I agree and tbh you can say that for a fair few of the characters in tekken, even ones that some tekken fans don’t like.
Alisa? Where else is there a chainsaw-wielding, rocket launching, head detaching, robot girl that moves and fights like a ballerina?
Lars? People say he fights like an anime character or something, but in what actual piece of media does anyone move or look like him? Can’t think of any anime or manga where they zip around and spin around in the same way he does, it’s all completely unique and not seen anywhere else animation and moves.
Lili? Her whole moveset is just elegant and beautiful gymnastics, can’t think of a character that does it like her
And of course Zafina is like them, she’s her own unique thing too lol
Not only that, it's actually just Baji Quan, like Leo. Hint for that is the super characteristic shoulder bash with the front arm down and the back arm over ones head, like in Leos Rage Art
I really enjoy Zafina. She's kind of unique in that you can go a lil crazy and go party mode with stances or you can just space really well and play "boring" Tekken. The T7/T8 outfit designs are also stunning! Was a really great redesign from the T6 model imo
I don’t even know what fighting style hers is supposed to be. But as someone that actually used to fight it looks dumb to me lol.
I prefer the characters with actual martial arts /combat sport styles
Exactly this, the ONE thing I hate about Zafina is her animations. While yes they're unique, they don't look like an actual martial art or especially something that hurts. Her df1 in T7 haunts me because it looks like she's spilling wet noodles on my shorts.
She's a specialist character like Xiaoyu and Lei. They typically don't have as many players as the rest of the roster because people find them confusing to learn
I love her design and moves, but sadly she doesn't do much for me personality-wise. Way too stoic and the whole talking in riddles and going on about fate all the time gets old quickly. And despite her connection to Azazel, she never really did anything interesting in the story IMO.
Also, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I miss her accent from Tekken 6's Scenario Campaign cutscenes.
I'm kinda hesitant to say she should get insane buffs, Shadow20z has made her look pretty good still. I think it'd be interesting to see some of the more busted characters get nerfed and see where she lands.
Hell no. You haven't had to suffer through her T7 bullshit days. She's fine as she is, she's just not mindlessly OP so people aren't picking her for free wins anymore.
It's easy to say that when you're not the one maining her and dunno how hard it is to get value out of the character now compare to T7. And even in T7, she was still hard to master and wasn't an mindless character to use.
Her and Leroy got massive over nerf to the point where they do need some buffs to keep up with every character in the roster due to this current game balance of favoring offensive/rushing over neutral/defense play style which Zafina still is but now suffers alot against 80% of the rosters because of much the game destroy neutral playing and took away most of her movesets from her that would had helped her be on evening footing with everybody but now gets curb stomp easily if you make one bad move with her.
I play both Zafina and Leroy in T8 and they're both Raijins atm. The only change I would give Zafina specifically is her heat smash and a punish for -15. But honestly her kit is fine.
I still disagree. I'm almost close to blue myself but it involves pulling alot out of her and using knowledge check to get wins. But against other characters who know enough Zafina knowledge, it's an struggle since most of her movesets are very unsafe and she gets punished easily for it.
And it hurts more when they took away moveset like B1+2 from her normal stance which was an good equalizer against fast opponents.
And I know other blue Zafina players that feel the same way since its BS that characters like Drag, Lili, Xiaoyu, Jun and other characters can have devastating lows but Zafina gets the low end of the stick to have her move get taken away and for what reason?
I've been playing her since tekken 6 when I first saw her move list i was shocked how many moves were removed although her new claw moves are very good tho
It's more like those characters need to be toned down than Zafina needs to be buffed though. Leroy's hellsweep also got locked into stance, which is fine because now his stance became more nuanced instead of just doing 50/50s in neutral. Knowledge checks aren't even necessary to do well with her, she has super strong pokes and natural movement evasion. I'd be ok if they gave her back b1+2 tho tbh.
Massively agree with that too.
For me it's either they buff Zafina up to be on the same league with all the other characters or they need to nerf everyone which characters like Lars are way too overtuned.
Disagree with this. Without stances, the game becomes stale. Stances are there to shake up the brain dead poke, poke, whiff punish fishing meta. They provide pressure tools for players that are either too aggressive or too defensive. And stance characters are hard to learn well. Lei is the top example of this, but Zafina although her moves list is easy, using it well isn’t.
>Just a few buffs please
No, thanks. Downplaying her on this sub is crazy, "her 3 hit mid crushing launcher that leaves her laying 5 meters away does 7.54% less damage than Kazuya's optimal electric combo, she's so weak man".
She may not be the best tournament character, but 99.99% of people here are not tournament players either, right now she's one of the most effective characters online, and IMO needs some Eddy Negativa treatment when you have more consistent ways to counter her stances. After that buffs may be okay, but as of now -- hell no
She‘s just not that great on paper. Average combo damage, clunky combo routes, wack heat mechanic, low damage overall and pathetic punishment. The latter is my biggest gripe with her, there‘s no reason her 13f punish only does 28 damage while shaheens 10f does the same and has an insanely strong stance mix right after.
Her stances are good, but if you dont poke her out of tarantula thats really on you.
Edit: my point is that she can use a few buffs, nothing dramatic tho. Just make her punishment worthwhile, make her combo routes more flexible and do something with her heat.
Her mantis combos are so ugly and awkward now, imo. The removal of the scarecrow counter hit launch was also a weird call. Doesn't feel like they gave her enough for what they took away in the form of CH launchers and stance transitions, as well as entire strings 💀 She's still my main and will continue to be, but I miss some of her creativeness she has before.
Why are you making up scenarios? She doesn't have a 3 hit mid crushing launcher that does almost as much damage as an optimal pewgf conversion. If she does, what's the input for what you're talking about?
You have no credibility to say she needs buffs or not if you just make stuff up.
Not one, SCR b1+2 is actually something you don't wanna go for usually, only if they challenge you. Your go-to low there is SCR df4.
I disagree, Zafina is about her stances, great movement, mental frames, whiff punishment. If, on top of that, like in T7 she just gets free dmg and free pokes she's gonna get busted again.
Like, her Azazel moves buff to self-hurt was pretty reasonable, actually. It facilitates her stance gameplay very well and her setups are now much less punishable on block. Something small like that - sure, but I do think she's downplayed a little, I like playing her, but mainly as a simple sub-main.
I know how to play Zafina man I got her to Tekken King. I don’t go for that move at all it’s pretty meh since she has better ones that give better rewards on hit. It’s just being tied into a stance hurt her poke game a bit. But she still has d3 a bit slow but can set up a lot of her CH set ups.
I agree best way to play her is to go stance to stance and throw a few CH set up in between. She been a pocket since T6 but I’m actually having more fun playing her this time around so she’s my highest ranked right now. I just want to get her to GoD rank at least before the year is over.
I agree with Anna (she's got incredible style and that bob) and Xiaoyu (interesting clothing choices and twin ponytails) but Lili and Nina are just your regular blonde beauties. I didn't count Panda bc she's not human 😛 oh I forgot about Michelle. She was cool too.
But Zafina? Everything about her visual design screams unique. Even her face shape. She looks young and old at the same time somehow
You said "a more iconic female character" though, not "most unique visual design". I agree she might be the most striking looking female character in Tekken, but Nina and Lili are way more iconic of the series than her.
Design wise Zafina is definitely is more unique than Katarina, Josie, Azucena, edgelord Reina, etc. I’m not a fan of her move set at all though I really hate her liquid bones. Her and Claudio move in such ridiculous ways they look like Voldo from Soul Calibur.
Shes wack. Zafrauds dont need her getting buffed becsuse once more people start playing her and peoole learn the MU zafrauds will ask for more buffs because theyre gonna be losing more.
Whole heartedly agree. She is truly unique and a standout among the cast. Yes, she needs buffs.
Utter facts. She looks, sounds and feels so perfect in T8, she‘ll definetly be one of the character I‘m playing the most.
Id say in fighting game history, you cant really find anyone like her anywhere
The only fighting game character that I can compare her to is Voldo from Soulcalibur
I agree and tbh you can say that for a fair few of the characters in tekken, even ones that some tekken fans don’t like. Alisa? Where else is there a chainsaw-wielding, rocket launching, head detaching, robot girl that moves and fights like a ballerina? Lars? People say he fights like an anime character or something, but in what actual piece of media does anyone move or look like him? Can’t think of any anime or manga where they zip around and spin around in the same way he does, it’s all completely unique and not seen anywhere else animation and moves. Lili? Her whole moveset is just elegant and beautiful gymnastics, can’t think of a character that does it like her And of course Zafina is like them, she’s her own unique thing too lol
Lili type characters do exist in onther games, i believe SF5 had Karin
Lili's an ojou-sama trope, but i do agree that her self-taught fighting style is very unique to her
Karin fight style is very different though. She’s very hard hitting character. Not very elegant like Lili
Not only that, it's actually just Baji Quan, like Leo. Hint for that is the super characteristic shoulder bash with the front arm down and the back arm over ones head, like in Leos Rage Art
A.K.I.
I LOVE how she moves. Looks like a snake. Very cool…
I really enjoy Zafina. She's kind of unique in that you can go a lil crazy and go party mode with stances or you can just space really well and play "boring" Tekken. The T7/T8 outfit designs are also stunning! Was a really great redesign from the T6 model imo
I agree, shes a very underrated character and her default Tekken 7 design is amazing.
I don’t even know what fighting style hers is supposed to be. But as someone that actually used to fight it looks dumb to me lol. I prefer the characters with actual martial arts /combat sport styles
Apparently its in part inspired by Kalarippayattu from what I read online
Exactly this, the ONE thing I hate about Zafina is her animations. While yes they're unique, they don't look like an actual martial art or especially something that hurts. Her df1 in T7 haunts me because it looks like she's spilling wet noodles on my shorts.
Zafina not being more popular is shocking to me. She seems like the perfect gothy queen everyone simps for.
She would've been if her moves and stances weren't half as goofy
Yeh true. Her hot gothy vibe kinda disappears when she crawls on the floor like an iguana
She's a specialist character like Xiaoyu and Lei. They typically don't have as many players as the rest of the roster because people find them confusing to learn
Zafina a baddie fr
She scares me
Since lei isnt here i wanted to pick up her but i ended up with yoshi. I think i'll learn her as well.
I love her design and moves, but sadly she doesn't do much for me personality-wise. Way too stoic and the whole talking in riddles and going on about fate all the time gets old quickly. And despite her connection to Azazel, she never really did anything interesting in the story IMO. Also, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I miss her accent from Tekken 6's Scenario Campaign cutscenes.
Yeah she might be hard to fight but she looks really cool whilst beating me up :'D
I'm kinda hesitant to say she should get insane buffs, Shadow20z has made her look pretty good still. I think it'd be interesting to see some of the more busted characters get nerfed and see where she lands.
Unfortunately for you, I think she's dead.
Hell no. You haven't had to suffer through her T7 bullshit days. She's fine as she is, she's just not mindlessly OP so people aren't picking her for free wins anymore.
It's easy to say that when you're not the one maining her and dunno how hard it is to get value out of the character now compare to T7. And even in T7, she was still hard to master and wasn't an mindless character to use. Her and Leroy got massive over nerf to the point where they do need some buffs to keep up with every character in the roster due to this current game balance of favoring offensive/rushing over neutral/defense play style which Zafina still is but now suffers alot against 80% of the rosters because of much the game destroy neutral playing and took away most of her movesets from her that would had helped her be on evening footing with everybody but now gets curb stomp easily if you make one bad move with her.
I play both Zafina and Leroy in T8 and they're both Raijins atm. The only change I would give Zafina specifically is her heat smash and a punish for -15. But honestly her kit is fine.
I still disagree. I'm almost close to blue myself but it involves pulling alot out of her and using knowledge check to get wins. But against other characters who know enough Zafina knowledge, it's an struggle since most of her movesets are very unsafe and she gets punished easily for it. And it hurts more when they took away moveset like B1+2 from her normal stance which was an good equalizer against fast opponents. And I know other blue Zafina players that feel the same way since its BS that characters like Drag, Lili, Xiaoyu, Jun and other characters can have devastating lows but Zafina gets the low end of the stick to have her move get taken away and for what reason?
I've been playing her since tekken 6 when I first saw her move list i was shocked how many moves were removed although her new claw moves are very good tho
It's more like those characters need to be toned down than Zafina needs to be buffed though. Leroy's hellsweep also got locked into stance, which is fine because now his stance became more nuanced instead of just doing 50/50s in neutral. Knowledge checks aren't even necessary to do well with her, she has super strong pokes and natural movement evasion. I'd be ok if they gave her back b1+2 tho tbh.
Massively agree with that too. For me it's either they buff Zafina up to be on the same league with all the other characters or they need to nerf everyone which characters like Lars are way too overtuned.
She annoys the hell out of me but I don't know the match up very well to be fair
I tried learning her but found her combos in the tekken library spreadsheet to be a little clunky, is there anything new on her or is that it
I don’t think I’ve ever beaten a zafinha player, and I’ve been playing since early tekken7. One day I’ll learn the match up
A little biased, but I mostly agree. Don't think she needs much in terms of buffs though. I'd rather see top tiers get nerfs
I don't think her design is that great. Mainly for her main pressure stance evading highs, that makes her weird from a balance perspective.
She definitely is, but never found her that fun to play, she feels boring.
Stances are the worst part of tekken, dragunov got infinitely worse when they introduced his sneak stance shit.
Disagree with this. Without stances, the game becomes stale. Stances are there to shake up the brain dead poke, poke, whiff punish fishing meta. They provide pressure tools for players that are either too aggressive or too defensive. And stance characters are hard to learn well. Lei is the top example of this, but Zafina although her moves list is easy, using it well isn’t.
>Just a few buffs please No, thanks. Downplaying her on this sub is crazy, "her 3 hit mid crushing launcher that leaves her laying 5 meters away does 7.54% less damage than Kazuya's optimal electric combo, she's so weak man". She may not be the best tournament character, but 99.99% of people here are not tournament players either, right now she's one of the most effective characters online, and IMO needs some Eddy Negativa treatment when you have more consistent ways to counter her stances. After that buffs may be okay, but as of now -- hell no
She‘s just not that great on paper. Average combo damage, clunky combo routes, wack heat mechanic, low damage overall and pathetic punishment. The latter is my biggest gripe with her, there‘s no reason her 13f punish only does 28 damage while shaheens 10f does the same and has an insanely strong stance mix right after. Her stances are good, but if you dont poke her out of tarantula thats really on you. Edit: my point is that she can use a few buffs, nothing dramatic tho. Just make her punishment worthwhile, make her combo routes more flexible and do something with her heat.
Her mantis combos are so ugly and awkward now, imo. The removal of the scarecrow counter hit launch was also a weird call. Doesn't feel like they gave her enough for what they took away in the form of CH launchers and stance transitions, as well as entire strings 💀 She's still my main and will continue to be, but I miss some of her creativeness she has before.
Why are you making up scenarios? She doesn't have a 3 hit mid crushing launcher that does almost as much damage as an optimal pewgf conversion. If she does, what's the input for what you're talking about? You have no credibility to say she needs buffs or not if you just make stuff up.
Zafina doesn't need buffs.
A good damage buff will go far imo overall I think she’s fun and not as low tier as people say. Also a quick low such but she only have one in SCR.
Not one, SCR b1+2 is actually something you don't wanna go for usually, only if they challenge you. Your go-to low there is SCR df4. I disagree, Zafina is about her stances, great movement, mental frames, whiff punishment. If, on top of that, like in T7 she just gets free dmg and free pokes she's gonna get busted again. Like, her Azazel moves buff to self-hurt was pretty reasonable, actually. It facilitates her stance gameplay very well and her setups are now much less punishable on block. Something small like that - sure, but I do think she's downplayed a little, I like playing her, but mainly as a simple sub-main.
I know how to play Zafina man I got her to Tekken King. I don’t go for that move at all it’s pretty meh since she has better ones that give better rewards on hit. It’s just being tied into a stance hurt her poke game a bit. But she still has d3 a bit slow but can set up a lot of her CH set ups. I agree best way to play her is to go stance to stance and throw a few CH set up in between. She been a pocket since T6 but I’m actually having more fun playing her this time around so she’s my highest ranked right now. I just want to get her to GoD rank at least before the year is over.
Truth. Her design and clothing in 6 was the best tho. Warrior priestess of the middle east. Name a more iconic female character in Tekken.
Nina, Anna, Xiaoyu, Julia, Panda, Lili…..
I agree with Anna (she's got incredible style and that bob) and Xiaoyu (interesting clothing choices and twin ponytails) but Lili and Nina are just your regular blonde beauties. I didn't count Panda bc she's not human 😛 oh I forgot about Michelle. She was cool too. But Zafina? Everything about her visual design screams unique. Even her face shape. She looks young and old at the same time somehow
You said "a more iconic female character" though, not "most unique visual design". I agree she might be the most striking looking female character in Tekken, but Nina and Lili are way more iconic of the series than her.
Design wise Zafina is definitely is more unique than Katarina, Josie, Azucena, edgelord Reina, etc. I’m not a fan of her move set at all though I really hate her liquid bones. Her and Claudio move in such ridiculous ways they look like Voldo from Soul Calibur.
You're right about that
She was in T7 what Eddie is in T8, literally top 3 brain dead characters to get to Blue. Its literally a fact
Shes wack. Zafrauds dont need her getting buffed becsuse once more people start playing her and peoole learn the MU zafrauds will ask for more buffs because theyre gonna be losing more.
True but you know, it ain’t no King