In that vein, as regarding to playstyle, what would be good secondary mains for Laura, who plays similar and can easily be adopted?
How much would it break Laura if lp bolt was -1 or 0 on block?
It would be a bit too powerful I think. If she needs buffs I don’t think it should be that.
Apparently no changes til 2017 though, so if you aren’t happy with current Laura, explore the rest of the cast.
It’s probably fine as a -2 move. If it was neutral, it’d be pretty stupid since she could just do s.LP since it’s 3 frames and at worst, she’d just trade. It’s -2 to make sure her pressure is over without making her punishable.
Why is Laura the only character who can’t cancel her normals into her command grab? V-Reversals are starting to becoming an issue and the fact ANY other character can just buffer command grab on reaction is dumb.
I’ve been working real hard with Laura since launch, but after a constant feeling that I was always fighting from beneath I thought I’d come here and check out what other players are saying. It sucks to see in the last few posts that the consensus is that she is the underdog…
I don’t want to quit her, I like her style and I’m big on sticking characters out, thick and thin, but I feel like I’m always putting in three times the effort of my opponent, regardless of who they are.
Comforting to see I’m not the only one feeling that Laura is missing quite a few things. Like the idea and design of the character, but after switching characters, I feel like I have to put in half the effort with other characters to win a match compared to playing Laura.
I think her biggest problem is that her normals are really subpar. This is really apparent when you play against someone with great normals like Chun or Karin. You may as well just put the controller down, their normals will stuff yours 24/7.
Im throwing in the towel as well. This character has given me loads of frustration tbh. Its a shame, but her design is majorly flawed. First of all the “mixup” type of character is already much weaker in 5 than in 4 but even then, they somehow decided to make her like abel, but weaken every key component of abels mixup ability.
They give her a “step kick/roll” (v-skill after normal) which is completely unsafe on block and cant switch sides, her command throws are slow, have bad range and no invincibility. Then, her normals are garbage. It is extremely hard to get in with her. She has no reversals. Her bnb combos or command throws dont put you back in mixup situations unless you spend meter…
Who thought a weak ass version of Abel in a game like 5 would be somehow balanced? Its not a b tier kinda situation imo. She is so flawed that I am sure we wont see any big Laura revival or game changing tech for her. Look at any CPT event and I can guarantee Laura will be irrelevant. Maybe there will be the odd outlier because one thing is for certain - she will be slept on heavily because people think she will be irrelevant anyways. And unfortunately, they are right.
Thats it Im outta here. My respect to anyone who sticks it out with her - you can be proud of your masochist selves!
/rant
Not much can be said anymore about the negatives of Laura so I will not add. All I can say is I feel yall pain current and ex Laura players. I’m still hanging in there though, she is the only character I play since day 2. I actually dropped Cammy for her lmao. Capcom PLZ bless us BibleThump
She’s not THAT bad. Her biggest weakness in the neutral is that she has nothing for the range where most characters have a st.MK. This would be less of a problem if she’d have the walkspeed to traverse that range and get into cr.MK/HP range, or if her cr.MK range was inbetween other characters cr. and st.MK ranges. I played a couple of sets versus a friends Gief, and then a few matches as Cammy, and the contrast between those matchups really highlight how important that st.MK range is in this game. st.MK range is to SFV what cr.MK range is to SF4.
I think it’s going to be very hard for characters to be truly competitive in this game if they don’t have anything to fight in that range, a reasonable way to move past it or tools to fight at farther ranges. Possible buffs could be a slightly longer range on cr.MK, or a 6f cr.MK with faster walkspeed, or perhaps make cr.MK not special cancellable but have better frame advantage so cr.MK xx v-skill would be 0 on block, and maybe comboable to something on CH.
The other option is to leave her neutral game as is but make her pressure more oppressive to make up for it. Less pushback on both her MPs, some change to one of her lights so confirms to LP bolt work at further ranges, 5f command throw so it beats 3f jabs after LP bolt, 5f st.MP for the same reason (would be meaningless if cr.MP had less pushback so you could always combo ch cr.MP, cr.MP after LP bolt), make all her knockdowns +18 or more on quickrise so you always have time to at least dash forward and do a meaty st.LP.
Her success when pressuring has to be proportional to how much she loses in the neutral, and I don’t think that it is. Buff either or a bit of both and it’ll be alright.
I also think her v-trigger is a garbage fit for her. An absolutely obvious v-trigger would be something related to counter hits. In sfxt there’s that mechanic where you can charge special moves, and if you dash cancel at level 2 your next hit will be a counter hit even on regular hit. Something along those lines would work a lot better for her imo, like giving her the ability to dash cancel out of charging a fireball which grants counterhits if cancelled at later levels. It would even work as a mixup tool in ex fireball resets. You could either cancel a normal into v-skill, or immediately dash cancel a fireball and you’d have access to two dash ranges.
I’ll stick with her, I just think Laura players need to work harder than “the other guy/gal” and I think its a shame to make it so uphill for a character so many were excited about, as well as being a “Poster girl” for the game itself. I’m a character loyalist, generally, but I might have to open up my options to include others in V, which I guess can only be a good thing for me in the long run. But I’ll fly the Laura flag too.
I seem to have this Makoto thing going on with her, I either get totally annihilated, or I score a Perfect round. Bizarre.
I still have fun playing her (except against gief, fuck that mu), so it’s not like I’m gonna stop playing her just because she’s not as good as the rest of the cast. Most characters seem really easy to learn so I’ll keep playing Laura while switching out secondaries until I’ve given the entire cast a fair shake. If I find myself having more fun with some other character I’ll toss her out, but not because she’s bad. And even then, it’s not like she’s joke-character bad. Just worse.
It’s so god damn satisfying getting a good sequence, to stun, to death though. Always feels like
@OrochiLeona Yeah, I mean I love the character. I’m not one to play characters with command grabs but Laura changed that for me. I can manage with the way she is now but It’s just real glaring flaws with her that makes her feel like she is too much to manage with. I like Laura because you have to really to know your shit. You can’t just go wild with her and expect to win. You have to make an effort to condition opponents and make the right reads. So winning with her feels that much better imo. As I said though it’s the glaring flaws for example, getting hit out of v skill by lows when your in the air. It sucks that she’s brand new to the series and this is the impression she has on people. Tbh, I don’t expect to see her much in tournaments because of her current build.
She needs to be played offline. Or lagless inline matches. on lagless matches I’m awesome but when opponents start walking back and forth (warping), start up animations get cut. It gets hard.
Joining the Laura brigade! I’ve been on tilt for a couple days and can’t even make it back to gold league, which I was in for a while… But never give up!
Legitimately though she isn’t nearly bad enough to be worth switching away from right now, I’d say that you can beat any matchup with her. If you dislike trying to play a game of catchup or constantly running into fireballs in order to just slowly move forward towards the corner, and then fight after that fatiguing round, you might not actually be playing the character for you. Laura is like Abel in the sense that you always need to sacrifice life and even games just to send a message, and THAT is what makes her worth playing
Not saying “people aren’t good enough to play her should and shouldn’t even try” it’s more like you need to recognize what kind of character she actually is, instead of just thinking you are a mixup bibbity bobbity boop.
Birdie. Solid neutral, good buttons with range and damage, can get around fireballs meterless, AND has nice command grabs.
That said, I won’t give up on Laura just yet, but I’m getting tired of having to put more effort in vs opponents. Have you played against a good Chun using Laura? Oh god, the lopsidedness of that matchup is waaaay too much.
What I think is really upsetting is how much fun this character can be WHEN you actually get to play. I always feel as though I’m on my tiptoes to keep up with everyone else, who seem to be cruising by with just hitting their solid buttons and easily maintaining their neutral. But when things go right, and you have the meter, and the read, I feel like Laura can absolutely demolish someone’s health bar and get a stun before you even know what hit you. Sadly, after a bit however, I think I’ve plateaued with this character, I cannot make it out of Super-Ultra Bronze, and it doesn’t feel like I’m not learning, I just feel weak most of the time.
Had fun today
I played one of the better players l in Cleveland today for a death session (he plays zangief)
I got that work lmfao his buttons are extremely good and while the score was lopsided in his favor I managed to get a couple wins. I think me hitting more confirms couldve netted me more wins even though he still would’ve took it it came down to last round last hit a couple of times.
Standing mk, HK and lp helped
Also light bolt charge got
Mileage
I walked out better understanding her ranges and incorporating moves in neutral
I was disciplined and didn’t jump a lot ether.
With everything including her various dashes I think that she has a great chance against any of the cast
That zangief matchup gives you + in patience lmfao
Does anyone else thing Birdie’s AA is fucking ridiculous? His headbutt catches any and everything no matter where you are.