Last month Leroy Smith was finally released as the latest DLC fighter in Tekken 7. Almost immediately after he became playable, several upset members of the community claimed that Leroy was blatantly overpowered. Now that some time has passed, we’ve assembled a diverse panel of five Leroy players to definitively answer the question on everyone’s mind, “is Leroy Smith overpowered?”

JinMain4Lyfe:

It should be obvious that Leroy is not an overpowered character. He’s got plenty of weaknesses, which some people don’t seem to understand. I’d also like to mention that Leroy mains are definitely not carried like some confused people are claiming. Leroy mains haven’t had much time to learn our character, which is proof that we’re skillful and quick to adapt. It’s also important to remember that anyone picking Leroy has great taste and was probably already an incredible player anyways.

ThaRealLeroy:

Everyone just needs to learn the match-up. If anyone thinks they learned the Leroy match-up and still lost then it’s because they didn’t actually learn the match-up. Once people figure out how to step to their left, they’ll see that Leroy actually needs a few buffs like safer attacks or more damage.

KnoccEmDownX:

I think it’s too early to say, unless you’re saying that he’s not overpowered. Everyone needs to calm down and stop acting like Leroy players are downplaying, when we’re really just being cautious. Besides, it’s not like any of us are saying he’s a bad character.

GetThisWork22:

Leroy is actually a bad character. He has tons of bad match-ups that nobody is talking about like Akuma or Gigas. On top of that he takes an enormous amount of skill to use, and doesn’t even have an infinite. If he’s so broken then why isn’t he winning every tournament? More importantly, why aren’t I winning any tournaments with him?

JustFrameSugar:

Leroy is exactly as strong as he needs to be. What’s really going on here is that these new-school players would rather complain on social media than actually learn to adapt. These people play like it’s still season 2 and then complain because they don’t understand the meta anymore. Instead of whining, my advice is to finally start playing like it’s season 3 – utilize the new mechanics, learn some new combos, and strongly consider picking up Leroy Smith.