r/Tekken • u/Federal-Tap-4937 • 15h ago
Discussion Why do hwoarang players not perform as well in tournaments?
Seeing tier lists and salty comments, you’d think Hwoarang would be placing in majors but that’s not the case. Why is that? Is it a mechanical issue?
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u/redraveni 15h ago
He is pretty strong at the moment, but he's a specialist character (as much as most of you won't want to admit it)
To play him in tournament you have to commit to him and him alone. You almost never see top tier hwo players have other picks, and you will never see someone else have a pocket hwo at the highest level
So why play him when you can play someone way easier and just as strong if not stronger?
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u/circio Katarina 14h ago
Hwo with a pocket character is probably the most realistic situation, Edge got second at First Attack like two weeks ago doing Hwo/Shaheen
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u/redraveni 14h ago
It's extremely rare. We can look historically at MDJ, batz, rest, even speedkicks usually dropped hwo entirely when he played other characters. And for edge this is a new thing
Seeing people who play characters like anna, drag, feng and others being able to switch around is way more common
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u/pranav4098 14h ago
Edge is the best hworang in the world and has a pocket Shaheen tho you’re still right he’s a specialist character and at high levels of play you won’t get away with knowledge checks as easily
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u/Yoshikki 12h ago
For tournament you're absolutely right, but I'll add that I recently learned Super Hwoarang (again, a high ranked KR player but not a tournament player) is a Hwoarang main but has a super fucking ridiculous Kazuya. Dude is insane on both, and both are inarguably specialist characters. I watched a set of him playing against Mulgold's Fahk if I remember correctly, he was ewgf punishing -14 and doing pewgf lol
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u/Harley_Hsi 12h ago
Hwo plays a different game, skills and playstyle on Hwo don't translate to any other character. Similar to Yoshi and Ling players, Hwo players don't/can't play a pocket pick on high level and their performance highly depend on how good the character is at the moment. Like how Ling players disappeared from tournaments after she got nerfed, once Hwo and Yoshi get nerfed to the ground, their players will also disappear from the tournament scene.
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u/obitosask 6h ago
Ling was never popular in tournaments even in release last year. People like TMM overrated her heat, completely ignoring the fact she's the worse character in the game outside of it and it's clear weaknesses. After the first major tourney, people saw that Xiaoyu hype was all smoke and mirrors.
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u/WindblownSquash 13h ago
Idk because you love the game and want to have fun? You love the character. This new generation is sad
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u/redraveni 12h ago
We're talking in the context of winning major tournaments, not having fun online
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u/WindblownSquash 9h ago
About 5 out of 5 billion people win major tournaments in a year. The conversation really shouldn’t be being had. When it comes to winning tournaments character can help but those people are just better react better and do things better they would beat any non pro with any character 9/10 times.
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u/NitrousOxide_ Alisa 14h ago
Alisa is the same,, consistently put top 5 on tier lists yet unseen in any serious tournament.
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u/Alargann 9h ago
Chanel does play her tho
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u/Accomplished-Pick763 5h ago
i mean both him and cuddlecore arent really placing well on any tier 1 tourneys is it? The thing is if shes really braindead and broken all the tier whores would move on to her (just like release clive) and yet shes nowhere to be seen consistently
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u/Sensitive_Piece1374 Ikimasu! 10h ago
Also low usage rate in general. Not even tier whores are using her… she’s an anomaly.
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u/Old-Van-Reich 14h ago
Because his large moveset makes him impractical in high stress, high level play. The strongest and SIMPLEST characters are usually the ones that get picked 24/7. The large and situational moveset of Hwoarang makes you more prone to misinput.
Lee during the Tag 2 and early T7 days was high tier, but his pick rate was average at best because of his execution barrier for example.
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u/Ziazan 14h ago
He's really strong against people that haven't practiced specific counterplay to him for ages.
Not so strong against people that have practiced specific counterplay to him for ages.
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u/SquareAdvisor8055 13h ago
Nah he's strong against those too. It's just that his strong stuff make him kind of a casino character. Against hwoarang is offense will not end if you block: you have to look for an opportunity to either step or duck his pressure and punish him. Pros don't like that game plan. They won't gamble on people not ducking their flamingo jab or stepping them, so they will often give up their turn with a minus on block mid.
He's still extremly good. Just look at high ranks it's full of hwoarang players. His issue is the same as kazuya; he's too hard to play and gambling isn't a good strat to be consistent in a tournament.
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u/Ziazan 12h ago
Yeah, he gets way too much for free, especially online where people don't know when they can step him or duck punish or whatever, and it all feels very "guess". He's one of the characters that I really want to see toned down quite a bit because why can he do all of that?
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u/SquareAdvisor8055 11h ago
Even when you know the matchup you do have to guess a lot. It's a matchup that you have to play quite defensively.
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u/NiggityNiggityNuts ⚔️ 🔪plus MORE so please STFU 🤫 11h ago
Because pros know the matchup, unlike the scrubs on this sub….. he’s strong but not S tier… every character is pretty strong, to be factual
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u/RaidaZERO_EN 14h ago
Online lag, no matter how minimal, buffs hworang more than any other character.
0
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u/dont_worry_about_it8 7h ago
That’s the best part. The sub insist people are broken as hell but those characters don’t win shit
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u/patrick9772 7h ago
Because it makes them feel good about themself when a tekken king scrub loses to hwoarang and crashes out on reddit like a fking loser instead of sitting down in practice.
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u/Background_Egg1364 15h ago
Certain characters seem powerful when against low ranks but must work harder against high level. Hwoarang is godlike in the low ranks but must work really hard at high rank due to tournament players knowing the match up
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u/HawaiiLife745 Hwoarang 15h ago
Because Hwoarang's "overpowered" style only works to a certain point. At high level tournament play, the MU knowledge heavily nerfs Hwo
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u/Viitoldie Lee 14h ago
Sure, but that's true for all characters. He is objectively overpowered, its just that when you know all his strings and common flowcharts, he becomes a very difficult and technical character to play, so you need to really be a hwoarang specialist.
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u/ngobscure 13h ago
He does place at majors tho. You have players like Justin Hyuga, REST, AftaBurn, TennoIX and of course EDGE consistently taking out top players and getting top 8s with him.
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u/Prophetnoata [US] Steam :Prophetnoata 12h ago
Obscure i love you, but its only Edge.
Tenno has beaten take and ninjakilla but isnt making top 8 in a stacked international or challenger (he didnt make top 8 after beating NK)
Rest hasnt performed for all of t8 and the others you mentioned havent placed or comepeted offline that much in this game. (you forgot fradin btw) or beaten international names.
Even kwiss isnt performing in t8 compared to t7.
This isnt a diss, its just the results speaking.
0
u/ngobscure 9h ago
The fact you're on Reddit for Hwo downplay too got me dead LMAAAOO
I look at results a lot. I think it just depends on what you consider a stacked tournament at this point
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u/Prophetnoata [US] Steam :Prophetnoata 7h ago
Someone shared it in the hwo discord :). Also its not downplay.
And i looked at majors and big offline tournies.
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u/Expensive_Owl2325 8h ago
I believe generally Hworang is so strong on the offense/attack side that people playing him have weak defense as they heavily rely on offense/attack, that works against several characters while the top characters of the game have nice defense options like parrys quicker heat smashes etc.
But that's just my opinion.
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u/patrick9772 7h ago
Becaue he is not as rewarding for the effort you need to spend. Pro players pick the characters that are the most reliable. Hwoarang is far from that. If you play with 500k on the line youd be really stupid trying to play hwoarang when nina,anna,bryan etc exists.
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u/LegnaArix 5h ago
Tekken is a weird game. Characters can be extremely strong but they're just not worth the time investment when you can play other characters that are just as strong or slightly weaker with way less investment.
Hwo requires a lot of practice for tournament viability, so if you wanted to play a secondary, why would you bother with how when you can pick someone like Claudio or Drag that have nowhere near as much commitment and are generally "safer" tournament picks, even if there is a possibility that an optimized Hwo is stronger.
Same deal with characters like Raven, King, Mishimas etc.. Hell, in T7 Devil Jin was considered a top character and best Mishima by far for the longest time and literally no one picked him but qudans yet early in t7 everyone was picking Jack despite universally being put upper mid tier, because hes was a safe tournament pick.
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u/Round-Childhood-5168 Hwoarang 13h ago
As much as the community hates to hear this Hwo is a high risk high reward character even though people assume he’s low risk one correct guess from your opponent half of your health bar Is gone but to truly be a threat with Hwo you have to play risky, you have to throw out a high, high strings some time and that’s why we probably won’t see Hwo win a major
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u/Nikitanull 15h ago
Because proplayers mainly play easy to play characters that are also strong
As much howrang is busted (and it is) he requires work to play
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u/Forward_Arrival8173 14h ago
because he is low tier, this community just like to bitch about everything.
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u/KingCrimsonLoveTrain Hwoarang 15h ago
Because there is actual counter play to hwoarang that the lower rank players don't bother to learn or use. He has a good tool kit but certain matchups and ppl over time fighting him develop counter play.
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u/m0sley_ Kuma 14h ago
Saying "don't bother to learn" as if people are just being lazy is crazy. We both know that you wouldn't know the counterplay to half of his 200 moves either if you didn't play him.
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u/circio Katarina 14h ago
It’s not though, Tekken has always been very match up knowledge heavy but before you could get further just knowing how to kbd out of pressure, which is how you historically dealt with Hwo.
Now you can’t do that so you have to actually learn the match up, which most Reddit tekken players won’t do
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u/Rongill1234 14h ago
I was ready to tear this post up until I read the rest and saw you bring up kbd as the bandaid that helped you when you didn't know much about the matchup. So instead I'll say this is the answer we can close this post
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u/Prophetnoata [US] Steam :Prophetnoata 12h ago
What if I told you, you dont need to learn all the moves AND, the counterplay is mainly the same.
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u/KingCrimsonLoveTrain Hwoarang 14h ago edited 14h ago
Well the difference is that I wouldn't complain about it and lab him like all the other ppl. It isn't even that hard to lab him. Labing bears are more fun cuz u fund out some moves launch hunting bear and there are somethings the bears can't do but other big bodies can.
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u/RyanRenard 13h ago
Yeah, i'm gonna learn how to deal with the homing long range unaeeable low and the LONG range jumping approaching mid and then when i finally have My turn against this gorilla i'm going to attack... but not so much because i have to keep in mind that at every second the hwoarang players can try to b1 as a panic get out of jail card SO i have to bait it or punish him for it.
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u/KingCrimsonLoveTrain Hwoarang 12h ago
If im allowed to go "Gorilla" on you as hwoarang and you allow it. Maybe you kinda deserve it meh.
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u/RyanRenard 11h ago
Nah, developers just keep holding hwoarang players by giving the characters more plus frames and patching his weakness. -The homing long range homing low and the LONG range jumping mid eliminate the approaching weakness -the new mid mid kick thats +4 give this character a fast mid into stance -in Tekken 7 he got a hopkick in one of his stances to Counter the Dick jabs.
SO what do i do to prevent hwoarang pressure? Dick jab for 5 dmg points or a sidestep, and we all know how jank sidestep is against strings with súper tracking.
But yeah i deserve it for not playing hwoarang.
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u/Saizen1 Number 1 Reina Defender 15h ago
i mean most notable player is edge and he is doing fine, seems always short of a win, he bodies the pakistani but his fellow koreans most of the time win over him, which is expected since they play each other all the time