King Ultimate Starter Guide - Tekken 8

Here we are with your King Guide for Tekken 8! Do you feel the need to grab someone and smash them into dust? Probably the right character for it! So lets give you an overview on what you need to look out for with the character, priority moves, example strategies, understanding core mechanics, and some bread & butter combos to top it off. So give a watch, like if ya liked it, and lemme know what you think!

Please include a more in depth demonstration on the button inputs. Not a very starter friendly video if I have to read input letters I don’t understand

Actually one of the best guides for King i've seen. I've leveled my King game to such a degree from just watching this one vid that i'm starting to think it's fucked that I didn't pay you for this video. Genuinely great teacher.

Can anyone offer any advice on squeezing that jab into the combo? It's doing my head in. Sometimes it's easy and other times it's impossible. What's more annoying is that I' m getting worse at it over time >.< lol

I wish that the throwing rules were the same as it is in Virtua fighter, where strikes beat throws

Then, King would be tolerable

fighting king is such a chore

Could use a Lili guide 🙋‍♂️

idk man feels like every other character is better than king for someone like me who’s a beginner and I’m starting to get real discouraged to play this game anymore, it’s just at my ranks people spam moves that frame trap me and I can’t break them off and end up getting thrown around like I’m nothing

Hey, what does tornado mean when he is doing bread and butter combos at the end

The foward 3 - 1, 2 doesnt work for me. Is it tight timing or something?

Ps. I found the timing its when their head bends down slighty the 1,2 works then

You sound like Chef John from Food Wishes. Instead of teaching me delicious recipes, you teach me nasty combos. 😄

Format poggers n goot. Asuka next plssss

really appreciate your editing and presentation, made a long and dense video very digestable. Great guide as well 👍 ❤

How do you do the microdash for the combo after df2, 1? I've been trying for an hour and can't seem to physically do it that fast. Is there some trick to it?

I think adding in a spiral mode air grab would be hype. I dont care if its optimal itd just be cool

crazy, i hit giant swing with ease but when it comes to the front kick ddt, its like the final boss of commands

Either I’m blind or Shining Wizard isn’t listed in the move list on Xbox and I can’t seem to get it to come out. Did they remove it from the Xbox version?!

Great guide, love the format and the fact that you personally select the most useful tools to start playing the character in question so that newbies like myself are not completely lost looking at a character moovelist. I have to say i cannot replicate the db2, 1 > db4, 2 on female character at the end of the video and it's making me doubt I should main King 😑. I think I'm inputting the micro dash too slow, any tips on how or a different route when against females? I'm using a leverless controller btw, I'd love to know what controller are you using to do that one

Solid guide but a few notes on combos:
1. FC+DF+2 BNB has an easier route with no instawhilestandings: FC+DF+2, UF+3+4~B, f,f,f+2+4. Does 69 damage on non-counter hit and requires no timing or extra skills to pull off.
2. DF+2,1 has an easier BNB route that will have a few point less in damage and is easier: DF+2,1, DF+4,3, B+2,1, UF+3+4. The last one will set you up for oki or you can hold back to cancel out of it immediately. While the damage is lower, the forced followup will make up for it in strides!

3. I feel like there should be a better BNB from UF+4, but so far I can only find the "trick" ones, which is cool when you want to show off, but isnt really feasable for beginners.

And just like that I’m a King main 😅

@Rooflemonger thanks, this is who I decided to main in the game as he’s a pro wrestler with a Jaguar mask on and his moves look so badass so what’s not to like, nothing I say so, let’s use this guide to get up to speed here

is the timing on dash > 2 > fff2+4 that strict? really tough to get and i usually like to get most input down per combos but i can NOT get this for the life of me😭

Tysm this is amazing

Giant swing is the fastest throw? It's true, it's damn true

What does HCF mean?

Shout out to Lil Majin

Edit: I just learned to never mess with a cat in heat.

Thanks so much for the guide! I used to play Armor King since Tekken 2, now switching to King, very helpful. I think that F2, 1 also deserves an honorable mention, awesome whiff punish as it has a lot of forward momentum, and in T8 it's a Heat engager ! Unsafe if you commit to 1, but I think that F2 is safe, and you have the time to hit confirm.

Cant wait for AK being added, so far King is what we have. Great guide, some cool combos, thank you :)

Rawr! <3

Thank you for the guide! I went with King for my character and this guide came out at the perfect time. Will need to rewatch and take notes later. Also, for his chain grab, you can bind 1+2+3+4 and you still get the full damage from them. It makes them super easy to-do. King players, at that point, just need to work on mixing up their grab routes.

A thing you missed from the chain grab part.
You can buffer inputs: if you press 1 and hold it and then press 3 the input will be 1, 1+3.
For the arm breaker chain: 2, 1, 1+3. It can be done like this: 2, 1 (keep holding 1), 3. Its also like a rolling motion, press 2 and roll 1>3 and it will come out 100% of times.
I always do it this way and find it easier, other chains have different motions but you have to try them out.
If you played Gief in SF, do the Giant Swing using a reverse 360 motion if you struggle with forward into half-circle.
You can play with the buffer window a lot more in t8 than SF, find the motion that suits you better for some grabs.

Hello. New Tekken player here I have been playing around a week. I am trying to find something for starters as the title says... First thing you you are showing is a giant swing. I mean isnt it a hard input to commit as a starter? I am trying to achieve this on a match and I find it nearly impossible although I do achieve it on practise. What am I doing wrong and what should I practise in order to learn when and where to use moves like this? Thanks in advance

I cant seem to connect the df.2,1 into df.4,3 with small characters like reina but i see other kings do it. Any tips?

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

This is what I have been looking for King, I am a 100% noob when it comes to Tekken and wanted to play since T7, this will help me a lot.

Keep this type of content coming my man, my best wishes to you and all your loved ones.

I thought the boy would make a king guide eventually lol

know thy enemy

This is great. Watched it a few times now. Really helpful. Look forward to any other characters you do. I’ve had fun doing combo challenges with all (24of 32) so would be down to pick up anybody done. Lili is main, Jun and King have been back ups.

Love the Rasslin and your knowledge.

Appreciate all the work and effort you put into these videos as always Rooflemonger! You’re a guiding light for the lost rookies, like myself, of the FGC

So many "beginner" guides are just someone rattling off moves with zero context of when or how you should actually ever use them. Thank you for actually making a thorough, useful guide that actually understands that guides can be significantly more than regurgitating the move list.

First guide for SF6 was Manon and first guide for Tekken 8 is King. I’m new to fighting games but roofle has fostered the love of grapplers in me.

@rooflemonger Hey, I know it's too late for this guide but after taking the advice from your "Special Style" guide it might be worth it in future guides to look at what some ridiculous special style moves are available for the characters. King for example can, for who knows what reason, do his f,f,n+2 low as a special style move. Except it comes out faster than it possibly could using the normal input. I consider myself to be fairly fast, iWR Shining Wizards and all of that, but a f,f,n input manually is still around 7-10 frames, and it is always going to telegraph a little bit because you'll have at least a small forward movement before the move comes out. SpS+4 though? It is 1f execution and you just do the move from standing with no forward dash at all. It's not like the EWGF example you had where technically the best player in the world could outperform the SpS version because they put some intentional "lag" into the execution - with this you can plink the SpS version and do it in less frames than the normal input should allow. You can even do impossible stuff like having the move come out immediately from a backwards Jaguar Step. Since like Shining Wizard the move is supposed to require having at least part of a dash animation happen no matter how fast you execute it, this normally can't be buffered so this should be impossible.

With SpS+f+1 he gets his WR 3 but without starting a run. This is a 20f mid that is +3 on block and travels so far forwards that it hits from around range 3 (it's supposed to be a WR move after all). It's similar to his u/f3+4 power crush in distance but instead of being unsafe on block it gives frame advantage on block. On hit it combos into a ground throw (timing is very precise on this).

One very odd thing I'm noticing about SpS moves is that it doesn't seem like you can buffer out of them if they are executed the SpS way. I can buffer a GS off of f,f,n+2 easily and cannot do it with the SpS version at all. The SpS moves otherwise have identical properties and frame data of the normal move, just this one key difference in buffering. The execution of follow-up attacks is harder this way without the buffer, because if I want to use that +7f of advantage to beat a jab with my 15f hop kick I need very precise execution, but it's still doable.

Anyways, I would not have found this stuff if not for your special style video, so thanks for that! I can absolute find ways to incorporate this into my play, so this is great!

"Move list scary" literally why i dont play Tekken lol im happy as a spectator :)

Bruh, rooflemonger is securing himself as THE ULTIMATE SOURCE for Tekken 8. loving all these uploads. I was just labbing King yesterday so this dropped at the perfect time. That side .... when king is standing and punching, imma just block. The animations are too similar. Yesterday, I was ducking and eating all sorts of unescapabale command grabs

Teach me the ways of the grabbler, sensei!

Did anyone else customize King to look like Rob Lucci?

Ok so I have not purchased a fighting game in probably 8 years. I’m really considering this. Tekken 8 looks next level cool and king/AK was my favorite back in 1 and 2

amazing! thanks

Great Guide as always Roofle! Just a tip for Chain Grabs, you can mash 1+2+3+4 shortcut and it will always pick one full route. And yes, it's easy to break once you know the King player is mashing, but's nice knowing you don't need to memorize every single step. There are quite a few "chain grab flowcharts" out there showcasing which steps can be mashed and where you can deviate from the standard path with few timely inputs.

😮........King might be my 2nd character to learn when I'm done with the French John Wick.

Thanks for this dude !!! Been waiting for your videos broski thanks a bunch

I'm so cheap with King I feel filthy