cliveclive Tekken 8 Season 3 Guide
Introduction
Clive is a fundamentally demanding character who requires good defence from the player to find the perfect opening for a heat engager. All his tough pressure and real deal comes from his heat and the notorious H u1+2 string (rekka as H-DOPE says). Clive also has good heat engagers that synergise with his heat, like 1+2, f+2,2,2 and SS+2,1. Moving on, Clive also has good variety to his lows, with d1, FC df+2 and db4 being his best, and FC df+2 50/50ing with his WS3 (i19/i20). This character also offers good pokes with df1 and 1,1, a decent counterhit game with 2,2,1 and b4, and strong sidestepping and backdashing capability. Like every character in this game, Clive has a stance with good options like PHX 2 and PHX 4 that set up good mind games, and H PHX 2,1+2 / PHX 3,2 which in heat is the best value for damage mix-up.
At a very low level, Clive feels very easy because not only are his combos not execution-heavy, but opponents are prone to making mistakes and having poor defence, which helps Clive find his opening and rush them down while in heat, leading to fast round wins. However, during the lifespan of Tekken 8, Clive got hit hard by nerfs on his win-conditioning moves. This character always played around his heat and the rekka string, so the player had to condition the opponent to respect it in order to go for the best value for damage mixup H PHX 2,1+2 / PHX 3,2. Now it's very difficult for this character to find damage because of the rekka being too unforgiving, heat consumption, and damage on win condition. Great Clive players like Crescent always have a way to play the rekka perfectly and adapt to the opponent's defence, making it a huge mental stack for them. So Clive is all about defence at first and then unleashing good rekka+stance mixups.
Outside of heat Clive feels like a Tekken 7 character, which is not quiiite good for Tekken 8 standards. He may have good heat, movement and decent poking, but this game rewards easy to access, damaging, mental stacking mixups that this character wont offer. Or at least its nowhere near as good as other characters. After the nerfs his offence got linear and players on the highest level had to change their timings more often so as you progressing and playing with good opponents they will give you a hard time finding the opening and later on going for the kill. Clive also lacks a good, safe, mid homing move so the player has to put some dashing into his moves to give tracking.
Strengths
Weaknesses
- Mediocre damage (except wall combo on heat)
- Weak to sidestep both sides
- Good mixups are not so threatening, and very hard to get access to
- Lacks good, mid, safe homing move
Heat System
- H f+2,2,1 last one if charged gives guard break for +11
- Gives access to holy rekka and H. PHX 2,1+2
- More damage to dog attacks ws3, PHX 3,2