Couple of key things Arslan forgot to mention: Zafina can create plus frame pressure with d3 as well. Especially d3 on hit into Mantis is +4 which makes Mantis 2 a frame trap counter hit launcher. Ss 1+2 can be picked up for a launch on counter hit with instant ws2, it's a bit tight however.
Character is so much fun. On a whim I asked the wife to choose someone for me to pick up when I got the game. First time really playing Tekken since 3. She chose Zafina. I've been hooked since.
🙇🏿 I'm a Bruce main from back in TTT2 and a Josie main from 7 idk what exactly possessed me to pick up Zafina in 8 but I've been having so much fun! I made it to Garyu and decided to finally learn some tech and who's here to show me the way but the baddest bastard bashing buttons! Thank you for your work I look forward to seeing you mop up with her in tournaments!
@@BigZesusTekken if it's in heat he gets the juggle guaranteed after scr 2,1. If it's not in heat he get the guaranteed scr 2,1 only and not combo after. I think that's what OP meant
@@ayosgsauceSorry my comment caused so much confusion but you were right while Zafina is in heat she can go into heat dash for combo after FF3 into SCR 2,1.
@@adobliisaackomlan7361 In a game where aggression is king , she's forced to play on her back foot , which is not good because chip damage is insane in this game and then if you keep letting people take their turns , they're just gonna kill you. Along with the fact that a A couple of her key moves drain health. She doesn't have a lot of damage in the sense of combos either. In some of her transitions into stances they removed them.
@@TooSweaty7 Yeah it's sad the way the devs chose to balance Zafina for Tekken 8 to be put in this position but she has always been more of a defensive character by design and not so offensive focused which was my fear of her being to be added to Tekken 8 that was aiming to be focused on aggression. This is more the reason why her B1+2 being removed from neutral hurts her so much since it would have helped her to defend against most pressure but they knew it would break the game design since it allowed her to crush through a lot of highs and mids and thus they locked it behind scarecrow stance sadly. It got buffed there in damage from 12 to 16, +3 frames on hit and being able to knockdown on CH but they still left it -17 on block which was odd. It doesn't feel natural to do in SCR stance and is predictable and reactable from distance but can used as nice follow up after connecting with her revised WS3 on hit. The health loss mechanic being added onto all her Azazel attacks as well as her parry and b1 1+2 just frame (which needs to be reverted back to 56 dmg from 50 dmg nerf from T7) really doesn't help her cause either. If maybe she did more damage based on the amount of self harm done to her per round then maybe it would work. She also doesn't have an efficient way to regain grey health back outside of using her primary Heat Smash on hit and chip which makes the mechanic a severe handicap on a already large list of nerfs she incurred. Jun has similar mechanic but she able to regain large amounts of health back on her heat smash whether it hits or not. Removing a lot of key stance transitions mainly her TRT 3 into MNT really leaves her with less options to adapt within a match. I've managed make it work for myself with her so far but it hasn't been easy. I will say that it does feel a lot more rewarding to play and with win with her now though but I hope the devs will realize they went a bit overboard with her give her some much needed buffs as the game progresses forward.
@@adobliisaackomlan7361if i may add, she doesnt have a good heat combo. Might as well use the heat into some other situations. Or if you really need to bring the opponent to the wall. Otherwise it's very hard to get a combo with 70+ damage with heat.
@@coquifrog he said that because he was bodying people in ranked games who didn know the matchup but as soon as he hitted the higher ranks and people knew the matchup he reached the plateau where it started to be harder to climb lol and then you know what he did he switched to feng 🤡
really cool video with lots of great information but I'm struggling to understand him (english not my mother language), would be great to see this with subtitles
Sad part in today's tekken is people only suggest you to play good characters rather than the ones you actually feel is nice and enjoy but i know why they say it..... But miss those old days when people didn't care much .
U can still play who u want however u want...tiers are made by players and experimentation. It may be difficult but if it's worth it, you and anyone else will do it.
@24:17 - @24:18 isnt this the starting animation of Zafina's MALICIOUS NAIL F 1+2 ??? So if F 1+2 doesn't connect, the Azazel hand don't come out??? hmmmmm very noiiiiceeee :)
Besides the changes from T7 (I'm a bit of a newbie to Tekken, but not fighting games) can someone provide a reason why Zafina is so bad? The self damaging thing I get, but what exactly makes her the worst?
I asked the same question, yet nobody seems to be providing an explanation. Some players suggest it may be due to Zafina self-damage. In the video introduction, Arslan mentioned that he would clarify later why she is weak, but unfortunately, this explanation was not provided.
@@adobliisaackomlan7361 I'm inclined to believe that it's due to inaccurate early opinions, word of mouth, and character popularity (or lack thereof). I always see comments on characters saying "please nerf" or "please buff" but they don't actually say that is too good or too bad about the character.
@@adobliisaackomlan7361 She's got some issues. Removal of the long range low and forcing it into SCR stance basically makes the move useless when it was a key part of her neutral. Her combos barely graze 60 dmg if you dont want to use azazel self damage moves. If you do, you can milk out maybe 5 more dmg while killing yourself for 20-40 dmg. She has no 15 frame launcher so cannot launch punish Rage arts. The mini combo shown in the vid is ok-ish but there's been more than 1 occasion where it failed to kill due to people in heat and healing back up grey hp and also being in rage. Also her while running plus move is nice but is weirdly slow compared to other characters' while running pressure moves, and for some reason she jumps in the air, so can be floated by jabs. All azazel moves deal too much self dmg including her claw parry, when she gets hit while in parry, she also for some reason takes a huge amount of damage, on top of the self sacrifice hp, makes it almost not worth using unless you have a hard read on the opponent. Also for having a self dmg mechanic, Jun has a way to heal it up, Zaf doesn't for some reason, and doesnt gain more advantage for going more low hp, it's just self-killing for no reason. Also in general the idea of T8 is aggression, so while you can catch whiffs using zaf's backdash, there's so many long strings and good pressure tools that other characters have that giving up the space constantly becomes an issue. She doesn't have any great panic moves at fast frames, nothing like flash or feng's b1 for example. These above are just honestly a couple of issues, the zafina discord has probably 5x the amount talked about. There is a good reason why the best tekken player in history, arslan, has dropped the character. - also looks like sonicfox also threw her in the bin and switched to feng. knee also agrees zaf sucks. Fergus, a key resource creator for tekken also seems to have a vid explaining why she sucks. That being said, she's unfamiliar enough on match up in ranked, so can stomp the ladder for a while + it's probably kinda the fact she is one of the only characters that is strictly worse than they were in T7, along with Asuka I've heard, while every other character got juiced like crazy and new characters are release-level strong and while she isn't like... unusable, it's kinda like why bother when everyone else is better.
@@sobornes239 see final sentence in my comment above - not unusable but for the effort, kinda what's the point. It's possible and easier to do more and better on other characters.
@@BigZesusTekkenI hit the wall and do about the same. Once the opponent is hit she gets so much damage scaling on every move in her arsenal it's ridiculous. Can you do more, sure. Every single time? Not even a quarter of it.
@Ryuuk00 it's not hard to do her optimal combos bro. Her super optimal, sure. But even then the difference in damage isn't significant. F3 SS cancel alone does a shit load of damage. Run up uf1 df1 etc
@@Ryuuk00 Good, idk why people are saying play top tier. High tier people make me sick, I've seen plenty of Tekken King, Emperor and even god zafinas. So proud of them
@Ryuuk00 I'm a purple rank zaf main.. been a zaf main since she was released in T6, but she's always had the same issues, which none are exclusive to T7 or T8. Her general dmg output is bad, her numbers are bad on most of her kit, and her tracking is abysmal. Combine that with them removing much of her kit.. and yes, she may get armor on her stance moves in heat but thats literally all she gets.. which is negligible at best honestly. She can do a lot, but she has to work for almost everything she does, and there are many characters who do the same or more with less effort and more reward. It won't change my being a zaf main for anything, i'm about character love and loyalty.. but I cant ignore inherent issues either.
For the record, I think she is mid tier. I think the only buff she NEEDS is to take 2-4 less damage on her self damaging abilities. Anything other than that would just be a bonus in my eyes. Lmk what you guys think!
If she's mid tier who is worse exactly? as it stands the claw moves arent even worth using in combos even if they didn't cost her life.if they are going to leave her so garbage they need to take away the health cost. I don't even use the combos with claw in this video think you are better off doing scarecrow 4 as tornado into cursed crow "just frame." Most of the time it's actually more damage last I checked
@via_negativa6183 I'm saying she's mid as in that is low tier. Because Tekken low tiers can still win, they're just harder and the risk reward isn't as good. I still think she's bottom 5. But I've also found combo videos that make me believe she's slightly better than I first thought. Still not good, but better than I originally thought. Have over 100 hours on her too. Not hyping her up at all. Moreso, I thought she was completely shit. Now I think she's ass, but better than I thought lol. I don't play Leroy but I wouldn't be surprised if he's slightly worse
@via_negativa6183 SS df1 would be worth it in combos if it didn't take life because of it's wall carry. But I agree with you either way. They are trash moves outside of heat and even in heat they aren't great. Wr1+2 into df1 is ass unless it's a significant distance to the wall, because the other options allow you to get a better follow up wall combo
Naw she got the less self afflictint damage. She still needs to out put a bit more damage and she needs less recovery and start up on a couple things. It's about aggression and the kings of defense in like Feng and Jack out out aggressing her.
