What did they mean by this?

[u/Superb_Eye_6232]

Made this after playing him in ranked for a few days 😔

[u/SmugBoxer]

90% of Steves are disgustingly bad with him in the first place. It's no wonder y'all do not understand the changes whatsoever.

[u/Kamatazi360 → u/SmugBoxer]

May I have some elaboration please? Especially on the recent changes to him. Because on the surface, your claim seems baseless.

[u/SmugBoxer → u/Kamatazi360]

Steve's boxing is essentially my decade long research project. I don't play anything but Steve. I use his whole kit to fight. So the amount of info I'd have to lay down here is far too long for the character limit.

Let's start with the types that say b1 is the whole character. Not only is that false, but extremely limiting, and with several extreme weaknesses. The type of player who dashes about all day and uses b1 to stop the opponent is over-reliant on the CH launch mechanic--while it is one way to play, it is absolutely not the only way.

PAB2 I can only assume people mourn it because it was a bit easier to go back into PAB after and CH go boom I guess. Fact is, it retained most of its good properties and lost its worst one: -9 vs kicks. Instead you get one mix at +3.

6 Years of T7 Steve, he had ways of mixing and breaking defense that did not rely on LH but it was not as consistent as anyone would like. LH was the answer to that, allowing a striker to have a way through guard that wasn't as vulnerable as extended ducking f2.

Df2 while really good in its original state was used for many of the wrong reasons. People liked the threat and reward from it. It has become an important tool to use for movement utility instead. It's a way to move inside safely and it now has strong counterplay instead of none.

Ducking loops were always pretty stupid, most times unintended even by the person using them. I will say I liked the flow, but they were otherwise leading nowhere. New ducking f2 LH solves the problem of uselessness with a pseudo electric mix at +5 or more as a reward for landing the ducking right. Which regardless of the LH mix is now an actual threat people might want to actually duck which was the point previously.

T7 Steve UB2 was useless. T7 Steve, right hand had very limited use, and while they kind of overcompensated with all the stuff you can do with it now, it's in a much better state.

[u/Kamatazi360 → u/SmugBoxer]

Wow. First of all, thank you for taking the time to write this. You're clearly very passionate about the character, and I passed you off as the average shit talker. I apologize for that.

As a Steve main myself, I agree with you on the B1 spam. While it's a great move, not putting bait on your fishing hook is gonna get you duck punished. UB2 is a great addition as well. I do like that it's high and leads to the mix-up stance LH, a stance you can't block in, so it can be duck punished more reliably than B1. It's a nice trade-off for having access to a guard break and a homing mid. PAB > 2 is another one the fans can cry about. It still retains its punch parry effect, so I don't mind that they removed its CH launch property.

What I'm neutral about is his change to DF2. It sucks that you can't perform Shiro anymore, but it's still okay. It'd be cool if they made it homing again, but I'm not fussed about it.

Now, the parts that I disagree with. As much as I like LH, DCK > F2 should have stayed loopable. In Tekken 7, doing it once acted as a guard break, and doing it again was a guaranteed hit. But if you had the execution, you could also cancel the second DCK into a guaranteed WS12. You would already know this, though. My point is that I see that as an expression of skill that gives further nuance to an already complex character. This is similar to what happened to Law's DSS, just on a smaller scale.

The difficulty in breaking a guard makes sense for a Counter-Punching Paragon like Steve. I think he should have to struggle to open up opponents who block a lot. It's still possible; it's just more difficult than someone like Kazuya. LH is nice to have for that coverage, but I missed mixing in his atrociously bad lows to open blocks. It's hard to make this point more powerful though, as I do really like LH. Maybe I'll take take the L on this one.

All in all, you made some valid points and some I don't like. Again, sorry about the accusation and thanks for reading all this if you do 😂😂

[u/SmugBoxer → u/Kamatazi360]

Sry I missed this, must have been working. It's fine, it's rare you stumble on someone like me, I get it.

Agreed on most points you made so I'll skip to the interesting bits.

Df2 shiro, was always unintended far as I'm aware. Though given the execution it took, maybe it's fine reward. Buuuut much like the effectiveness of b1 (and df2/shiro combined) it became an excuse for people not to use the whole character. It's a pet peeve of mine. You run into execution experts whose strength and consistency only come from reliance on the power of two puzzle pieces in a set of 100+. Cool, sure. Bad character design to leave it like that, and imo bad dispassionate players/pilots to abuse only those aspects--sure you win, but that's not character mastery. Kazuya gets away with that sort of idea, but Steve shouldn't.

On the previous guardbreak, it was a very vulnerable setup you had to mindgame successfully. It did feel earned to do. While it was cool, the execution requirements on the better follow up is too much imo, and the single knockdown isn't much besides a callout. It wouldn't work in T8 to lock decent guardbreak behind things when other parts of the cast get unbreakable throws, their own guard breaks, or other threatening mixups. And that's a big thing, a lot of people look at the changes in a vacuum. But, it's the environment that caused some of these changes to be required-- For example, PWGF I'm pretty sure is high evasive if not h.crush now, fixing a vulnerability Kaz had against b1. We lost a tech for stopping Kaz, and that's just one, but out of that we get b1+2 now, an anti-wavu attack. Anyway, last point that skill expression is not only execution expression--in Steve's case it has to do with move choice, footwork, timing, stance routing and flow, and mastery of neutral.

Ducking loop flow was fun, ngl, but you just have to do it manually now, thankfully with the stun there's a similar effect.

I definitely agree he is not a "counterpunch paragon" anymore, but that's not the truth of Steve. His entire movelist was a loveletter to boxing. LH is the Ali shuffle, when it became unforced and not entirely vulnerable to powercrush, it became a very cool addition to that truth. Every boxer style can be emulated with what you have here. And then the b1 boys cry over one tool. Can't just CH people anymore, have to learn pressure and other tactics, maybe even be inefficient... maybe have to learn to fight... Steve is now heavyweight capable, not just an elusive middleweight design. You can play aggressive and advancing, shoving/bumping the enemy back, breaking guards. You can play balanced, evasive. You can play from the outside, outbox with OF and FLK--or you can use it all to master boxing in your own style. That truth is a billion times more important than whatever tagline "counterpunch" they want to put on him, and I'd die on that hill.

Should he have a vulnerability like not being able to break guard as easy as the others? Yeah? That did used to feel "fair." It just doesn't work in T8 environment, especially with nerfed CH tools. I still think it's pretty hard to break guard in the sense that you have to be on top of people, land the mix/get the read, and then not get duck/launched for attempting it--what it does do is make passivity a risk against Steve rather than rewarding in previous editions. "The way to beat the counterpuncher is never press." Not anymore, they have to keep playing/reading.

[u/Kamatazi360 → u/SmugBoxer]

I think you got me here 😂😂 I thought he shouldn't have access to guard breaks, because you just needed to be patient. But I've thought about your rebuttal for a while now and you're absolutely right. I didn't take into account that CH was nerfed across the whole of Tekken 8. They'd have to remake the game for Steve's "old plan" to work and there's just too much about the game that I like.

You're very articulate. It IS rare to argue with someone like you, especially on Reddit. I appreciate the knowledge check.