Testament is a powerhouse of zoning, and is one of the best at controlling the flow of combat and forces opponents to play a completely different game against him, with Testament's rules in place. As a trap based character, he excels at controlling segments of the screen, and his full-screen EXE Beast that comes from behind the opponent ensures they draw ever-closer to his traps. Unfortunately, Testament's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness, as while he wants to draw people closer to him (and his traps), he also has some of the worst normal moves in the game, meaning that without optimized pressure, he finds himself completely out-gunned at close range by most of the rest of the cast. On top of this, his only means of escaping pressure are his counter (which he can't use as a reversal), a super (which can be traded with, as he isn't invulnerable when it becomes active), or careful blocking and back dashing. Despite this major flaw, he rewards careful planning and positioning with some of the most damaging extended combos in the game, and his unusual play-style means that he remains viable for taking advantage of predictable patterns. Plant trees, save your life.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths |
Weaknesses
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- Strong zoning game
- Long range normals with good hitboxes
- Effective mixup game
- Has the best counter in the game
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- Normals are somewhat slow
- Damage is on the average/low side without meter or Grave Digger wall loops
- Lacks any reliable reversal.
- Lacks any moves with upper-body invulnerability for anti-air, or lower body invulnerability for beating sweeps.
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Unique Mechanics
Curses
Testament has a move which is a skull that slowly moves forward. If it hits, the opponent is marked with a "curse", that causes the crow accompanying Testament to begin attacking. The crow has 4 different attacks (noted below), which it will use in 4 different patterns. The Skull itself is good for zoning, but only pre-emptively as it has quite a bit of startup; K Skull in particular can help cover directly above Testament, which he otherwise can't defend as he lacks any viable close range anti-air.
Poison
Testament has three moves which apply a poison Damage over Time (DoT) effect: Warrant, Nightmare Circular, and HITOMI (Powered Up). The poison does more damage the higher the opponent's health, and is removed after Testament is hit, or when a certain amount of time has passed. It is extremely useful to poison opponents during/before combos, as it will greatly increase his damage.