Slide

Slide is a long-range Low attack that sends your character sliding feet first at the opponent. It knocks the opponent down on hit, side-swaps, and leaves your character laying on the ground in a floatable state.

Slide is a powerful move shared by Law, Lee, and Shaheen, who are often referred to as "Slide Characters."

Law's Slide
Lee's Slide - not to be confused with his Mist Step 3+4 (MS.3+4)
Shaheen's Slide - Shaheen enters his Stealth Step (SNK) stance after his Slide successfully connects with the opponent

Characters with a Slide can often form a game plan around it by mixing it in with other moves that can be done from While Standing, like Law's ws1,2 and Lee's ws2,3, or from Full Crouch like hopkicks.

How to slide

Slides are done from the slide dash, which is similar to a regular dash.

The slide input is FC.df,d,DF+3. It's similar to a generic dash attack (e.g. Lee's f,F+3) but with D being held the whole time. The df,d,df inputs enter the slide dash stance after which df+3 does the slide. This slide dash can be done by slide characters and Josie (and Master Raven has something similar).

The fastest slide can be done from standing is 28 frames. This involves timing the second df precisely as you enter full crouch, then inputting df+3 on the next frame:

	Active frame
	Full crouch
	Half crouch
	Slide dash

Fastest slide from standing

Frame

Input

State

1

d/f

2

d/f

3

d/f

4

d/f

5

d/f

6

d/f

7

d/f

8

d/f

9

d/f

10

d/f

11

d

12

d/f

13

d/f3

14

n

15

n

16

n

17

n

18

n

19

n

20

n

21

n

22

n

23

n

24

n

25

n

26

n

27

n

28

n

29

n

30

n

31

n

32

n

33

n

If the input is done too quickly you get another move instead - probably hFC.3 or FC.df+3:

There's no secret motion inputs that can make this faster. However, some people find that starting from db and sliding over to df helps with the timing:

Note that for Law's slide, starting from d instead of db or df actually makes it 1 frame slower. (For some reason he takes an extra frame to enter full crouch if you start with d. Do not ask why. Tekken's crouch code is extremely spaghetti.)

Delayed slide

The threat of a slide can be better than the slide itself.

The slide dash lasts for 19 frames, and it can be cancelled to full crouch instantly with d or db. This allows a lot of flexibility in what timing you do the slide at, as you can both delay the button significantly and shimmy in and out of the stance over and over.

Shimmying is simply doing d,df,d,df over and over. The first d cancels the previous slide dash, then the df,d,df does the next one. The main thing with this shimmy is internalizing which df input is full crouch and which is the slide dash, since if you press 3 on the wrong one you'll get FC.df+3 instead.

Slide pressure

As mentioned above, slide can be done quickly or slowly. Once you've hit your opponent with Slide a couple times they should start looking for it, which is the perfect time to start changing your timing and mixing things up.

By utilizing the aforementioned slide dash stance, you can throw the opponent off of your slide timing if they're trying to low parry or block it. You can also slide dash to inch closer to your opponent, or mix in some mid pokes to chip away at the opponent to keep them guessing. Be as unpredictable as possible while making sure to adapt to the opponent's responses.

Take advantage of Slide's long range to be a threat from a distance
Use the threat of Slide to get in range for a Poke
Use the threat of Slide to work your way in on the opponent

This is just meant to be a brief overview of Slide pressure and tactics. If you are looking for character specifics visit the pages for Law, Lee, or Shaheen.

Slides that aren't slide

There are other moves similar to slide, such as:

Bob's Stealing Home (BAL.4). Only available during his Spinner Ball (f+3+4) and is a launcher.
Lee's Lee Sliding (MS.3+4). As close as it gets to a proper slide. The wake-up 3 is even guaranteed after (except you can't buffer it so it's not easy). But it's much slower and doesn't high crush at any point.
Lei's Sliding Kick (SLD.4~3). Only available during his Sidewind (head first) (d+1+4) stance.
Master Raven's Vermillion (BT.f,F+3+4). Only available during Backturn. Like Bob's, it is a launcher.
Noctis's Tumble Slide (f+3+4,3+4). Only available during Roll-Dodge (f+3+4).

While these moves are often also referred to as slides because of their animations, they have very different properties: they're done from specific stances instead of from full crouch; they're mostly too slow or inflexible to be real mixup tools; they don't always recover floating; the reward on hit is usually different.

You might not see any of the above moves in a match, and they aren't a central part of their character's gameplan. On the other hand, it's almost a guarantee that you'll see a slide character do or threaten a proper slide every round.

External links

How To Do Slide by King Jae
Slide Fundamentals by LegendKicker