will be after his grab is patched, but as of now, he is top tier

He doesn't have anything like a hellsweep, but his lows that chip at the opponent are very good

People are coming up with strategies to counter his moves, but I think he's still an ok character because his generic tools are not bad

Reina:

Has a bugged wall combo (note: likely talking about this combo)

Strong combo damage

Best ewgf properties of any of the Mishimas in that it seem to evade moves much more often, at least based on my personal experience

ewgk being safe is good

Heat smash is fast and long ranged

Lows are launch punishable, but difficult to block in practice, it's difficult to block her hellsweep

Her f4's range is very long, annoying move

Playing against Reina is hectic, ff2, spin, follow up hit, ff2, high kick... it's just hectic

Absolutely can't be described as bad, definitely very good

Azucena:

More time needed to evaluate

When I played against Atif, Azucena wasn't terrifying to face or anything like that

Shaheen:

Will get better with time

Once currently broken characters get nerfed, he will climb the tiers

Law:

Very good, no bad aspects, combos are good etc

Leroy:

Most people are saying Leroy is not very good

Leo:

Looks very good, though not many people are currently playing Leo

Combo damage and wall damage have been improved across the board

Only weakness is 1,4 forces transition to KNK on block

Claudio:

Good, all his stuff is good except ff1+2

Zafina:

Low-tier. People aren't saying Zafina's very good, Arslan also doesn't think she is good

Paul:

Very good. Most of his heat engagers are safe on block

His mixups when he's in heat are really strong. Deathfist essentially becomes rage drive deathfist from Tekken 7, and his heat smash is a wall-breaking low and only -12. Best low heat smash in the game

Raven:

Not bad, but not sure if he is top-tier

Panda:

Worse than Kuma, due to differences in their heat smash

Asuka:

Just average

Lee:

Good. Wall combos, punishes are all stronger, strong mixups. Everything is great other than his slide no longer knocking down

Xiaoyu:

Crazy character. Too strong during heat

Wall combo damage is absolutely insane. Nearly 40 damage?

Low in heat knocks down and is only -12

With heat on, all her mids are plus on block. You just have to stand there and block, can't move. Absolutely infuriating, the opponent doesn't get a chance to play the game, heat mids are +6, +9 etc on block

AoP evades better now, when you try to approach with a move it just gets evaded, frustrating to play against

Jin:

After having played against Jin players, I think he's not bad

Magic 4s are gone, but Jin's has a good followup

Kazuya:

Good. His combos are unstable, he doesn't have a tornado move as good as his screw move in Tekken 7, so sometimes the combo just drops. Other than that, he is good

Nina:

Good. Has always been good, but hard to play

Hwoarang:

Feels like a completely different character compared to Tekken 7 Hwoarang

Can't pressure and overwhelm the opponent like in Tekken 7, with things like rfs b3 not launching anymore (note: is now a heat engager), but his low-high string knocking down in heat is super good

jfsr being safe as always is good

Previously, many of his pressuring options were steppable but now, he has a lot of homing moves from his stances that that make stepping him difficult while being pressured

Unfortunate that ws3 is now unsafe (note: -12 now)

Good character, but you have to throw out your Tekken 7 playstyle when you play Tekken 8 Hwoarang

Feng:

Kenpo hopkick got nerfed to -16 in Tekken 7, but it's back to -14 now. That already is a big change, buffing kenpo

Good combos, good pressure

In CBT, Feng's fc df4,1 used to cause him to stagger when it was blocked, like a hellsweep, but it doesn't do that anymore and everyone is spamming it now

Yoshimitsu:

Definitely not a bad character

Flash is infuriating to play against

His combos have changed to become very stable and have good damage

As everyone knows, when he combos, about 4 hits of the combo heal him, so he heals, deals tons of damage and wall carries far

Kuma:

Good

His heat smash being i13 is very good

Wall combo does a ton of damage, will probably get patched

If he launches you, he can get about 100 damage on you

Lili:

People think Lili is very good

Combo damage is on the stronger side

Sidestep is very good, easy to evade moves. Sidestep has been buffed compared to Tekken 7, and Lili having the strongest sidestep on top of that buff, you can play very evasively

Alisa:

Good. Almost all of her previous weaknesses are gone

No longer reliant on launch punishable lows

Her combos were bad, they are much better now

Wall combo was weak before, it is very strong now

All her mids are safe now, her mids are crazy now

High chip damage

Her homing move has been made faster

Wall combo will probably get patched. It might be that she's just strong now just because the wall combo damage hasn't been patched, only Jun and Jack's have had theirs patched

Lars:

Looks good, but not sure how it will be once people do enough research and understand his stances properly

Currently just does a lot of lows from stances, unsure how strong he will be once people figure out how to deal with them

Jun:

Good

Her pokes and homing moves are safe, but when she goes for a big play from time to time she's still safe on block, while scoring high 90s damage on hit

Her weakness of self-damage is removed when she's in heat, can play very safe

Other characters don't heal like crazy on using their heat smash, she does

These things make her heat state very strong

Devil Jin:

Very good, despite the nerf

His weakness is that his gameplan inevitably requires him to use hellsweep

Combos are very strong in Tekken 8, and get even stronger when heat is available

When you heat engage, you have to apply your mid/low mixup, but with combo damage being so high, it's very scary to actually use the hellsweep for the mixup

Need to have a strong mind to play this character, in contrast to Xiaoyu with her knockdown sweep in heat that's only -12

You can play very well, but one blocked hellsweep and you can still lose

Playing that mindgame is very difficult. You need to be brave enough to hellsweep 3-4 times in a row while being prepared to die if it's blocked

Mishima players who can hellsweep well are the really strong ones

The hellsweep is nice when it hits, you can combo and even Rage Art from it, but... it's mentally difficult

Other characters can throw out their lows a few times to evaluate how often the opponent is crouching. Devil Jin can't do this, you do your hellsweep and you're like "oh, he does block low quite often. But I'm dead now"

Jack:

Jack has always been at least mid-tier. Jack players have always performed well at tournaments, and everyone knows that's been the case in Tekken 7

ff1/db1 mixup has been in the game since Tekken 5, the fact that this mixup still works means that the character functions well just from those two moves

Strong moves, good combos, wall carry has been buffed, nothing bad about the character

i10 heat smash, fastest in the game

King:

Everyone says King is good

Previously, mixups with mids and throws were weak

A ton of his mids have been buffed

Heat smash has insane range

Throws are homing, which is very annoying. Doing things like df1 into sidestep to see the opponent's reaction and look for a whiff punish, this is now covered by throws and playing that mindgame is more difficult now

Unbreakable throws are quite annoying

His previously difficult combos now work fine every time

Because counter-hit throws now exist, you see strong players getting hit by throws very often now

In Tekken 7, even if you were hit by a throw mid-attack, you could react and break it. But that's very difficult to do now

Steve:

Story time: I initially said Steve is bad. But in Pakistan, Arslan, Atif, and a player called Numan CH who is very good at Paul and Steve - They said Steve is good. I said, "Oh really?" and I asked Atif, "If you're playing in a tournament, you think you'll pick Steve?" and he was like "No". So I laughed and said "Yeah, I think Steve is fine for ranked matches too". I mean, in ranked you can climb by playing enough matches. But in tournaments? Atif said "No." That's what I thought, I'm not going to play Steve in tournaments either.

Dragunov:

Everyone says he is good

In Tekken 7, he only had d2 as a low, you were just doing wr2 and d2.

Once wr2 was nerfed to be stepped more easily, you stopped seeing Dragunov. wr2 was hard to step in season 1, but after that nerf, he was much less popular

wr2 is still easily stepped, due to the sidestep buff. But now, he has other lows in addition to d2 and you can play without using wr2.

The new fc df1 and db3+4 means the opponent has to be more wary of lows, and they all have different startups. It's hard to fight Dragunov with the mindset of just looking out for wr2 and d2.

His combos have been buffed, his wall combo has become stronger. His wall combo was bad in Tekken 7, but it's strong now.

Bryan:

Everyone will say Bryan is good. Honestly, he's good, you can definitely never say he's not good.

But because he's so similar to Tekken 7 Bryan, he's just average. When playing him, it doesn't feel like you're playing Tekken 8. Pretty much the exact same playstyle, no difference from Tekken 7

Because of that, it doesn't feel too difficult to play against him

One weakness is that his b3~f 2,1 has become harder to land in combos. It's different from Tekken 7. Using it to wall carry after tornado on 5th hit is quite hard

The one thing I don't like about him is that his heat smash is so mediocre. It would have been nice if he had a low heat smash, but his currently heat smash is just average and I don't like that