It takes a little practice, but you can see if the first hp hit and then press the other one. Try it in training with the dummy on random guard
I will definitely do that. Reactions are pretty much my downfall in most fighting games, but I’ll get it eventually. I definitely like Laura a lot. She feels like she’s solid. Mostly though, she feels comfortable to play.
Anyways, thanks for the help.
Any advice or tutorial to learn how to use V-dash and dash cancel effectively? I see many good players making good use of it but I’m usually a little afraid of eating a combo if I cancel during strings. I’d like to force myself into using this move more often in some way.
After having watched Laura matches from FR, I decided to give her a shot. She’s quite odd to me coming from Karin. What kind of character would you say she is? What kind of play style does she represent? Her strengths/weaknesses? Her combos are odd to me since they seem quite scarce and limited off of lights. She seems like a 50/50 type of character forcing your opponent to guess. Her V-Skill seems to have a lot of potential too. Thoughts?
She is a rushdown grappler.
I recommend watching the Laura guide video Phoenix Knight posted a few posts above. Really helpful imo!
I’d describe her as a jack of all trades, master of none. She’s got a command throw, but its one of the worst in the game in range and start up (even slower then normal throws and barely reaching further or doing more damage), her normals are all pretty solid at point blank range, but are all pretty sub par at mid to long range. She’s got a fireball, but it goes about as far as Dan’s do in SF4. She’s got a quarter screen strike move with a built in throw on hit on the medium version of it, but it doesn’t have great priority, has relatively slow start up, and all versions are minus on block (light version only -2, but it can’t be combed into the built in throw so its damage is light). She’s got an ex version of that move that has armor, but its armor is not active till several frames in leaving her with no way outside of super to punish meaties, and its even more minus on block. She’s got a standing over head, but its got one of the slowest start ups and longest recoveries of any over head in the game, making it easy to jab out of, or punish on block, and on hit it doesn’t do much damage and leaves you at +0 so it combos into nothing. She’s got a special dash, but its not invincible, only goes slightly further then her normal dash, and its actually got more recovery, making it extremely risky. She has a decent anti-air special, but it has no full invincibility frames (only upper body), can’t hit grounded opponents, and frequently trades (not in her favor) when used late or against attacks that are already deep. She’s got an ex version of her command grab that actually has really good range do to a built in dash, but because of the ex flash and the 22 frames of start up, its extremely telegraphed, and it has absolutely no invincibility so outside of meaty situations or your opponent falling asleep, its pretty easy to react to and punish hard.
I feel like I’m under selling her, she does have solid damage output, and is a beast at point blank range as she has a 3 frame light, 5 frame medium, and 7 frame heavy (which is extra important in SF5 do to the move priority system where a medium beats a light clean if they both activate on the same frame), and a number of her normals have lots of active frames allowing for some nice meaty or frame trap tricks. Her super throw, while jumpable during the start up cutscene, can be combo’d into pretty easily and does solid damage. Her V trigger can be used as a move cancel to make certain moves safe, or even advantageous on hit or block, as well as giving slight damage buffs to her moves across the board and making both her special dash and her non-ex fireballs more useful. Her ex fireball even outside of v trigger is +3 on block, making it a good block string and frame trap tool. Her dash lets her cross under in certain situations for a some what gimmicky mixup. While I don’t think most would say her anti-air special is the best, I personally feel its still better then what a LOT of the current cast has and is pretty easy to land with a 7 frame start up and lots of active frames.
As for who she’s most like from other games, I see her frequently compared to Abel from SF4, probably since she’s got a special dash (Abel’s being his roll), a shorter range, lower damage (compared to giefs) half circle command grab, an axe kick, a ground to air grab, and a strike started multi-hit special that can end in a built in throw. Her projectile is unique to her though.
The games not yet been figured out well enough to say for sure how she is meant to be played, but thus far for me she is all about finding a way to get in her opponents face, preferably at advantage on frames , then once she gets going she becomes all about reads, frequently putting the opponent in 50/50 mixups whose risk vs reward tend to favor her. I’d say you do need to be good at reading opponents, and willing to take risks to get in since she struggles at neutral with her minimal range normals, but if you like that sort of thing she could be a character you’d enjoy.
“…leaves you at +0 so it combos into nothing”
Her overhead is +4 on hit, can be combo’d into s.lp xx lp bolt/ex bolt
You can definitely do sunset wheel after LP elbow hit, but it doesn’t really cancel, if that’s what you mean. It’s much safer to try a normal throw instead, and if you expect the opponent to jump, 5MP. The overhead is sort of slow (not as slow as Chun’s crazy 26f though!), but it has a good hitbox that can function as an antiair, and more importantly you can juke your opponent out because not every v-skill dash ends in overhead, so it’s not telegraphed if you mix it in with the dash. Raw volty line doesn’t look like any of her moves though, so there’s that. If you can crush counter with it, though, you can set up amazing stuff. EX sunset is 19f but it’s definitely for meaties or when you’ve cracked someone into a defensive position so much that they won’t react to it.
Overall I really like her HP bolt charge antiair because of the angle, it hits a lot further out than your average shoryuken and since EX clap juggles, you can use it as a combo ender too. The special dash is slow but remember it’s about jukes and the fact that it has much longer range. In V-Trigger, her v-dash covers most of the screen in distance, and v-skill dash -> volty line covers more than the entire screen lol (though you probably shouldn’t be doing that!).
Honestly, coming from a Dudley background, the style feels sort of similar. Your game plan is get your opponent knocked down (or even better, knock down in the corner), and then deploy mixup after mixup to keep them shut down because you have a lot of meaty options, just like how Dudley’s corner game is exceptional.
On a different note, a nice tip that I didn’t realize until I started watching random Lauras: all her fireballs have the same startup, but HP goes furthest. If you’re throwing a raw fireball, always throw HP fireball, which covers a good quarter of the screen, and moreso when charged. And while you’re at it, if you can afford to charge even for a little bit, try to do so, because a small amount of charge will still make your fireball doublehit, which means it doesn’t get immediately eaten by an opponent fireball.
Where did you get this data? Serious question because I’ve seen different sources report different startup (20 versus 22f) for it, and different advantage on hit (-2 versus 0) for it. I’ll test it out later, I’ve never really tried to combo after a non-CC volty line hit, I just sort of assumed it didn’t work.
I think there are apps you can download that has most of the frame data, I personally use https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1976rt8B91PqVCeYJAmcnW1uwVJ0H03QJtV-dJC5ohL8/htmlview?sle=true
In regards to the Volty Line overhead, you cannot combo it off of a raw hit, however if you set up a situation where it hits super meaty you can combo it into st.lp xx lp bolt charge.
Anyway nevermind my bad, I was thinking of F.HP overhead, not the VSkill.
As for the VS overhead, as smilepants said yeah, if hit meaty it can combo into st.lp xx
Just so you know f.HP is not actually an overhead, in case you didn’t realize
Safe on block moves? Any?
Most of them, one of her strengths. Lights are safe obv, and the punches and standing light kick put you at advantage (not 2LK though, that’s -2 for some reason).
Both medium punches put you at advantage (5MP at +3), all her heavy punches including the 6HP are -2, so you’re still safe. Stand and crouch MK aren’t advantage, but you’re still safe (at most -2 for the crouch). The only unsafe buttons are 5HK (-4 and a lot of pushback, so not terrible), and 2HK which is hella unsafe (-12) and you should be really careful of using.
For specials, LP elbow is -2, so it’s completely safe to do 2MK -> LP elbow a lot. MP elbow is very unsafe, and EX elbow is extremely unsafe, so don’t do those raw if at all possible.
What Vinushika said, Laura gets a lot of grief for her lack of range on her normals, but their advantage is actually quite respectable. Also of note is that her unique attack (step elbow/F+HP) is only -2 if you stop after the first hit is blocked, and her dual crash (st.mp->st.mk) target combo is also -2. Further, one of her best block string tools (IMO) is actually her ex clap of all things, as its +3 on block and can be cancelled into as a true block string from st.mp on block,and the ex clap moves her back toward her opponent, allowing her to beat even a 3 frame normal clean with her 6 frame lk.sunsetwheel command grab, or follow up into additional close range pressure at significant frame advantage.
It’s worth noting that from maximum range, 5HK is actually safer for two reason, 1) you’re just farther away so jabs can’t really punish, and 2) The tip of this move’s hitbox actually extends out AFTER the first frame, meaning you’re actually less negative. And so yeah that also means you can meaty with it and be safe, even pointblank if you wanted
I’ve been dilligently scouring through the Laura info that’s currently out there, forgive me if this has been mentioned already. Her command throw range is increased during V trigger.
I don’t know where to post this so I’ll do it here. The spring of my stick recently turned into a deformed mess, and since I couldn’t wait for the replacement one to play my Laura I got the dust off one of my controllers and tried playing a few matches.
And there’s where the odd experience begins. I wasn’t able to perform any cancel at all because of my poor speed with the d-pad, so I mostly did single attacks… and I discovered Laura actually HAS buttons.
Like st. HP. How godly this button is? Press it right outside the mid range and you get a guaranteed CC into any follow-up.
Or st. MK. I was in disbelief on how often this button actually hits when you press it up close…
That brought me to a real question: is there a really GOOD guide about Laura’s buttons, their strenghts, when and how to use them, etc.? I’ve seen some of them but none spend some actual time really teaching the power and uses of her normals. If I missed a very good one please tell me where to read it.
For now I’m mostly interested about her cr. HP. I know it is good and I see many Laura players using it, but I’m failing to understand the exact situations where I would use it. Any suggestions about it?
The primagames guide has a good breakdown.
I’m going to ask this in the Alex forum as well, but which character do you guys think is worse–Alex or Laura?
I already read it through and through, but I wanted something less “official” done by actual Laura players. Something like this but for our Brazilian grappling lady: https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/401i7y/sfv_basic_chunli_notes/
A very misleading question. I can only say that many Alex players seem to have a lot of issues specifically with Laura and that in my experience it’s one of the easiest matchups for her, but I’d wait to see what pro Alex mainers will do in IRL events to judge on that.
Not asking about the matchup. I’m literally asking which character is worse.