CrazyFingers
The Power of Lame Compels You
Heeeeeeello lovely people of TYM (and I guess even you undesirables, still love you anyway) This thread will help you with the tricky task of playing Slasher efficiently. While you might understand how staggers work and how Slasher even works, that does not mean that you are doing it correctly (I don't do it correctly sometimes either but I can acknowledge what I do wrong for the most part) Basically, staggers look like one of two things to a player and we'll go over the point of view of the inexperienced player (as far as the matchup goes) and then you will hopefully by the end of this no longer be that player. There have been some misinformation running around about his staggers, some of it created by me, I apologize for this but I plan to correct any misinformation that I have put out there right now.
The One Who Doesn't Know the Match Up
Someone who has little to no understanding of Slasher as a whole thinks your staggers are godlike and unavoidable (this isn't entirely false but most certainly isn't entirely true either). The opponent will not be able to deal with these staggers because they simply don't know frame data or are TERRIFIED by your conditioning (good job with the second one but the player doesn't know the matchup which means they enter the match almost pre-conditioned sort of speak) They have essentially been beaten purely by ignorance. If you fall into this category, I am not trying to insult you, I'm trying to help you not be pushed around by this character in the ways you're being pushed around by him. You are quite literally letting your opponent get away with MURDER by doing some of the things they're doing (I know this because I have gotten away with a ton that I should not be getting away with which is one of the reasons some of my misinformation was born to begin with) So, what IS this misinformation I am talking about? Let's go over that. This is both an act in education and an act in humility on my part as some of you are going to look at this and call to memory me contradicting myself awhile back. That doesn't feel good but the misinformation can't go on anymore.
B1/B12/B122 Misconceptions
First I shall preface this by saying this normal/these strings are VERY strong and can be used in the form of staggering but it is NOT absolute. Let me throw some frame data at you.
) If you have a 7f normal or faster, every part of this is fully punishable consistently (dependent on range, we'll get into that later.)
So this information alone is probably making some of you scratch your head. Maybe you have tried to punish this stuff in the past but it just didn't happen. Or maybe you pressed a poke and got blown up by B1 into another B1. Why is that you ask? Well let me show you the way my friend. B1 is a fairly odd normal. It's -11 on block this is ABSURDLY punishable and would make you think staggering it would be impossible and while on paper this should be a terrible button to press by itself, in practice it is a lot better. But anyway, back to abusing Slashers who abuse this button.
Punishing B1/B12/B122
So basically, B1 as previously mentioned is insanely negative and when the Slasher player does it right in your damn face, you can't take that like a lil bitch. Gotta get in there, beat his ass senselessly till he learns he can't be doing that. HOWEVER! Depending on the character, at certain ranges B1 while technically punishable, will put Jason out of range for your punish and then he can proceed to blow you up for it. This goes for pokes too. If you whiff a poke in front of Jason, he's going to get 32% FREE from B1. So to Slasher players out there, stagger this at safer distances (remember this is matchup dependent, lab it or wait for me to make a thread on it
) The same rules apply to B12/B122 however in this case, you'll need a faster normal to punish these.
So that's a basic primer on B122 staggers but Slasher has other (MUCH better) stagger strings. Well, one other one to be exact but it's a doozy and it could honestly get it's own thread. Those of you who read my thread about his frame traps will probably know about how strong I think 122 is a string. Let me throw some more frame data at you.
So this is the string that you should actually be having trouble with as it is Slasher's main pressure tool (That's right, those of you who aren't using this string, you're doing it wrong, fix that now.) Starting as a high does feel pretty bad but honestly, that hasn't stopped other strings from being used, so let's not talk anymore about that. S1/S12 leaving you at +2 makes this pretty scary. It frame traps with B1 (making it a 7f mid after S1/S12 is blocked) which is how you will check people till they start blocking after your plus frames for a longer amount of time. This is when you start doing your actual stagger stuff. S12 into grab, into mixup, into another S12, maybe a poke, all those fun things.
"But CrazyFingers! What about S122? You said it was good for staggers but if the opponent is just blocking S12 for long amounts of time, S122 doesn't open anyone up." well this is the case until you start USING S122 and making the opponent feel a lot safer. You're not plus so they get to breath. HOWEVER! That's what you want. This is when things get a bit mind gamesy. Basically, S122 being only -2 on block makes it great to check your opponent trying to use a high on you or maybe you counter poke with armor or you cancel S122 into a special. Ya know, stagger stuff. When this string is thrown out (this applies to S1/S12) you want your opponent to not have any idea as to what you're going to do next. To them, you're just a crazy man with a machete being a big bully.
Well! Hope I helped clear up some misinformation and maybe taught you guys a thing or two! Cheers!
The One Who Doesn't Know the Match Up
Someone who has little to no understanding of Slasher as a whole thinks your staggers are godlike and unavoidable (this isn't entirely false but most certainly isn't entirely true either). The opponent will not be able to deal with these staggers because they simply don't know frame data or are TERRIFIED by your conditioning (good job with the second one but the player doesn't know the matchup which means they enter the match almost pre-conditioned sort of speak) They have essentially been beaten purely by ignorance. If you fall into this category, I am not trying to insult you, I'm trying to help you not be pushed around by this character in the ways you're being pushed around by him. You are quite literally letting your opponent get away with MURDER by doing some of the things they're doing (I know this because I have gotten away with a ton that I should not be getting away with which is one of the reasons some of my misinformation was born to begin with) So, what IS this misinformation I am talking about? Let's go over that. This is both an act in education and an act in humility on my part as some of you are going to look at this and call to memory me contradicting myself awhile back. That doesn't feel good but the misinformation can't go on anymore.
B1/B12/B122 Misconceptions
First I shall preface this by saying this normal/these strings are VERY strong and can be used in the form of staggering but it is NOT absolute. Let me throw some frame data at you.
- B1: -11 On block, 9f Mid
- B12: -9 On block, Cancelable
- B122: -9 On Block, Meterless Launcher
) If you have a 7f normal or faster, every part of this is fully punishable consistently (dependent on range, we'll get into that later.)So this information alone is probably making some of you scratch your head. Maybe you have tried to punish this stuff in the past but it just didn't happen. Or maybe you pressed a poke and got blown up by B1 into another B1. Why is that you ask? Well let me show you the way my friend. B1 is a fairly odd normal. It's -11 on block this is ABSURDLY punishable and would make you think staggering it would be impossible and while on paper this should be a terrible button to press by itself, in practice it is a lot better. But anyway, back to abusing Slashers who abuse this button.
Punishing B1/B12/B122
So basically, B1 as previously mentioned is insanely negative and when the Slasher player does it right in your damn face, you can't take that like a lil bitch. Gotta get in there, beat his ass senselessly till he learns he can't be doing that. HOWEVER! Depending on the character, at certain ranges B1 while technically punishable, will put Jason out of range for your punish and then he can proceed to blow you up for it. This goes for pokes too. If you whiff a poke in front of Jason, he's going to get 32% FREE from B1. So to Slasher players out there, stagger this at safer distances (remember this is matchup dependent, lab it or wait for me to make a thread on it
) The same rules apply to B12/B122 however in this case, you'll need a faster normal to punish these. So that's a basic primer on B122 staggers but Slasher has other (MUCH better) stagger strings. Well, one other one to be exact but it's a doozy and it could honestly get it's own thread. Those of you who read my thread about his frame traps will probably know about how strong I think 122 is a string. Let me throw some more frame data at you.
- S1: +2 on block, 9f high.
- S12: +2 on block, fairly good range.
- S122: -2 on block, launches in the corner
So this is the string that you should actually be having trouble with as it is Slasher's main pressure tool (That's right, those of you who aren't using this string, you're doing it wrong, fix that now.) Starting as a high does feel pretty bad but honestly, that hasn't stopped other strings from being used, so let's not talk anymore about that. S1/S12 leaving you at +2 makes this pretty scary. It frame traps with B1 (making it a 7f mid after S1/S12 is blocked) which is how you will check people till they start blocking after your plus frames for a longer amount of time. This is when you start doing your actual stagger stuff. S12 into grab, into mixup, into another S12, maybe a poke, all those fun things.
"But CrazyFingers! What about S122? You said it was good for staggers but if the opponent is just blocking S12 for long amounts of time, S122 doesn't open anyone up." well this is the case until you start USING S122 and making the opponent feel a lot safer. You're not plus so they get to breath. HOWEVER! That's what you want. This is when things get a bit mind gamesy. Basically, S122 being only -2 on block makes it great to check your opponent trying to use a high on you or maybe you counter poke with armor or you cancel S122 into a special. Ya know, stagger stuff. When this string is thrown out (this applies to S1/S12) you want your opponent to not have any idea as to what you're going to do next. To them, you're just a crazy man with a machete being a big bully.
Well! Hope I helped clear up some misinformation and maybe taught you guys a thing or two! Cheers!
