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ajinkris

Slayer vs. Testament

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Just wanted community input about this nightmarish matchup. I'll write a few bullet points and then add more as I receive more responses.

Slayer vs. Testament is one of those matches that makes you sigh, mainly because Testament's entire game is focused on keeping you out of reach and beating you out in several situations...into pretty painful amounts of damage. I play against a pretty beastly Testament, and I can tell you, I don't win very often (that also has to do with my inexperience and lack of skill).

I'm just going to bullet off things that I notice:

-Random Dandies and Mappas will be punished by traps, so don't go around carelessly with those.

-You can, however, punish Tree set with a Mappa if you're quick enough and 2D if you're close enough.

-Your Ks and Ps will be crucial for disarming traps. Always keep your eyes peeled for the blown skirt and arm rip animations.

-Beating Testament is a test of patience. It's important to get a knockdown because Testament has poor ways to deal with pressure. Once you have him under your mixup, keep on pressuring and don't let up. However, if the gap is large enough, discontinue your pressure, as Exe Beast will trade or straight up beat out almost everything you have.

-As far as mixup goes, I like to stay grounded and aim for cheap, easy knockdowns. If you're feeling gutsy, you can dash through stuff like Exe Beast and throw him.

-Saving tension for DoT is a common practice. DoT flies through and disarms all traps, so watching for trap-set animations becomes important. If you land the CH DoT, your chances of winning greatly increase.

-Testament's mixup is vicious. Between 2K, 6P, 5D, and being bounced back and forth by FRC'd Exe Beasts, blocking will become quite the challenge. This isn't to say that it isn't impossible though, it just takes experience and focus. All of it can be blocked on reaction, just get used to the deceptive animations.

-Testament's reach is generally better than yours and right out of your 5K and 2HS range, meaning you won't be winning the poke wars. Advancing slowly by disarming traps and catching him while in trap animation is your best bet at getting in.

EDIT -- Added from the matchups forum (original post by POscrub):

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Page 03: Slayer vs. Testament

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Slayer Basics:

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Learning how to deal with and get around Testament's Zeinest (Webs) and Hitomi (Trees) is the basics of this matchup. Jumping in with a j. K on the way up, and a j. HS on the way down, the j. K will trigger Zeinests before Slayer is in range to get hit, and if j. H is blocked, the Hitomi will pass harmlessly underneath, this is the best way to approach them from the air.

Against this tactic, Testament has the option of K Phantom Soul and 6K, early on, you can IB the Phantom Soul for additional tension, and double jump to avoid the 6K. Once you have the tension, you can try to look for an opening to turn things around with a Big Bang Upper, or a K Dandy Step -> Pile Bunker.

Kenchan's comments:

Slight disadvantage. Testament has the upper hand in general, but Dead on Time and Big Bang Upper are just too good. Slayer hits like a truck, so it's definitely still a fight.

Picture: Against Okizeme that uses Zeinest, you can use K Dandy Step FRC to evade.

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Exploiting Gaps

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If Testament gatlings f. S or 2S into 2D, if you Instant Block (IB) the attack before the 2D, you can counterattack with P Dandy Step (214P) -> Pile Bunker. If he does 5S or 2S into 2H, doing the above to get a Pile Bunker is effective, however, countering with Big Bang Upper also works. If Testament gatlings any normal into H EXE Beast, you can reaction back K Dandy Step -> Pile Bunker to punish. However, if he did 2H -> H EXE Beast, you need to IB the 2HS.

Picture: Opening up gaps in Testament's gatlings using Instant Block to make him wary is important.

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Aim for the Dead on Time:

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If Slayer manages to land a CH Dead on time, that single hit might very well end up deciding the outcome of the match, so aim to punish an opponent for making careless autopilot decisions. Some common situations that result in a CH, if Testamnet does any gatling canceled into Set Zeinest or Set Hitomi, if he just tries to set a Zeinest in a neutral situation, there's many attacks that cancel into 2HS and 2D, so if you see any of those attacks, get used to entering the motion for Dead on Time after blocking them, so that if he cancels into a Set, you just need to tap the button to punish. Note, if Testament decides to Set a Hitomi (Tree)in a neutral state, the animation is quite hard to see, so it's not something you aim for often.

Picture: Look to attack when he tries to Set something. When you have more than 50% tension, you should be priming the super motion, all the time. (ED note: ALL THE TIME )

Note at the bottom: Slayer's Big Bang Upper can trigger a Zeinest and still be capable of hitting, so use it with good timing to bust through attacks that hit high, like Testament's f.S, 6K, and 2H.

That's all I can think of for now. Please add more!

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Just want to add that the info in italics is a translation done by POscrub many months ago, from Arcadia magazine.

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yeah, props go to poscrub. i love this matchup. both my mains. mappa and 6H fail as means to get in. traps rape you pretty easily. add lots of jumps into your pressure. EXE is guaranteed after the first frame. do sumthin like c.S->late jump cancel to bait it out. look out for the FRC though. if he does FRC a double jump usually puts you out of harm's way. *slight parlor trick*: jump cancel straight up and airdash so you switch sides naturally, then quickly do j2K to crossup again. it's worked a few times for me. you could also try and do something like 6K wait BDC bite. hella annoying. that DOT thing couldn't be stressed more. buffer it everytime. block with a 63214 motion so you just do 6S to DOT. this matchup's a huge test of patience. you turtle, you lose. you charge in recklessly, you still lose. kind of why i sometimes let testament knock me down at first since i find it easier to have him mix up since he's in my face rather than have him set traps and force me to come to him with a goddamned barney right on my heels.

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I remember reading a while ago that if you're eating a block string, and Teste fucks up EXE Beast FRC, you get free CH DoT into 100% combo :cool:

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I remember reading a while ago that if you're eating a block string, and Teste fucks up EXE Beast FRC, you get free CH DoT into 100% combo :cool:

I also remember reading a while ago if your eating a block string into web/tree, you get free CH Dot into 100% combo :v:

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Something I've been doing a lot of lately is backdashing at times when I expect an H EXE beast and if I see it, jump up and IAD over it to get in, and sometimes get a hit if you're really fast. If you see 6K you can cancel the backdash into Mappa for a free hit as well, since 6K is slow to recover if it isn't canceled into another attack. Generally I see those 2 moves the most in neutral situations so it's good to use backdash and keep an eye out for either of those.

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The only problem I see with buffering DOT is that a good testicle is gonna be aware of the fact that you have the super rocket bitch slap ready and waiting. Every testy I see will never end a block string with tree or net if Slayer has 50% tension. The EXE beast thing I was unaware of though. Do you know if it's the S or HS barney? The HS version is +9 on block and the S is -2.

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You don't need to block EXE, you fly through and boom. BDC DoT will help, though isn't necessary.

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I rush this fight down, hardcore. If you can get inside, stay in there and don't ever give him an inch to breath. If he tries to jump out, chase him. If he's gonna counter, predict that shit and punish. FD 6K, or just beat it out with j.H. Dandy through EXE beasts, or back dash through them and IAD. Pressure is the key to victory, IMO.

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I rush this fight down, hardcore. If you can get inside, stay in there and don't ever give him an inch to breath. If he tries to jump out, chase him. If he's gonna counter, predict that shit and punish. FD 6K, or just beat it out with j.H. Dandy through EXE beasts, or back dash through them and IAD. Pressure is the key to victory, IMO.

I'd have to agree here, but then again I've only played a grand total of two TE's. Here's a question: has anybody actually played a very aggressive TE? :psyduck: I played 1 awhile ago, and it's just awkward. :psyduck:

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if he is over aggressive, it just makes my life easier to punch him in the face, other then me tyrign to get in on his face :V.. but i dunno if i have played an aggressive one before.. most of them feel the same..

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if he is over aggressive, it just makes my life easier to punch him in the face, other then me tyrign to get in on his face :V.. but i dunno if i have played an aggressive one before.. most of them feel the same..

Pulsr plays pretty aggressively, but that's mostly against players that aren't near his level. He takes advantage of the fact that we still have a hard time blocking the mixup, being bounced back and forth by FRC'd EXE Beasts and dealing with the 2K / 6P shenanigans in the corner. One landed hit usually results in a Badlads loop, EXE Beat OTG combo, or combo into a skull. This doesn't mean that he actively tries to rush me down, he just looks for my mistakes and punishes dutifully and then begins his mixup if he has tension (which is easy for him to come by).

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Pulsr plays pretty aggressively, but that's mostly against players that aren't near his level. He takes advantage of the fact that we still have a hard time blocking the mixup, being bounced back and forth by FRC'd EXE Beasts and dealing with the 2K / 6P shenanigans in the corner. One landed hit usually results in a Badlads loop, EXE Beat OTG combo, or combo into a skull. This doesn't mean that he actively tries to rush me down, he just looks for my mistakes and punishes dutifully and then begins his mixup if he has tension (which is easy for him to come by).

lol pulsr plays very aggressive in this match.

today after i played him and was gloating about my 30% win rate, he actually said he's just gonna sit back and wait for me next time. honestly i think he would be doing me a favor though because picking my way through nets and trees is easier for me than dealing with pressure / mixup.

aggressive testament is harder for me to play against than careful testament.

also about the block string to foward EXE beast.

in order to counter hit dot him, doesn't it depend on what move he does before he does EXE beast? like for example if he does 2h to exe beast, don't you have to ib the 2h in order for the dot to hit him? or can you always at least trade with him if he does exe beast (no frc) at the end of a block string?

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Well, if I've understood the concept right, Slayer can get a fully invulnerable startup for DoT with a perfect bdc. So if you can do this, sure you can get it anytime you choose (you still have to IB 2D 2HS and 5HS though) but only if your bdc is flawfless. The other alternative would be to IB a lvl3 move and do DoT on the very first frame that blockstun ends. Possibly you could backdash away from it and Dot but that won't give a counter hit. This, fortunately, doesn't really seem reliable for Slayer.

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6k goes over forward beast

But only if you're close to him. Gotta make sure it passes under you. At range you just kinda sit on the beast and look like a fucktard.

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Well, if I've understood the concept right, Slayer can get a fully invulnerable startup for DoT with a perfect bdc. So if you can do this, sure you can get it anytime you choose (you still have to IB 2D 2HS and 5HS though) but only if your bdc is flawfless. The other alternative would be to IB a lvl3 move and do DoT on the very first frame that blockstun ends. Possibly you could backdash away from it and Dot but that won't give a counter hit.

This, fortunately, doesn't really seem reliable for Slayer.

ahhh see this is what i was confused about. different people seem to be saying different things.

so if he does block string to exe beast. do you:

a) get a hit as long as you do dot as soon as possible (is this a ch?)

b) have to ib certain moves such as 2D 2HS 5HS then dot to get the hit?

c) have to ib and / or bdc dot to get the hit / ch?

(yes i understand the concept of bdc completely. it gives 6 frames of invincibility if you do it perfect in ac right?)

oh and as for 6k going over exe beast. actually you can do it from surprisingly far away if you time it right. i've done 6k at the very start of a round while pulsr did forward exe beast and i hopped over it clean.

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you can BBU GROUNDED badlands on block after a blocked tk-badlands I usually go for 2k-2d knockdown or 2k-2h-DOT FRC if i'm feeling saucy. I try to avoid 2k-2h-bbu because they're usually too far away for the bbu to hit.

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you can BBU GROUNDED badlands on block

after a blocked tk-badlands I usually go for 2k-2d knockdown or 2k-2h-DOT FRC if i'm feeling saucy. I try to avoid 2k-2h-bbu because they're usually too far away for the bbu to hit.

Instead of 2K-2H-DOT just do 5K dot. 2K prorates 75 and then 2H forces another 80 so it's a lot of proration.

You may just be able to IB-DOT.

5K DOT FRC helps a lot in this match.

EDIT: Another thing that helps A LOT in this match is if TE likes to EXE beast to get trades in your 5K or 2S pressure, just cancel into 6K. 2S->6K will go over beast for CH 6K. Same with 5K. Bait forward beast with 2S or 5K into dandy. Also pressuring dandy S->H at the CLOSEST range, if TE beasts between S and H, you get CH dandy H for huge damage. It also works with 6H after 2S if you're really close. Moves that push your hitbox forward are REALLY good for dealing with forward beast. f.S, 6H, dandy H, 6K. You can IB the stuff he uses to get into forward beast pressure and BDC IAD j.D->footloose for a nice combo.

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