I got a chance to ride on a Slayer this last saturday.
My description of the bike is that it is so good, you'll get yourself into trouble by arriving into turns and chunky sections faster than you considered possible, and suspension that is so well sorted you can push really hard before running out of talent. Definitely a bike that lets you ride at a really high level, and usable as sledgehammer. I didn't get to ride it on a trail wholly deserving of that capability, but it was extremely happy with my 235lb of stupid stringing together the worst possible line choice over everywhere I took it.
It happened to be the full bling Fox36/FloatX2/SixC demo unit, and considering how long the demo bikes have been in the wild the dings in the finish everywhere can only be explained by journalists and consumer demo riders finding themselves pushing their own limits and discovering where those are. I certainly did, and collected some cacti impacts as a result.
As it turns out, 800mm bars and impressive cornering grip is a combination for collecting cactus spines from the inside of turns, and carrying ludicrous speed and laying down two-wheel drifts in loose sections means collecting cactus contact from the outside of turns.
Climbing capability is quite good - not sure how much of that is the high end build across the board (got to be a bit), but I know that I'd take the climbing behavior of the Slayer with 2.5 DHF Minions over a carbon Pipeline on 2.8 Rekons, and the Pipeline wasn't a slouch. The size Large didn't really fit me, the 35mm stem didn't help a ton. Still an absolute blast, and if I spent much time at the bike park or running rough enduro stages where I could send it, then I'd get one.
Really makes me curious what Rocky could do if they made a Slayer-type 29er, because that would be my jam.
TL;DR: Try one if you can.
I thought it was amazing, even though I didn't have the right trail or really a use for that bike, it was awesome to see what it can do. I was finding doubles on stuff I wasn't aware was possible to link up, and turning what would be rolled step-downs into boosted drops to flat.
