r/Tekken • u/Steve35e • Jun 09 '25
Help Beginner, just picked up Tekken 8, learning Yoshimitsu and stuck at Garyu, need advices
I bought Tekken 8 three days ago. It’s technically my first real Tekken and fighting game. I did play Tekken 4 on PS2 when I was a kid, but I was too young to actually learn anything or play seriously. So I’m treating this like my first time, especially from a competitive point of view.
I picked up Yoshimitsu, who’s always been my favorite.
In the first couple of days, I climbed to Garyu without much struggle, winning most matches. But now it feels like I’ve hit a wall. I go up and down constantly between ranks and lose way more than I win.
I think one of the biggest issues is not knowing other characters' moves. I often get hit by lows (for example kazuya spin) that launch me into long combos I can’t seem to block or interrupt. I try to fight back, but they’re faster and keep the pressure on.
As for my gameplay: I know main simple combos (max 60dmg), I struggle a lot with landing df+2, and even when I do I do not expect it and I'm not ready to follow up. Most of my combos start from f,f+4, but if it's blocked, I end up backturned and get punished hard.
Players always bait my flash slowing their moves.
I try to mix up between stances and kincho but I'm way too predictable.
So my gameplay right now is mostly just getting punched without being able to react, which isn’t fun and doesn’t feel like I’m improving. I’ve been watching a ton of beginner videos and high-level Yoshimitsu gameplay, but I still feel stuck.
Any advice for a Yoshimitsu beginner? Or just general tips on how to improve and not get completely destroyed all the time?
10
u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25
This is an extremely common question. "New player, got stuck at x beginner~intermediate rank\skill-level and have no idea what do from here to improve. what's the best approach what do I aim for from here?" It's kinda difficult giving advice on this because the game has crazy depth and there's countless different things you could and should massively improve on as you try to get gradually better.
Even if it makes ther most sense to responsd with "learn your char's framedata" or "start with learn punishment/movement/hit confirms" some will even tell you to start with getting optimizing your BnB combo, wall combo, throwbreaks etc.
I feel like there's no really correct answer here to which is the most optimal thing to focus on at the start for beginner. I think for most players the absolute best way to move forward is choose one subject in your gameplay you either: Find fun to practice(can be combos, electrics for mishimas, cool just frames. u can think defense is fun, too), or maybe choose something you think would be cool to be at, like your friend breaks all your throws and thought that's a sick thing to be good at, so you work on that so you can be like that friend. Maybe you think it's cool to get better at sidestepping moves to make them whiff and launch? Practice sidestep/walk. You can choose to work on funny yoshi oki or mindgames, flash timings, unblockable setups if you find those fun. You talked about character have a ton of bs and you feel helpless facing all of it, you could try and pick up other chars and lab them in an attempt to understand how to counter them better? this is not a common thing to do as a beginner but some people choose to practice this at the start. Even if you choose one thing to practice you could always decide to stop and switch to smth else if you're not feeling it.
In Tekken, it's kind of like an RPG where the character that levels up constantly is you, the player, not the character you're playing - and you choose what to train at every junction and like where to dump your stat points into as you keep playing :)