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Every time I’m asked to speak on my main character, there’s a momentary internal debate on how deep I should go. For this talking point, rather than going in-depth on the character, I’ve decided to speak on why it can go so deep in the first place.

Providing possibly the most unique playing experience in Tekken, Hwoarang has a large amount of tools but lacks the ability to access them all at once. Each set of options is gated behind different stances and the stances are gated behind different attack transitions.

For Namco, this means that making design plans for this character while maintaining balance can be difficult. The playstyle and strength of this character isn’t just about the strength of his tools in combination with the rest like normal characters. It also includes considering the power that each tool adds to that specific set of options and when Hwoarang is allowed to access that set of options.

Rather than speaking on it theoretically, let’s use an actual example: Right Flamingo Stance(RFS).

Looking strictly at the set of options Season 1 Hwoarang had in this stance, you have: a slow jab with heavy frame advantage, a fast counter hit launching double high that can be ducked and launched but not stepped, a slow homing mid power crush that is unsafe on block, a tracking hellsweep, a decent mid poke with slight tracking, a safe mid launcher with no tracking and no guard option or real movement options.

From looking at this set of options in a vacuum, it appears to be a pretty subpar high risk/high reward mixup stance. The lack of guard/movement and recovery time for not attacking means that Hwoarang has to pull the trigger on something and if we look at the options the opponent has to defend against it, the risk/reward comes out largely in the opponent’s favor.

But if you were to look at these options as a follow up to the signature d34 into RFS at the wall, adding in all of that frame advantage and no pushback, the situation favors Hwoarang a lot more. This not only increases the value of the options in RFS but the strength of d34 and the stances that d34 is available in.

Suddenly from neutral(LFF), right(RFF) and Left Flamingo Stance(LFS), Hwoarang has a 20 damage low that leads into an uninterruptable hellsweep/safe launch mixup or a high advantage jab or a stance switch to LFS where he has access to d34 again.

So the attack that leads into the stance can affect the strength of the options in that stance and that affects the overall strength of that specific attack which then goes on to affect the strength of the stance that attack comes from.

Considering the fact that the strength of every tool relies on the strength of the set of tools it leads into, it’s no wonder that making tweaks to this character is a nightmare. Managing a recursive type of balance like this while also trying to update the character to feel new without breaking his functionality would be a difficult task for anyone. And unfortunately, they got it kind of wrong with Season 1 Hwoarang.

Historically, Namco has been able to manage this character by using a single move as an anchor in balance. Accessible from LFF, LFS, and RFF, the low/high string of d34 is heavily prevalent in Hwoarang’s gameplay and is the entry point to the metagame he plays in all situations.

And so, his options in LFF, RFF, LFS are based around how his opponent will play around the d34. Whether it’s maintaining a certain spacing, controlling him through offense or just handling him defensively, the mentality that your opponent approaches the matchup comes from the idea that “if I let him get started then I will be in a bad situation” and the rest of his tools are balanced around how you can combat those things.

My favorite iteration of Hwoarang(TTT2) had a much more annoying mixup for his opponent after d34 hit but he had almost no good neutral game or defensive tools.

Unable to really control the match himself, TTT2 Hwo had to play entirely around his opponent. Knowing how to move at every range, knowing which defensive patterns could score you an interrupt and offensive opportunity, the general knowledge of knowing what made every character and every player tick rewarded the TTT2 Hwo player with those juicy offensive situations to play.

The skill and effectiveness of a TTT2 Hwo player was based around how often he could turn the unfavorable neutral into his offense.

Then there’s S1 Hwoarang, a character with much more neutral tools(ff4, new ff3 spacing, new f2 properties) and much more rewarding hard read counters to people contesting his offense(CH b4, backlash, stance power crushes, LFS f3, new CH oki). At initial glance, the character was a lot cooler than TTT2 Hwo but the fatal flaw in the whole design was that d34 was destroyed.

As RFS gained a buff new hellsweep, d34 was modified to push the opponent out of range of most RFS options on hit. From mid screen, the only follow up that wouldn’t whiff were mids that left him at a disadvantage. Serving as a nerf to LFF, RFF, LFF and RFS, Hwoarang no longer had the ability to pressure his opponent to play into his other tools.

The worst thing that could happen from not contesting Hwoarang’s unsafe neutral or offense became eating a 20 damage low and being given frame advantage back to neutral spacing.

And so for S1 Hwoarang: you were high risk in neutral, you had weakened T7 movement and no power crush while defending, your offense was always high risk and if your opponent moved correctly, the only damage you would earn would put you at a disadvantage in positioning.

Low level and mid level players would sit down and attempt to fight the character anway and die to things like backlash or crazy CH strings. Even high level players who lacked experience vs him would do the same and winning those games were about predicting exactly when they’d crack and run into something they shouldn’t.

But over time as people got comfortable with the game and understood the lack of pressure S1 Hwoarang provided, they learned to move against him properly, watch him attack and interrupt for heavy damage or a heavily favorable offensive or neutral game situation. In the end, there was no reason to act vs Hwoarang unless you were confident in the read that would bring the round back under your control.

From the Hwoarang player’s perspective, this felt a lot like a torturous game of “my opponent isn’t thinking about what I’m doing and I have no way to make him do so“.

Good examples of this would be my tournament sets vs Mr Naps or my Kazumi deathmatch vs Macroya’s Hwoarang in Korea.

But now we’re in Season 2. And for Season 2 Hwoarang…d34’s back! They’ve removed the pushback from it but it’s not exactly the same as it was in Tag 2, the low poke option from RFS is now a launch punishable hellsweep and RFS df4 is now a frame advantage mid poke but there’s a much better threat there than S1 Hwoarang had.

This doesn’t just mean it’s time to go around spamming d34, but it means that the overall game with Hwoarang is now playable again. His f2 mid poke that leads into a d34 mixup on hit is now a scary mid, people have reason to eat JFSR again, people will now be pressured into controlling his neutral which will give you backdash/sidestep/CH opportunities.

To put it simply, Hwoarang is now a Tekken character again and I’m super excited to figure him out in this version.

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