TJ is actually pretty insane. He’s got weaknesses, sure, but he makes up for it; he’s got some of the most interesting buttons in the game, hella pressure and one beast of a vortex. He ain’t hurtin’ for damage, or mobility, either. Powerline cancels are some of coolest mobility options available, and really break open his neutral. Who needs a fireball to control lateral space when you can BE the fireball (who later decides to be a fullscreen command grab that sets up a vortex)!?
If you’re having issues w/ Barrage, you’ve got some execution to drill. He is sorta execution intensive.
I also think he is one of the most expressive characters in the game, as there is so much room to play creatively w/ TJ, to let your personality shine in your play and develop your own style. He’s awesome.
And definitely “viable”.
Also, I don’t know what everyone is on about his Ulti. The others all seemed excessive, and that excess made them lame, in my opinion. TJ’s is my favorite, hands down.
Just be careful w/ Last Breath - it is trivial to thwart for enough of the cast that you shouldn’t build your gameplan around it. If you die before you have a chance to pop your second INSX, good thing it’s around, but I wouldn’t do stuff like holding onto your first INSX for Last Breath.
I think TJ can be challenging because he looks YoLo but isn’t. Against low level players TJ can get away with a ton of stuff that turns out to be punishable when you face stiffer competition. A lot of TJ players I fight are really on autopilot (so called “flowchart” players) where they just do stuff and hope it works. If it’s not working they keep doing it because they haven’t really learned the character - just how to beat low level players (that’s not a criticism, btw - this is how I play TJ).
But the good TJ players are all over the place mixing in resets and pressure and just generally making things hellish. If you aren’t using TJ’s instinct twice a game and are instead saving it for Last Breath you definitely need to rethink this.
@DevilMayCare4 Can give you some tips maybe HMMMMM? He whooped my butt the other day cause he just did things I had never seen before and kept everything mixed up. Try to keep yourself from doing the same thing too many times.
I think TJ is a beast BUT: has some difficult match ups. However his damage is good, he has tools to bait, tools to get in, frametraps, nice juggles, a hard to break juggle (not the recapture), target combos, a tricky flip out that leads to scary mixups and awesome instinct and.sure I’m missing something…Oh yes! comeback potential
Very VERY nice character. However it requires work and good execution to keep making your opponent guess what’s next. He hasn’t got solid anti air or air to air (the last is not horrible though), his normals aren’t fast, and he struggles when waking up (but that’s not strange to other characters as well: Wulf, Spinal, Gargos and…dunno).
A good TJ it’s scary, and very fun to fight against. BUT if you don’t know the match up believe me when I say that top TJs will be a thing
As far for tournament viable: depends if they counter pick you or not or how much they know the match up.
As a low tier player, I always think fml when I get a TJ matchup. I don’t know how to punish him properly, so he get’s that rushdown momentum going and then suddenly I’m in the TJ vortex of hell before I even realize what happened.
Edit: he also teaches me to fear combo breaking, then I’m not sure whether to take the punish or to break, I usually get flustered and lockout.
If they are juggling you wait to break the Tremor. the reason being is Tremor can be broken anywhere from the time they catch you all the way until his hand touches the ground. so you can break anytime in between that, and that can be hard for a TJ player to understand where/when to break. and dont break on the first frame of the capture. that is the easiest for a TJ player to counter break, just “mix up” when you break Tremors, and make sure you Punish Hard (not a grab) for failed counter break attempts. also after Shoot Toss > st.LK (flipout) you can break the st.LK.
I’m just starting to be able to consistently break most players, let alone choosing when to break or getting into mind games. I need to hit some practice with TJ though to really understand him.
My biggest issue when playing TJ is a lack of low opener options compared to other characters I play. He has wicked mid and overhead for days but my opponent can defend those easily most of the time so I’ve been experimenting with low normals into opener specials trying to find the optimal ones but not having much luck. Advice?
tj has alot of openers
Tremor (D,U+K) (overhead)
Rollercoaster (D+F+MP)
Backfist (B,F+LP or LP Powerline cancel )
Flying Knee (B,F+HK or HK Powerline cancel) (lower body invulnerable
Turnaround Punch (Jump (for crossup)+B+MP)
any shadow move
but yes for low mixups go cr.MK or cr.LK into Rollercoaster, Backfist.
Yeah I know he has a ton of openers I was specifically asking about optimal low mixup options as unfortunately he doesn’t have any low hitting sneaky openers from a distance like Spinal, Orchid and alot of others do.
Yeah, but he also has ways to rapidly close to his optimal range in a way those characters wish they had. TJ has more than enough tools for getting into range for his low normals.
I linked the guides