Tekken 8 Character Difficulty Tierlist 

9:41 Leroy 12:21 Jack 14:42 Steve 18:12 Panda/Kuma 22:46 Devil Jin 27:06 Lars 30:17 Leo 32:07 Paul 38:18 Raven 41:24 Shaheen 42:56 Alisa 46:37 Lee 54:59 Lili Ma Queen 59:41 Yoshimitsu 1:05:48 Jin 1:10:39 Hwoarang 1:14:41 Nina 1:19:21 Feng Wei 1:26:44 Dragunov 1:33:26 Azucena 1:42:10 Ling Xiaoyu 1:53:31 King 2:01:40 Reina 2:10:04 Law 2:15:26 Jun 2:24:12 Zafina 2:28:55 Kazuya 2:36:13 Claudio 2:38:40 Bryan 2:48:28 Victor 2:56:24 Asuka

The most difficult character in tekken is the one I'm maining at the time

Here we go again Leroy 9:45 Jack-8 12:22 Steve Fox 14:42 Bears 18:20 Devil Jin 22:45 Lars 27:15 Leo 30:15 Paul 32:08 Raven 38:19 Shaheen41:24 Alisa 43:00 Lee 46:40 Lili 54:55 Yoshimitsu 59:40 Jin 1:05:55 Hwoarang 1:10:40 Nina 1:14:45 Feng 1:19:24 Dragunov 1:26:49 Azuzena 1:33:25 Xiaoyu 1:42:10 King 1:53:50 Reina 2:01:41 Law 2:10:01 Jun 2:15:25 Zafina 2:24:55 Kazuya 2:28:55 Claudio 2:35:28 Bryan 2:38:40 Victor 2:48:27 Asuka 2:56:23 3:01:30 Final look

MainMan always look so sweet and kind in his thumbnails. You'd never know he turns into a demon after you click

“Why is your main so humble and cool, and everyone else is a dumb piece of sht.” Is the realest quote I’ve ever heard regarding tekken. I love how he admits that xiao is busted but shuts down everyone dismissing his opinion before he elaborates on why she’s hard to use.

For anyone who needs to hear this There's nothing wrong with using an easy character. Its a video game. Fun comes first. It shouldn't feel like a job.

Whats up guys? MainManSWE here with a 3 hour video after a week of not uploading

TMM be like: Kazuya, Reina and Bryan are hardest because on high level of play they struggle. but Nina and Zafina are easy, because they struggle only on high level of play

Honestly, despite the changes. Being a Steve main nowadays is really satisfying. Every win feels earned.

This has got to be the nicest thing I've ever heard mainman say about Xiaoyu in a good while. I'm here for it.

The general opinion of every character always seems to be "They're strong so they must be easy to play". Makes it very obvious when someone has not touched a character at all, and then they wonder why they're losing to them all the time.

Me patiently waiting for the timestamp 🤣🤣

Wow you put so much work in this video it's actually insane. Very informative with a side of classic TMM rant - really enjoyed it, I'm glad you took a while to explain some characters you usually don't, like the Bears (only saying stuff like "a lot of bullshit, no one knows the matchup, no hitbox" and that's it).

as a steve player i can only say it is so hard to play with him you are right in every word you said 😅.

This is the video that made me subscribe. Super informative across the board. Thank you MMSWE

Thanks for these. Even just these brief summaries help me understand the matchup a bit more.

the feng rant is gold💀 everyone who doesnt play feng felt that

Oh man, my favorite type of content from you.

I think raven is difficult. You can get away with dumb shit vs low ranks for sure but managing back turn and flowing between stances without getting stuck is tough, all his tools and pressure are based on mental frame advantage, 14f df1, no launcher until 16f, ravu wavu is tough. He's not particularly strong either. Has to take a lot of risk to get anything done.

I clicked just to hear you say how difficult Kaz is 😂

After it became common knowledge that power crush bears lion heart steve has become so much harder to win with, as you said it feels like you just straight up have to outplay everyone in neutral then get rewarded with low damage.

love you man, highly informative and entertaining.

I just wanted to mention briefly that the matchup knowledge argument for Kuma can also be applied at a lower level. As a new player to Tekken myself, I find that there is sooooo much to learn and most of the decisions I make are about the order or priority I want to learn the things in. A beginner player who has a Kuma playing friend might have very poor fundamentals, but win against a very high ranking Kuma who "cheesed" his way through the ladder. That phenomenon doesn't only apply at the highest level.

Bryan poke game is soo weak, his 50/50 is weak but I swear it feels so rewarding when I win with him.

bryan being difficult is a lie to make bryan players seem like they god like but really they just counter hitting u from half screen.

This is a great video i learned so much about all the characters

TMM was talking about Kuma and unironically said "bear with me"

The way a lot of commenters are whining about certain characters, like Bryan, is pretty telling about what the median player struggles with. I don't even mean this as an insult, its just really really telling about how different of a game it is compared to higher level of play when people have good matchup knowledge and have a higher defensive proficiency versus people who are still familiarizing themselves with the system, don't know the knowledge checks or the very specific answers to troublesome moves or weird gimmicky strings they haven't seen before.

This is a good list. I just hate that people think just because a character is on the easier side, they're going to fully get carried. It only works till u get to the actual high ranks where knowledge matters. In high ranks you have to really excel with jin, lars, and even asuka since her moves aren't the fastest and people can easily punish them.

As someone who play Tekken from T2 and trying to main Yoshi for the first time I definetely think your analysis is perfect. I struggle to find an OP move with him, he seems to have a lot of easily parriable middle and high. The strenght is in the mix up but you have to know the entire arsenal and it's really difficult at first. And as you said you have to play him with a brain. I really hate when someone who never try a character say he's supereasy or things like that.

Can anyone help me understand what moves TMMSwe is showing for Jun? I’ve just picked her up and want to learn her basics. Thanks! 🙂

I simply do not understand how Bryan is the most difficult character. Every counterargument is "but hes hard to win with at high level". So is everyone.

why has he got nina in easy, when most people put her amongst the hardest character in the game?

All timestamps below: 0:00 Intro 8:25 Leroy 12:20 Jack 14:40 Steve 18:12 Panda & Kuma 22:43 Devil Jin 27:05 Lars 30:18 Leo 32:07 Paul 38:18 Raven 41:20 Shaheen 42:55 Alisa 46:36 Lee 54:54 Lili 59:40 Yoshimitsu 1:05:48 Jin 1:10:38 Hwoarang 1:14:38 Nina 1:19:19 Feng 1:26:43 Dragunov 1:33:25 Azucena 1:42:10 Xiaoyu 1:53:30 King 2:01:39 Reina 2:10:02 Law 2:15:25 Jun 2:24:10 Zafina 2:28:54 Kazuya 2:36:10 Claudio 2:38:38 Bryan 2:48:27 Victor 2:56:22 Asuka

Amazing content bro!

As a Drag player (relatively new to Tekken, played 100 hours of Tekken 8 and nothing else) I can say that many wins I get I don't even know how did I get them. Too much damage.

1:52:17 I can't believe the day came where TMM is not blindly ignorant against Xiaoyu's difficulty😭

As a steve main, I feel so fucking vindicated LMFAO

Steve's need to constantly enter, exit and cancel stances just to make mediocre moves safe is exhausting. As a new Tekken player, it's getting really irritating and I'm wondering why I bothered picking this character. Peekaboo cancelling from lionheart is really difficult and just the fact that you need to duck cancel to make df2, a non homing, non launching MID mid feels like garbage. I feel like I'm working weirdly hard in order to do literally nothing.

I hate that they completely simplified jin compared to how he was in T7 but atleast he isn't braindead.

47:15 dick jab beats many DES (chainsaw) options. FrameWhipser's video on how to deal with chainsaw pressure is very helpful.

I'm an intermediate player, and Devil Jin is super difficult to play. His combos have a lot of cancels which is really hard to nail down. Especially since I bought a stick for T8, very new to it. Also, the EWGF usage is just so hard to use with the threat of a launch or duck into punish from other characters. Really overwhealming for me when I play. Will practice some more though.

I’m trying to learn xiaoyu and ur segment about it is way more useful then any xiaoyu channels guides.

Not being able to fly on block with samsara really hurts your options as DJ in a game where most characters have a lot of cheap shennanigans to get you, but what its worse the f4, 3 is practically useless unless you win the mental games and make your opponent press on the second kick. Hitting the first one doesnt guarantee the second one which is launch punisheable on block. I would love a nerf to his crusher just to get the fly option back.

lee definitely got easier in t8, but i still feel like he deserves very difficult, maybe at the bottom of it if u were to rank the characters in each tier, but def up there.

Claudio is my pocket character but I think he’s really under the radar. I’m literally beating Fujins with fundamentals alone. I have very low character optimization and only a week of practice. In a game that promotes aggression he kills with CH tools. Plus his running 2 in heat does CRAZY damage. I can do like 54 damage with that one hit alone. I’m literally robbing games with him

I am a fairly new subscriber. I find your Tekken content to be absolutely superb. It is well thought out, detailed, and objective. Long live Dragunov lol

@THEMAINMANSWE I love your content but can barely ever catch a stream because of work. Could you possibly upload your VODS to RU-vid?

Wow 3 hour TEKKEN lecture from the main man ... Very interesting 😂😂😂

Playing as yoshimitsu, you hit the pints so well, but people never realize how many lives he has and how many options I have to ruin your day. It takes time and I’m still learning, but I just love how complex he is to adapt to scenarios and throw people off. Mashers and offensive players just don’t do well at all….I love the look of him as well, coolest character to me as a newbie😄

Currently top 100 with Panda. His explanation on kuma in the beginning was spot on. Knowing fundamentals as a bear player ends up running the timer. The bears don't have enough when it comes to fundamental moves.

4 hours of TMM straight lfg

Steve's Lion Heart is not always beaten by a power crush. You did ub2 and said that, but in this situation on hit you are actually +14 and don't have to worry about armor moves. The same with ws2,2 and f2,2(+11). Even after blocked Heat Smash (+8) LNH1 beats Power Crush, heat burst or Rage Art. Armor moves beat every Lion Heart option only after db3,2 b1,2 3,1,2 and 4,1,2 (+7 ) And you don't have to cancel Lion Heart to PKB to be able to block. You can just do DCK cancel, block and punish.

I will say I agree with the Reina placement, a lot of people swear up and down she's easy and can just mash in your face but that's really a case of you letting her get away with it. If she uses ff2 into 3 everytime, just backdash after blocking ff2, the 3 whiffs and she explodes for instance, if she goes for 4 everytime jab her out of it if she delays even a second. This is a wall a lot of Reina's just can't overcome (hence her horrid win loss) You can sort of dumpster your way through to red ranks as Reina with no execution and no fundamentals, but then again so can everyone. Once you hit red ranks you run into your first wall and have to actually learn all your moves, then you reach Tenryu or Mighty Ruler and you will end up hardstuck there unless you actually learn the game, its around that point where you have to start learning wave dashes, actual defense, other fundamentals and stuff because people will not let you get away with murder anymore and your lows suck, so you need to get good at the game to compensate. So red ranks and lower you're getting beaten by bad Reinas because you're bad too and she just mashes better, at purple ranks or higher you e losing to Reina because she's better at the game than you

Besides downloading TMMs combo vids on TZ 20 years ago and him being mad funny, these takes where he is brutally honest is why I have him at the top of content creators!

Reina is super annoying. Just play the game when I'm visiting a friend who I play Tekken with for a long time and almost everything she does seems to be highly evasive or plus on block. Because of the rarity of me playing the game, this will take a really long time to mentally manifest the matchup knowledge.

Steve be like , lets poke the foe to death

3 hours of MainMan in a single video. You love to see it

to those who don't understand why maimman calls bryan the most difficult character in the game... watch the FT10 set between Knee and Arslan. Arslan used Victor and brought the set to 7-3 against Knee's Bryan. It was painful to watch Knee do anything he can to break Arslan's defense. Then Knee switched to Dragonuv and won the set 10-9.

he says that Nina is easy but he can't do a difficult combo.... hypocrisy, I practically do the "difficult combos" with the kazuya that he plays and no, I certainly wouldn't put him in difficult

I feel like its hard to pinpoint what makes a char hard, as i play most chars somewhat decently i'd have to say gameplay is indeed the biggest one for me at least. But some people see difficulty different cos whats easy for 1 might be difficult for another and changing their mind is impossible. I know that cos a guy i played said that zafina and claudio are the same level off difficulty and cheese, which blew my mind that he truly believed that.

I would slightly change some picks in easy/intermediate but overall this is accurate. Especially the "very difficult" list.

I don’t feel like Steve does no damage combo wise it’s more just overall pressure and neutral. He has 50/50s but they do no damage. The less damage the 50/50’s do the more I gotta keep doing them which gives the opponents more chances to guess right. That would be fine if the risk = the reward, but like Steve during pressure if the opponent guesses at minimum Steve is holding a 50/50 at most you can kill Steve. Same thing with his neutral buttons except the worse part being his best neutral buttons make you lose your come back factor. Steve can 1 million % steam roll though ESPECIALLY if you can’t react to grabs

Been playing xiaoyu since T3. glad she got a glow-up.

Same tekken 7 characters up in very difficult, I’m glad they don’t mess with that.

MMS did not mention Jack's incredible grappling game.

I think raven is surprisingly difficult - as a raven main, you really need to understand the game well to make use of him. Other characters may be hard to use mechanically but game wise they dont require much knowledge. I'd say Shaheen is another character whos easy move wise but when it comes to execution and game plan he is difficult, just like how Bryan is hard execution and hard game plan in higher ranks

3 hours to talk about how hard Kazuya is? TMM needs to be stopped.

2:39:30 Don't have the game open rn does anyone know what kick he uses after the jab here? I'm getting into the character and this transition into slither looks VERY useful.

It's my first Tekken but not first fighting game ( and I'm usually high ranked on SF/Guilty ) and I picked Xiaoyu as a first char to go. I love to play setup characters because you can outsmart people and this is a fun thing to do. I'm Tenryu atm with Xiaoyu and I have Reina, Alisa, Jun, Steve and Yoshi between Garyu/Shinryu. It took me around 3h without lab to get to Garyu with Alisa and Jun. With Xiaoyu I had to lab alot, learn the combos, go trough all the skill list, watch games from pro to understand how the character was working. Honnestly, I probably spent like 50h in lab with Xiaoyu. She is really hard to play. People just repeat " AOP BROKEN NERF NERF " mindlessly. Yea, AOP is strong. But it's not unbeatable at all. I get hit all day in AOP by people mashing. It's very situational and not easy to setup. Hypnotist in my opinion is way more strong than AOP and for some reason people don't cry about it why ? Because your mash works against against hypnotist where it does not work against AOP. I think people get pissed off by Xiaoyu because it's a good character to make a fool of people pressing their linear strings or tech rolling. She is one of the knowledge check character from this game.

You really don't know Nina at all, yeah string spamming will get you to fujin but that's not the character, she's more execution demanding in t8 than she was in t7 due to new mechanics (new ender db2 into qcf4,3,1+2). also her gameplan is to get in opponent's face cause there's where her tools shine, with some space all of her moves tend to whiff due to being linear or not having much range (f4 as an addition helps but its far from a perfect get in move) she doesnt really have very good approaching moves (wr 1+2 is linear, slide is launch punishable and linear, and f4 can be floated and stepped easily aswell) and that's where good players with a decent defense will kill nina, she has to use a execution mechanic ss1 back cancel to get to open opponents cause all of her lows are 20 frames or slower (having a complete throw game helps a lot). Still Nina is pretty strong and competent in this game, but i just really don't understand your speech, you put paul whose weakness is quite similar to nina's in the same tier as her when she is literally 3 times more execution demanding than him...

I disagree, Reina is intermediate at best, I got Tekken king within 2-3 weeks and I wasn’t just playing Reina the entire time. Same with devil jin, I got up him up to kishin within the first few weeks when the game dropped and just stopped playing him. I agree kazuya and steve are very difficult to rank up, just got my kaz up to Tekken emperor and he’s my main who I play 70% of the time. But I feel like these lists are up to the player and how they feel when they play a certain character. I find jin more difficult than Reina tbh

this video is the complete tutorial How all the cast play in rank, thank you.

Is it bad that I moved to lars? Beem playing paul but feels like since hes he same really ppl just know him and im stuck rn in orange so to break it up and let myself breathe i labbed everyone and picked up lars but now i just keep hearing how "easy" he is. I dont wanna feel like im just picking easy even if its my first tekken since t3

Im new to Tekken so i don't know but how is winning with Alisa "very easy"? I picked her because my daughters like her, but she doesn't feel carried to me. If that was true why hasn't she won any tournaments and I barely even see her used? Again I don't know but Alisa doesn't seem braindead easy to win with to me, but I'm having fun with Alisa and Zafina as a new player.

Am I the only one who only watches the part where he talks about your main lol

Watched this live on twitch yesterday, I didn't realize it lasted 3 hours

Jack-8 being one of, if not the most newcomer-friendly character being put at "intermidiate" next to jin is such a funny joke

Zafina didn’t feel that easy to me. maybe if you do one and dones and never rematch, but people catch on after that. Used to play Azucena and she was childs play in comparison

I’m kinda surprised how much tmm’s opinion changed on characters. Xiaoyu mains are gonna be shocked.

I appreciate you for breaking down Xiaoyu and understanding that she is difficult. Heavily a setup character. Thanks for also saying she's not braindead. She gets a lot of hate. I understand SHE IS BROKEN. But maining her for all these years have certainly helped me be pretty good at defense. 💯💯🙏🏾

Hit Flame Ruler with Paul and he's right so much stuff doesn't work anymore and I'm struggling against high pressure characters like Lee Howrang.

Facts about Steve, especially the lack of damage. Fake news for Bryan and Reina though.

letsgoo steve gets the respect he deserves

Mainman what do you think about bamco shutting down all tekken mod channels

This is the first time I've seen you talk about Xiao in a very honest and objective way :D She's my main, and yes she is very strong in T8 (and lets be honest, us Ling mains have been waiting for this day for a long time), but she isn't pairing the evasiveness with every other tool like Feng, or the movement with every other tool like Alisa, or the mixups with every other tool like Azucena. She's one of those characters who needs practice, but once you get the practice, you can do some real crazy stuff. People lose to AoP down because they spam jabs, not realizing that AoP down needs a bit of timing to evade stuff. Xiaoyu forces people into a matchup where they can't autopilot their character. That's why they're mad. How do you beat it? Don't let her autopilot. Keep the Xiao on her toes, keep her guessing, and put her in a situation where she has fewer options. That's when she needs to take huge risks. Xiao players love when you come in with obvious BS, cause she is designed to get around that. That's all. I'm based in Japan, and the landscape here, where I'm fighting Japanese and Korean players mostly, is very different. There are people I run into that have no idea what she's doing. There are people who know her stuff in and out. I can't cali roll spam, I can't randomly do AoP, and I can't just do HYP mixes. They all have that down at my level. That's when you need to be creative, and it's why I love playing her so much.

Reina might have a high skill ceiling but god damn is that character easy to pick up and flowchart. I main Bryan and after a week of playing her matched my peak rank(fujin). ff2 and df1 utility is so powerful and simple to use and there is so much more. I don't think its fair to say a character is hard because they have too many good moves. Does she actually have to play optimally? Hell no? Is her counter play obvious, no. Also db2 and hellsweep are not shit lows. My hot take is I honestly think Yoshi is harder.

I dont get your reina take at all. Uninteruptable pressure into power crush is so hard to use. Please explain

Love the Steve Fox assessment. I completely agree as a Steve main. Hes not a threat anymore and bad damage lol

About LILI, you forgot about d 3+4 when she has her back turn. I just picked her to learn another character and she is amazing, I'm beating mighty rulers and flame rulers already with her. Jin is my main and I reached mighty ruler a week ago with him and put him to rest for a while. My Lili is Garyu already and I'm having a lot of fun with her.

nina and zafina being "easy" while paul and gun jack are "intermediate" is hilarious LOL

Nina and Zafina in easy category? Nah, I disagree. Sure, Nina has moves you can abuse especially with an average opponent, but at high level play better players will catch on to her spam and her execution can get very difficult imho. I do agree that she doesn’t have to rely on high execution quite as much as she did in previous Tekkens though. Zafina definitely has easier execution, but I feel she is very tricky to properly use and you have to work harder for wins. There’s a reason people are begging for buffs for Zafina.

Fun fact, kazuya’s back 4 kicks victor out of his EXPULSION

Putting Shaheen in easy and lili in intermediate is crazy, those are the only two characters i play in this game and I can't imagine a universe where lili is the harder of those two characters to play personally.

Judging characters based on whether others know matchup or not is a joke. I understand that at low and medium ranks it may matter, but at high ranks not so much. Moreover, are we judging whether people know matchup or how difficult a character is to learn? You are talking about Raven, mentioning his move b1+2 which is used quite rarely, while not developing the basis of learning his CD (which is the basis of this character). What's more, you don't mention its lacks in neutral, such as the 15f launcher, its BT position, which has to be manually reversed and which is often obstacle in the beginning of learning.

You need to speak on the modding situation

1:07:26 imo the problem that it's not just about blocking that move, is that it can be used to break highs into ch and combo (and maybe even some mids I probably don't know I don't use jin, but for sure he is extremely broken)

Would you still consider Lee to be a specialist character although slightly easier?

Remember all the rage against Jin on the demo. Now I feel like I barely see him

Yeah bro its so hard pressing ff2 on reina, very difficult character😂