Character Overviews (Tekken 7)

Introduction
My name is Fergus and I go by CKT-Fergus or Fergus2k8 as my IDs. I’m an Asuka player from
Ireland and I came up with this idea after a SF player in my local community asked me, “If play x
character in SF, what character would suit me in T7?”. So I decided to make this primer to break
down each character’s playstyle to as simplistic as I can while capturing the essence of their
playstyle. This primer is made for people with pre-existing FG experience but are new to
Tekken. Hopefully, it will help you guys out, and make deciding on a character less of a chore
for T7.
I am aware that the game is still in a changing state, I will update the primers if there are any
balance updates that contradicts what I have down.
Here is a video format of this guide made by Arya Tayebi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbewxse8DlI
If you are unsure of any terms in the primers, I have written a glossary which hopefully includes
it and will explain it for you.
Thanks to so many people who have helped me with this project, in terms of giving me
information on the characters I’m not familiar with, providing me with renders and proofreading
my work. More info on these beasts at the end.
https://twitter.com/Fergus_TK?s=09 - follow me on Twitter!
Quick Info
1 - Left Punch (Square/X)

2 - Right Punch (Triangle/Y)
3 - Left Kick (Cross/A)
4 - Right Kick (Circle/B)
High - A move that can be blocked standing and whiff on crouching

Mid - A move that can be blocked standing and hit crouching
Low - A low that cannot be blocked standing and gets blocked by crouching
Fastest moves are 10f (like 3f in SF games) with exceptions
Most tekken players refer to startup frames as “Impact Frames” so 10f startup would be just
called i10 in tekken jargon.
Glossary
Backdash Cancel (BDC) - is basically cancelling your backdash with db to cut the recovery
period and allowing you to perform another action. This is done via (b,b db~b, b, db~b b….).
This is a variant of the BDC called the Korean Backdash Cancel (KBC). BDC is good for
creating space between yourself at the opponent quickly and to escape mixup situations. There
are a few ways to perform a BDC but this is the preferred one as it works with backsway
characters such as Bryan, Paul and Nina.
BT = Backturned, it’s basically just your character putting their back towards the opponent.
Some characters have a unique movelist out of BT such as Chloe, Feng, MRaven, Xiaoyu
Crush - a property of a move where it is designed to go cleanly through a move depending on

high or low crush property.
High Crush - a move that’s designed to be “invincible” to high moves.
Homing move - a move that is designed to shut down sidestepping.
Hopkick - a standard low crush launcher that most characters have. Usually i15 and done by
either uf3 or uf4.
Launcher - a combo starter, usually the fastest launcher is i15 for most chars.
Low Crush - like high crush moves, low crush moves just simply hops over lows.
FC - Full Crouch , a state where the character is in crouching and there is an exclusive moveset
in this state.
Mishima - when people refer to Mishimas in-game, they are referring to the playstyle rather than
the surname. So this includes Heihachi, Kazuya and Devil Jin (even though Jin is a Kazama by
name). In TTT2, Angel was considered a Mishima under this term. This comes with shared tools
such as EWGF, Hellsweep and wavedashing.
Rage - a state a character is in with 25% or less health remaining. It gives your character a very
slight damage increase and access to Rage Art and Rage Drive. It’s indicated by a red aura
around the character and red glowing lifebar.
Rage Art - Basically Tekken 7’s version of a super. Fully armoured but still absorbs damage so
can still get KO’ed if absorbed move kills. Uses up your rage and every chars RA is different in
terms of speed.
Rage Drive - another option you can spend your rage on. It’s basically a juiced up version of an
existing move and it’s unique per character on how good it is and it’s usage.
Range 0/1/2/3 etc. Range 0 is point blank, Range 1 is a single backdash away. Range 2 = 2
backdashes etc
Power Crush - an armoured move available for all chars. What the actual move is, is unique to
the character.
Screw attack - a move that causes them to spin and fly away in a juggle allowing for enders.
This replaces the bound from T6/TTT2 and is usually given as s! in combo notations. You may
also see tailspin which is the older name for it.
Seeable - means it’s reactable, usually referred to with lows.
SS - sidestep notation so a SS1 move would be Sidestep + 1
SSL - Sidestep left - performed by tapping up on P1 side and down on P2 side.
SSR - Sidestep right - performed by tapping down on P1 side and up on P2 side.
SWL - Sidewalk left - basically a longer but more vulnerable step, done by tapping for SSL then
holding down the button
SWR - Sidewalk right - same as SSR but tapping then holding down the button..
WS - While Standing, a state where the character transitions from crouching to standing, there
is an exclusive moveset in this state.
WS Punishment - When I refer to this, it’s when you block a move from crouching (lows) or
blocking a move that leaves you in crouch, it’s your punishment from crouching essentially.
WR - While Running, a state where the character is considered running.

Wall Carry - a combo that is designed around taking your opponent to the wall.
Wallsplat - a move designed to splat the opponent vs the wall for a followup combo.
Alisa Bosconovitch
Difficulty - Easy
Alisa makes her return in T7. Alisa is a very poke oriented character. She excels at slowly
chipping down the opponent with good ranged low and mid pokes. Combine that with her strong
sidestep/backdash and she's perfect for players who like to play a slow methodical paced game.
She has an incredibly strong homing move in 4, a i13 CH launching homing move; this is really
good at discouraging the opponent to step allowing Alisa to bully them with pokes. She can also
get aggressive and cover space quite quickly with WR2, a high-damage ranged attack that puts
her in a very favorable position if blocked. Opponents have to try to predict this attack and
either duck or sidestep it which leaves them vulnerable to her poking game. As Alisa is very
poke centric, her damage can fall behind as she doesn’t have a lot of moves to make
comebacks with.
Pros
- Decent poking game
- Safe launchers
- Strong jab punishes
- One of the best stepping in the game.
- One of the best homing moves
- Strong homing moves
Cons
- Poke game is low damage, she struggles on a life deficit.
- Has to play very risky to make a comeback.
Recommended to players who like
- Simple poking game

- Low execution
- Defensive gameplay
Akuma
Difficulty - ????
Akuma is the SF guest character in T7. His design is completely unique from other Tekken
characters due to his SF origins. Similar to the SF games, he has a meter gauge, where he
builds the meter via doing moves on the opponent, using special moves or getting hit. He can
use the meter to extend his combos and pressure or burn them on approach tools like fireballs.
Once he’s in, he can abuse his powerful low options one of which that can be cancelled into
fireball or tatsu point blank for a huge damaging low option as well as his sweep which knocks
down for strong oki. He has a demon flip with a bunch of moves out of it that can be used to
approach the opponent and to initiate pressure. Akuma gets a lot of his big damage via jumping;
quite the sin in Tekken as jumping can be interrupted into big combos, It can be hard for some
characters to stop this flip. He’s a very all or nothing 50/50 character and with meter, his mixups
become incredibly damaging and safe. He has a shoryuken which is invincible at the start,
meaning he can disrespect a lot of pressure and make the opponent be wary about applying
pressure on Akuma. With meter, his jabs become the best punisher in the game as he can do
jab cancels into shoryuken meter cancel for huge damage on anything unsafe.
Pros
- Has a shoryuken for a panic move
- Best punishment in the game with meter.
- Strong 50/50 game
- Strong oki
- Huge damage output
Cons
- Needs meter for damage
- Unsafe on his mixups
- Has poor range, needs to be up close a lot of the time
Recommended for players who like

- Street Fighter
- Unique characters
Anna Williams
Difficulty - Medium
Nina’s sister makes her return in S2. Anna is quite an extreme character in that she is the
definition of a high risk/reward character. She’s very strong at approaching the opponent with
moves such as QCF1, a + on block fast CH high launcher with quick recovery, FF2 another + on
block high which is a homing. With these tools, Anna is good at closing the gap with her
opponent and bullies with her pokes and cancels. She has 2 main mixup scenarios, her FC
game and her Chaos Judgement (CJM) stance. Her FC game has an unseeable low launcher
which is also complemented by various mids from crouching. Her CJM stance has moves such
as a chunky low option in CJM d33, various mid options, fast highs to condition the opponent to
respect her. She has a few moves that transitions into this CJM stance, some good and some
bad and it’s up to the Anna player to use them well. Anna is all about forcing herself into the
opponent, conditioning them to respect her with her pokes and then applying the FC/CJM mixup
situations. However her punishment is the worst in the game bar her rage art which is tied
fastest and has huge range. It is sometimes encouraged to not take the punish from crouch as
Anna and take the FC mixup instead. Good reads is required as an Anna player as she has big
damage from her openings but they are very unsafe.
Pros
- Some of the best mixups in the game
- One of the best rage arts
- Huge damage output
- Strong comeback potential
- Good approach
Cons
- Awful WS punishment
- Has to commit a lot
- Inconsistent hitboxes and followups
- Awful tracking
Recommended for players who likes

- Mixup intensive characters
- Rushdown and offensive
Armor King
Difficulty - Medium
AK is a really well rounded character. He has a lot of the tools the game has to offer such as
varied grabs outside of generic grabs, really strong basics, good punishment on block and whiff,
a super strong RD, and strong NH/CH launchers. He has strong approach with his CD1 which is
a + on block high with huge range and forces the opponent to pre-emptively duck at range. He’s
good at forcing whiffs with range on stuff like his generic d4, df4, df1 and so on. His damage
output is quite high to complement his whiff punishment reward. He has ground throw mixups
which means after certain knockdowns or wall enders, he can setup a 50/50 to add on a lot of
damage onto his already high damage on a correct guess, so his comeback and oki game is
quite strong. His lows aren’t the best so it’s encouraged to use his grabs/rage drive to make
them duck. His 11f ws4 is strong but it’s all he has til he can launch from crouch.
Pros
- Strong grab game
- Decent oki
- High damage output
- Amazing basics
Cons
- Medicore lows
- Ws punishment is meh
- Very weak to SSR

- Strong basic characters
- Grab games
Asuka Kazama
Difficulty - Easy
Asuka is an extremely defensive CH oriented character in T7. She is quite strong at keeping her
opponent at a distance with her ranged mids and lows. This makes it hard for the opponent to
approach Asuka with her plethora of keepout tools and to top this off, Asuka has one of the
game’s best and easiest whiff punisher with f2 to punish any whiffs at a huge range. Once the
opponent makes it through Asuka’s keepout, they’ll find themselves struggling to get hits on her
due to her having the best panic moves in the game; including a safe i14 CH launcher that low
crushes early, a safe evasive move and her reversals, as well as being a relatively safe
character overall. Asuka’s offense is decent at best, the main idea behind it is “mental frame
advantage”, meaning that she’s very good at making the opponent second guess their turn to
attack. While Asuka bullies the opponent down with her amazing jab strings and upclose pokes,
they have to challenge her eventually and with her strong anti-button tools, they can pay the
price dearly for it. She has some of the game’s best mid launchers, both on normal hit and CH.
Her okizeme has been buffed a lot in T7 from TTT2, gaining access to an extremely strong
grounded hitting move with her Rage Drive and a mid unblockable. However, Asuka does have
one of the worst WS punishment in the game as her fastest launcher is i19 from WS, so it’s
encouraged to try and read lows with her and crush them as opposed to blocking them. Her jab
punish is the worst i10 punish in the game meaning it can be hard for Asuka to steal the lifelead
back from her opponent if they play safely.
Pros
- One of the best whiff punishers in the game
- Strong okizeme
- Best arsenal of panic moves
- Strong keepout
- Big arsenal of safe mid launchers and CH launchers.
- Strong CH game
Cons
- Worst jab punish
- One of the worst WS punishers
- Struggles vs defensive players

- Defensive characters
- Strong and unique oki
- Easy and effective characters
Bryan Fury
Difficulty - Advanced
Bryan is renown for his amazing blend of keepout and rushdown, and Tekken 7 is no different.
He has plenty of tools to keep his opponent at range with ranged CH launchers, backsway
evasive moves if they approach recklessly and a safe mid launcher that low crushes with quick
recovery. He also has a mid CH launcher with huge range and + frames if he needs to put
himself at the opponent’s face. Once he is in there, he can work his opponent down with hard
hitting lows, a fast CH mid launcher that’s neutral on block, powerful jab strings, hitconfirmable
strings and so on. His offense is not only damaging but also relatively safe. Moreover, he has
some of the best spacing tools the game has to offer. There is a steep execution curve to Bryan
if you want to get into the really silly stuff available to him, such as the infamous “taunt jet upper”
which is forcing your opponent to eat an unblockable taunt into a guaranteed launcher followup.
This is extremely hard to pull off but it’s very practical to be able to do consistently. A noticeable
flaw that Bryan has is that he is very weak to his left so the opponent’s right, but he has strong
hitting homing moves to cover this.
Pros
- One of the best space control
- i14 launcher standing (standard is i15)
- Damaging and relatively safe offense
- Huge comeback potential
- Strong CH game
- Damaging homing moves.
- Good whiff punishers
- High combo damage output
Cons
- Weak tracking to his left
- Not much going for huge + frames on hit

- Well rounded characters
- High execution curves/flashy stuff
- Strong defense oriented playstyle
Bob Richards
Difficulty - Easy
Bob is an extremely well rounded character that can allow the player to play a variety of
playstyles. He has a very strong poking game with good mids, CH launchers and low pokes. Not
only is he a strong poking character, Bob can up the tempo and go in with hard hitting lows. One
of his lows db3+4,4 is one of the most infamous lows in Tekken. It does big damage for a low
and leaves the opponent in his face at a huge disadvantage. This makes his wall game one of
the best in T7 as the opponent cannot backdash followup pressure. He has plenty of safe mids
to complement this, one of them being super evasive as well. Furthermore he has a command
dash allowing him to close the gap quickly between himself and the opponent, along with having
good tracking; meaning it can be hard to move around his pressure. He has very strong
punishment and he also has a i14 WS launcher to punish lows harder than most.
Pros
- Very versatile playstyle.
- Super strong poking game
- One of the best wall games
- Good approach
- High damage output at wall
- Strong punishmen
Cons
- Relatively slow df1

- Easy and effective
- Versatile playstyle with tons of options
Claudio Serafino
Difficulty - Easy
Replacing Lars as the most anime character, Claudio is the first of the new additions to Tekken
7. Claudio is unique in the fact that he gains something close to a “devil trigger install” from
connecting with certain moves. His hand gains a blue flame called Starburst which grants him a
one time buff for specific moves. Claudio is infamous for having the best hopkick in the game
with huge range and quick recovery, therefore it’s awkward to block/whiff punish making it a
strong keepout tool. He also has one of the strongest approach tools with his WR2, a hugely +
on block high that forces his opponent to duck at a range and Claudio can start using ranged
mids such as the aforementioned hopkick to condition them. Claudio’s main gameplan is to get
into Starburst as soon as he can to use the juiced up versions of Starburst compatible moves to
overwhelm his opponent. His poking game isn’t amazing as his generic mid poke is slower than
most and his fastest mid is a bit unfavourable on block. His main lows are damaging but they
are quite risky (launch punishable) on block except one making his offense a dangerous one for
him to take.
Pros
- Best hopkick in the game
- Highest damage output with STB enabled
- Good homing moves
- One of the best whiff punishers in the game with
STB
- Strong keepout with hopkick
- One of the best approach with WR2
- Strong wall game
Cons
- Limited poking game
- Mediocre lows
- Unsafe offense for the most part

- High damage output chars
- Unique powerup character
Craig Marduk
Difficulty - Medium
The Vale Tudo champion makes his return to Tekken and he’s stronger than ever. As always
Marduk has an amazing selection of lows, from poke lows to power mixup lows to high crush
lows etc he has it all. He has strong mids to complement these lows with as well, tons of safe
CH launchers (albeit slow, so takes some conditioning) and good jab pressure and mindgames.
The main thing Marduk has to offer is his tackle mixups, which can be enforced from raw tackle,
throws, his reversal or rage drive. Once he’s on top of you, you have to guess between 3
options, 1, 2 or 1+2 which he can also fake out to make it hard to react to. His damage output is
immensely high and on top of that, he can use rage drive at the end of combos to mount and
add on even more damage through guesses. His oki is notoriously one of the best between his
ground grabs and ways to blow people up by attempting to stand up off many
knockdowns/grabs. His Vale Tudo Stance (VTS) has a power mixup in it through a trip low and
many mids, he can access his VTS from many moves so there’s a lot of mindgames behind his
cancels. His grab game is also one of the best to no surprise. His WS punishment is pretty poor
though, only getting a launcher way later than average. His homing’s aren’t the best so it’s
encouraged to know the tracking on his moves.
Pros
- One of the best oki
- One of the best rage drives
- Amazing lows
- Strong comeback factor
Cons
- Poor WS punishment
- Slow homing moves

- Non traditional characters
- Grapplers
- Okizeme based gameplay
Devil Jin
Compared to the other Mishimas, Devil Jin can be considered the “well-rounded” one of the 3.
He has stronger pokes than Kazuya and better safety and lows than Heihachi, but he’s not as
hard hitting as Kazuya or as CH heavy as Heihachi. As a Mishima, he has access to the
standard Mishima tools, EWGF (+5 on block high launcher with good recovery), hellsweep (hard
hitting low, his version trips the opponent up for a combo), strong jab hitconfirms and a
wavedash to close the gap between himself and the opp with ease. His poking game is quite
strong as he has a variety of lows to choose from depending on the situation. Whether it’s hard
hitting with hellsweeps, simple poke pressure with db2 and d4 and plenty of strong mid poke
strings to complement this. He has the usual Mishima strong space control with EWGF and his
own unique ranged mids to dictate the pace with. He also has a strong panic move in u4 which
can be a mixup on block vs specific characters.
Pros
- Strong poking game
- Strong space control
- Strong mixup game
- Great mobility
- Good panic moves
Cons
- ????

- Strong poking chars
- Well rounded chars
- Ability to change up pace at player’s own discretion.
Eddy Gordo
Difficulty - Medium
Eddy is arguably the most unorthodox character in the game. He has access to a few stances,
but a lot of focus is put on one which is called RLX stance. This stance is very evasive and can
be used to enforce 50/50s on the opponent with comboable mid and low options when used
properly. Eddy has access to strong low pokes: SS4 can be very hard to whiff/block punish, and
df4 has pretty good reach, making him strong at chipping the opponent down with all the various
low/mid pokes. while looking for moments to enforce the RLX mixup. He has pretty strong
keepout with moves like df2 (i15 CH launcher with pushback), SS4, uf4 (ranged mid) and good
usage of his stances to evade. He has a canned 50/50 mixup with uf3 string which puts the
opponent into a mid/low guessing game with rewarding options. He has access to a i13 WS
launcher which is tied fastest with Kazuya & Josie, meaning doing low pokes on Eddy with
certain characters turns into a big risk. However, he does have a pretty bad SS making him
prone to more offense, but also one of the best backdashes in the game.. He is encouraged to
enforce RLX mixups on his opponent to rack up damage along with having a good
understanding of Tekken’s oki system.
Pros
- Strong 50/50 game
- Good chip poke heavy style
- i13 WS launcher
- Strong okizeme
- One of the best backdashes
Cons
- Poor punishment outside of i13 WS launcher
- His mixup options can be punished heavily
- Bad SS, takes more pressure than most chars

- Unorthodox characters
- Chip poke heavy style
- Strong okizeme
Eliza
Difficulty - Medium
Tekken Revolution’s addition makes her way into T7. Eliza is similar to Akuma in the way that
she has access to a fireball, aerial moves and meter cancels. Unlike Akuma, however she can
gain her meter by sleeping. She can force the opponent to consider their approach with her
fireball forcing them to play into her game. Her jump has access to Ex Divekick, so you can use
the jump to make moves whiff and then confirm the whiff and do ex divekick to punish. She has
strong space control with WS2 and FF4,2 strings. Once her opponent is close, she can start her
lethal mixup game. Eliza gets access to a strong damaging low option similar to Paul. Combine
this low with her divekick cancels, which allows her to keep momentum up and at the wall, it
becomes very difficult to escape from her mixups. Furthermore her damage output and wall
carry are quite strong and it leads into arguably the best wall game of any character in T7;
making her mixup game that much more rewarding. Like Akuma, she has access to an EX
Shoryuken which allows her to escape from pressure, quite risky as it is launchable on block but
it forces the opponent to consider it as an option. Her down jab is amongst the best in the game
because of its rewards on CH. These defensive options can make pressuring her quite risky.
The lows she uses for poking are a bit risky as she doesn’t have much to work with other than
D3 cancels which can be punished in the open.
Pros
- One of if not the best wall games in Tekken 7
- Super strong lockdown pressure with divekick
- High damage output and wall carry
Cons
- Poor low pokes
- You’ll get a lot of hatemail

- Rushdown characters
- SF-esque characters
Fahkumram
Difficulty - Medium
Tekken’s final DLC Char of S3 makes his debut. Seen as the successor to Bruce, Fakh shares
some of his moves as well as having a unique guard crush mechanic around him. Fakh’s range
is quite good as he has strong keepout with tools like 3, a long ranged fast mid poke, bf4 which
is a + on block high launcher with mega range that tracks really well so it shuts down steps
completely, which forces the opponent to play into Fakhs more linear game. Fakh is seen more
of a defensive character due to this and a lot of his moves giving pushback on hit and block,
allowing him to create space quite well with his range. He also has really strong block and whiff
punishment combined with surprisingly decent movement for a big character and his range, so
turtling with Fakh is considered a good idea. His combo damage output and wall carry is also
quite high and his rage drive works like Katarina’s as in it has an unscaled amount of damage at
the wall so it adds on a lot. He also has a FC mixup similar to Julia’s with a low kdn move and
various WS options. Fakh's crushing options are pretty lacking and limited, however more
seasoned players can make good use of his movement, punch sabaki and kick parry.
Pros
- Strong punishment (block/whiff)
- Top tier range and space control
- High damage output and wall carry
- Strong answer to steps with bf4
- Good FC mixup
Cons
- Little crushing
- High hitbox on jab

- Strong defensive characters
- High damage/carry characters
- Unique guard break mechanic
- Chars with range
Feng Wei
Difficulty - Medium
Feng is one of the most open-ended characters in the game, meaning he can be played in a
variety of playstyles. His offense is scary with strong low pokes that high crush, leaving him in
the opponent’s face for followup pressure. It can be difficult to mash and move out of Feng’s
pressure as he has a i10 CH move with a damaging followup and a quick mid with strong
tracking. Feng has a low out of his sidestep that trips up opponents point blank for a combo, and
he has plenty of strong mids to complement him in this mixup scenario. He has a good selection
of risk/reward situations so he can choose freely depending on the situation. He has strong
movement and approach with his qcf dash allowing him to close the gap between himself and
the opponent with ease, and threaten with hard hitting lows and good mid pokes from the dash,
giving him extremely strong space control. He’s also very hard to pressure as he has a plethora
of panic and evasive moves including a stance where he moves backwards as well as an
autoparry stance and his aforementioned i10 CH move. However, his punishment is below
average as his hopkick has poor range and his ws punishment isn’t great as he lacks a good
punish until i14 WS. He also has low combo damage output but his damage from his pokes
more than makes up for this.
Pros
- Strong damaging offense
- Very hard to pressure due to panic/evasion moves
- Some of the best lows
- Insane space control and approach
Cons
- Low combo damage output
- Below average punishment

- A completely varied playstyle
- Tons of options to work with
- Heavy hitting poke chars
Ganryu
Difficulty - Medium
Julia’s #1 stan returns and he is as oppressive as ever. Ganryu is really strong at pressuring the
opponent and being constantly on top of them with his massive + frames and strong
approaching mids. Ganryu is quite unique for a tekken character as his jab is slower than the
average jab, but is more + on block. He has quite a few strings with followups making the
opponent freeze up, especially off his df1 string. His DF3 low is a +5 on hit low that forces
crouch and is barely punishable on block. This leads to Ganryu having really strong offensive
poking, especially at the wall where the opponent cannot backdash. Ganryu got a new stance in
this game which makes his mixup/poking game a lot scarier to deal with. When the opponent
gets scared/frustrated of Ganryu’s low poking, he has really strong mids to keep them in check.
Ganryu can really deplete your lifebar fast if you cannot get him off you through his barrage of
pokes and delayable strings. His infamous clap (ff1+2) is a safe high launcher with good range
due to ff motion, excellent for whiff punishing and just tagging the opponent randomly out of
their approach. His carry is surprisingly very good which definitely helps him with his wall game
and his punishment is quite decent too with a knockdown for 10f, strong mixup at 12f and a FC
launcher at 14f crouching. His range isn’t quite there as he’s a very upclose character, so he’s
reliant on the player being able to pick the right moments to go in.
Pros
- Excellent offensive pokes
- Strong punishment
- Strong carry
- Amazing wall game
Cons
- Lacks range a bit
- Struggles to make comebacks a bit

- Unique playstyle
- Strong poking
Geese Howard
Geese from the King Of Fighters makes his guest appearance in Tekken 7. Like Akuma and
Eliza, he has access to a jump, meter and cancels. This allows for some unique pressure and
combo routes. With meter he goes into a max mode state where he gains access to buffed
versions of his moves, including a + on block 14f mid launcher on max mode cancel and
arguably the highest wall damage output in the game, thus making his offense extremely
damaging if he has bar to burn. Geese has a unique parry where he has a different parry for
high, mid and lows as well as parrying anything in the game (knees, elbows etc included). His
mid parry can be a round winner as it leads to a ton of damage with his back to the wall making
the opponent really hesitate their offense on Geese. While Geese has strong standing
punishment with meter, without meter it can be pretty lackluster, and he struggles vs big
pushback moves. His lows aren’t great for poking/offense as they are either low reward and/or a
big commitment. Thus it is encouraged to play a good timing offense based game with Geese to
reap the rewards on his damage.
Pros
- Arguably the highest wall combo damage with meter
- + on block mid launcher with meter
- Best parry in the game
Cons
- Poor punishment on pushback moves
- Needs meter in general
- Poor set of lows

- 2D playstyle
- King Of Fighters
- Burst damage output
- Execution based characters
Gigas
Difficulty - Easy
Gigas is a pretty unique character in T7 in terms of playstyle. He has hard hitting pressure which
makes rushdown the preferred style of play. This makes him unique for a big character, as
bigger characters tends to focus on more defensive-oriented gameplay. That said, due to his
long reaching arms, he can be played as a defensive keepout character as well depending on
the situation. He has one of the better grabs in the game with hcb 1+2, a huge damaging throw
with the ability to buffer it; meaning you can do the input preemptively during animations to
make it come out as soon as the move is done. Gigas also has really funky pressure with his
rage drive, where he starts charging at his opponent and gets enough frame advantage to force
a 50/50; between an unblockable high and a wallsplatting mid, this is great in terms of closing
rounds out with a canned mixup. His block punishment is pretty polarized, he has a really really
strong jab punish and an i15 launcher with huge range making whiffing against him dangerous,
and he has the ability to punish certain moves that most characters struggle to punish. However
the rest of his overall punishment is quite poor. While he has strong mids, due to his stubby
legs, he has poor range on his lows, making it easy to backdash away from his pressure.
Pros
- Long reach on his arms
- Best non 2D jab punish
- Strong, fast and easy whiff punisher
- Canned powerful mixups with rage drive
- Good damage output with or without a wall
- Strong tracking on his pokes
Cons
- Lows have poor range
- Poor sidestep
- Takes more damage in combos due to hitbox

- An extraordinary playstyle
- Grappler like character
Heihachi Mishima
Heihachi can be defined as a powerhouse character in T7. He is a Mishima so that comes with
the perks of Mishima chars with a dominating space control with EWGF, hard-hitting lows,
strong jab hitconfirms and a wavedash which allows him to cover the gap between himself and
the opponent at his own pace and allows him to vary the timing on his pressure. Once he is in
your face, he has access to some of the best mids in the game to allow him to score CHs on his
opponents and harass them with jab strings. However he does lack low pokes meaning he
relies more on his powerful CH game to open his opponents up or he can choose to play a high
risk/high reward with his hard-hitting lows.
Pros
- Strong CH game
- Explosive damaging 50/50 mixups
- Great mobility with wavedash á la Mishima
- Strong comeback potential
- One of the highest damage outputs in the game
Cons
- Poor crouching punishment
- No lower risk lows for poking

- Execution based characters
- Balls to the wall rushdown
- Explosive mixup characters
Hwoarang
Hwoarang is back with an interesting...costume change. Hwo would be classified as a pure

rushdown character. His offense upclose is centered around fast paced mid/low and CH mixups
through the use of his various stances. He forces the opponent to make fast defensive decisions
or be looped in Hwo’s offense. He kills people who tries to mash out of his pressure but vs
people who accept it with good defense, he has to hit his opponent more often than they do him.
His difficulty stems from remembering all the options he has in his stances and knowing what
move transitions into which stance. He encourages creativity in his pressure with all the possible
mixup routes he can take. He is easily one of the most complex characters to learn in the series.
The game has blessed him with some of the best Rage Arts and Power Crushes. Hwo has the
game’s only safe mid Rage Art but it is only accessible out of a stance. While his offense is so
strong and overwhelming, his ranged game and approach is lacking although he got a new
move to help out a bit. He doesn’t have good high crushes in his neutral stance, he needs to
access his other stances to have them available.
Pros
- Insane mixup game
- High combo damage output
- Racks damage up fast in offense
- Safe mid Rage Art
- Amazing power crush
Cons
- Punishment game is a bit meh
- Ranged game is weak
- Poor high crushes in default stance

- Pure rushdown character
- Fast paced gameplay
- Having tons of options for varied offense
Jack 7
Difficulty - Easy
Yet another model to the Jack series. While bigger characters in 2D FGs tend to be more
stereotypically rushdown and grappler like, this is not the case in Tekken. Jack is arguably the
biggest turtle in the series. He has huge reach on his arms allowing him to effectively keep the
opponent out with jabs and mids. His main low pokes are extremely fast at i12, do good damage
as well as granting decent frame adv on hit. If Jack has you trapped at the wall, be prepared to
lose quite a bit of life fighting out of his poke game. For a defensive character, he plays the
passive aggressive game pretty well and can keep up with a fast paced game. He’s good at
making his opponent frustrated at range trying to get in and punishing their mistakes with his
ranged whiff punishers. He has a really strong throw game as well to sneak in at times including
a wallsplat throw. As a big character, he has a bad sidestep meaning he has to put up with a lot
of pressure that most chars wouldn’t have to, and is more vulnerable to extended combos. He
also doesn’t have good evasive panic moves or parries/reversals to counter pressure. Due to
his poor homing moves, he has to make commitments to stop the opponent just doing SSL vs
him upclose.
Pros
- Amazing keepout
- Strong throw game
- Strong whiff punishment
- Some of the best low pokes in the game
- Can punish certain stuff that most chars can’t with his
reach
Cons
- Bad sidestep, prone to pressure.
- Bigger combos are possible on him due to size
- Weak to SSL, has to take risks to stop that.

- Defensive oriented characters
- Simple and effective poke game
- Good throws
Jin Kazama
Difficulty - Medium
Jin excels in a lot of areas. Has a very high damaging poke game. Has extremely strong space
control with f4, a CH launching mid with huge range which can be made safe on block. Has
great mobility as a result of wavedashing and can close the gap in an instant. Has great tools
out of the wavedash such as a comboable low, a mid launcher mainly used for whiff punishing
or as a mid option. He is a very versatile character, can be played offensively with his strong
poking game and wavedash mixup or defensively with f4 keepout and strong block/whiff
punishment with the ability to change the pace as he wishes. He has the best parry in the game,
a parry usually loses to elbows/knees/headbutts/weapons but Jin’s counters all so he forces his
opponent to second guess their offense at an advantage. One of the best poking game with
damaging lows with one being a CH launcher, safe mids that knockdown and his 4 which is one
of the fastest homing moves in the game at i13 which knocksdown on CH. However, he can
struggle to punish certain stuff as his punishment lacks range.
Pros
- Great mobility
- Very strong rewarding mixups and poking game.
- One of the overall best punishment in the game
- Very flexible character.
- Can be hard to pressure offensively due to his parry and evasive moves.
- One of the best homing moves in the game.
- One of the fastest Rage Arts in the game
Cons
- Lacks range on some of his punishment.
- Versatile playstyle, being able to dictate the pace at any

given time
- Ability to punish opponent’s mistakes heavily
Josie Rizal
Difficulty - Medium
One of the new additions to T7 and Bruce’s replacement. Compared to Bruce, Josie is a bit
more of a “stringy” character with lots of new canned string mixups to break the opponent down
with. Her poking game is a bit unorthodox as she lacks a generic i13 df1 mid poke that most
chars have, but she makes up for this in other ways. Upclose, Josie is strong at chipping the
opponent down with her poke lows and strings. She can use feints in her strings and a manual
backsway to psych the opponent out and mix her offense up. Josie has access to a command
dash which gives her 2 extremely strong tools amongst others; a hard hitting low (CD3) and a
strong mid whiff punisher (CD2). This gives Josie a powerful approach from range to start
offense with CD3, or to bait out whiffs at range and whiff punish with CD2. With her feints/string
pressure and her ranged pokes/whiff punishment, she can switch the pace from an offensive
style to a defensive style in an instant. Something to note about Josie is her punishment, she
has some of the best punishment tools in the game; especially an i13 launcher from crouching
so she can punish poke lows harder than almost anyone else. She punishes mistakes hugely,
on block and on whiff, making her defensive aspect very strong. While her neutral and block
punishment damage is strong, she has relatively low damage output in infinite stages. Her
tracking is pretty weak to her left (opponent’s SSR) but she has decent homing moves to shut
this down.
Pros
- Some of the best punishment
- Strong string oriented offense
- Strong CH game
Cons
- Low damage output walless
- Weak tracking to her left (opponent’s SSR)
- Has to commit to unsafe mids for big reward

- Unorthodox poking game
- Huge damage through punishing opponent’s mistakes
- Versatile playstyle
Julia Chang
Difficulty - Medium
Julia makes her return in S2 under a streamer persona. As always and true to the character,
Julia is quite a strong character in T7. She has very strong space control with moves like FF1,
D,DF1 (commonly known as shotgun), D3 fast low poke and WR1 + on block high. So she is
able to dictate the pace and force the opponent to playing her game at range with ease. On top
of this space control, Julia has very strong mixups with FC df43 (Bow and arrow) giving strong
okizeme and free hits at the wall with various WS mids to work with. Her combos are arguably
the best in the game as she has massive damage output and basically wall to wall carry.
Tacked on all this is a powerful throw game with various command grabs, most notably is her
Mad Axes grab which is done with qcb f2. This move is unique in that the qcb can be “stored” so
she is able to move around and then do f2 to input Mad Axes, this combined with her mobility
and approach really keeps the opponent on their toes looking out for this grab to break as it’s
faster and has a shorter window to break than a standard grab. Julia’s wall game is amongst the
best as she has low splat starters, bow and arrow giving free hits and plenty of mid strings and
moves to splat with, on top of also having a 10f wallsplat with 111 on CH. Julia does lack a fast
+ on hit low but it is not in her character to have one.
Pros
- Really high damage output
- Arguably the best wall carry
- Amazing wall game
- Strong space control and neutral
- Some of the best grabs
- Deadly 50/50s
Cons
- Early standing punishment is a bit lacking, no 12f wallsplat

- Execution characters
- High damaging mixups
- Well rounded gameplay
Katarina Alves
Difficulty - Easy
Katarina can be defined as an “all or nothing” character to an extent. She has damaging lows at
the risk of getting launched for a combo on block. She has strong CH tools in her 444 string
which is a fast CH launcher, d2 with a huge hitbox and high crush potential and df4 a knee CH
launcher (being a knee is good as it will beat parries and such). She’s a high risk high reward
character for the most part in her mixup situations due to her lows being slowish and risky and
her safer lows being not very rewarding and limited. Whilst her lows are a commitment, she has
very strong mids in terms of poking and mixups and she has amazing jab strings to bully your
opponent with and + frames on block from quite a few moves to complement her frame trap
game. Her homings aren’t the best due to their speed meaning she’s forced to rely on her
moves tracking to stop the opponent stepping.
Pros
- Strong mids
- High damaging mixups
- Strong CH frame trap game
- High damage output in combos
Cons
- Lows are a commitment, kinda lacks a reliable good low

poke
- Slow homing moves
- Explosive mixup characters

- CH heavy gameplay
- Easy execution
Kazumi Mishima
Difficulty - Easy
Heihachi’s mysterious wife finally makes her appearance. Kazumi has an extremely small
moveset to work with to be effective. She is based around offensive pokes and likes to be up in
the opponent’s face to chip them down with her strong mids. She has the Mishima 1,1,2 which
is the best jab check hitconfirm in the game. She has good poke lows which leaves the
opponent in her face at a significant disadvantage. She is a very “sticky” char as in she can loop
her poke situation over and over until you challenge her. Kazumi has access to a projectile
which causes chip damage on block, not very useful but it’s a novelty. She has access to one of
the strongest i11 WS punisher in the game as it wallsplats to make her opponents wary about
using poke lows on her. She has a decent approach with WR2 which is - on block but it has
some pushback allowing Kazumi to use the space created freely and it knocks down on hit.
She’s also one of the very few characters with a wallsplatting throw which complements her
offense quite well with the opponent’s back to the wall. However since her lows are more
centered around poking rather than hard hitting lows for more damaging mixups, she can
struggle to steal the lifelead back from the opponent.
Pros
- Strong “lockdown” offense
- Wallsplatting WS i11 punisher
- Easy and damaging whiff punisher with DF2
Cons
- Bad range on hopkick, struggles to launch punish certain
moves
- Lacks hard hitting lows so can struggle to make a comeback

- Short moveset and simple gameplan.
- Easy execution
- Rushdown oriented poke heavy playstyles
Kazuya Mishima
The poster boy of T7, Kazuya is a character that is designed around punishing his opponent for
mistakes with huge reward either through whiff or block punishing, and picking moments to go in
with his hard hitting mixups. As a Mishima, he shares the same traits as the other Mishimas:
Devil Jin and Heihachi. His wavedash grants him the ability to cover the gap between himself
and the opponent at his own pace, combined with his EWGF (+5 on block high launcher with
good recovery), hellsweep (a hard hitting low with strong okizeme) and strong jab confirms to
allow him to vary the timing on his pressure. Unlike the other 2 Mishimas, his poke game is
pretty weak. He also has access to a Devil form that he can manually access once he has rage,
this changes properties on certain moves like his hellsweep. If he burns his rage drive in a
combo, he automatically switches into Devil form. It is encouraged to adopt a defensive
playstyle when playing Kazuya due to his aforementioned, weak poke game. He is centered
around punishment more than the other Mishimas as it is among the best in the game. For
example, he has his ws12, an i13 ws launcher, which allows him to punish low pokes harder
than other cast members.
Pros
- Top 3 overall punishment
- Great mobility with wavedash
- Good damaging mixup with hellsweep + complementary mids
Cons
- Poor poking game

- Defensive punishment based playstyle
King
Difficulty - Medium
Bah gawd King! King is the closest you will have to a grappler in Tekken 7. He has a plethora of
throws with some of them being quite damaging. He has chain grabs, which is a series of grabs
that forces the opponent to guess between a 1 break or a 2 break to get out of them, or suffer
increasing damage; Giant swing with a 1 break that looks like a 1+2 break animation and does
beefy damage with his back to the wall. He has a wall ender which allows him to go for a
Ground Throw (GT) 50/50 where they have to guess between 1 or 2 break which can add on a
lot of damage on a right read while still retaining strong guaranteed damage if the player wants
to opt for that and his Rage Drive as a combo ender gives a (GT) attempt. His low game isn’t
the best but he encourages ducking via his grabs because his lows are his throws due to
misleading break animations. If you enjoy a character with strong throws and forced 50/50
situations, King is the one for you. However, his whiff punishment is quite poor due to no reliable
ranged launchers.
Pros
- Best throw game in T7
- Strong okizeme with ground throws.
- Can rack up damage pretty fast through guessing
games (GT)
Cons
- Poking game is pretty mediocre
- No strong lows,
- Poor whiff punishment.
- Strong throw games

- Forcing opponent through 50/50s
Kuma/Panda
Difficulty - Medium
The iconic duo makes their return to T7. Despite Kuma and Panda having separate character
slots, they are the exact same character; the only difference lies in their Rage Arts. The bears
have access Hunting Bear Stance (HBS) which is a very momentum based stance. They have
access to a fast low string, damaging knockdown lows and strong mids with the ability to lower
their hitbox to go even under a lot of mids. Good usage of this stance is required to play Bears
well as they can get a lot of mileage off it. This can be achieved with good reads and
conditioning the opponent well. Due to their extensive reach on their arms, any attacks involving
1 or 2 input has extended reach. This gives them a very strong jab keepout game and they have
various mids/lows involving those punch inputs. Combine this with one of the best and easiest
whiff punishers in the game with df21 and the Bears can effectively keep the opponent in check
at range. This allows them to choose their moments to approach with HBS to rack up damage.
Bears have stubby legs. This can be a double edged sword; whilst the reach in their legs is
poor, certain lows whiff where they would hit other characters and certain characters must use
shorter combos due to their shorter leg length. Because of their hitbox, they are vulnerable to
bigger wall combos and specific combo starters but some characters are forced to use shorter
combos on them in the open due to their short legs. They also have a pretty bad SS so they are
prone to more offense than other characters.
Pros
- One of the best whiff punishers if not the best.
- Strong offensive stance
- Short legs so can be hard to judge range vs them
- One of the best hopkicks.
Cons
- Poor offense outside of stance
- Amongst the worst for SSing
- Prone to bigger wall combos and Bear specific combo starters

- Conditioning and hard reads
- Easy whiff punishment
- Party kinda style
Kunimitsu
Difficulty - Medium
The daughter of the original Kunimitsu. Unlike her mom, Kuni Jr has a lot more offensive options
than ever. She has some of the stronger approach tools with her SET stance, which is a long
ranged command dash with a bunch of options out of it. Including SET 2 which is a fast mid CH
launcher at range that the opponent has to respect and be wary about their keepout. She can
then use SET with no followups to approach the opponent to pressure with. Her offense is very
unconventional as in, rather than mid/low mixups, she relies on conditioning the opponent to eat
her powerful backturned game, which is where most of her consistent mixups and damage will
be coming from. KuniJr boasts some of the best wall carry in the game due to how her SET
combos work, this means being at the wall vs KuniJr is pretty much guaranteed. She has a very
powerful FC game as well with FC DF3 being a low knockdown, giving a free hit into the same
situation again, this is complemented by various mids with varying risk/rewards of your choice.
Despite all this, it can be difficult to keep pressure on with KuniJr as her lows are very weak and
a lot of her stuff pushes back on hit, meaning you need to get very creative with your offense.
Pros
- Some of the strongest wall carries
- Scary backturn and FC mixups
- Super strong approach with SET
Cons
- Bad set of lows
- Can be hard to keep pressure on opponent
- Struggles vs defensive opponents and styles
- Lack of strong CH tools
- Creative offense characters
- Conditioning heavy styles
- Ninjas
Lars Alexandersson
Difficulty - Easy
If there was ever a char in tekken that would be the closest to Ryu from Street Fighter, Lars
most certainly fits into that role. He is arguably the most well rounded character in Tekken 7 and
perfect to learn the game with. He has very strong basic tools and a low for every situation. If
you need a hard hitting low, a high crush low, a poke low, pressure low etc. Lars has them all.
He’s one of the very few characters with a mid launcher that low crushes and is also safe on
block making his opponent be wary about using lows vs Lars. He also has one of the highest
wall damage output to slap on the damage on your opponent after a wall carry combo or direct
wallsplats. Similar to Jin, Lars is also a very versatile character that can be played in any way
the player wishes to. His clearcut weakness would be that he is quite weak to SSR so homing
moves are encouraged with Lars. His range isn’t the best so its also encouraged to use dash
with Lars to close the space to use his moves.
Pros
- Great set of lows for various usage
- One of the highest wall and walless damage
output
- Strong punishment
- Best wall carry in the game
Cons
- Weak to SSR
- Lack of strong CH tools
- Range is small in general

- A well rounded playstyle
- A fundamental based character
Lee Chaolan and Violet
T7’s first palette swap character. Lee Chaolan and his alter-ego Violet, make their return in T7.
There are very little to no differences between the two so I will refer to Lee for this primer. Lee is
a very CH orientated character. He has one of the best keepout moves in the game with b4, a
CH launcher with fast recovery, which will interrupt the opponent’s approach for big damage. B4
can be cancelled into his HMS (Hitman Stance) to make it harder to whiff punish. Upclose, Lee
has plenty of tools to work with. His close ranged game consists of a very heavy poke style
whilst having strong CH tools such as 223; a CH hit-confirmable jab string which leads into a lot
of damage and wallsplat. D3 which is a high crush low which CH launches. His df1 has an
extremely good hitbox and high crushes well so it can be hard to fight out of Lee’s pressure. His
WR34 is extremely good for initiating offense from range as its + on block and is a good lead
into Lee’s CH game upclose, this complements his slide (ranged knockdown low) very well. His
aforementioned stance HMS has a few exclusive moves to it, and can be used as an evasive
stance for Lee after certain moves to punish retaliation from the opponent. Lee has one of the
best wall carries in the game with his b2 loops allowing him to carry to the wall further than most
characters. While Lee is strong upclose and has good keepout tools. As a result of this, it's
recommended to stay in your opponent's face with Lee to enforce his CH offense. That said,
due to his offense being CH heavy, it can be hard for Lee to take the lifelead off a defensive
opponent as his lows are very poke orientated.
Pros
- One of the best keepout tools in b4
- Strong CH game upclose and further out.
- Strong punishment
- Strong slide mixup game
Con
- Slow homing moves
- Can be difficult to make comebacks

- CH heavy characters
- Chip based playstyle
Leroy Smith
Difficulty - Easy
The NYC fighter makes his debut in T7. Leroy has gathered quite a bit of controversy over his
strengths on his release. This character has a very complete moveset on top one of the higher
damage outputs outside of 2D. Leroy’s upclose game is very suffocating as he has many tools
upclose, a d32 low high string that leads into his stance pressure at huge +, a df1 with an
amazing hitbox on it, a 10f CH confirm jab string making it really scary to challenge Leroy, a
psuedo homing hellsweep and much more. At range, Leroy has plenty of tools to approach with,
such as his ff3 which is a ranged kdn high move that can high crush, great homing moves with
range, a mid CH kdn tool that’s safe on block and more. It can be really hard to keep Leroy from
approaching you, and once he’s in, he has an amazing upclose game as mentioned previously.
On top of all this, he has some of the best parries in the game, he can parry something into a
damaging followup, or parry something to launch if the recovery is big so even pressuring Leroy
can be quite scary. Leroy has a cane which he can use once per match, if he connects the
cane, he gets a huge combo off it and is safe on block. He doesn’t really have any clear
weaknesses and as of now, despite his nerfs since release, he’s still one of the stronger
characters.
Strengths
- Some of the highest damage output
- Amazing approach
- Suffocating pressure
- Strong panic moves (parry, 10f CH string etc)
Weaknesses
- Bit weak to SWL
- Sugar (his doggo) isn’t viable

- Simple characters
- Huge damage, combo awareness
Lei Wulong
The police detective makes his return in Season 2. Lei probably has the steepest learning curve
of any character in the Tekken series due to his stances and huge movelist. His core gameplay
is to create whiffs with his haha step, which utilizes his backturn to create space, it covers more
ground than a normal backdash would so Lei is strong and forcing whiffs and whiff punishing
with his ff3 in return. He has a forward advancing string called razor rush which allows him to
access his various stances at each different hit. He also has other moves which allows these
transitions to occur so it’s important as a Lei player to recognize the patterns and transitions to
use them to their full potential. He has a few low launchers out of various stances so his mixup
game in the right moments is really scary. However these transitions have to be placed well
since they can be interrupted on block so Lei has to really pick his moments to go in. Despite all
this, Lei does have pretty bad punishment so it’s encouraged to get his damage through his
mixups and whiff punishment.
Pros
- Scary mixups
- Amazing movement
- Strong whiff punisher
Cons
- Bad block punishment
- Can be interrupted out of stances on block
- Jackie Chan
- Complex characters
- In-depth and multiple options
Leo Kliesen
Difficulty - Easy
Leo is an extremely well rounded character with strong basics making her a good beginner
character. She has strong mids to poke with in various situations after being forced to duck vs
her scary lows. One of her main low pokes qcf1, is a high crush giving a mini followup on CH
making it a damaging low to poke with. Her stronger lows are more geared for hard hitting
mixups as they give strong knockdowns. Once her opponent is on the floor, Leo has a new
powerful move to hit them with in T7. She has excellent wall carry to get Leo’s infamous wall
game going. Leo’s wall game is extremely strong as she has plenty of safe mids to wallsplat
with, and her low options are even scarier at the wall due to free followups on hit. Her keepout
is quite good as she has df2, a ranged launcher that can be spaced to be safe vs most
characters (and a really good whiff punisher) and a qcf dash making her a mobile character to
interrupt the opponent’s attacks at range or to start offense. She has 2 stances; a KNK stance
which is used more for combos and a BOK stance for neutral usage. Her BOK stance greatly
lowers her hitbox and she can threaten the opponent with followups so this is a good way to
approach them. Her punishment is significantly above average for standing and crouching (WS)
as she has one of the strongest i11 WS punishers in the game; as well as her df2 which makes
for an excellent punisher on moves with pushback. Her CH game is average or a bit below
average as she lacks a fast rewarding safe mid.
Pros
- Strong mixup game
- One of the best wall games
- Strong wall carry
- Strong punishment, especially her ws i11
- Extremely well rounded
Cons
- CH game is a bit weak.

- Punishing mistakes hard on block/whiff
- Simplistic fundamental characters
Lili Rochefort
Difficulty - Easy
The French speaking (but not actually French) daddy’s girl makes another appearance. Lili is a
bit of an extreme character. She has a very powerful but linear gameplan which suffers against
those who sidestep. This is because overall her tracking is weak. However to make up for this
weakness, she has one of the best sidestep in the game allowing her to get around sequences
that other characters can’t avoid and strong homing moves. She can make the opponent
hesitate and second guess their retaliation to her offense due to the threat of her stepping and
forcing them to whiff. She has some of the best punishment in the game and high damage
output. She excels at constantly applying + frames on her opponent with moves like df3 and
qcf3+4 homing and thus making them freeze up and respect her ff4, a high damaging low. She
can be an awkward character to pressure as she has plenty of options to crush the opponent’s
attacks such as d3+4 which can go under some mids for a launch, a backswing blow, a move
that goes airbourne fast and again her sidestep.
Pros
- One of the best sidestep in the game

- Strong punishment
- Strong wall carry
- Strong homings
Cons
- Poor tracking
- Lacks moves for keepout
- Doesn’t have a fast CH launcher.
- A “lockdown” type of character

- Utilizing the sidestepping game
Ling Xiaoyu
Difficulty - Medium
Ling is an okizeme monster. Although okizeme has been nerfed in Tekken 7, she still retains
that aspect of her character. She has a strong poking game with tons of poke lows for various
situations including hugely + hit, a ranged CH launcher and a heavy hitting low in her stance.
Her stance Art Of Phoenix (AOP) allows her to evade a lot of moves and offense from your
opponent reducing their moveset by a lot depending on the character. AOP also gives her
access to a very strong mixup situation with decent damage. She's a character for lab monsters.
Her small hitbox along with her evasive stance can make her extremely hard to approach
especially with her main mid poke going under highs. She has a very strong Rage Drive from
Backturned stance that acts as a low launcher making her mixup game scarier than before. She
does however have poor reach on her jabs as her limbs are short; meaning she can struggle to
punish certain moves.
Pros
- Strong poking game
- One of if not the best oki in T7 especially off throws.
- Ignores a lot of the opponents offense.
- A very easy and fast whiff punisher with huge range in df2,1 and standing 3
- Strong CH game, upclose and from range.
- The best Rage Drive in the game
Cons
- Small range on some of her pokes especially jabs.
- Can struggle to punish certain moves.
- Playing around with setups and experimenting

- To freestyle with all the stance options Ling provides
- A very mobile character
Lucky Chloe
Difficulty - Medium
Chloe is a very aggressive, poke-oriented character. She’s good at bullying her opponent with
quick mids, lows and jab strings, to break them down bit by bit. She has a few moves which
leaves her backturned. This gives her access to the one of the most damaging combo starters
in the game, as well as being hitconfirmable. Her Rage Art is unique in the fact that there’s a
rhythm to it that allows her to get extra damage as well as different poses/animations to end
with. Her range is lacking a little on her arms so it’s encouraged to get in the opponent’s face
with Chloe to initiate her poke game. She has the only launchable on block hopkick in the game,
so hopkicking with Chloe is a huge risk, hurting her panic moves. She doesn’t have much in the
way of rewarding whiff punishers and her block punishment is quite poor in terms of damage
however she does have a 14f WS launcher. While her poke damage is quite low, her combo
damage is high to make up for it.
Pros
- Decent poking game
- Huge burst damage through BT launcher
Cons
- Poor whiff + block punishment
- Only launchable hopkick in the game
- Arm range is limited
- Aggressive poking chars
- High damage chars
Marshall Law
Difficulty - Medium
Law is a very “in your face” poke centric character. He excels at rushdown upclose as his
ranged game is quite weak. Law’s offense is based around using small poke strings to harass
you and force you into making a mistake by pressing a button at the wrong time due to his
plethora of CH launchers of all kinds. He has access to a stance called Dragon Sign Stance
(DSS) which he can go into from certain moves to continue his pressure. He has tons of
delayed strings and some of them even go into DSS to catch your opponent out and force a CH
out of them. He is very good at keeping his opponent on their toes and respecting his offense,
allowing him to continue. While his whole gameplan is focused on small damaging pokes and
CH fishing, he does have some hard hitting lows in his slide and Dragon Tail albeit the latter
being seeable. As aforementioned, his ranged game is quite weak and he doesn’t have many
tools to approach the opponent with so he likes to be constantly on the opponent. In previous
tekkens, his whiff punishing was one of the least rewarding but now in Tekken 7, he gained
access to a fast and ranged launcher as a whiff punisher which helped him out a lot.
Pros
- Strong standing and crouching punishment
- Top stagger pressure
- One of the strongest whiff punishers in the game
Cons
- Doesn’t have good approaching tools
- Can be hard to make a comeback
- Poor keepout tools.

- CH orientated characters
- Rushdown playstyle
- Bruce Lee clones
Master Raven
Difficulty - Medium
Raven’s boss makes her debut in T7. She essentially has the same moveset as Raven from
TTT2 with some minor changes and additions. Like Raven, she also has a strong space control
with various keepout tools and good whiff punishment. Keepout with Master Raven is a bit more
unorthodox as it often involves whiffing certain moves on purpose as they have better recovery
that way than on block. Her punishment has improved from Raven, as even though she does
not have a i15 launcher, she still has strong punishment overall. Master Raven allows for a
variety of playstyles ranging from poking and counter hit fishing to high risk mixups. Most of the
mixups come from either her crouch dash or from back turned stance. The crouch dash is a
great tool since it allows MR to approach her opponent and have access to her moves not only
from crouch dash, but also from while standing, full crouch and certain standing moves. Her
back turned stance has unique moves much like Ling or Feng. Her parries are also fairly unique
and function differently compared to the rest of the cast. She is however sometimes forced to
take risks when trying to open up an opponent with her stronger lows.
Pros
- Huge damage output, one of the best.
- Very versatile toolset, can be played in many ways.
- Some of the best tracking pokes
Cons
- No launcher for -15 moves like most characters
- Some hitbox inconsistencies

- A well rounded playstyle
- High damaging characters
- Ability to control space well
Miguel Caballero Rojo

Difficulty - Easy
Miguel is a poke monster meaning he has a plethora of pokes that leads into mixup
opportunities. His db3 low is extremely good for initiating his CH/mixup game as it leaves him at
frame advantage point blank. His df1 is one of the best in the game as it has delayable
extensions with mixups built into them, so he’s very strong at making the opponent hesitate
upclose and respect his offense. Miguel has a stance called Savage Stance (SAV) which gives
him access to stronger lows including a beefed up version of his db3 (more damage, better
frame advantage and tracking), a plethora of strings: some are delayable, some are quick CHs
and some are wallsplats. SAV can be accessed from many of his moves like his df1 strings, his
db3 and others. As a result, Miguel excels at making his opponent freeze up with varied timings,
while having the ability to cancel into SAV from certain moves to continue his offense. He can
take chunks off the opponent’s life very fast if he’s allowed to. His punishment is quite strong
other than his jab punish, he has 2,1 at i11 which does massive damage for i11 and has huge
frame advantage on hit and his hopkick is one of the better hopkicks in the game due to the
range. However, Miguel does struggle to punish moves that have pushback as his range is
lacking. His ranged whiff punishment also suffers as a result of this as he doesn’t have much for
further out whiffs. Due to this, it's recommended to stay in the opponent’s face with Miguel to
enforce his poke heavy offense. Miguel’s tracking is weird in the way that his main mids track
one way and his main lows track the other way and to make matters worse, his homing moves
are quite slow.
Pros
- Extremely strong poke heavy offense
- Decent damage output walless
Cons
- Poor whiff punishment at range
- Struggles to punish pushback moves
- Slow homing moves.
- Small range on his arms

- Poke heavy offensive characters
- Simple and easy to play
Negan
Difficulty - Easy
Previously on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Negan pummels his way into T7. Negan has pretty
strong basics as his jab and df1 has good tracking along with good followups. His lows aren’t
great however other than db4 which on CH gives a free 50/50 attempt. Basically he bullies his
opponents with + frames such as b1+2 which is a mid CH launcher that hits grounded and uses
those + frames to pressure with his jab, df1 strings and lows. He has a few moves that deals a
lot of CH damage in animations such as b22, a high homing string, d2 a CH mid and F22. He
also has a stance called Intimidation (INT for short) where he has an auto counter for lows
similar to Anna, an unbreakable high grab and some mids. This stance can be accessed raw or
transitioned into from some of his moves. He’s also one of the few characters in the game with
multiple rage drives which are a wall bounce one, a side switch one and a spike. He’s the only
character in the game who can wall bounce an airbourne opponent with his rage drive so he has
unique combos. His damage output and carry is quite strong. However he is bit on the slow
side in regards to good CH tools and mids and his range is lacking a bit.
Pros
- Amazing quotes
- Decent damage output + carry
- Good jab and df1 tracking
Cons
- Poor CH tools
- Hitbox issues
- Lacks range on a lot of moves

- Gdlk quotes
- Basic and easy gameplay
- TWD
Nina Williams
Nina is a very “sticky” rushdown character in the way that she can keep prolonged offense
going. She excels at point blank range; with a lot of her moves having the ability to cancel into a
sidestep, allowing her to continue her offense. Her SS1 cancel in particular has huge + frames
on block and can be looped to make your opponent freeze up, especially at the wall where they
cannot backdash away from it. This allows Nina to bully the opponent with mid and low pokes to
break them down and use her hard hitting low if she wishes. She also has a strong CH game
with fast wallsplatting CH strings and launchers. Nina has arguably the steepest execution curve
of any character due to her butterfly loops, which is the best wall carry in the game; as well as
her unique backdash called: “Hayashida Step”; where she crouches during it and has the
potential to go under moves. Throws as a whole got nerfed in Tekken 7, but Nina keeps her
strong throw game with a plethora of throws to choose from, with each of these throws having
good oki. While Nina’s upclose game is powerful, her ranged game is lacking so it’s encouraged
to remain in the opponent’s face with her.
Pros
- Queen of lockdown offense
- Fast and damaging CH launchers
- One of the best wall carry in the game
- Great throw game
- Good whiff punishers
- Strong wall game
Cons
- Poor space control
- Lacks decent keepout moves

- Fast paced gameplay
- Execution heavy characters
- Pure rushdown
Noctis Lucis Caelum
Difficulty - Easy
Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis makes his guest appearance in T7. While Noctis is a guest character
like Akuma, Eliza and Geese, he plays the most traditional tekken of them. He has access to a
jump but it is nowhere near as strong as the others so it is usually ignored. Noctis is a simple
enough character in terms of playstyle and combos. The most notable thing about Noctis is his
range, he has the best whiff punisher in the game with df2 for a full combo thus making whiffing
vs Noctis extremely dangerous, as well as a warp strike move which can whiff punish from any
range. He has moves like WR1+2, a super + on block mid launcher with good range, a ff1+2
move which comes out fast, homing and acts as a CH launcher thus making his approach
decent. Another thing to note about Noctis is that his moves are mostly weapon based meaning
that parries/reversals won’t work on him, he also has a few sword lows that cannot be low
parried. So he isn’t concerned about his lows being low parried for a full combo. He also has
access to a parry which can wallsplat to a full combo. While his range and approach is decent,
his offense is quite poor with low reward lows. He also surrenders his turn a lot on block and
doesn’t have much going for him in terms of damage output and mixups, thus making turtling vs
Noctis very strong.
Pros
- Best whiff + easiest whiff punisher in the game
- Most of his moves can’t be parried
- Good approach
- Strong parry
Cons
- Poor offense and lows
- Low damage output
- Surrenders turn a lot on block
- Struggles vs turtles big time.
- Bad CH game

- Weeb chars
- Easy whiff punishment and general gameplay
Paul Phoenix
Difficulty - Medium
Paul is the 50/50 powerhouse of the game. Paul is a character that wants to be in his
opponent’s face constantly and enforcing hard hitting mixups on them. Between his demoman
(a damaging knock-down low) and a variety of mids, he puts the fear into the opponent. His
most infamous mid would be Deathfist (qcf2), an explosive damaging lunge punch. Since his
demoman only knocks-down point blank, it is encouraged to take the opponent to the wall as
soon as possible as Paul, as they cannot backdash away from the demoman allowing him to
loop his mixups. It’s hard to step Paul as his homing moves are extremely strong with a + on
block high homing, a i12 high homing (fastest in the game) and a super damaging CH mid
launcher. He has a backsway which can be accessed from his df1~b cancel and has its own
moveset. Paul’s punishment is way above average with strong standing and WS punishment as
he has a i14 standing launcher and a very strong WS i13 punisher. However, Paul’s low pokes
are pretty bad as they’re mostly - on hit, poor range or lacking crush properties so it is
encouraged to pick his moments wisely to force his demoman/mid mixup to obtain damage.
Pros
- Damaging 50/50 game
- Strong punishment
- Powerful wall game
- Extremely good homing moves
- Plethora of safe launchers
Cons
- Poor low pokes
- Takes risks to get big damage via lows

- Burst damage 50/50 characters
- Strong punishment on block/whiff.
Sergei Dragunov
Difficulty - Medium
Dragunov is a pretty relentless character in T7 in terms of pressure tools. He has the best
approach tools of any character with his WR2, a hugely + on block mid that CH launches. It can
be scary to approach Dragunov as it is a very flexible tool in terms of rushdown + keepout, it
forces the opponent to really choose their moments to go in. This allows him to be constantly in
your face while chipping away at you with effective low and mid pokes. He has access to a
strong low poke which goes hand in hand with his strong approach. Outside of his WR2,
Dragunov has some very strong mids to use upclose for keeping + frames on the opponent and
keeping them in check. Drag is deadly vs the wall as you cannot backdash his lows and + on
block mids and punish your mistakes hard with fast splats. He also has one of the best WS
punishment of any character in terms of damage and early wallsplat punishers, and his standing
punishment, while not as strong, is still decent. To complement his block punishment, Drag has
strong whiff punishment as well with various moves. He doesn’t have any obvious flaws other
than no hopkick but he has a lesser replacement for it which can do the job. Due to his taller
stature, most of his mids have a “highish” hitbox so certain moves and stances can go under
them.
Pros
- Best approach of any character
- Top 3 WS punishment
- Strong wall carry
- Powerful wall game
- Amazing poking game
- One of the best pressure characters
Cons
- No hopkick
- Slow CH launchers
- High hitboxes on some of his mids meaning they
can be crushed easier.

- Simple and strong characters
- Punishing mistakes heavily
- Relentless rushdown
Shaheen
Difficulty - Easy
Shaheen has a very straight forward gameplan. His goal is to frustrate the opponent by staying
as close to them as possible whilst poking them down, in the hope that they will press buttons to
escape. Shaheen’s 4 strings (4,1, 4,4 and 4,3) are extremely fast and damaging CH launchers
with easy combos afterwards. He can also threaten the opponent with his slide, a knockdown
low from crouching with strong okizeme afterwards. This encourages the opponent to duck into
his mid options, one being a safe mid launcher. He has a cancel from some of his moves which
puts him into crouching, a perfect position to enforce his slide/mid mixups. This can force the
opponent to retaliate in an attempt to challenge the mixup which again, just plays into
Shaheen’s CH game. While his offense is pretty strong, he does have good defensive aspects.
His hopkick has good range for a whiff punisher, his block punishment is very strong, especially
from WS. While his mids are pretty strong, his lows are mediocre outside of slide in terms of
frames and range.
Pros
- Strong CH game
- Strong punishment
- Good safe mid launchers
Cons
- Low pokes are mediocre.

- A pretty 50/50 character (from crouch)
- Strong CH gameplay
- Simplistic chars.
Steve Fox
Steve is a unique character in tekken in that he lacks kicks for the most part, instead he uses
sways for the designated kick buttons. While pretty much every character has some form of CH
fishing game, Steve is notoriously designed around it. He has some of the best CH tools the
game has to offer. He has an unorthodox way of opening his opponent up as rather than relying
on mid/low mixups to get damage, Steve relies on using his powerful CH tools to score a big
opening. He has a fast CH launching high in b1, a homing mid CH launcher in df2 and a ton of
delayable strings to catch his opponents pressing buttons. He comes with a few stances that
can flow into each other through transitions via string cancels, to keep his offense varied.
Peekaboo, Flicker and Duck are his main stances to be utilized in his frame trap game. Steve’s
ws1,2 as his i11 ws punisher is arguably one of the best for that category, making doing low
pokes on a defensive Steve extremely risky. Just because his main gameplan is centered
around CH fishing doesn’t mean that he is lacking in lows. Steve’s lows are good enough to chip
away at your opponent and frustrate them into retaliating, playing into Steve’s game. Steve has
a move in extended duck f2 that if blocked, gives him guaranteed hits on block forcing his
opponent to challenge it and again, playing into Steve’s game. Steve doesn’t have many flaws
other than his actual punishment. He lacks a i15 launcher from standing and crouching, making
certain moves strong on him risk/reward wise. For whiff punishers, he has a good ranged one
but it doesn’t do a lot of damage however with Rage Drive, he gains a RD with huge range and
combo starter.
Pros
- One of the best i11 ws punishers
- Amazing CH oriented game
- Strong wall carry and damage
- Strong wall game
- One of the best Rage Drives
Cons
- Lacks a i15 launcher
- Unrewarding whiff punishers outside of RD
- Very poor ws punishment other than i11 ws

- CH oriented characters
- Good space control
Yoshimitsu
Yoshi is a pretty unorthodox character. He relies on the player’s creativity to get openings with
his unique tools, as a result he can be defined as a pretty freestyle character. He doesn’t have
many solid tools to work with in terms of poking and such; so he has tons of situational moves
and thrives on creating unusual situations with them. He has a plethora of unblockables and
stances in his arsenal and it is up to the player to find moments to sneak them in. His most
infamous one is his sword sweep unblockable which grants a combo and can be landed
guaranteed in specific situations. He has a move 1+4 (Flash) which is a i6 launcher in one
stance and i8 in another. This move can be used to both interrupt overly aggressive opponents
as well as acting as a strong defensive punishment option against safe moves (-9 or less)
assuming he is in range for it. Yoshi has a lot of unique tools that gives him unique movement
and evasion, allowing him to escape some specific situations where most other characters
wouldn’t be able to. He is unique in the fact that he is able to take his own health away, giving
him a better control of his rage activation. A steep learning curve in terms of knowledge is
required with Yoshimitsu to make the most of his tools as his basic tools aren’t up to snuff with
most other “normal” characters in the game. His combo damage is quite low so it’s encouraged
to get creative with his unblockables and setups to make up for that.
Pros
- Best set of unblockables
- Strong okizeme
- Ability to punish “safe” stuff
- Amazing panic move with flash
Cons
- His basic tools are weak
- Poor poking game
- Low damage output

- Unorthodox characters
- Setups
- Freestyling
Zafina
Difficulty - Medium
Zafina may seem quite complicated at first with her multiple stances, but in reality she can
actually be played very minimalistic. She has the best movement in the game with a top tier SS
and backdash, meaning she could create space very fast and force whiffs/escape pressure
easier than most characters. Zafina has extremely good pokes with her df1, d3, ff4, SCR df4.
Great oki with SCR (one of her stances), + frames pressure tools with moves such as ff3, WS3,
SCR 1+2, and she is unique in that her WR3 is actually + on block. You can play Zafina quite
similar to Kazumi with some janky stance pressure thrown on. Her strong pokes combined with
her movement and the range on her df2 whiff punish means you can play a very safe and dry
style with Zafina. She does however suffer a bit from poor frames as some basics like her 1,2 is
less + on hit and more - on block, as well as her df1 being more - on block albeit having 2 hit
followups and ws4 being only +2 on hit and -9 on block. Be prepared to use movement and
crushing a lot to cover for Zafina’s frames. She has really poor punishment as well so punish
optimally when you can.
Pros
- The best movement in the game
- Fat hitboxes on her pokes
- Strong low pokes
Cons
- Worst WS punishment in the game
- Poor carry
- Bad CH buttons
- Struggles to make comebacks

- Stance characters
- Strong movement
- Poke heavy style
Credits/Thanks
Adnanish for Josie info
Alexander - for help with Claudio + Steve info
Cris4thewin for help with Gigas info
DeadlyPoisonBeauty - for providing some of the cutout renders. Her deviantart can be found at
http://deadlypoisonbeauty.deviantart.com/
Faceless - for renders
Hihi - for renders
Leflonen - for cropping out some renders for me.
MBA Ez - for providing renders
MrAdam0 - for help with Katarina + MRaven info
Mumohan - for renders
Nemouik - for helping to proof read
Primary - for cropping renders
Sento - for help with Chloe info
SolidRose - for helping to proof read

Character Overviews (Tekken 7)

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Character Overviews (Tekken 7)

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Introduction

Here is a video format of this guide made by Arya Tayebi

1 - Left Punch (Square/X)

High - A move that can be blocked standing and whiff on crouching

Fastest moves are 10f (like 3f in SF games) with exceptions

Crush - a property of a move where it is designed to go cleanly through a move depending on

High Crush - a move that’s designed to be “invincible” to high moves.

Homing move - a move that is designed to shut down sidestepping.

Seeable - means it’s reactable, usually referred to with lows.

SS - sidestep notation so a SS1 move would be Sidestep + 1

SSL - Sidestep left - performed by tapping up on P1 side and down on P2 side.

SSR - Sidestep right - performed by tapping down on P1 side and up on P2 side.

WR - While Running, a state where the character is considered running.

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- Simple poking game

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Hwoarang is back with an interesting...costume change. Hwo would be classified as a pure

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- Versatile playstyle, being able to dictate the pace at any

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- Lows are a commitment, kinda lacks a reliable good low

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- Explosive mixup characters

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- Strong throw games

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Lee Chaolan and Violet

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- One of the best sidestep in the game

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- A “lockdown” type of character

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- Playing around with setups and experimenting

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Miguel Caballero Rojo

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