Which Character Should a Tekken Newcomer Pick? 

"Character choice influences the skills you learn and how well you learn them. That being said, pick who looks cool to you, if you don't have fun learning you won't learn to begin with" - Majas, 2021 or 2022 idk

not even new to tekken just love to hear phi talk abt this game

5:21 nice jumpscare

And that's why I play Kuma. Because I'm a dork that likes making bear puns when I win. He's the only one that makes learning matchups bearable. 😉

5:22 🕊️

Thanks for taking a very common, tired old question and making it really interesting. "Every character will hold you back in some ways and boost you in others." Great stuff.

Absolutely agree. Learning a character you don't like is just work. Learning someone you enjoy watching and\or feels good playstyle-wise is pleasure, even if you aren't winning.

bro i cant thank you enough im new to tekken and i was confused on how i can improve but your guides helped me a TON. i hope to be good as you one day

Well said 🙏 Feels like some nice extra context was added in places where other videos don't usually cover as well when it comes to this topic.

As you start to run through all the most common beginner questions it might be a good idea to have a FAQ playlist or something that could be linked to in twitch chat with a command. When I'm around I try to answer as much as I can, but the barrage of repeat questions gets a little tiring. Nice to see the stream (and YT) blowing up 👍

i already subbed after the last video, as someone who played tekken in his younger days and finally with tekken 8 i have time again to pick up one of my fav games to take it more seriously, ive been studying your videos to the best i can thanks!

I never took fighting games seriously but thought i might try it with tekken 8 and get some fundamentals. Sure i watched some tierlist for which character is easy to pick up and tried those characters but in the end i didnt have fun because most of them didnt fit my style of playing. After that i played every character a bit and stuck with steve. He may not be the easiest character but i have fun with him even when i lose. It makes learning so much easier and better.

I’m brand new to tekken and I picked Dragonuv because I liked that you could make him look like Toji and he has sick grappling and throws. I played some training to get some strings and throws down and overall just felt how he moved. Jumped into ranked and started getting blasted, still quite fun 😃

As per usual the advice in just about every single character-based game is to pick whichever you think is cool and the rest will follow. I do like the extra spice of nuance about how once you feel a degree of mastery learning another character can be a good way to expand your skills.

I loved that you started with asking, "What is your goal?". I've seen too many scenarios where someone who plans to play casually is devalued for being a casual player. And the only suggestions given are for pros who want to play sweaty. I appreciate your patience and attention to the casuals. Thank you!

5:22 pidgeon

This is great advice! I got stuck at red with yoshi in this game, so I decided to give him a break and learn a new character I always liked watching, Dragunov. Specifically I liked the patience and more defensive play style of dragunov can play so I learned him that way. Now my defense is much better and im punishing lows that are seeable because I practiced my defense in lower ranks then where my yoshi was at.

In fgs I tend to pick well-rounded characters as they make feel like I get to enjoy all aspects of the game with them, have tools for most situations I find myself in and I am less likely to lose or win based on gimmicks and/or loop-sided matchups. From what I’ve heard Jun(my main), Jin, Shaheen and maybe Leroy are the well-rounded characters in Tekken 8; would maining these characters make you less likely to stunt your growth in certain aspects of the game? And more specifically, what are the ways maining Jun would “stunt my growth in certain ways”?

eddy was my main in t7 which was my first real tekken game.i learned him because i remember getting cooked by him as a kid on like tekken 3 at the skating rink, so i said i wanna learn how to actually be good with him. so i did. but i eventually started seeing the holes in his kit when i ran into higher level people and saw how easily most of his stuff can be shut down. so i started learning others, and im a masochist who likes an execution challenge so i learned electrics(still cant figure out how to pewgf), i learned Lee, i learned Leo and dragunov with their stance cancels, (didnt make it to bryan taunt stuff it is hard) but the thing i really learned while doing all that was you can get really good at whatever character you want in tekken and they can all stomp any other character once youre good enough. but the biggest thing that made me better about branching out and getting a taste of more characters is that you can know your combos perfect all day long, but if you dont understand what another player is thinking on their character then youre gonna have a way harder time stopping them from enforcing their game plan on you. my advice for picking a character is start with who you think looks cool, maybe go watch a combo video of what they can do, if they still appeal to you after that give them a shot. execution in tekken can be scary for everybody not just new players, but if you love the character and you keep wanting to play them you just have to stick to it and you will get better and more wins. it's called practice for a reason. and you know what they say, practice gets perfects.

The Lili and Reina explanations really helped to understand a bit of their gameplan and what to be on the lookout for when facing them.

Very informative and satisfying video! Loved it :)

I'm playing Jun cause she's who I learned on back in TT2. I've barely played since so I'm still intermediate at best, but I love the way her moves seem to flow so naturally from one to the other and it's been fun to see myself improve. Getting familiar with her move set has helped me spot the many gaps in my fundamentals (if anyone has good advice for spotting and reacting to low sweeps/launches please lmk). But yeah, I think getting familiar enough with one character so that you have access to all their tools will inevitably make you notice your fundamental weaknesses in defense/movement/reaction/etc.

Thank you PhiDX this helped out as I was on the fence between Lee and Asuenta but after this I'll stick with Lee as I just love his personality, his cool looking combos, and just his marvelous personality

I immediately picked Victor when I started out and stuck with him so far, but I kinda hit a plateau around red ranks so I figured I should try other characters to broaden my skillset and I feel like I opened Pandora's Box. So many characters that seem interesting and I really want to play.

Thank you for answering my question! Means a lot to get clarity!

So i have been maining victor since the game dropped. i had to take a break cause my controller broke. its coming in a few weeks and I'm debating rather i should change character/ pick up a secondary. the options are nina (played her a bit in the beta), raven, or leroy. I have every intention of going t o local tournmets and want to really get good at this game. i do enjoy vicotor a lot but i see his flaws already. im not opposed to staying with him but im also open to moving him to a secondary or dropping him for another character. im willing to put in the time to learn so with that in mind what should i do?

My main from 7 (Bob) isn’t in 8, and I was trying to find a new “main”. There are characters who I think are cool and sick designs, but their move sets don’t feel very natural to me. Like I love Raven’s design, but I don’t vibe with the move set naturally. I can sit there and lab for days, but my progress is much slower than finding a character I feel better with naturally. Lars has so far been my favorite, with great launchers and mixups and aggression. His combos are fairly complex and nothing like what I’m used to from Bob in 7, but the core kit felt good and I’ve forced myself to make adjustments in order to start mastering his combos and tweaking them to my liking. On top of that I do think his kit feels so rewarding and visually stunning! Finally jumped on ranked for the first time a few days ago and I’ve been going on some crazy runs like 20 win streaks 😅 jumped up to Orange ranks pretty fast, hoping to get at least to get blue+ Thanks again for your insight Phidx! Hope to meet u at EVO this year! Gonna be interesting to experience it at the new venue 🤙

In the end you’ll have to train and spend a lot of time with any character so just choose the one who’s fun to you! I was being stubborn about learning Xiaoyu because her style was so pretty, but learning her was feeling like a chore. I just played Nina the other day and she’s more difficult because of execution but I just have fun playing with her and it doesn’t feel like such a chore anymore.

I think it's entirely about picking the characters that appeal to you, if you like someone's aesthetics you'll stick with them. When it comes to just starting and learning the basics i'm surprised Paul didn't come up, i've always seen him as a learner character in the past, i taught a friend basic combos using Paul because his moves are straightfoward and easy to read, he's got an uppercut, a hop kick, a fun power move that gets you used to doing moves after QCF, i tend to go for complicated characters but i've actually been thinking about picking up Paul so i can experience the simple life.

This is the best advice for any fighting game.

Your channel js growing so fast!

This is great advice and very insightful. My character crisis was stressing me out haha. I'll play who I wanted to play without fear of being 'held back'. Thanks.

I mained Kazumi In T7 cuz "looks cool and has a tiger" and fell in love with her over time. In T8, I'm really enjoying Reina a lot! She might over take Kazumi in my heart with more time, but I am committed to Reina for the foreseeable future. Picking someone who you "vide with" or "feels good in your hands" is so important. Not just in Tekken but every Fighting game

I naturally gravitate towards Paul. I'm a good keep out player who likes to play defensively, punish and bait out a counter hit/launch then combo for massive damage then pressure to kill or revert back to defensive once my turn is over. Paul is amazing at that but I worry like Tekken 7 that his gameplan becomes very tricky to implement at higher ranks due to certain moves just being unsafe that you can get away with in lower ranks. I've always loved Bryan and he is similar imo with more depth and way higher skill ceiling so I'm taking his opportunity with T8 to commit to fully learning him, having lots of fun so far and lots of losses which is all good because the wins are super satisfying as I learn knowing the sky is the limit with him.

You King stuff resonated with me totally. A was a noob a year and a half ago in Tekken 7 and chose marduk. Shot up to red very quickly, but he limited my fundamental learning massively. The irony is I started maining Dragunov to learn fundamentals... And now he's the one on steroids in tekken 8 😂

I mained Anna and T7.. spent months trying to break through purple ranks. Decided to switch and main bears for my defense. Now I have both at blue ranks. Its great

Picking characters you actually like I feel like is applicable to every fighting game. Im on a SF player but my main isn't in SF6 so I was playing Ken who I like and ended up being top tier but I dont like Ken enough to grind it out with him and hurt my motivation with that game. Tekken 8 has Jun who is probably my favorite Tekken character so im more motivated to grind it out with Tekken 8

I consider myself a beginner due to me not having the money to buy hardware to play Tekken, even during Tekken 5 as a student. Now that I can play Tekken 8, my go to character is Asuka and I immediately fell inlove with her (more due to her tomboyish personality lol). A lot of videos online say she's pretty easy but I haven't figured out how I should play her yet so my losing streak with her is 18. kek

I intend to main a lot of the cast in the future but for now Jun is my main main second is Lili and third is Kuma, i just enjoy playing those 3 every singlr time and thats what matters.

best outro fr love it

Interesting point of view and that confirms my opinion about picking your main, thank you for this video. It doesn't matter if you want to play a hard character if you're a beginner as long as you like it, you just need to be aware it will take time to be at ease with it. If you're okay with that, just enjoy and don't care about the rest. You could pick an easy character that you'll learn in minutes but you'll have to catch up with deadly mecanics instead. Either way, the result is the same. Heads or Tails, the coin is still the same coin. It just changes the perspective but if you don't like the coin at all, then it's pointless.

Hey Phi! Just here rewatching your tekken 8 videos just cause they’re all so informative and helpful! I just started taking tekken seriously and have been practicing Nina for quite a bit now! Is there any chance at all that you could do a video relating to using Nina? Thank you!

Great guide!!

What's your thoughts on hworang... You skipped over him... I'm hard stuck at Garyu rank with him..😅

Hello! I'm curious you mentioned Kazumi for a character that teaches you everything in t7, but not Shaheen. What areas do you think he may not teach you very well in t8?

I'm jin and devil jin main. I want to pick up Reina too but need to make some progress with my two guys first.

Dude your outro is so fire

Bro I literally just subscribed just Because you literally said everything I Been feeling. I use hwoarang cause they don’t have my favorite character from tekken 7, I love kicking fighters. So I’m pretty much stuck at a plateau with him where I need too learn more moves, & I Been losing Back to Back since Becoming ranked assailant & want too Be a tekken King lol

phish putting out great videos

I’m actually deeply interested in getting to a tournament level of play so I can go to at least local tournaments once a week in my hometown so, yeah hopefully this will help me find my character for that

Been a heihachi main since tekken 1. Picked up reina because ahes heihachis daughter. Barely play ranked, but my next rank up will be red. She is a beast. Raven is my secondary at warrior rank. Steve will be the next i pick up. And ill pick up kazuya again soon after. Pick a chatacter you enjoy using whether you win or lose. If youre having fun using your character, you'll learn pretty fast.

Im between casual and climbing ranked and i went with Jun, have so much fun to olay her but its not easy to be optimal with her but thats a provlem with every character to reach that high level.

Also going with what you’re saying I may not be good with Bryan but I still enjoy playing and wanting to get good with him and once i get blue ranks with him I’ll want to play Dragunov Feng Steve or Mishimas

Yeah it is important to like your character for example i play grandblue as well and i play charlotta. I do lose a lot because of some of her issues. Do i get pissed yes. But i always come back to her to try to get better since those Ws are so much more rewarding

I remember when I first started playing Tekken 7 again 1.5 years ago. I picked up Dragunov and was going through so many wins with my aggression until I plateaud so hard. I finally watched a JDCR video about beginner characters and picked Paul and Shaheen. These characters really taught me proper game fundamentals. Then I picked up Steve it taught me to be patient. PhiDx was definitely on point with how each character has its own flavor and how it can help you grow differently

i just started playing Tekken 8 this week. my inner child bought it for me 😅. i used to just watch others play tekken as i used to be young and broke. now, i am just waiting for my arcade stick as i want to practice the "dorya" godfist move before deciding to main a Mishima character. for now, i am looking for maybe practice another character that excels in poking. my friend said pick claudio, i guess hes ok but any other char i can practice?

I'm a Bryan main but I took a lot of Tekken off since 5. Bryan is the only character I can remember the moves of since then. Might pick up Leeroy too though. I like his defensive offensive style.

As a brand new Tekken player picking up Lars, would love to hear your thoughts on him at some point :D

Im interested in having fun and getting to around purple/blue rank level of skill, not really interested in getting to tournament/pro level and i picked yoshi/dragunov and im dabbling with azucena/ anyone else that takes my interest that day, im genbu now so seems to be going well

I played Law (mashing) my whole life. Cleared the whole roster's arcade modes on the hardest difficulty and fell in love with Hwoarang, who I hated in 3 funny enough. Trying to figure out a secondary

Man I have so much to say on this. I agree with the spirit of the video. I agree with 90% of the commentary. However here I have a different opinion on Alisa. Alisa is a character that you need strong fundamentals and whiff punishment to win with. Alot of the other characters you mentioned have a strong gimmick that can be used to cheese lower level of play. However you are getting blown up with Alisa without fundamentals. There is no way to reasonable switch into chainsaws unless you punish / whiff punish. Majority of her damage comes from pokes and she still has to take a lot of risks on those pokes. So that means in an extremely offensive game you have no way to maintain high pressure without outside of chainsaw and you lose your turns repeatedly even while being advantage from pokes. So that means you have to block and side step to evade damage.

The thing is with Tekken is that every character can be played fundamentally and it makes me kinda feel bad saying which character is easier to learn and which one is an expert character, even tho let's say someone like Bryan(My main) is harder to win with than with most of the characters it doesn't mean that if you want to win with Yoshi in higher ranks you can just spam flash and flowcharts, because a better, or let's say a more patient player will start countering these stuff.

Alot of the time, people pick a character who looks cool but said character is hard or less easy than another and they lose interest and go all over the roster looking for another. Also i think playstyle matters but i also believe with enough investment and labbing, a character can be adopted to fit a playstyle and vice versa. I played Tekken 5 and instantly fell in love with Raven coz he looked cool, but I later tried Dragunov and he fit my slightly more aggressive style and still with him to this day. The I picked Lars in Tekken 6 and those are my mains.u gotta experiment with a character b4 giving up on them. Dont try to just copy what you see other players of ur character do.

As a new player, a beginner character from the suggestions in the video was perfect for me. After improving online, I eventually felt comfortable branching away from my beginner character. If a character feels too difficult at the start, there’s always picking them up later once you feel more ready.

Any tips to help me get better because I learn combos but idk any fundamentals to f that’s what it’s called such as how to open up you’re opponent my punishes etc

Hey! Do you have an easy character to recommend for learning juggles, wall carry (the air game essentially) i'm stuck in the reds with Reina but because I have almost 0 air combos... I don't know why I feel like everytime I launch the enemy instantly drops on the ground and I can't udolize properly the window to do some things

Ive been trying to learn Bryan. It's crazy to me when I see people land multiple TJUs in a match because I can't even land one, but there's so much other stuff for me to work on before that becomes a problem

I would like to climb higher in the ranks and try my first tournament as its a scene I would like to support in my home country. Currently playing King as I've always been ok with him but enjoy many other characters but I don't think I am technically proficient or have the brain capacity to get my head around some the tech in this game.

Stunning growth is real from every character, since I use Shaheen I'm used to attack with my lows, but when I used Reina, I felt that how I play doesn't work on her, so Imma just learn more HAHAHA

I haven't played Tekken since Tekken Tag 1, and I was by no means serious with that game. I spammed all day long, never learned any mechanics. I picked this game up because of Reina. I love everything about her style, design and persona. I am having so much fun learning how to play, and I've seen myself improve astronomically just in the span of a few weeks, while fully understanding I'm still a beginner. My determination is to stick with this game for the long haul, and see how far I can take my skills. P.S.: Phi's videos have been my primary courses for learning. This man is such a good teacher.

im new to tekken and i think my main is gonna be nina but i want to learn law/reina/lili. i just hit garyu rank with nina but havent really touched anyone else.

These days i am learning jun kazama phidx but she is to difficulty to learn can you give me some tips how to learn jun i play jun kazama on my ps5 controller

picked up the game as lee, absolutely loving it

Bc this is my first tekken my plain was to learn a new character each weekish. Is that a good idea or just pick one and stay with that character

Ha. Those 2 in the thumbnail are my mains xD but between the 2 i recommend jun as a good first pick simply because most of her moveset connects incredibly well and she has extremely good air combo's/wall carrying in addition to having a good poke game as well for spacing. But ultimately just pick whoever appeals and resonates with u the most.

I am a new Tekken player, my goals are having fun playing the game while try harding to beat my friends :D, and also climb in ranked game as far as I can, any suggestion ? I'm a total noob to Tekken, last time I played was Tekken 3 kek, I was 7 years old

I really struggle to find my main. I Was a heihachi main before and it doesnt feel like any character gets close to him. I dabbled with some but cant really Decide to stick with one in the long run. I had hopes hei would come back but with the dlc leaks i might Just need to move on from him

Bryan/yoshi/king main here. Avoiding learning Mishimas since T1 😂 gotta do it soon

8:11 relatable

I’m Needing help, Question, why when I lose in ranked it takes a lot points out but when I win it just give me a couple points? It’s kinda frustrating win 4 matches and then lose one and going back where I was.

PhiDX is a man of culture, I approve

I think people should pick the characters they have the most fun with or like the design of! If you can still enjoy playing even when losing with a certain character you probably picked a good one.

Yes sir, I am stuck with Nina 😅. I play other characters too. But Nina is damn hard. What are your thoughts on Nina?

PHI I GOT A REAL QUESTION NOW FINALLY OMG. Dude since i main kazuya rn, and kaz might not teach me some tekken stuff, what char or chars would be the compliment? Perhaps shaheen?

Lei main here, since my forte is to have fun with complex stuff, I'll be trying out Ling before Lei returns.

What i do is learn a character and play it for 2 days then go on to the next one my goal is to have knowledge about the game and being able to play any character to play when i play with my friends and finally playing the game for fun this is how i play this game

If u like rushdowns, who should you pick?

so Im fairly new and the only thing thats tough Is.. I love ALOT if characters, I grew up on TK3 but fell off after that, welll.. after TTag. but anyways Hwoarang was my 1st go to, cause thats who I liked as a kid, I wanted Eddy but, he not In TK8 but I do hear leaks of him coming out, but I ended up with Jun cause I dont remember her being In any other Tekken and love her playstyle. where would you rank her? beginner it intermediate?

As a new Tekken player, I really like Steve and his play style+looks. But man, it was tough trying to understand him.

Can you make a video about jin kazama for tekken 8 frame trap like tekken 7

I went with Lee cause he's my favorite. But I'm already second guessing my choice, because I've realized that his gameplay kinda relies on the opponent just pushing buttons (mashing), and I'm not sure that will even work at all at a higher level... not that I'm gonna be "high level" for a good long while though, if ever, lol.

Do think there is any character comparable to Josie from T7 in terms of playstyle in this game? It used to be that she was kinda special in her rushdown tools but now it kinda seems like in tekken 8 everybody is josie haha

This is why I picked up Raven. He's hard af to use to me (mainly because of BT shenanigans), but I faced my fears and made it all the way to Red Ranks. I'm having a blast learning him, and best believe I'm not dropping Raven any time soon!

I wanna pick heihachi wat cheat code do i enter at the main menu to unlock him

My first Tekken, I always had (still have) tons of respect for Tekken players because it’s easily the best fighting game imo. I’m maining Law first, and so far, I love his moveset and nunchucks, very fun. Next, I’m going to try Ling and then Bryan. The graphics are stunning and I like several fighters, which makes me want to learn them. Eventually I just want to stick with about 3 fighters 👍I mean 🤜

This is my first tekken game, just moved from MK. After seeing the T7 roster i'm surprised at how small the T8 roster looks in comparison, almost half the size. But I don't see anyone talking about this, are alot of those characters dlc? Can we expect this T8 roster to nearly double in size overtime?

Are there any characters that you shouldn't choose as a beginner? I think that would be good to cover as I'm picking Raven as I've always wanted to play him and this is my first Tekken where I'm actually learning but I heard he's a conditioning character which means I have to know know what players are going to do and how to make them do. Things sounds pretty tough for a beginner, but I'm pretty committed to Raven

Im getting sooo much better with Hwoarang. Used to be my fave when i played like 15+ years ago so picked him up again regardless of people saying "hes not beginner friendly" F that im in destroyer already and getting better every day. Matchups, low blocking and throwing/throw breaking are all i need to improve IMO to make it to red ranks

Getting good with Lili and thats 👍

Yo that pigeon at 5:21 though. Spooky.