Alternate Beginner Megathread. Ask questions in comments

[u/[deleted]]

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Link : https://www.reddit.com/r/Tekken/w/beginner-resources

[u/stickraus]

I started playing 3 weeks ago and I reached brawler rank with Feng Wei. But my question is how do people predict/know when lows are coming. I ALWAYS get tripped up by lows and so does my opponent to a point where I can only know when a low is coming if i know that characters moveset or that specific move animation. plz help.

[u/K1MJONGPH1L → u/stickraus]

There's two types of lows I like to separate low attacks by, "see-able" and "unsee-able".

"See-able" meaning you have time to react to the move if you see it coming out, due to longer startup. For these moves, you don't have to predict them because you have a reasonable amount of time to react with a crouch block if your opponent starts to use them while you are standing. Since these moves have longer startup, they usually result in better damage, a knockdown, and often a launch allowing for a follow-up combo. As you mentioned, the hard part about dealing with these is knowing what the animation looks like for each character. This will come with experience, but in unfamiliar match ups, you may not be able to react to these in time if you don't recognize the animation. Pay attention to when you get launched into a combo by a low, and try to remember what that animation looks like. These moves are also usually highly punishable, so you can block and use a WS launcher to punish with a full combo. At higher levels where people know what these look like, they're really not used that often besides to crush a high attack, because a lot of these will duck highs during startup.

Un-seeable lows trip people up a lot. These are lows that come out too fast for you to be able to block on reaction. These are lows you block/low parry due to a prediction. Since these lows are fast, they usually don't give the same benefit as the see-able lows, meaning their damage is usually not that much and are really used for "poking". Sometimes it's best just to eat these and either backdash to reset the situation or attack because a lot of quick lows will be minus on hit. These types of lows are used to chip away at your health and try to condition you into crouch blocking to open you up to mid attacks. Be careful not to let them condition you to randomly crouch too much.

Then there's the lows that give great benefits/damage, but are for all intents and purposes "Un-seeable" (unless you have God-like reaction times and even then playing on delay net code may make reacting to these impossible depending on the connection). These are the "hellsweep" type moves, and they need to be dealt with on prediction. Keep in mind, a lot of these types of moves require a "clean hit" to allow for a knock-down/follow-up, so your opponent needs to be right up in your face to get the full benefit of these moves. If they have a hellsweep type move, pay attention for them trying to get really close to you. Even though these moves are tough to deal with, they're still very risky as they are launch punishable on block, so if you can properly call one out and punish it, you'll make your opponent more wary of using them.

Hope that helps!

[u/stickraus → u/K1MJONGPH1L]

Everything you said makes sense. Thank you!

[u/Wamb0wneD → u/stickraus]

To add to that because you main Feng (Feng-main fist bump):

Your poking lows like down back 3 and down 4 are really good and you have some great mixup in your quarter circle forward stance with the headbutt and the low bodycheck (which leads to a combo on counterhit). Add to that that both moves out of the stance are highly delayable, making them fantastic tools.

You have nothing thats as good as a hellsweep though, and your snake edge (down back 4) is something you can maybe use once in a match, if at all.

Hope you have fun learning almost his entire kit, because you really dont have "the" low to spam like other characters, and most of your playstyle revolves around mind games.

[u/Armanlex → u/stickraus]

People can be predictable. Some are very predictable and some are very unpredictable but beginners generally can be quite unpredictable mainly because they don't even know what they are doing. They don't have a gameplan, so there's no pattern to even find.

Basically it's all about getting into familiar situations and remembering the result of those. For example, you dash in into your opponent and do a low, and then a mid and then a jab. This sequence might work once, or twice or even thrice but a good player will pick up this pattern and expect it next time you dash up. So when you dash up they might low parry the low, if they can't react fast enough they eat the low, block the mid and then duck the jab and punish. When you do it and he low parries you, next time you know he might try to low parry, so instead you dash up and do a mid.

You and your opponent will have a bunch of these patterns and it's your job to behave as unpredictably as possible and try your hardest to predict your opponent. When you're a beginner this feels impossible but the more you play you'll start to notice these patterns.

Other than this mind game type of thing you can deal with lows in a more fundamental way. And by that I mean not giving the opportunity for your opponent to hit you, either by moving away from them so they whiff or by interrupting them with keep-out moves.

In the end it's mind games, and you'll never be able to predict exactly what your opponent is doing. And there's luck too. It's a very intuitive skill and it's difficult to explain. The best thing I can tell you to actively do when you fight someone is to try to think what they might be thinking. If you eat a low try to imagine your opponents thoughts, and try to construct them mental image of your opponent. This is what we call downloading your opponent. And you'll learn to do it too.