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Caer-caveral

Testament vs Slayer

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The Slayer matchup has been getting quite some discussion in AC. Most people seem to agree that it is a good matchup for Testament, but as my most common matchup, I have found there to be two sides to it.

At first, if the Slayer is not accustomed well to the matchup, Testament has a solid advantage. Slayer has to work much harder than he is used to in order to get in, and Testament has some good stuff to work with in order to make his life hell.

Then you slowly realize, as the level rises, that Slayer has every tool he needs to make this matchup incredibly difficult for Testament, forcing him to play rather differently as well. It's just a blessing that, as Chunli1 is so fond of saying, most Slayers have no idea when there is free damage just lying around waiting for them.

So let's get going.

general play

Testament has a general range advantage, but Slayers normals are simply too good so you still have to be very careful. Max far S range is where you are actually safe. His 2D will beat out or trade (in his favour) with most pokes, and 2HS has almost the same range as your far S. And don't forget that his 5K is fast, safe and long. Also as a sidenote, when he has 25%, consider using more 2S instead of far S in order to stuff random BBUs, in case your Slayer does that sort of thing.

I'd like to recommend an unusually frequent use of 5P as a poke in this match. It will beat out his 2HS and 6HS at most ranges, it has a decent chance of hitting him out of a Mappa, and most of all, it's pretty safe. Throw one out and then block, and it's hard to punish, and in case you hit you got him off your back for a second which can be very valuable. Use 2HS incredibly sparingly. He has too many moves that will eat it, so it's really not worth it.

HS EXE is somewhat of a high risk/reward poke, as it can counter hit alot of his stuff, giving you a free combo, but if he is close enough he can IAD over it and kill you, so be careful. He can also simply dash through it pretty easily if you become predictable with it.

air to air jS is almost your only choice. It is, as always, a godly move and it's your one good chance at winning air to air. Do not use jD, or use it incredibly sparingly, as his jK will beat it or clash at all ranges. At very close ranges though, jP is probably the preferred poke just to try and get something out first.

antiair... don't even think about it. He will beat you every time you try. Best bet is to try and keep him out of the air space above your head. Though 6K can beat airdashes well if you predict them.

air to ground... :vbang:

Slayer presses a random button and stick combination and wins. All his moves are antiairs against Testament. You might get away with jumping in once in a while, but are you willing to risk your life on it?

Trapping & Zoning

Slayer is not very mobile, so in comparison to other matches you usually have a lot of time to get stuff out. If you can just get away safely at the start of the round, you can usually start the fortress building. His Mappa is the speed threat, but if you start with planting a net, it will catch the mappa out of it's startup if he is too close (about half of max distance). Just watch out if he positions himself into the range where it works though. if he tries, send out an EXE for him to play with.

Trees are usually what you want to go for primarily in this matchup, as he has quite some trouble to get past them, what with no running. Nets usually becomes more of a distraction in order to buy time for the trees. This is because on the ground, he can disarm nets quite easily with 5K, and there's no reliable way to punish that. Nets in the air help very little due to his jK. He can actually jump straight up into a net and throw out jK, and it will still eat the net. This also ensures that he never has to stop combos because of nets, as he can just go straight through them. And did I mention it is almost as safe as his 5K?

Trees however, he has to work harder against. Much of this match consists of doing the correct countermeasure when he tries to get around them. Note though that they do not work as antiairs against him, as they do against many others, because if he does jHS it will dodge trees 90% of the time. And remember you can't antiair that, but if you're good at airthrows, they are an excellent countermeasure.

Skulls are also very good, especially the K-skull as it kills alot of his choices for getting in. P-skull though makes sure that he can't approach you on the ground so it might also be good if you can get one out since it will usually buy some time to set up the fortress.

Playing it safe

Now comes the hideously unfair and evil part. A Slayer with 50% tension can outright kill you from so many situations it is just plain redonkulous.

First of all you are now no longer allowed to throw out any skulls at all. The recovery is too long and the animation too obvious. Maybe the Slayer won't take the chance, but it's not worth the risk.

Secondly, ANY poke chained to trap set suddenly became russian roulette, as he will get a dead on time counterhit if he sees it coming, and then you die. I have pretty much never touched Slayer, but I can still do a very easy 310 damage + knockdown from those 50%. Now consider getting hit by a good combo.

2D is an especially risky thing to use in your blockstrings, as the recovery of 2D is so large he'll get the hit even if you did nothing. In this case an EXE is your only way out.

Also while we're on the subject, 2D and 2HS is always risky to throw out in blockstrings, as he can dandy > pilebunker before those moves connect. Ending strings early, especially far ranged blockstrings, is often advantegous.

Finally, his backdash cancel bullshit allows him an easier time getting out of S EXE pressure, and the S EXE okizeme almost never works.

Now, where does this leave us? At 50%, any trap set is potentially your doom, no skulls o the field and you can't use some of your better gatlings. In order to drive this home, playing safe is of the essence. Look for good spots to plant stuff and take the chance. It's still very hard for him to confirm a random trap set if he's far away, so you can get away with a few there. If he jumps, and he's not right on top of you, that's one of the best spots to get a tree out.

End blockstrings early, and make heavy use of HS EXE, as that is one move he still has a hard time dealing with, with the advantage of pushing him away and giving you a healthy frame advantage.

After that, it's all about capitalising on what you have.

Pressure, yours and his

Being pressure by Slayer, as we all know, sucks. His mixups are very good, and his options for getting in again are far better than you own. Plus, you can't afford mistakes. Two combos are often enough for Slayer. Strategic FD becomes very important here, as any distance you can get between you is good. Always look for chances to superjump > airdash out, as that is probably your best bet to get out safely. As said earlier, 5P is surprisingly good at stuffing 2HS and 6HS, two moves often used against opponents in the corner. It will still loose to 2D and 6P though.

Also as a general note, you can option select his feints. Both for Mappa feint and 6K feint, press back and HS with about the timing of when you usually get hit by it. This will more often than not result in a regular block if not a feint or a throw if it was one. If it was a short feint, the HS might even hit him.

Also worth noting is that the long mappa can be punished if IB'ed, as long as he is in range for your fast normals.

Now there is one thing Testament has here that is almost as unfair as some of Slayers bullshit, and that is IB > HS EXE in the middle of his pressure. Slayer works on links or semi-gatlings, and that means he usually has a lot of open spots in his pressure. This is really designed to give him frametraps, but you can use it to squeeze in a HS EXE at a lot of opportunities. Concentrate on IB as it gives you an easier time to get it off. If you get it down properly, you can even do it between his close S and far S, the only real gatling he has. Successful hits will usually gain you a counterhit and a combo.

Now, trouble emerges as most of Slayers moves are jumpcancelable, meaning he can predict you and IAD over. He can also simply do a forward dash to dodge it, but if he does and you're ready for it, just throw him. A more annoying thing is that he can do 6K which will always pass over HS EXE. If you can read his attempts at this, 5P (or 5S if you dare) him out of it. So at this point it's all a game of how well you can break into his pressure, and how well he can read your attempts.

Now, when you have him in the corner, that is the deciding factor of the match right there. He has much more trouble using his bullshit when he's in the corner, meaning it is possible to keep him in there and win yourself the match. Try to get a semi-fortress going around him, and work mainly on reacting to what he does. Watch out for those moves that beat out your stuff, like 2D and BBU, and try to get a good punish on them if he attempts it.

Combo Notes

Slayer is very easy for Testament to combo, probably one of the easiest in the game. His hitbox is very wide making BL, and HS added into BL loops, hit him at most ranges. Almost all midweight combos work on him.

After a throw you can quite easily do:

6K > BL > delayed tk BL > HS > BL > tk BL > 2366P (i.e. dash skull)

Just try to get the first tk BL as late as you can.

The only problem area I can think of is that since his hitbox is very small vertically instead, making S > HS or K > HS combo when he is launched is quite difficult and requires strict timing.

That was long. So basically, you have to play a very safe game all around or die trying. Much of the bullshit Testa is used to getting away with will not work if Slayer knows what to do. I remember people saying that it was a sign of how hopeless this matchup is for Slayer when the best advice for him is to buffer super inputs the entire match, but he truly does have tools against everything Testament can do, making the match a big game of reading the opponent for both players, which is kind of a disadvantage for Testament as he can no longer simply play on strategy and reaction like he usually can.

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Thanks for the post. Really good stuff in there. Hope you keep bumping when you add stuff, I'd hate to check every thread everyday :vbang: But yeah, thanks for the post.

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Now comes the hideously unfair and evil part. A Slayer with 50% tension can outright kill you from so many situations it is just plain redonkulous.

It's funny to see another person outside of my friends that says redonkulous. lol An example of one of the 50% combos available would be. DOT, 5HS, sJC, sjHS, sjD, sj2K, sjK, land, 5HS, Pilebunker. You can actually do another SJ rep depending on postioning (I watched crimson do it:8/: ) and that will pretty much rape you. However, when your best strat is getting 50% tension and then waiting for an opportunity to use it that has to be given to you... that's when you know you're not gonna have any fun with this match. One of the problems with fishing for DOT combos is that depending on how far you are from the corner, your combo possibilities change drastically. Slayer does have some good options when he gets testy in the corner, but life is alot easier for testy when a random HS EXE beast will beat all but 1 ground poke. Being slayer in the corner and having to deal with 2k,6P mixup is horrible. Once Testy puts Slayer in the corner, it usually ggpo time. A well timed BDC 1F jump will get slayer out of so many things that it's insane... but then the best he can hope for is 90% of the time putting some distance between him and testy, which puts testy at the advantage. The guide made it sound like slayer doesn't have to try as hard as testy in this match up, which is far from true. This match is absolutely mind numbing. I realize testy has to play safe against slayer, but so does everybody else. This match up just means that you can't get away with bsing a fight. I will admit though that if you aren't smart, slayer will run a train all over your ass. Play it smart, watch slayer tension, don't be predictable, and don't miss your frc's.

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It's as difficult for Testament as it is for Slayer if both are playing right. I'm not saying in any way that Slayer has the advantage, I'm leaning more towards neutral matchup myself, with a slight tilt in Testaments favour. It's just that he has way better options in many situations than most other characters. No other character has normals that eat traps as easily, while at the same time being so hard to punish. Doesn't help that they are now quite hard to get out safely. The mere threat of a DoT is enough for that, you rarely need to actually land it. If you don't know what to do as Slayer though, it will be quite hellish. And yes, I realize I make it sound worse than it is, but that's what happens after being hit by too many random 5K > DoT > death. It makes people a bit bitter =p Please note that this is not in any way written from Slayers perspective. I don't really care if it's easy for him to do or not (it's not though), I just care for what he can do, and what you must do as testament to prevent it. Mostly though it boils down to making the correct choice, with the wrong choice leading to a swift death, as so often is the case in Accent Core.

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you make a very valid point. For testament players, I would recommend that you IAD back at the beginning of the round. You might be able to beat out his openers, but I just don't think it's worth eating a hit into knockdown and then having to deal with Slayer's mix-up so early on. HS exe beast is a good opener imo too. I'm not a testament player though, so you should probably advise them on openers. I think this match up can be played alot like the Dizzy vs Slayer match imo. Keep him away and fish for a knockdown, then capitalize. If he gets away from you, set that fortress back up. Always watch how much tension slayer has, at 25% start throwing out more 2S, and at 50% stop ending string with net, skull, or tree. You can still do HS exe, but make sure to get the frc. If you miss it, I'm pretty sure he can DOT you. If you find yourself in slayer pressure, do like Caer says and learn to IB that shit. I would recommend crouch blocking while slayer has you pressured. 2K is alot faster that 6K, you can block the latter on reaction if you pay attention to what he does. Pay attention to the 6K and learn to recognize if it's a feint. If he feints you might be able to throw him depending on the spacing, so go with the option select that Caer recommended in his guide. Also don't try to carelessly jump out. It's quite possible to jump out of Slayer pressure, but if you're careless and don't look for the opportunities... you might just eat 5P, 2S, or 6HS into 50%+ life and knockdown. Be aware that slayer will throw you.... alot usually. The K skull (the one in the air is K right?) is pretty nice in the match, with it out slayer can't approach you from the air very easily and HS exe will be threatening his ground game at the same time. So use that shit, just remember the 50% tension rule. Air to air- only use jS or jP... Caer is quite right about that. Those are great air moves, especially jS... the rest will lose to jK and you'll get comboed. Anti air-You can 6K IAD you predict... but besides that, just don't. Is it really worth eating a counter hit jH and losing 60% or more life? Air to Ground- Why are you jumping in on slayer in the first place? Seeing 2S in action should tell you that it's a bad idea. That's about all I can think of. Anything you feel that I'm wrong about, feel free to change it. Edit: I forgot to mention that once slayer hits 50% 5K become 10x more threatening since it can be hit confirmed into DOT with relative ease.

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so is it safe to say that, at max range, 5P wont beat Slayers j.HS, or will it clash? Alot of the Slayers here spam that move to no end.

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so is it safe to say that, at max range, 5P wont beat Slayers j.HS, or will it clash?

Alot of the Slayers here spam that move to no end.

jHS is the god of Air to Ground moves, so I don't think that 5P will do anything but get you killed. jHS has alot of start up so Slayer has so start the moves early, to make sure that it's active as he comes down on you. This means that if you are pretty good you can chicken block it (crimson did it to me several times). If you don't know what chicken blocking is, that's where you jump and block the move right above the ground so that you land at the advantage. It's hard to do, but it's been done to me:8/: :vbang:

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yeah, what he said about jHS. I usually find airthrows to be king of antiair against Slayer. It's just too bad I suck at them. Still, gotta learn that shit sometime. About openers, the start of the match is quite deciding, so it's important to take it easy here. There is absolutely nothing foolproof, and you are at a disadvantage since you are standing far too close to Slayer without any traps out. So yeah, IAD back is safe, but gets you way further into the corner than what is comfortable against Slayer. The chart of openings goes something like this: 6K beats airdash and mappa, can lead to combo if your hitconfirm is golden. Mappa beats backdash and nets Slayer half your life and corner knockdown. HS EXE beats 5K and most often dandy. If I remember correctly, trades with 2HS and 2D. forward dash beats EXE, loses to nets and patience. Slayers 2D beats all pokes. Backdash or Jump beats and punishes 2D. 5K is a low risk/reward version of 2D for Slayer. So just look at the list and see what you think you dare to risk (fill in the obvious ones yourself). I don't really think there are any really good openings, but jumping back is probably one of the best. As long as you can get some form of space and a trap or two, you're in your stride and should take advantage of it to the max. Playing against Slayer feels pretty okay when he's under 50%, since you can really get into your trapping game. After that it's just plain cruel though. Any chance to get a tree out is worth gold, and any failure to use that planted tree hurts.

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Yeah, i think you just illustrated quite well why Slayer pretty much can't have bad matchups in the traditional sense (except maybe Potemkin cause that bastard just won't die even when it's Slayer hitting him). One wrong move and BAM! I think what got Kichi killed was a backstep (never a good idea against Slayer btw), trying to do something after a whiffed EXE and two bad choices for pokes. Not much to lose three rounds on.

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Slayer is always a character to be feared, no matter who you are. The thing that video helps to illustrate is why, even with the match in your favor, you can not afford to be careless at all when you fight Slayer. Not saying that Kichi was being careless, it just seems like he got completely outclassed in that fight. Nothing he could do about that. :8/:

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True true. I think this also demonstrates how important it is to not allow slayer to set the pace of the match at the beginning of the round. If you allow yourself to be backed into the corner that may very well be the end right there. Not to say that it's an easy task to accomplish... Also on the same subject, never ever get comfortable while fighting Slayer. This may be true for many chars in AC, but you might sometimes feel "hey, I have a very comfortable lead, I can take it a bit easy now". Wrong! You can still die from one combo started from a random 5K. Always treat the matchup as if one mistake will be your last.

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