I agree completely, especially about less startup on fireballs (non-charged). I lol@ how it takes forever just to appear on screen and once it finally does, just about any normal or jump attack plows right through it. This change alone would make the Gief match even at least. I also think it’s a bit ridiculous that her command grabs can lose to regular throws. Make it 5 frames or at the very least make it throw invincible. These two slight adjustments are really all she needs.
Throw invincibility on her command grabs might be too good. Don’t know why, but there must be a reason why it’s like that for every grappler in the game. EX command grab could use that buff though, it’s just stupid if you time it right but still get grabbed out of it if the opponent just randomly wakes up with a normal throw despite being out of range.
Agree with the claps though, non-EX are pretty useless right now outside some very specific setups.
Her FB or her command grabs definitely need to get a much faster start-up. Or increase the hitbox for the FB because it makes no sense that people can just jump on you like that and lose it when half of it is on them. It dissappears on hit, takes long to charge, and doesnt travel that far, it’s not alot to ask for.
Or I would like to see her with less recovery on her command dash. As of now everyone has figured out that even if they get hit and she dashes in you can just crouch jab her when shes in…or shut her the hell up when she dashes!
A feasible buff would be a combo starting from cr lk. It would also be an indirect buff to her overhead because right now your opponent can just block high 90% of the time once you’re in.
I don’t understand why her fireball is +0 on hit but whatever
Totally! If you actually land that slow ass thing you deserve plus frames
I mean if we’re talking buffs, she needs a few things but really I feel like all of these were just bugs or mistakes that the dev team forgot to fix:
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[*] **Thunder Clap should no longer disappear when Laura is hit. **Probably one of the stupidest properties Laura has at the moment. I don’t understand why she is the only projectile character to have it disappear after being hit. I almost feel like it’s a bug to be honest. Why give the weakest fireball an even bigger glaring weakness? The projectile should continue no matter how many times she’s hit.
[*] EX Sunset Wheel should come out faster if you are closer to the opponent. Laura’s EX Sunset wheel is probably one of the best command throws when you are at a distance but one of the worst if you are at your opponent point blank. Why? 19 frames of startup. Due to her doing that awesome dash forward she gives the opponent time to react. While this is great in theory, this isn’t so good if you are at point blank. So the way to fix this is that her EX grab should be faster the closer you are to the opponent. If I am at a distance the dash should be active until I run into the opponent. If I am right next to the opponent it should be an instant 4-5 frame grab with invincibility frames.
[*] More + Frames to Volty Line on hit. Again another one of those WTF kind of move properties. She has one of the slowest moving, easily telegraphed, although farthest distanced overhead in the game. Yet we don’t even get to continue our pressure even if we properly hit someone with it. Make it + on hit. Keep everything else about it. It should be a risk on our part and we should be rewarded for that risk. Right now we aren’t, especially against those with invincible 3 frame reversals.
[*]** Volty Line should be throw invincible the moment she is airborne as well as lower hitbox invincible.** Once again, a WTF move. She’s mid air, yet can be tripped and thrown out of it. Waht? Fix this. Once she is considered airborne she should not be able to be thrown and all lower moves such as sweeps should whiff. On the startup when she’s starting her leg swing? Sure she can be thrown or whatever. But not mid air.
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Agree that her overhead should be airborne but I don’t think it should be plus on block. There’s already a bunch of meaty set-ups for it that allow you to use it as a combo starter so if they make it +2 or something like that you’d be able to use mediums instead of lights afterwards and that’d be too good I think.
What still gets me is her fireballs hitbox makes absolutely no sense. How do you have a electric shield covering the entire upper half of her body but yet its hitbox is only the lower half of the shield? That’s pure bullshit.
I don’t know that I agree with this. It’s simply rock, paper, scissors. Ex clap reset > do nothing and they don’t reversal: you both threw paper. Next time maybe you’ll chose to throw paper (do nothing) again and they decide to throw rock (uppercut) - you win. It’s not an auto win for them if they uppercut. Just be smart/patient/observant and mix it up.
I think a combo from cr lk could be too strong. She already has one on counter hit which is not that hard to confirm (cr.lk > st.lp). As well as being able to link into super off cr.lk x2 or cr.lk > cr.lp. Not only that but it’s a great normal for tick set up. I’d argue there’s more reason to block low against her because her overhead is easily reactable if you’re paying attention. She arguably doesn’t get anything of it, either.
I don’t agree with point 1. You don’t get to hit her and make it disappear for free. There’s a high chance the opponent will trade with it if your spacing is appropriate. It’s enough to make your opponent think twice about attack when it’s in front of them, and that’s the point. Making it an aegis reflector would be too powerful/unbalanced for her design IMO.
Ex grab changing it’s properties depending on distance sounds interesting to me but I’d rather just have a different input so I can choose. Otherwise there are bound to be weird hurtbox inconsistencies where you’ll get one version when you want the other.
Frame advantage for overhead on hit - again, I don’t agree with this. The reason why it’s slower is because she has so many other mix up options. We absolutely get to continue pressure on hit. Being neutral is an immediate rock paper scissors situation where the opponent has to guess. Late tech will beat reversal then you get to punish. 3f jab will trade at worst but you’re still in there face with better options than they have. It also crush counters. The only other character that has that is Necalli. What other overheads give frame advantage on hit besides Ibuki? I believe it’s a great move.
I don’t see a situation where you want to use her overhead at a range where they can throw you out of it. Again, you have to consider all the other options she has. I think it’s balanced quite well. As a matter of fact, I think she’s balanced quite well in general. I think instead of buffing Laura, start by making small nerfs to other strong characters first.
Consider a character like Guy in SF4… Once they got him right they never buffed him. A character’s strength should be in line with their design. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to articulate this but a character should only be as strong as their design. Shit analogy but if you make a character who’s supposed to be really good at skateboarding, you shouldn’t make them really good at BMX’ing too just because they can’t keep up against a character on a bike. The character is a skateboarder, not a BMX’er. Otherwise you get a character like Akuma in ST or Yun in AE. Laura is already very strong in the areas she’s intended to be strong in. She’s weak in the areas she’s intended to be weak in. You can’t/shouldn’t make every character top tier unless you’re playing MUGEN… lol hope that makes sense.
^Your idea of balance is completely contrary to what is being discussed. We are talking about balance relative to other characters, not having what you consider to be a balanced moveset.
Yeah lets just keep her as is and continue to get raped by the majority of the cast. I mean hell they got almost everything to get a win why bother giving her any kind of reasonable edge right?
I don’t see how it’s “completely contrary” at all. Is there some context I’m missing? I’m literally just reading and responding to what people have posted. Yes, I’m talking about a balanced move set. I’m also talking about balance relative to other characters - read my post. This is literally no different than the posts I replied to.
I don’t know why you guys are upset. Because I think she’s a well designed/balanced character already? Because I don’t agree with the specific ideas other people have for buffs? I never said she doesn’t need any buffs at all. I simply disagreed with the buffs mentioned and stated why I feel that way. And yeah, there are other characters that are really powerful. That doesn’t mean Laura is really weak. If you’re curious, I have expounded on this concept and how it relates to this discussion in the last paragraph of this post.
This is such an exaggeration! She does not “get raped” by a majority of the cast. And who has almost everything to get a win? Zangief? Fang? Again, you’re exaggerating here. You think Laura is the only character that has a rough time against Karin or Chun? She’s not. And to say Laura has no edge is crazy. What can Nash do with no meter on wake up against post command grab oki? What can he do after he’s hit by her overhead? Both of these are +0 frame situations which SHE gets to initiate. She has a 3f jab, he doesn’t. She, by definition, has an edge over her opponent in these situations. People on this board seriously underestimate Laura and I don’t understand it. She’s not low tier. She’s not weak.
To reiterate a concept, not even as a response to anyone in particular, but this is my opinion: a character should only be as strong as their design implies. Dan in SF4 is probably the most literal example of this. He was trained wrong. Other shotos have a reliable cr.hp anti air. His is awkward and gets stuffed by jump in’s easily. That doesn’t mean he can’t be balanced relative to the rest of the cast in a way that gives him a fighting chance. There are Dan players that beat people up despite his shortcomings… Shortcomings which are completely in line with his character design. Ultimately, if he was buffed any more it would become nonsensical. This relates to Laura in that her character design is not one that implies the strength that would come from the buffs I responded to. She’s a 50/50 mix up character with minor footsie/zoning tools. The situations that would come from the buffs mentioned in the posts I replied to would create lopsided scenarios. Those buffs were unnecessary and didn’t actually address the issue of other characters having ridiculous tools relative to Laura’s (and not JUST Laura’s) in SOME circumstances. The obvious solution is to nerf those stronger characters first rather than attempting to bring every other character up to their level.
No need to be so defensive guys. We both want the same thing: a fun game with balanced characters. Just my opinions.
After playing a bit with Chun yesterday (need some Fight Money from level-ups and Laura’s at 50) I realised how big it would be in the Chun-matchup if Laura’s fireballs wouldn’t disappear after getting hit. I feel for that matchup alone this buff would be a game changer without screwing up balance (because no other character in the game besides Ibuki can nullify her claps that easily).
But wait, if no other character in the game can nullify her claps as easily as Chun or Ibuki, why is the fireball the thing that needs to be buffed? Wouldn’t it make more sense to adjust Chun’s hurtbox so there’s a higher chance of her trading with the fireball? This would help other characters as well because Laura certainly isn’t the only one who’s game plan is disrupted all too easily by Chun’s buttons. Otherwise Laura’s clap would become too strong against every character that’s not Chun or Ibuki, who like you said, can’t nullify it in the same way.
This is actually a great example of what I’m arguing for/against with my previous posts. Nerf the super strong characters, buff the weak characters, and leave the already strong characters alone for the most part. 
Chun’s cr.MP is meant to be used to go under fireballs. If they change that it’s just going to be a poor man’s Dhalsim slide. So technically she could still beat out the heavy version of Clap due to the distance traveled but she would trade with light Clap for sure. Considering that’s a risk with every fireball in the game I don’t see why Laura’s should be totally free.
I haven’t thought much about other matchups in regards to a buff like this but none would be impacted as heavily as this one. If Ibuki throws a Kunai after Laura fires a clap she’s not getting hit anyway, the Clap just stays on screen. Zangief might have a harder time dealing with claps after such a buff but then again we’re free to him on wakeup so I don’t see the problem.
To find a middle ground between the game balance and the buff for Laura, I think that my idea of making only the EX fireball stay on the screen after she’s hit still holds. This way she’ll have a very powerful tool that it’s locked behind meter, and you didn’t completely waste your meter if someone hit you right after the fireball came out. Her defense would also became much stronger as nobody would be able to jump in or to land a low without consequences.
And yes, I do agree that Laura isn’t a bad character, imho she really only has two bad MUs (Chun and Gief) and two hard ones (Cammy and Karin), the rest is pretty even. What she really lacks is some craziness factor: almost every other character has at least a move that is potentially match-changing or just stupidly good like a DP, a grab with insane range, a teleport, a one-hit-and-you’re-in-the-corner move. The fireballs could have been her signature move, since no other grappler has them and they behave nothing like regular fireballs, but they’re so underpowered as they are now that you’re almost only throwing EX fireballs for blockstrings or for oki pressure and sometimes normal fireballs to bait jumps.
So what we have left? A grappler with a 6f command grab with one of the worst ranges among CGs and that lands less damage than the other ones, with normals that work well but get outpoked by characters with better range and speed. Yes, she can dash cancel from normals, but it’s mostly just shenanigans; yes, she can get in easier than most grapplers thanks to the bolts, but you need a lucky guess or a bad character to stay in; and yes, she has an insanely good overhead that shuts down 60% of the defensive options by itself, but that can be heavily punished if it doesn’t hit on the very last frames. Nothing in here makes you say “fuck, THAT is really nasty” like when Mika lands an Irish whip or Guile throws a barrage of booms at you. She’s “just” good, nothing more.
That would make things a little too lopsided IMHO. If clap does not dissolve while maintaining a slow trajectory and raised height, it means if she starts doing a clap from half-screen then there’s almost no meterless way to hit her out of it. You jump in and hit her, the clap will connect anyway and she gets a free juggle hit. You have a character that can slide under, you slide and hit her and the clap hits you anyway. Even some anti-projectile moves will be useless against it if they don’t eat the projectile. And of course if you just wait and then jump over she’s already recovered. So that’s great for her but it’s going to piss everyone else off. Mirror matches will be terrible.
I’m definitely not upset, I just happen to disagree with you even though I appreciate your point of view. My point is perfectly illustrated by your Dan reference. I, personally, have little to no interest in story mode. So to say a character should be balanced based on their intended storyline/personality means nothing to me. Secondly, I’m just not a fan of nerfs in general. Watching my previous mains in SF4 get nerfed to oblivion (when they were never considered high tier in the first place) was just no fun and I don’t wish that on players who regularly use the high tier cast in this iteration of SF. My way of thinking is to leave the best characters as they are and adjust the weaker ones to bring them up to that level. That way no one has to feel like their tools have been taken away.
I don’t personally think Laura’s fireball needs to stay on screen post hit, but I do think a hitbox buff and faster start up, perhaps only on uncharged lp version, would be a small change that would go a long way in helping her bad matchups without overpowering her. I also don’t see any reason why her command grab shouldn’t be 5 frames like Mika’s. But that’s just my opinion. Those are two slight changes that don’t mess with her overall gameplam, just give her a slightly better chance of keeping up with the pace.