Best Characters Tekken 8 Characters of 2024
The tier lis of the best Tekken 8 characters is meant to represent each character’s difficulty level, and how effective they are in online play, taking into account multiple factors such as:
- Simplicity of gameplan – simpler it is, the easier it is to grasp
- Ease of execution – not only combos, but also bread and butter moves / strings
- Tricks – how tricky the character is, includes evasive moves, mixups
- Visual clarity – how hard it is to discern between move properties (moves that hit mid but are actually high, stances applying pressure even when interruptible etc.)
- Flexibility – can the character do multiple different things, making it harder to adapt to
- Heat use – how well they utilise heat (extra properties, heat smash etc.)
It’s important to remember that there will be more patches in the future, it’s preferable to play something you enjoy rather than something just because it’s in a good state as it may change in the future.
Patch 1.05 (released June 11th, 2024) brings a lot of changes to tone down the aggression, and especially mindless aggression, that was possible in prior versions. In addition to character specific changes, we saw a significant number of system changes to open up defensive options.
Before going over the strengths and weaknesses in each tier, let’s get a brief reminder of notation and frame data to help us better understand our reasoning.
| Tier | Tekken 8 Tier List |
|---|---|
| S | Alisa, Kuma, Dragunov, Feng, Law,Leroy, King, Eddy, Shaheen, Lili, Jin |
| A | Viktor, Azucena, Jun, Asuka, Lars, Paul, Leo, Jack-8, Nina, Raven, Reina, Yoshimitsu, Xiaoyu, Kazuya, Bryan |
| B | Zafira, Claudio, Hwoarang, Lee, Steve |
| C | Devil Jin |
Notation
Before going over the strengths and weaknesses in each tier, let’s get a brief reminder of notation and frame data to help us better understand our reasoning.
= short press
= hold
= neutral, don’t press any movement buttons
= full crouch
= while standing, transition from crouching to standing
Frame Data
When discussing moves, frame data is the amount of frames that takes a character to go from a neutral position to executing a move (15f = 15 frames from startup), after which they go into recovery, which varies.
Frame advantage (+x) means that the character will execute his next move x frames faster compared to his opponent. For example, a character being +5 means the opponent is -5.
S-Tier: Top Tier Characters
| Tier | Tekken 8 Tier List |
|---|---|
| S | Alisa, Kuma, Dragunov, Feng, Law,Leroy, King, Eddy, Shaheen, Lili, Jin |
As it stands, Tekken favours offence above defence, especially in ranked play. Every character in S tier has multiple moves that cover almost every option, making defending against them nearly impossible and as a result they specialise in relentless offence, no breaks, all gas.
As a result, picking any S-Tier character will be about equally beneficial, since all of their kits are overloaded you should pick your character based on what you find enjoyable to play.
All S-Tier characters exhibit the following characteristics, they may vary in execution but provide the same end result:
- Infinite pressure
- Moves that cover most / all defensive options
- Oppressive in heat
For example:
- Jin – Simple gameplan, very effective with a few moves, especially strong heat smash
- Kuma – High combo and wall damage, great counter hit tools and a big knowledge check character, great heat usage.
- Feng – Overloaded kit, hard to find weaknesses
You will find Xiaoyu to be missing from S-Tier compared to other lists, this is because she is a specialist character. She can be bumped up based on player experience.
Leroy went from competing for the worst character in the game, to a solid S-Tier character. His buffs significantly improved his overall damage, especially giving him absurd chip damage. Additionally, successfully executing his perfect parry almost ensures a half hp combo whilst healing himself.
Notable characters
These notable characters can be extremely effective with only a few essential tools, making them easy to pick up.
Alisa
Many would consider Alisa the most carried character in ranked, and for a good reason. Key strengths:
- Great movement
- Long range punishment
- Amazing power crushes transitioning into chainsaws…
- …Or neutral on block
- Simple to use with a very high ceiling (mainly due to movement)
Law
While not as simple as the previous two, Law has a very well rounded moveset, with good pokes, and with the simplification of Dragon charge (hold forward after certain moves) has many moves with great frames. Some notable moves include:
- Great launcher, safe on block, with pretty good tracking
- 20f fast, counter hit launcher, and +3 on block, amazing counter hit tool
- Nunchuck, counter hit launcher, while unsafe, is very good for hitting grounded opponents. In heat it launches on normal hit, which is insanely good
- Slide, great range, and guarantees a hit with nunchucks on hit
- Very fast mid, you can enter dragon charge by holding forward, becomes +5 on block, or +16 on hit, on the wall guarantees a 96 damage combo
Additionally, his combo damage is quite high, especially if you can get to the wall.
Dragunov
The premier rushdown character, has very strong moves from up close, and afar and is very unintuitive to counter, his bread and butter moves include the following:
- Mid running move, counter hit launcher, +4 on block
- Bread and butter low, decent damage, due to Dragunov’s strong mids, most people are unlikely to crouch, unless they have a solid read
- Very deadly next to a wall, part of Dragunov’s 50/50, +6 on block
- Low, transition into sneak, from there we have multiple options
- Safe mid, second hit can be delayed and 3rd one launches
He also has a ton of great generic tools, including his jabs, and various other strings which are very tricky to deal with, his combo damage is amongst the highest in the game, and with throws being homing, he’s very difficult to sidestep.
King
Probably one of the most infuriating characters to face as a beginner, many of his moves require knowledge to counter, and he thrives in an online environment where input delay and lag are commonplace. He is a grappler, so he has an extensive list of throws, some of which look identical to each other, making throw breaks very difficult. Some notable moves include:
- Giant Swing, has the same start up as Shining Wizard, making it a 50/50. High damage if they don’t roll, and guaranteed next to a wall
- Shining Wizard (tomahawk in-game), highly damaging throw, same start up animation as giant swing
- Safe launcher, 2nd hit is delayable
- Fast mid powercrush, hard to punish, 45 damage if first hit lands
- Pretty fast low, big damage on counter hit
King also has the best heat smash in the game, acting as either a very long range punishment tool, a pressure tool due to the huge plus frames and free 50/50 that follows blocking the heat smash. King is also very tricky with multiple moves out of crouch, which are very tricky to deal with for lower level players:
- Low launcher, -12 on block, very slow, but surprisingly effective
- Mid launcher, -14 on block, pretty fast start up
A Tier: High Tier Characters
| Tier | Tekken 8 Tier List |
|---|---|
| A | Viktor, Azucena, Jun, Asuka, Lars, Paul, Leo, Jack-8, Nina, Raven, Reina, Yoshimitsu, Xiaoyu, Kazuya, Bryan |
Same as the S tier characters but to a lesser extent, you can expect a nearly unending barrage of moves, but they usually either have some counter play (be it side-stepping or blocking), some clear weaknesses, or very difficult to pilot, and require a lot of experience and training (specialist characters):
- Strong pressure
- Pretty good in heat
- Some characters are specialist characters, require a lot of practice to use effectively
For example:
- Lars and Leo – Moving between stances
- Asuka, Jun – Strings and parries
- Jack-8 – Gamma howl rushdown
- Hwoarang – Great mixups when he gets up close
- Raven – Knowledge checks, relies on tricks (low character popularity)
- Nina – Strings, good neutral game and high damage
B Tier: Mid Tier Characters
| Tier | Tekken 8 Tier List |
|---|---|
| B | Zafira, Claudio, Hwoarang, Lee, Steve |
Significantly less oppressive than the higher tier characters, usually have some upsides but clear counter play options. They are:
- Mostly unable to keep up pressure
- Rely on fundamentals rather than very oppressive moves
- Heat isn’t overwhelming
For example:
- Claudio – Small movelist, simple to execute but very easy to counter
- Devil Jin – Has some decent tools, difficult to execute with fairly low damage, has some tricks and decent evasion
- Steve – Pretty safe, but has difficulty punishing, relies on game knowledge and fundamentals
Devil Jin and Lee are here due to their difficulty more than anything else, with experience they can be bumped up to A tie.
Due to her recent nerfs Azucena is no longer an S-Tier character, notably her previously great running 3 move went from being completely safe when dodged with a huge frame advantage on block, to launchable on dodge with only +2 on block. Alongside damage, tracking and poking nerfs.
C Tier: Low Tier Characters
| Tier | Tekken 8 Tier List |
|---|---|
| C | Devil Jin |
Reserved for characters that are severely underperforming, be it due to bugs/inconsistencies or significant nerfs.
Previously occupied by Kazuya, now belongs to Devil Jin, with his recent set of nerfs, he is far weaker than most of the cast while being very difficult to pilot to a decent level of success.
1.05 Changes
System Changes
- Stage Gimmicks:
- Overall reduction in damage (when applicable), damage scaling, and reduction to the amount of recoverable health lost
- Heat Burst:
- No longer tracking, meaning it can be sidestepped with correct timing, additionally can be beat by reversals and power crushes
- Heat Dash:
- No longer staggers on reaching a wall, meaning heat dashes leave the attacker at +5, instead of +18 when close to a wall
- Heat Dash follow-up:
- Some heat dashes allow only a follow-up attack, and now only attacks that hit grounded are guaranteed, provided they’re not too slow
- Command throws:
- Command throws are no longer homing, and therefore can be sidestepped (with some exceptions)
- Power crush:
- Specifically safe high hitting power crushes are nerfed, allowing for better counter play
Azucena
Saw an overhaul over the past few patches, with many of her mindless offense being taken away in favour of a stance-centric gameplay. In this patch, she was further pushed in that direction, with new stance transitions, and some slight buffs to damage and frame data. She was already bordering A tier, and I believe these changes are enough to bump her up.
Victor
With nerfs to most of his best bread and butter moves, Victor is not nearly as oppressive as he was previously.
- Now +2 on block, more easily sidestepped and only retains his +5 if transitioned into Iai, from which he’s not able to block, and has a limited move set.
- Significantly slower, at 19f, and as every other safe high power crush, has worse frame data.
- Easier to side-step and saw a slight damage nerf.
Victor still has some of his great tools, but is overall easier to counter, especially with lateral movement via side-steps.
Hwoarang
Hwoarang was decent before, but is way more punishable now. He is still good when he gets in, but the above-mentioned changes hurt him quite a bit.
- Can now be more easily punished, as it is now -14 on block and does not push back as hard.
- Now has a shorter window to input the 2nd hit, which recovery for the opponent is shorter, allowing them to punish more easily.
Devil Jin
Devil Jin was in a fairly weak state in the previous patch, after many nerfs to his heat smash in prior patches, nerfs to his combos, and now a nerf to:
He still has his evasive moves, and set-ups, but he is not nearly as strong as he could be.
Kazuya
One of the worst performing characters in prior patches, he received numerous buffs to increase his consistency in and outside of combos, new punishment tools, and another great move to use in neutral.
- Has a better hitbox and consistently lands during combos, opens up more advanced combo routes as well, involving EWGF.
- Now a solid 15f punish, knocks down and allows for a follow-up into a mix-up on wake up
- Buffed both in and out of heat, and is now a decent tool to use even in neutral.
- Now +5 on block, allowing for a good mid option in neutral. It has no tracking at all, though, so can easily be sidestepped.
With his new tools, and buffs, Kazuya is significantly more consistent across all levels of play. His new 15f punisher is easy to execute, and allows people who’re unable to use EWGF quickly enough a better option than previously available.
Characters to watch out for
- Asuka: she has another set of buffs, and was already very solid before the patch, she is especially effective in low levels of play, due to her parries, powerful lows and good counter hit options.
- Paul: Has some buffs, and was already solid. He didn’t get anything that looks too oppressive, though, so he may be fine where he is right now
- Leo: Is very strong, has many moves that look similar with different properties and has decent damage, especially at the wall. Despite all of that, they’ve seen buffs to some moves, accompanied by minor damage nerfs.
- Jack-8: Was solid before, and over the last few patches, saw buffs to Gamma howl, and now buffs to the range of his throws.
- Yoshimitsu: Very strong and tricky, and despite that has been slightly buffed this patch, specifically around his stances
- Raven: Got many buffs to his move’s properties, adding more evasion or easier access to some moves, as well as hitbox buffs.
