Nub Tekken Thread

[cmanoa]

With all the new people interested in Tekken (all three of them) I decided what we need is a Tekken Basic's thread!

Sure, you could head over to gamefaqs, tekkenzaibatsu or any other number of sites for all you'll need to know to get started, but I'm bored and also a little too excited for T6, so to help pass this hellacious week of waiting I figured I'd take it upon myself to hopefully impart some of the knowledge I've amassed over my 13 or so years of Tekken! Hopefully I'll also illustrate this thread beyond text with colourful homemade MSpaint files, and potentially, links to vids! (Not likely though)

I, of course, welcome Tyler, Steffan, Tyson, Keith or anyone else within the community, as well as those who made a wrong turn on the internet and are merely passing by, to contribute as well!

INTRODUCTION

Tekken is a 3d fighter that uses 4 buttons to beat down your opponent: Left punch (LP), right punch (RP), left kick (LK), and right kick (RK).

The standardized layout is as follows:



If you're using a pad then it is shifted 45 degrees to the left:



Other sites out there make use of a second notation using the numbers 1 to 4 to make things a little easier to understand. Using the number layout LP becomes 1, RP becomes 2, LK becomes 3, and RK becomes 4. The button layout is then labelled as follows:



Since numbers are used for the buttons, the directional layout uses the standard up, down, back and forwards:



Moves are listed as pressing a direction and a button (f+1), two or more buttons (df+1+2), and hit strings are listed with a direction and a button followed by additional buttons (b+3,2,1). Further directional inputs are denoted with more complicated commands (d+4,N+4,u+3)

In addition, there are also moves that may use an uppercase letter as opposed to lowercase ones. This denotes that the direction must be held.
Eg: King's f+1+2 does 25 damage and is blockable, but F+1+2 does 50 damage and is unblockable

Special Notations:

N
The N in the center of the directional diagram stands for Neutral, which is important as there are certain moves that make use of it. Not letting go of the direction and going back to a neutral position will not result in the move you may be trying to do.
Eg: Lee's f,f+3+4 is NOT the same as f,f,N+3+4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFNfTudbWU

FC
Full Crouch (FC) is simply a move inputted while in the crouching position. Most moves will allow you to be holding DB, D or DF but this is not always the case.
Eg. Asuka's FC+3+4,3 King's FC,df+1

WS
While Standing (WS) occurs when a character in a crouching position returns to a standing position. You press the button as you let go of down, or are recovering from certain low attacks.
Eg. any character's WS+4 (most have this. Its generally a good mid poke with good range)

SS
Sidestep inputs can be tricky at first, but can help your game greatly (but not as much as they do in Virtua Fighter). either tap u or d then return to a neutral position.
Eg. Nina's SS+1+2

SS + side walk
While no moves require this input it can be useful at times to get your back out of walls (opponent permitting). Do a sidestep by tapping u or d then return to a neutral position and then hold down U or D to continue walking in that direction.

Rapid Presses
I'm uncertain what the correct phrase is, but these are moves where you must press two buttons buttons in rapid succession to perform them. These are often shown as either in brackets, or with a squiggly ~~~
Eg: Christie/Eddy's 3~4,4,4 & Lei's 4~4~3,3

There's more to cover, such as just frames, While running, grounded moves, cancellable moves, move links, delayed hits, delayable hits (yes, they're two different things), crouch cancelling (which I likely won't even cover, since its usefulness has been all but evaporated since TTT) and everything else I'm forgetting!

Now that that's taken care of, actual combat information next! Later today, maybe.

[cmanoa]

Essentially there are several ways of damaging your opponents:  normal attacks, throws, counters, unblockables AND FUCKING LAZER BEAMS!!

Normal attacks are broken down into high (h), mid (m) and low (l) attacks.  

High attacks can only hit standing opponents and can be ducked.  Doing successive high attacks or strings which end in a high attack often welcome your opponent to duck and punish so use these with caution and don't overabuse them.

Miid attacks can hit standing and ducking opponents and must be blocked while standing.  These are generally considered safer moves than high attacks, but there's nothing that's not punishable when whiffed.
Not much to say really.  Take into consideration too, a quick jab will likely beat out most other high and mid moves if both come out similtaneously.

Low attacks must be blocked low and are great ways to catch your opponent off guard.  The problem with most low attacks are they have poor recovery, especially when blocked, and there's also the universal low parry to take into consideration too.  More on that later, though.

Beyond highs, lows and mids, there are also jump attacks, low-mids, special mids and special lows.  That's quite the confusing sentence!

Jump attacks are much like hop attacks in KoF.  They have a higher priority than lows and avoid getting hit from them altogether.

Low-Mids are essentially mid attacks that can also be blocked while ducking.

Special mids and lows are often denoted in movelists with a capital M or L, meaning they can hit grounded opponents.

Throws are pretty self-explanatory.  They're moves you can pull from across the screen or before the match starts to instantly kill your opponent.  Okay, not really.  Every character has two standard throw commands (1+3 and 2+4) which also do variant, more damaging throws if done on your opponent's side or from behind. Beyond this, each character also have their own special command throws.

Throws can be escaped before damage is dealt by pressing 1 if thrown by a 1+3 command, 2 if thrown by a 2+4 command or 1+2 if thrown by a special command throw.

In addition, certain characters also have low throws, to catch ducking opponents, ground throws, chain throws and tackles.  To clarify, any character can tackle if they charge into an opponent while running, but certain characters have their own special attacks while mounting their opponent (sexy, isn't it?)

Counters are moves which obviously counter your opponents attacks.  Only certain characters have the ability to counter opponent's moves, and often that is restricted to high or mid attacks, sometimes further restricted to just punches and kicks.  

Slightly related to counters are moves which have parry and retaliation qualities to them.  They overprioritize and deflect certain attacks before connecting with their hit.  In Virtua Fighter these moves were referred to as sabaki.

Another form of counter is the universal low parry.  Tapping df to counter a low attack will parry your opponent's low attack and also bound them against the ground allowing for a juggle followup.

Unblockables are moves that are guaranteed to hit should your character survive through the initial animation phase without getting hit.  These moves more often than not take considerable amounts of frames to do, and are easily punishable before they even come out.  You are however allowed to laugh in your opponent's face should they ever hit.


Offense will only get you so far, unfortunately and aside from pressing back to block high and mid, and downback to block low I can't tell ya much about defense.

Its been said that successful Tekken players not only know their character in and out, but they also know EVERY other character as well.  This is true for most fighters, but when you take into consideration how many characters there are, how many moves and strings and mixups each of those have, that's a awful lot to memorize and be able to react to.

With that said you're gonna end up on your ass more often than not so up next is the ground game, or okizeme, where we try to answer James Howard's eternally unanswered question, "Why can't I stand up?"

[cmanoa]

reserved

[cmanoa]

Reserved.  Lets hope I actually get around to finishing this!  XD

[Fstrike]

lol I understand so much more now thanks for teaching this Tekken Nub a couple of things 

[cmanoa]

just scratching the surface. more to come!

[yayze]

This almost deserves to be its own blog.

[Kang]

That wonderful NeoRussell continues to make nub tekken tutorials.  This here shows the move notations in video form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2dAqP2Z-m0

[cmanoa]

A video tutorial would have been an excellent thing to do, had I the equipment, programs, knowledge to do so.  I hope more of these come out in a timely manner, as I know people out there like David are interested in the game, but still don't have the basics fully covered, let alone the more advanced game.

I really wish I could finish off what I started, but to cover everything that needs to be covered is simply a huge time commitment, and plus there are other sites out there that have done a much better job than I would ever do.

I'm thankful that in spite of my laziness, people are taking the initiative and visiting sites like Tekken Zaibatsu and digging through the vast amount of information out there looking to improve their game! 

Lets have more people learn the game, come out and compete, and maybe one day, we'll outnumber the amount of Street Fighter players in the scene!  (yeah, right. lawl)

[KLB]

You might want to cover wave dashing for people interested in using the Mishima's. To my understanding it's just buffering f,N,d,df rapidly.

[Kang]

I dropped the note to the one or two people who mentioned a mishima in passing but overall there doesn't seem to be a large amount of interest in the mishimas at this time.

[karo]

How on earth do I crouch cancel? There's a combo I'm trying to do with Feng. Tyler told me about it but it appears I need to cc to do it.

Here is the string for reference:
db4, 2~1 B! ff3, d3+4
The cc occurs between db4 and 2~1.

I should also ask what a cc looks like so I'll know when I've finally done it.

[cmanoa]

crouch cancelling is done by tapping up during recovery frames for moves while crouching, such as FC+1, or D,1 if you prefer (a crouching jab).  In earlier games you'd go directly from a crouch to standing without any frames for WS move inputs.  In this game however you do a slight bit of a sidestep if you don't input the command early enough.

the notation for the juggle you posted would look like this:

db+4, u~N+2~1

For certain moves you can also cancel a crouch recovery by doing a f~N, but that's not always the case.

Edit:  yupyup, a sidestep occurs now if you tap up during the recovery frames for crouching moves.  if you try what I posted above for Feng you would do db+4, ss+2, which doesn't connect at all.

I tested out this juggle and it turns out it just requires critical timing to get the bound successfully.  If it helps you can try doing f~N before 2~1.  I don't know if that'll actually knock off any frames, but I found it helped my timing.  :p

Edit 2:  If you actually want to see a crouch cancel do uf+4, f,f,D,1, u~N+1
what this is is a hopkick, dash in, crouching jab, standing jab.  if you don't do the crouch cancel successfully the last hit will be a WS+1, and not a neutral 1.

Remember, limited usefulness!  XD

[cmanoa]

Bump!


okay, just kidding, karel.

I really want to elaborate more on okizeme and had started editing one of my earlier posts BUT the concept is just so complex that I became as frustrated as an irritated James Kim and gave up on the post!

That said, I still want to cover options on how to survive, or prolong, a losing battle!

So, you just had your ass handed to you!  A juggle, followed by a bound juggle, followed by a wall attack and now you're trapped on the ground against a wall.  Now what do you do?!  To best answer that you must first know your options when on the ground:

AS YOU'RE KNOCKED TO THE GROUND
1. Use a punch as you land to roll away from the camera * **

2. Use a kick as you land to roll toward the camera * **

3. Hold forward to spring back to your feet (will hit opponents close enough)

4. Hold back to roll backward

* immediately after rolling to a side you will have a narrow opportunity to input While Standing moves.
** You may hold down to recover crouching or downback to recover crouching and block low attacks

WHILE YOU'RE ON THE GROUND
1. Use 3 to perform a low kick

2. Use 4 to perform a high kick

3. Use d+3/4 to perform a quick heel kick **

4. Hold back to start a backwards roll and then:
 a) Use 3 to perform a low kick
 b) Use 4 to perform a high kick
 c) Press both kicks to perform a lunging kick attack **
 d) Press both punches to perform a forward diving attack **
 e) Do nothing and return to a standing position *

5. Hold forward to start a forward roll and then:
 a) Use 3 to perform a low kick
 b) Use 4 to perform a high kick
 c) Press both punches to perform a forward diving attack **
 d) Do nothing and return to a standing position *

6. Use 1/2 or d+1/2 to roll to either side and then:
 a) Use 3 to perform a low kick
 b) Use 4 to perform a high kick
 c) Hold down while rolling to remain on the ground ***
 d) Do nothing and return to a standing position *
 e) Hold back to roll backwards and then:
 - e1) Use 3 to perform a low kick
 - e2) Use 4 to perform a high kick
 - e3) Press both kicks to perform a lunging kick attack **
 - e4) Press both punches to peform a forward diving attack **
 - e5) Do nothing and return to a standing position *
 f) Hold forward to roll forwards and then:
 - f1) Use 3 to perform a low kick
 - f2) Use 4 to perform a high kick
 - f3) Press both punches to peform a forward diving attack **
 - f4) Do nothing and return to a standing position *

7. Tap up to return to a standing position *

8. Do nothing and stay on the ground

* You may hold down to recover crouching or downback to recover crouching and block low attacks
** May only be done while on your back, feet toward enemy
*** Most characters will only be able to roll to the side and stay grounded only once, effectively reducing their options


Yes, that is quite the list!  With so much choice there's bound to be more wrong options than right ones unfortunately.  

You must always take into consideration your distance from your opponent and your distance from any walls before choosing how to get up.  Knowing your opponent helps, but more advanced players are able to take advantage of more offensive options and ultimately there will be times when you only have one or two viable options to safely get off the ground.  And even then your chances of staying on your feet are quite low!

So going back to our previous example of being on the ground, close to a wall:

Effectively in this scenario a number of your options will not be advisable.
1. Rolling away or towards your enemy will leave you open to bound attacks in addition to normal mids and lows, allowing them another bound combo which will leave you back in the same position you were in before
2. Using a low or high kick could often result in you being hit in a counter attack, which could crumple you, leading to another juggle, bound juggle or wall hit

Your safest options then are as follows:
1. Quick recovery to the side and be prepared to block high or low *
2. Press d+3/4 to do a heel kick while on the ground, allowing you back to your feet if it connects **
3. Tap up while on the ground to return to your feet and block high or low *
4. Stay grounded and eat a hit, then roll either away or to the side.  Sounds bad, but at times you're going to be hit anyway.  Take it like a man!

* hold back to block high or downback to block low as you're recovering
** Must be on your back, feet toward enemy

Things to take into consideration:
1. There's a chance that your opponent will be using string hits to keep you grounded while scoring multiple hits.  Being able to stand and block the first attack, only to be hit with a mid/low mixup may either knock you back to the ground or leave you at a negative fraaaame advantage.  Tekken unfortunately is a game where you not only have to know your own character in and out, but you also have to know your opponent's game as well.
2. Your opponent may intentionally whiff a move to lure you into a false sense of security, only to punish your offensive attempt.  Don't assume you're safe until you're back on your feet and the initial pressure is gone.  More often than not, a rising 3 or 4 attack is going to be a bad idea.  If you watch any high level gameplay match you'll notice that these two moves are almost never used.

[karo]

I'm gong to read the shit out of that post. Good work!

By contrast, here is Street Fighter 4 oki:
While getting up --
- Shoryuken
- Do not shoryuken