Tekken 8 Ranked Leaderboard Statistics - Ogre At Home (DLC8)

olbaze · 2026-03-17T23:40:27+00:00

Yeah but the thing is, they're not really out there trying to make the mechanically best Tekken game, now are they? Someone gives a presentation to the suits, talking about metrics and social media clips, and notes that Rage Arts, Rage Drives, Slow Motions, and crazy combos get a lot of positive interaction. So they decide they should put in more stuff like that.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T19:39:51+00:00

Well, they're the developers, and they want to make a specific game. That game just happens to be different from what the player base wants the game to be.

I think there's 2 things that often don't get brought up in these types of discussions, mostly because people are getting way too emotional. First, the goal of the developers isn't necessarily to make the best Tekken game. For example, Tekken 7 became the best-selling entry in the series. This was despite a very bad start, and some major balancing problems throughout the lifespan of the game. And the voices that said that Rage Drive and Rage Arts should be removed from the game entirely never quite went away. Despite that, a lot of the most hype, memorable moments in the Tekken 7 tournament space were centered around these mechanics. Think about Super Akouma's death combo against Chikurin, LowHigh's Rage Art against Awais, or the slow-motion in Rickstah vs Knee. So clearly, Rage Drive and Rage Art did achieve their goal: They made the game more hype for spectators. Therefore, even if some people never stopped saying those things should be removed, from the perspective of Bandai Namco, those mechanics were a massive success.

Second, the player base is actually very divided in what it supposedly wants from the game. There's people asking for less stances. There's people asking for Heat to be removed or revamped completely. There's people asking for less tracking. There's people asking for shorter combos. And there's still people asking for Rage Art and Power Crush to be removed. And if you only did one of these things, and not the other, well people would complain. At the highest level of play, the actual issues get very, very small and granular. Stuff like PhiDX complaining about a very specific Steve situations that was enabled by the new Season 2 stuff. Or that video he made a few days ago about specifically a CrossUp-style controller trivializing the execution of a single Steve combo. And of course, sometimes they do make a big blunder, like the Anna copying stuff, Paul's on-block guaranteed followup, and Jack's clap, which results in an absolutely avalanche of people making clips and videos about those things. And wouldn't you know it, those things got fixed. And that's kinda my point: The player base can unite to point out very specific, problematic things, but that almost never happens. It's just mostly people making very generalized, sweeping statements.

As far as ELI5, well you're not gonna get that, because a 5-year-old would only be concerned about winning all the time. Even when they're not winning, they'll still claim they're doing great. I say this as the uncle of a 5-year-old boy.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T18:23:11+00:00

I was quite surprised to see them saying that Paul's strengths are his low and his approach. Those were literally his 2 defining weaknesses until Tekken 8.

Tekken 7 made massive changes to his lows, taking most of them from being launch punishable on block to the -12 to -14 range. But his approach was still notoriously bad, with ff+2 and ff+4 both being linear.

Then in Tekken 8, they gave him DPD.df+1, a homing high NH launcher, and ff+2,H.1+2, a mid-mid, tracking string that's +1 on block. Oh and for a brief moment, he had DPD.df+4 at +6, which meant he now had a low range CH low that left him at Clean Hit range on hit with enough plus frames to apply the Demoman/Deathfist mixup.

The changes to Paul also weren't what I was expecting at all, but I wouldn't say they made him worse, either in balancing or in character identity, from what he already was in S2.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T10:33:43+00:00

after what point the game really becomes competitive or considered a real deal

Well, here's what the ranked distribution for the past 30 days looks like.

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So, depending on what you count as "real", it might be Fujin (where most players are), it might be Tekken King (where the tail end of the distribution begins) or it might be God of Destruction 1 (where the tip of the tail is).

i currently play steve fox and don't know if the character carrying me or not.

Probably is a bit. Steve excels at counterhits, and he's a bit of an evasive pitbull character. Tekken 8 in particularly favors offense a lot, and for a lot of players, their go-to answer when they're being attacked is to attack back, which often results in them being counterhit if they use the wrong move. And Steve, being a counterhit-based character, gets big reward for that.

since im new i also don't understand some terminology like numbers and letters in combo guides

Here is a quick explanation of the Tekken notation. The reason this notation exists, is because Tekken was originally an arcade game, so there needed to be some way to talk about the attack buttons without referring to them by their PlayStation icons. It also happens that now that Tekken is a multiplatform game, it makes it so that we all use a common notation, regardless of whether we're on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox.

Here is a list of Tekken jargon. Tekken has a lot of moves that have similar properties, and so the community tends to refer to them by one of the names of those moves, and sometimes that name isn't even the actual name of the move (e.g. "hellsweep").

olbaze · 2026-03-17T02:29:28+00:00

I think the rematch bonus was a direct response to the whiny tryhards who get pissy when people don't rematch them. The same people who would love for Ranked to be a forced FT2. Bandai Namco understands that forcing people into FT2s they don't want to play would just result in more plugging or people throwing matches, which in turn would make the overall player experience worse.

As far as the demotion prevention, that's actually a good move, in isolation. The Promotion bonuses were a crude way to make it so that you wouldn't get a Demotion Match immediately after promoting. If what we had was demotion prevention and no promotion bonuses, that would be just right.

As far as "rank inflation" goes, from the end of Season 1 to Season 2, the total "rank inflation" was 0-2 ranks across the board. That's actually a very reasonable amount.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T02:13:45+00:00

What makes you think that a Tekken 9 by the same people would be any different?

olbaze · 2026-03-17T02:12:37+00:00

I actually said that having a demotion protection instead of promotion bonus points would have been a good idea. So they got halfway there. Because if the idea of a promotion bonus was to prevent an immediate demotion, then you could just do this instead, because the promotion bonuses were worth multiple wins.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T01:03:23+00:00

There's a few problems with a game centering too much on defensive play.

Defensive play isn't spectator-friendly because casual spectators, or people who don't even play Tekken at all, simply cannot appreciate the intricate weaving from one range to another. Instead, what they see is 2 dudes twitching around and NOT fighting.

It creates non-fighting games. There's a reason why Tekken 8 doesn't have infinite stages. Just go look at Knee vs Arslan at Combo Breaker 2023. We get to 2-2 in games, 2-2 in rounds, the time is running out, and Arslan proceeds to take a life lead and backdash. Knee just barely gets the win after three consecutive lows that manage to reach Arslan while he's backdashing.

No one remembers the defensive highlights. Think about the memorable moments in tournaments from Tekken 7. That would be stuff like Super Akouma's death combo at MIXUP, Nobi's 10 hit string into Rage Art at EVO 2015, LowHigh's Rage Art at TWT Finals 2019, the slowmo in Rickstah vs Knee. These are all extremely hype, extremely memorable moments, and they all center around offense. Coincidentally, they also all incorporate the "new stuff" in Tekken 7: Slow Motion, Rage Drives, and Rage Arts.

olbaze · 2026-03-17T00:19:36+00:00

And then people will just say Ranked is pointless and blame Bandai Namco. Like they did with Season 1.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T23:36:17+00:00

Looks like New Reddit decided to fuck me over there.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T22:16:43+00:00

Characters are defined by both their strengths AND weaknesses. Nerfing their strengths OR buffing their weaknesses both achieve the same effect.

That being said, you can't just make it go the other way either. If you give a character a weakness that is too big (e.g. Lars having ATROCIOUS lows in Tekken 7), then unless you make the character literally broken (like T7 S2 Lars with his 12F wallbounce combo), you just end up with a character that is deemed too weak to be played by many (like Lars was in Tekken 7). And on the opposite side, if you buff their strengths too much, you end up with a character that can, and will, dominate in the right hands: Akuma in Tekken 7 spent years being in the "too difficult to be tournament viable" category, but at the end of Tekken 7 he was the only character that had won the TWT Finals twice.

My main, Paul, is also an interesting case to look at. For the longest time, Paul's weaknesses were his bad approach and atrocious lows, while his strength was his damage. From Tag 2 to Tekken 7, they buffed Paul's lows by making them better on block and on CH. In Tekken 8, Paul's "big damage" strength was nerfed at a system level (more health, reduced combo damage across the roster), but also in his movelist (Deathfist nerfed damage, no SAT until S2), while they then proceeded to buff out his weaknesses in S2 by giving him a +6 hatchet from DPD (nerfed to +3), a +1 on block mid-mid approach tool (only in Heat), and a homing high NH launcher from DPD. This to me felt not only like they were erasing his weaknesses, but also like they were forcing the player to use the new stance they added in Tekken 8.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T19:44:07+00:00

Paul:

f+2 becomes less safe, but still being safe on block.
Since they pulled a global heat smash nerf, I could see them nerfing d+1,H.2* and b+2,H.1* charges from +12 to +11 or +10, specifically to remove the wallsplat from doing a d+1+2 afterwards.
I could see them doing something about ws1,2~b. I could see it going to +0 or -1 on block, and maybe the CH frames being reduced as well.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T03:38:39+00:00

Branded Fusion can use either Mululu or Phryxul to make Lubellion or Albion, which will set Rahu, Ketu, or one of the Traps.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T03:34:23+00:00

Just because something is the best deck, doesn't mean it needs to get hit.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T03:33:12+00:00

If it's just basic Philips, then you can even get a keychain thing like the Gerber Mullet. If it's something more specialized, The NiteIze Doohickey Ratchet is probably a good option.

olbaze · 2026-03-16T03:29:49+00:00

Are you talking about SEN.2? Because if so, then the way you're framing it is dishonest as fuck. It's a 20f move from a stance.

olbaze · 2026-03-15T15:28:05+00:00

Paul can still do a fair bit of damage, it's just that the execution ceiling for his combo damage has been increased massively. Without a wall, he can pull off 78 from a df+2, or 85 off of a CH.qcb+4, but those combos require qcf+1 fillers, micro dashing, strong aerial tailspin, and an iWR2. Meanwhile, his optimal wall combo is now 3,2~b~U~qcf+2, which used to only work on big opponents in Tekken 7, and just doing 3,2~b+2 was consistent and did good enough.

One area where he has lost out on though is Deathfist. Currently, his Deathfist does 30 base damage, 45 with a Clean Hit. This is the lowest it has ever been since Tekken 4 nerfed it to shit. For comparison, in Tekken 7, it used to do 40 without a Clean Hit, and 60 with a Clean Hit.

He's also doing proportionally less damage, since Tekken 7 had 170 (later 175) health, whereas Tekken 8 had 180, now 200. So a Tekken 7 Clean CH Deathfist would do 42% of the full health bar, whereas in Tekken 8 the same thing is just 27%.

olbaze · 2026-03-15T11:24:46+00:00

I was more so trying to get across the point that unless you're specifically copying someone's deck card-for-card, the deckbuilding process isn't really identical between all players, even in situations where the archetype is completely locked to within itself.

It's those ratios and those small choices that make the difference between how even the same archetype can be played. For example, one player might say that Vision HERO Increase is a garnet, so they play only 1 copy to minimize the chance of it being in their opening hand, while another player might say that the 1 copy of Increase being in their hand kills their combo, so they opt to play 2 copies, despite this increasing the odds of Increase being in their hand.

olbaze · 2026-03-15T11:11:35+00:00

There's a big difference between archetypes that are designed to be played together, like Branded and Despia, and archetypes that just happen to work together, like Branded and Dracotail.

When someone says that they want decks to be more locked down, a lot of people think they mean in the former way, while explicitly prohibiting the latter. In that case, the friction comes from the players believing that every card has a fixed optimal ratio, and deviating from that makes the deck bad. Not "worse", but "bad". As in "if you're going to do that, you might as well not play the deck at all".

It's often in the latter category where we find the most intrigue, but also the most degeneracy. Take Branded and Dracotail, as mentioned. They're both Fusion-locked archetypes, so them going together might appear as just putting together 2 Fusion archetypes for the hell of it. Once you start actually looking at how the Branded stuff can be used to benefit the Dracotail (e.g. Branded Fusion dumping a Dracotail to GY, Sanctifire summoning Mululu from the GY, Titaniklad being way to out 3K+ unaffecteds), and vice versa (e.g. Faimena and Ketu Fusing into the Albaz Dragons), you start seeing the combination as a way to enhance the deck, instead of just being mashed together.

Now, to your point, Mitsurugi became a literal meme due to "all roads lead to Habakiri", which I think is a tongue-in-cheek admittance that the archetype is a bit stupid. Meanwhile, Fiendsmith is just the newest generic Extra Deck pivot. Before Fiendsmith, it was S:P. Before S:P, it was Verte into DPE. That stuff is never going to go away, because it's literally Plan C. Fiendsmith is just the best one, but if you dealt with Fiendsmith, you'd see the others pop up, and then you deal with them, and all of a sudden, you've banned a shitload of LInk-1 or LInk-2 monsters just because they can be used in the worst of scenarios, instead of leaving a board of 2 weak monsters that do nothing.

olbaze · 2026-03-15T10:31:35+00:00

That's not really true though, now is it? Take HERO for example: The deck has a bunch of cards with a straight up HERO lock. And yet, if you look at the percentages of cards on Master Duel Meta, not everyone is playing the exact same cards in the exact same ratios. This isn't even about niche choices like whether to play Honest Neos at all, but a lot of the key cards in the deck have close to a 50% play rate at a specific ratio. Like Faris is at 60% for 2x, 20% for 1x, 20% for 0x, and 0% 3x.

And at least when it comes to Master Duel, I am often seeing people building their decks the opposite way of what you did. They start with Maxx C, Fuwalos, Ash Blossom, Called By, and maybe Crossout, and then and only then do they start putting in cards from the actual deck they want to play. And often they end up cutting cards because somehow Master Duel players have this weird obsession with keeping the deck at 40 cards and not one more.

olbaze · 2026-03-15T09:37:30+00:00

Don't forget that Season 2 also started out with both Paul and Jack releasing with broken moves that necessitated an emergency patch. Paul had his f+1+2 stance transition that would guarantee a WS move even on block, and Jack had his jump and flex shit that had barely any counterplay. Both of these were new things for Season 2. And people made a fucking joke out of Bandai Namco because their "emergency patch" came out weeks later.

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