Steve

Unorthodox counterhit and rushdown

Steve is an unorthodox counterhit and rushdown character. As a boxer, he does not use kicks, with the kick buttons instead acting as evasive boxing weaves. He excels at suffocating his opponent with endless pokes and strings, chipping them down if they freeze up, and counterhitting them if they swing back in desperation. His infamous Quick Hook (b+1) is the best counterhit tool in Tekken 8, which combined with his many other counterhits off of strings and other moves, allow him to greatly benefit from getting a beat on his opponent's timing. Steve has one of the longest movelists in the game, with three primary stances and five secondary stances, giving him a very freeform and flexible approach towards structuring his offense. They are easy to transition into from moves and from other stances, and can be used to layer his mixups and pressure, to dart in and weave around his opponents, or to add safety to his moves. He can get by with small set of core tools, but will reward the specialist. A great Steve player will employ a highly unpredictable offense with his large amount of options to harass and annoy the opponent, goading them into fighting back, before catching their careless attempts at retaliation with a brutal, well-timed counter hit. Steve unorthodox nature extends to his punishment. Unlike almost all other characters, Steve cannot launch at -15 from either standing or crouching. With his damage mainly coming from counterhits, Steve can struggle to make comebacks against patient players unwilling to swing into him. His extensive movelist and unorthodox nature combine to make him fairly technical to pick up and play.