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ajinkris

Slayer vs. Zappa

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This matchup is in Slayer's favor.

However, Zappa is a unique character and you'll have to know your way around to avoid getting zoned by certain summons. Zappa has 5 possible states: naked, dog, sword, ghosts, and Raou.

Vs. Naked Zappa

-This is the form that you must take advantage of, similar to A.B.A. in non-mohora mode.

-Watch closely for his summon and play very conservatively - note that Dandy moves if executed to slowly or too closely will be punished by the summon. In short: stay out of point-blank range.

-Zappa has few ways to punish Slayer's lows, so keep at simple pokes (5K, 2H, 2K, 2S, 6P) and keep landing knockdowns so he can't summon.

-6K okizeme, if executed too slowly, can be punished by reversal summon.

-OVERALL: Play it safe and force Zappa to summon without hitting you. Letting him have orbs is a no-no. It's often smart to burst if he hits you with a 2D to deny him the orbs from the summon.

Vs. dog

-This is a problem if you aren't patient. The dog is an excellent zoning tool and if not played against correctly will have you eating way too much damage.

-Do not recklessly dash/jump/iad at Zappa, he dog's anti-air hits an extremely large area.

-Whenever the dog is within 2P range, spam it. This is the most effective way to kill the dog.

-Don't use any moves with lots of recovery (such as BBU), because the dog will eat the hit and Zappa will have free reign to punish you.

-OVERALL: Play it safe and poke the dog when the opportunity rises.

Vs. ghosts

-In my opinion, this matchup is just as hard as the dog.

-Watch for the backdashing mixup, the exploding ghosts WILL beat out your AA moves.

-Most Zappa players will zone you to death with these - the key is to learn to block well and slowly advance forward.

-If the Zappa player tries to go more offensive, watch his air motion and 2S accordingly. Otherwise, watch for his landing and throw him afterwards.

-OVERALL: Play defensively! You WILL get zoned, but rushing in will get you punished!

Vs. sword

-Not as hard as the other summons because he can't zone you as well with a sword.

-Zappa's 5HS with sword eats a lot of Slayer's pokes, so be careful.

-You can BBU after the sword rush attack.

-OVERALL: Not as hard, watch for long-ranged pokes, try to punish the slower attacks.

Vs. Raou

-This is my own particular experience against Raou; most others prefer to play extremely defensively, but I differ.

-Raou makes most Zappa players feel like they're in control. In reality, Raou can be punished quite easily.

-Blocking against Raou eats a lot of chip damage and opens up room for mistakes (such as getting hit by the deceptive looking dust).

-Your priority is still superior in many cases, try to go for knockdowns and throws - run the Raou timer out!

-Watch for Dark Anthem (super) and DoT it on reaction for the win.

-OVERALL: This is a tossup. You can play defensively if you want to, but be very good at blocking. In my opinion, Raou can be punished because Slayer's priority is still higher...so take advantage of that.

OVERALL

This matchup is definitely in Slayer's favor. The main thing that you will lose to would be careless mistakes and doing unsafe moves that lead to getting hit by summon or getting zoned. Lows are amazing in this matchup, especially 2H and 2D. Keep him at a desired distance and don't let him hit you with summon.

I'm sure you guys have a lot to add, I sorta just threw this together rather quickly. Post below and I'll add to the list.

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Repost from the old matchup thread, this is my take on it: Zappa without ghost: WATCH OUT FOR THE SUMMON. This is what all zappas are trying to get. No ghost zappa is gimp, but at any time he can pretty much uppercut you with the summon. The great thing is though, that it's unsafe if you're alert and react quickly. It's easiest to punish with 2K 2H, but you can also use BBU immediately after blocking it for some serious unprorated damage. Zappa with 3 Stooges: Honestly I don't see the big deal with these guys, people say they can zone well but there's a couple of things you have to realize. Once he's shot all 3 of them, he loses his S and HS buttons, and can no longer shoot them until they decide to float back to zappa. He has very little mix ups in this form. If he's jumping over you, he'll go for the j.H ghost explosion cross up, so be wary of that. Otherwise he has no reason to approach you in this fight. Approach cautiously, block ALL the time and work your way in close. Once you're there, he can't do much. Zappa with Sword: Once again, not a HUGE threat, you just have to block a lot and work your way in. BBU and 6P will go through the lard swipe, as well as a couple of the normals. If zappa uses 236S on you and doesn't have meter, you can punish it with BBU for free. The uppercut is also unsafe, but just be careful and FD if you go for a jump in, as he does have good anti air options. Overall, just be patient and work your way in. Also be careful if he does 236S and you don't punish, as he has a decent mix up off of this where he can either do a low, or jump up and do an air normal with the sword and get an overhead, so pay attention to where zappa is after he does this. Zappa with Dog: Truly I think this ghost is more threatening than even Roah. He has infinites with it, corner traps, unblockables, and retarded ass pressure. Another thing you MUST keep in mind is to not take too much of an offense when zappa is sitting on top of his dog. If he blocks your attack he gets free hits with the dog. Just don't do it. Let him come to you. The dog doesn't have a lot of priority so you can usually beat it out with just 2P spam when he lunges at you. 2H is also a decent way of taking it out from range safely. The most important thing in this fight is to STAY OUT OF THE CORNER. The match is over if he gets a knock down there and you don't have burst, and he also has a lot of good combo options there. If you can sneak in a hit on zappa as well, it will take care of the dog, so random mappas used sparingly CAN be done to get the dog out of the way. Overall this is the hardest part of the fight. Zappa with Raoh: You have a couple of options here. First, you can turtle for 15 seconds. Make raoh come to you. You can actually zone him with 2H in this fight if you use it smartly. BBU will also beat out some of the pokes if you can react to them. Just be wary of his dust if he gets in close and remember to FD the fireball if you're in the air. Raoh doesn't have a lot of options, and his uppercut is unsafe, so if you can bait that, punish him hard for it. Your other option is to hit him and keep him in a combo for as long as possible. If you can do a relaunch x 500 combo here, DO IT. The less length of time you have to be fighting Raoh, the better. Also if he tries to chip you with his super, you can DOT it on reaction for a free CH. Practice it and be ready.

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just a quick pointer for visual cues in mix-ups: if you're fighting a Raou-installed Zappa, and you're in a block string, WATCH ZAPPA, not Raou. It's much easier to see whether he'll go high or low (i.e. 2H or 5D) if you look at Zappa, because he CROUCHES when Raou does 2H, and STANDS (sorta) when Raou does 5D. ...iirc, anyways...

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I'm a Zappa player, and I've fought a good amount of slayers, so I thought I'd throw in a few tips. Feinting Zappa is a great way to make him whiff, if the player tries to summon on reaction. If you get too close, or try to go for anything other than pilebunker or the kick followup of dandy step (both of these will generally hit zappa right out of a summon), you'll get hit. Dashing around him is a good way to confuse and make him miss summon, but it's got backward range, so the placement for when you dash has to be specific. A good Zappa will almost never get rid of all three ghosts unless he really needed to, and can make it look like he's out when he's getting a ghost back right away. If you see the vertical ghost toss, DON'T dash. Your just going to get the straight or arcing toss in your face as soon as you come out. As for the dog, Zappa probably has a slight advantage. Trying to kill the dog will get you killed, though, so just try to hit Zappa (Some zappa's think they're invincible with the dog, and will try to attack even when a pilebunkers coming into their face, which generally goes straight through anything Zappa has). Slayer's pokes scare the crap out of me, personally. There just too damned good. The Sword isn't as good, no, but it shouldn't be discredited at the least. It's the only summon whose pokes are on par with Slayer's at close range, so beware of that when trying to pressure. As for Raou, theres not much Zappa can do with him. His options are really minimal here, since Slayer's pokes and damage qualify him as a raou at pretty much any time anyways (Raou's 6HS being beat by pilebunker is frustrating crap, seriously). As it's been said, Slayer's got a clear advantage. Getting a huge combo isn't too difficult, from what I can tell, especially with Slayer's stuff beating nearly everything Zappa has. Once you get the Zappa to screw up, the match is pretty much over. Still, if your inexperienced with the fight, Zappa can be very intimidating and dangerous.

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Getting used to zappa is really important for this fight, unfortunately for me the only good zappa I've gotten a chance to play since AC came out was Fubarduck... so he beasted my ass up and down the screen. Something I noticed while playing with him though is that in naked state, the only moves he used were 5S, 6P, 5K. I don't remember him using anything but those 3 for his pokes, and a well spaced 6P seemed uncontestable by everything I had. Fuck, I think he even hit me out of 2H with 6P. lol But seriously, like crimson said, 5K beats all of your lows and it'll eat 2H cleanly for counterhit combos. Also, beware that fucking dog. It really seems like the only summon that was intimidating in this match. Ghosts are annoying, but you can get around that. Sword is sword, nice range, okay dmg, but nothing you can't stop... and raou really limits his options, so don't be afraid to rush raou down.

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Rushing Raou down is like the worst thing you can do. People seem to be thinking "well Raou has limited options" but his "limited options" include a 100+ damage uppercut and an un-airblockable fireball. If you can react to things in time to hit Zappa out of them, go for it. If you can bait the uppercut when he doesn't have meter, go for it. Otherwise, just chill. Better to block, maybe take a little chip, burn some tension on FD, and be stuck for a bit than to flat out die because you decided to attack and ate Raouppercut.

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Yeah, you're not allowed to make mistakes in this fight. Good Zappa's pretty much will do 100% combos on you with raoh from any hit. I've had it happen to me when I had tons of health and got cocky. Don't let it happen to you! Uppercut is super unsafe though. Generally when fighting Raoh I use 2H to zone him and try to go over his long range lows, BBU vs his fireballs and jump in, and try to make him do an uppercut so I can block it and kill him. Zappa rarely gets raoh when he's not on the verge of death so it basically just turns into sudden death for both of you once raoh is out.

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Raou isn't that amazing, especially in this matchup. Yes, he can do a full combo of damage; but he can also drain your tension, crank your guard bar, and chip damage half your health if you just sit there and try to block. Especially as Slayer, you should be pressuring Raou. It's not that difficult, since most of your pokes will limb hit Raou, and DOT goes straight through DA. Certainly he's scary, but he's far from being the best way to fight Slayer.

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The thing about Raou is that he typically only comes out after knocking Slayer down. Slayer isn't outpoking anything if he's getting up into a Raoudouken. And again, Raouppercut creams pressure for free and does way more to you than your move would do to him. Yeah, you can't just sit back and take it but it's better to react than to actively attack for no reason. The other thing about Raou is that he only really appears if the match drags on or if the Zappa player actively goes for Raou in the fight. Most games against Slayer, he'll be content to get ghosts or dog and just chill. So really you're usually only going to see Raou after getting combo'd anyhow.

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Yeah I only run into raou if I'm being lazy and walking into ghost projectiles all day or he has a lot of meter and gets summon RC summon RC summon off or something. But Raou is really straight forward, you just have to react and be alert. It's only 15 seconds then it's back to fighting shitty old zappa again.

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Yeah I only run into raou if I'm being lazy and walking into ghost projectiles all day or he has a lot of meter and gets summon RC summon RC summon off or something.

But Raou is really straight forward, you just have to react and be alert. It's only 15 seconds then it's back to fighting shitty old zappa again.

The thing is zappa gets meter pretty quickly because of the speed of his run, or at least thats how it seems, and really if he has dog, which is some of the most annoying pressure he has there is a good chance he'll have a few orbs and if you fuck up at all he'll get summon rc summon, raohuppercut. At least thats what happens in my experience. The way to play against raoh is to block super carefully and look for something to punish or a way to run to the other side of the screen safely. Don't ever try and out anything him though like crimson disaster says because one mistake could mean a huge part of your life.

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i tend to always OTG Zappa after a knockdown to make him auto summon so he can't do 236P :X... but meh.. i get very less Zappa experience overall :X

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You're just now noticing this?:v:

No, it's just that I haven't seen this thread before. If Raou is Zappa's "Ultimate" ghost, and Slayer basically IS Raou, what does that say about this game's balance? I dare not ponder such things, because Slayer will come to my house and BBU me to oblivion.

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the thing with Raoh is he also takes up more space then you! so its easier for him to hit you before you hit him most of the time!

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i tend to always OTG Zappa after a knockdown to make him auto summon so he can't do 236P :X... but meh.. i get very less Zappa experience overall :X

I didn't see this till just now. I believe this is a viable strategy on zappa as it cuts out alot of the risk when Oki'ing him yet lets you stay in control of the match. Just make sure you choose the right otg move for the right situation. I use HS alot or just simple 2k. 2k recovers faster but HS is jump cancelable so it's sort of a preference thing...

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if you block the DP you get a free combo unless he uses tensions. If he just wasted that many tensions to get out of your oki, I think it's a good thing. I'd rather have super fear oki going on in there rather than having him tech and get a free summon anyway sometimes. You're SL. Bitches fear.

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well. It's better than fucking up your oki and getting 3 orbs to the face, you can't always just sit back and hope he summons. Its just one option to use. Throwing the summon is another good one, though if you try that you may get thrown yourself.... Personally I just got with my gut and hope it works out.

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usually if ur first hit hits them that hits away the ghost the second hit will make him auto summon i think.... i don't remember... the point is i dont want to have to deal with orb when we are in neutral situations or even on oki, cause he might think i am gona bait his orb, since he is probalby thinking what i am thinking, "i am gona bait his attack and hit him with this!(Zappa = Orb or watever into orb)(Slayer = just hit him to big combo)" and if it is blocked, then yea ok i get free combo, but if i get hit, i have to deal with a ghost and him having 3 extra orbs... and closer to Raoh.

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If the Zappa you play is one who acts, you are going to get frustrated quickly. The two moves Zappa will always have during the match (2K, 6P) will be the bane of your existence. Slayer tends to like all the fancy dash moves and all I do is start throwing out one of the two moves and I start getting free counter hits (which I then turn into air combos). Whiffing the moves may work (the 6P takes a little while to recover) but one of the best things is to let him get the summon so there's better moves in his arsenal to try... one's you can punish him for. And obviously, I don't mean get hit with the summon. Make him have to do it on the other side of the screen (even another possibility to hit directly after when stuck in frames).

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