Slightly increased the separation distance upon landing the throw in the corner
Standing MP
Reduced the backwards hitbox
Standing MK
Increased the advantage on hit from +3F to +4F
Crouching HK
Recovery increased on whiff and on block by 2F
Linear Movement – Avante/Linear Movement – Esquiva/Linear Movement – Finta (Spark Show Version)
Is now subject to counter-hit
Expanded the collision boxes in the upwards direction during the move, only when performed from Thunder Clap
Linear Movement – Esquiva (Attack, Spark Show Version)
Startup increased from 34F to 32F
Double Slap
Startup increased from 16F to 17F
EX Sunset Wheel
Expanded the forward hitbox for the second active throw frame
Matsuda Sway
Changed so that the dodging motion will not consume V-Timer gauge
Shock Choke
V-Timer consumption amount increased from 500F to 1,000F
Fixed the phenomenon where Laura would have a hurtbox during the move’s animation
Developer Notes: Adjusted properties of moves that are frequently used at close/mid-range. Additionally, changed Matsuda Sway so that it does not consume the V-Timer when dodging
Sooooo…we’re now more reliant on VTrigger even more now? Her St.mp gets nerfed. She got increased hurtboxes on her command dashes and now it counts as a counter hit. Might as well just sit and stay put theres no point in it. This is a bit stupid to be honest.
Yea it sounds a bit rough on paper but I think it isn’t that bad.
I mean the biggest buff for Laura in this patch is the fact that some of the top tiers are getting nerfed a lot.
Command Dashes are only in a counter hit state during her VTrigger1. So that might not be that bad.
This patch seemed to be “we didn’t like the VT1 Clap Cancel cross-unders you guys came up with” fixer. What remains to be seen is if the collision box increase kills all the cross unders in VT1 or if you need to burn EX to float them higher. We’ll find out later today.
Neclord pointed out that the CH state on Linear Movement is only in VT1. I originally read that wrong and thought it was way worse. I think its unfortunate but they clearly don’t want her zipping around so you’ll just need to be careful about VS’ing around in VT1. I think practically it lessens the ability to use it to close in neutral because that is the most likely time for you to run into a more painful CH button.
St.MP AA nerf was probably just to “correct” where she could AA remarkably far behind her head with it. Needs to be tested but it still should be a solid frontal/downward above head AA which is the main thing it needs to be.
Throw nerf sucks but that happened to a number of characters this patch. Capcom still can’t get to a happy place with throws apparently.
Sweep nerf is weird. I guess they want them to be more punishable, at least on whiff (Laura’s sweep is already plenty negative on block)? Sort of “whatever” change to me.
St.MK +4 OH is cute. Doesn’t do anything new for CH really but it does let you link cr.LP on normal hit which theoretically lets her combo from it more often since cr.LP has decent reach for her lights. Or you can get st.LK if closer and can theoretically cancel to EX Bolt for more damage and her now shitty 3.5 oki off it (not bitter at all). Not sure how much it matters but its better to have than not I guess.
I like the expanded hitbox on EX Sunset Wheel second active frame. Will give it just a bit more reach which is nice. Probably not a big increase but anything is good.
VT2 changes are good overall though I’m not sure how useful they’ll be. Being able to dodge without consuming meter makes it better as a projectile avoidance option but I’ve found using it for that is tricky, especially vs faster projectile chars. Biggest overall upside is that you’ll only cash it out when you go for the choke (which may hopefully be better with the listed change; I found it got CH as often as it worked) so she can ride the VT out longer.
Overall its definitely a set of nerfs but I also don’t think its that bad. Laura seems to have earned a Mika-like spot in that after they tamped her down at the start of this season they didn’t want her to start going wild again. And even then she may still be able to do stuff with VT1 mix ups using EXs.
The overall landscape changes to the other chars will help her, especially Abigail and Rashid. Guile, Menat, and Cammy will still be a pain. I think she’s probably still in about the same spot.
The forward throw nerf shows how oblivious they are about the build of their own characters. After butchering one of her few good pokes you would think they wouldn’t touch her oki so that at least she gets some reward for getting in, yet they first nerfed one of her tick throw tools then they nerfed the forward throw for the sake of putting her in line with Throws-Reset-To-Neutral Fighter V. Now she’s still bad at neutral and gets way less for getting in.
After making st.MP slightly better against cross-ups (the buff was really minimal), they are nerfing it again. Why? Nobody knows. And who ever complained about her sweep?
To be honest I didn’t even know her dashes in VT1 weren’t subject to CH so that doesn’t affect me much. But why do they have to also nerf the fun setups you could find? Like making it 3 bars wasn’t enough?
Being able to convert off st.MK anywhere but point blank sure looks nice, but with how bad that poke has become I’m not sure it will matter much.
The only good buff she got is probably the VT2 one, since it basically gives her infinite reversals and makes her invincible to projectiles for the entire VT duration (the VT command dash doesn’t consume V gauge) as long as you don’t use the grab. Still VT2 is weaker than VT1 though.
In short if you want to win this season you’re better off just playing Cammy. At least you’re sure she will never get nerfed.
Playing any of the grapplers in this game has to come with a stout heart. They piss off online players and stream monsters so they end up with big bullseyes on their backs come patch time. Abigail had the shortest turn around time of any of them; he didn’t even make it past mid-season before getting the hammer. Eventually we will all be playing Alex, whether we actually pick the character or not.
I agree. I think a lot of people lumped him in there because he became the de-facto Gief replacement, but I’ve always considered Abigail more of a big body striker that had a command grab just to be a dick.
Now with Abi’s damage nerfed and less oki, Gief can reign supreme as the one grappler that actually gets real oki off his grabs. Which makes sense as he doesn’t have things that barrel him in.
Laura can no longer cross under if you do an ex/regular fb dash cancel after the first ex.fb in VT1. Aww that was half the fun of the dash canceling!!! I don’t really see a difference in her ex.grab range.
Same thing with having vtrigger 1 active and doing s.mp xx clap xx avante as an anti air. Can’t cross under. Really wish they would allow it to be a 2 bar again. The cross under tricks made it feel worthwhile as a 3 bar trigger.
Damn even 801strider has ditched Laura. He said theres no way she competitive anymore and the only way to play is to out random the other person. I think Laura is done this season boys. Doesnt make sense to have to work that hard for now basic results. No oki, no range, no pokes. There are too many other characters with a shit ton of tools and defense that she just doesnt have. Here’s to season 4 down the line!
Laura isn’t done this season. Just because one pro drops her, you shouldn’t just blindly follow.
Especially because some other characters got hit way harder by the nerfbat than her. She should be fine.
The other thing is Idom turned around and won NLBC right after the patch dropped.
3.5 changes aren’t great either way but also aren’t that bad. Anyone actually dropping the character at this point should have done it after 3.0 and was probably just waiting things out to see how the meta played out/if 3.0 was that bad/if 3.5 would “save” her.
I actually don’t think Laura is that bad off overall. She isn’t as good as she was in S2 but that is obviously not going to be the case and I think she still has a really well rounded set of tools that leaves her in a decent spot. The biggest problem for her is the same for all grapplers right now: the risk of playing a grappler isn’t really commensurate with the reward. Competitively you’re probably better off picking one of the more consistent characters and winning via safer options.
Doesn’t mean that characters like Laura can’t win or that players should flee from her by the boatload. But people don’t like it when a character is perceived weak or nerfed, people often don’t like playing characters with low representation (even at her peak there weren’t that many Laura players around, and its only dropped since the heights of 2.0), and playing any of the grapplers in this game can be a source of frustration. Some have it easier than others (I still think Laura has one of the best overall tool sets of any of the grapplers which is why its so hard for me to give her up) but they all seem to be in a similar boat right now.
So I can understand why someone like Strider wants to bail. He’s been sticking it out with Laura for awhile now, but considering he didn’t bring home many (any?) big wins with her in 2.0/2.5 (not disparaging the guy at all) should he really stick it out with her for another year if he’s already frustrated? It is good for him to move to another char to see what is and isn’t working for him. Maybe he’ll come back to Laura after all. But regardless he should do whatever helps to keep him relevant in the scene and not going crazy playing the game.
Have any of you guys had success with vtrigger 2 with the new changes? The no cost on the dodge makes it a lot easier to learn now as you have a ton of chances to use the dodge. I wasn’t used to grabbing when I successfully dodged an attack. I think there is some use against certain fireball heavy matchups.
I think its definitely fun. It is very satisfying to land the choke when you get an inkling and they try something that is slow enough so you can react with the dodge+choke. It is also nice to have something that is invincible at all though the start up vulnerability and recovery on it mean you need to have some sense of what your opponent is likely do to before you commit to it.
I’m still not sold on it vs fireball heavy fights. The combined start up of dodge + avante makes it tricky to go through fireballs on reaction and the recovery of avante in that situation makes it dubious to use as just a way to get in (very easy to run into whatever they do next). I think it might be good for that purpose versus Menat but against most anyone else I think you need a really hard read for it to work (and versus Guile maybe not even then).
The fireball invulnerable avante + choke is good but is short ranged enough to where you IMO you need a pretty hard read to use it. EX Sunset does the same thing from what is probably a similar range and faster, though the Sway/Avante/Choke is also meterless which is nice.
I found the dodge to be more useful for crossups since we can’t really hit it with s.mp. Kind of nice to turn it around on them when it should have been their turn for pressure.
Yeah those are the situations where I’ve found the dodge to be the most useful. Situations where you’d otherwise have to guess or just hold it and wait out the storm, you can potentially get out of and reverse in a way that Laura otherwise can’t.
I’ve tried to be optimistic but these changes are just really dumb. I mean, they overnerfed her stMK because scrubs, and we dealt with it. Why the stMP nerf? Couldn’t they have removed the wonky corner stuff without totally undoing the anti cross up properties? It isn’t a freaking aa jab, it’s a designated anti air medium. Lazy and uncalled for. If they are going to remove all the fun cross unders then VT1 needs to go back to two bars. Other characters get way more for less. I think what frustrates me the most is that we had, what, a few months to learn all this new stuff and now it’s all gone? Her v-dashes are totally obvious (I’m here!) and not in any way abusable but, yeah, go ahead and make it crush counter-able because why not? Her oki has gone from decent to…well, you can have one meaty or a situational ex grab that costs meter and is even more punishable/unsafe than before.
I’m not jumping ship, and yes she CAN win but now more than ever has to rely on mistakes. This is really sloppy on Capcom’s part.
It’s definitely a pain in the ass. I think it isn’t too surprising to see Laura have a curve that is similar to Mika’s just a season behind (though I think that even at her peak Laura wasn’t as dangerous as Mika was at hers). This type of character is just always going to piss off enough people that they’ll have a bullseye on their back and she’s sort of precarious to balance which is awesome when you have someone as nuanced as Capcom is with balancing.
Hopefully she can level out over time and end up in a decent spot sort of like Mika has in this season after having to eat shit for a bit.
Smash cut to Mika and Laura getting nerfed even more in S4.
On a positive note I played a bunch of games against another SRK’er running Guile and while that match up is definitely still a pain in the ass I don’t think it is quite as bad as it was previously. The pushback nerf on booms makes it a little easier for her to stay in the pocket where she can threaten counter-poking or EX Sunset.
I ran VT2 and it is definitely near impossible to react to booms at the range where its going to really get you anything. You sort of have to just guess and go for it though you could probably react to V-Skill and have a shot of still getting the grab.
VT2 does have its moments though. Dodging through gaps in block strings or avoiding some set ups is a lot of fun. VT1 is still almost certainly better even in this fight just for the damage boost (I had a few close rounds that would have gone my way with the extra damage on elbows). I think if someone really sunk time into VT2 they could put together one hell of a highlight reel.
