I think I’m dropping Laura… Guile is ridiculous. His cr hp will beat you out of air no matter what and he’s either going to hide behind fireballs all day which Laura can’t even armor through or eat a punish for going -11 frames on block because he recovers faster than her stupid 14 frame start up armor move can hit. As of now, I’m betting this match up is 8-2 or 9-1 and maybe even 10-0. If this is a game about reading your opponents and making commitments, then I don’t see it at all with Guile, he can turtle for life and if you decide to back off he’ll start up his sonic blades and walk forward with it and then you’re screwed. So like you finally decide to man(woman?) up and just walk forward and you eat his half screen somersault kick.
At least for Ryu, you can use a hard clap around mid range and try to dash in without eating DP since Ryu’s DP doesn’t have so much horizontal range. But Guile? You’re eating that foot to face.
And when you do get in, you can’t even do st mk cancel backdash to bait DP because that will also be met with a foot to face.
You can, however, do st mp dash forward and hold guard and you’ll recover fast enough to block a somersault but this is hardly any use if he just decides to grab you. This ends up creating a coin flip situation that’s not in favor of Laura.
If someone can shed some light on this match up, that would be great. As of now even if Guile is at the corner he’s still the one pressuring Laura somehow.
I haven’t played against high level Guile players yet, because the character is brand new. However, his normals are somewhat slow so you can definitely take advantage of the situation via various frame traps. Guile doesn’t have the same kind of mobility that Nash has so in that sense it isn’t as difficult. I have been able to react punish his booms, you can even disrespect your opponent and jump if he is predictable with them. There is quite a bit of recovery; it is not as bad as in USF4.
You shouldn’t cancel strings into claps, because Guile can just use light flash kick to punish you; and vskill has never been a great tool against people who are ready for it. I will experiment more with this MU as time goes by but the reality is that Laura is competing for the title of worst character at the moment. She struggles a lot against various characters and, personally speaking, I am waiting for Juri so that I hopefully have a capable sub.
If you manage to get Guile knocked down, he’s susceptible to meaties but it has to be first frame of his wake up since somersault doesn’t have iframes until second frame. His ex somersault has iframes on frame one though. So make use of all advantage before Guile gets a bar of meter.
Guile is definitely another problem for us, I’ve been fooling around a lot with him today. Especially in vtrigger mode he can basically flash kick you for free if you try to jump his booms. Vskill also operates as an efficient bait. I still don’t think it is nearly as bad as Chun Li, because of his lack of mobility, pitiful throw range and limited options when you place him in the corner.
His spinning back kuckle (f+hp) is annoyingly good, it is only -1 when blocked. But moves like st.hp are not safe in strings; should they use them for some reason while trying to fish CC’s. I don’t know. Difficulty wise it feels somewhat similar to Nash; the dynamic is just different.
But I will probably change my mind when I run into really good platinum Guile players lol.
This is wrong according to V-frames. From frame 1 he is upper body invincible until frame 3, then from 4-6 he is fully invincible. So your meaty has to be a low. If you go for any standing meaties that hit high he will hit you. The startup on a light flash kick is 4 frames, so you could feasible c.LK to trade? I’m not sure. Haven’t tested it. St. LP which is Laura’s only 3 framer will whiff due to him being upper body invincible.
Guile is one of those matchups you just need to go ham and go for crazy mixups. Haven’t tested but I’m wondering if a command grab will beat out his flash kick if timed right.
I dunno maybe its just my playstyle but I don’t seem to have issues with Guile…I swear compared to the rest of you I suffer hard from the stupidest matchups but manage against what many of you say is the hardest. I’m only a 4k Gold pleb though.
Nope, won’t work because of upper body invincibility and airborne state they gain on 4th, 5th and 6th frame respectively (EX version is of course fully invincible). On the other hand you can frame trap FKs by doing LP/LK into cr. LP, st./cr. LK or cr. MP. Basically any of her block strings ending with lows will stop his FKs and force him to burn meter in order to get through that.
[edit] oh my god, so apparently if you do st. LK -> st. MP it will still stop Guile because it hits low. Might this be the result of the extended hitbox of 5MP since last patch? It doesn’t seem to work on other characters though.
Weird, I was in training room before I typed about the i-frames. If you set Guile to block all and block recovery to light somersault(least start up frames), you can stuff him out in the corner with 2 st mp. Then I noticed anything not tighter than 2 frames get met with a foot to face so I made assumptions. I guess it’s also because her standing mp hits pretty low.
Thanks for the clarifications, seems to make a little more sense why meaty light bolt can stuff him but jab doesn’t.
I know Capcom has made some serious blunders with balancing characters in the past, but I was truly hoping that there were some ways for Laura to get around some hard match ups Guile, Zangief, Chun etc… but it really seems in the grand scheme of things it depends on the player. I don’t know about worst character in the game, but I can’t lie and say I don’t feel that way. Against Guile, I usually try to bait a Flash Kick and go for a crush counter combo, but as most of you stated getting in is the problem. I am a patient player coming from a Tekken background, but I feel Laura definitely doesn’t build meter as fast as others do. Guile can definitely build it faster if you choose to enter the Fireball war, and against Zangief, he can openly SPD and build meter as well.
I hate that they gave her a three frame normal…That conveniently whiffs over those who have crouching three framers. Also the amount of vulnerability she has just trying to push a normal in some matches is absurd. I played against a Cammy who just whiff punished and counter hit EVERYTHING. It was absurd. ABSURD.
Ugh. It is frustrating. On paper, laura’s normals look good because so many of them are “safe” but that doesn’t do you much good if they don’t reach your opponent and don’t really connect to anything confirmable. And the one normal that can be competitive (5MK) only combos when v-trigger activated. I feel like I was doing okay in this game early on when people didn’t know you can just mash jab to beat V-Skill dash even on hit. Well, now they know lol and it doesn’t help that she shouts “Here I go!” It’s like she’s asking for it.
Initially, I thought her anti air game was good until I started seeing all of the other characters. Lol@Necalli’s, Ryu’s, and Chun’s braindead light attacks that even beat crossup jump ins.
Necalli’s anti air anti cross up standing jab is just stupid. I’m not one to call for nerfs but that makes no sense to be in the game.
I think the guile matchup is fine, he’s free on wakeup without meter. you have to really patient and back him into the corner and save your meter for ex elbows and ex fireballs. Just like guile in SFIV, may the more patient player win. Then knock him down and go crazy
I hope they do something about EX Bolt Charge down the line so that it’s a proper reversal and not just an anti-fireball move. Give her some real invincibility on it before armor activites or something like that. Right now people can just disrespect her all day when knocked down and get away with it and I think that’s an even bigger issue than her lack of range. Even Mika’s Ex Peach Assault (which isn’t great by any means) is a better move than EX Bolt Charge.
It’s great. If it eats a jab, it will win right after because 5 frame start up. If opponent hits grab one frame later than you use peach, peach wins! Also can use for whiff punish reliably like ex legs.
Laura’s ex bolt is 14 frame start up, it can get jabbed twice before the active frames even come out, annoying moves like Ryu’s overhead/solar-plexus will consistently beat out bolt but not peach. Grab will always win too, doesn’t matter if it’s command grab or regular grab, all of those are going to be faster than 14 frames… except for Laura’s ex command grab…
Edit - peach ‘can’ also hits airborne for full damage while Laura’s can’t. In fact, I think all non-grab ex armor moves can do decent damage to airborne, only Laura’s can’t.
That would certainly be useful. Another option would be to just completely change ex grab to be more like giefs.
Or just make all command grabs 5 frames, and/or throw invincible.
Or just make one version of regular uncharged clap have a reasonable start up and recovery time. Ryu can spam lk into fireball all day but you can knock me out of [normal of choice] into fireball with almost any button and even if you do it late you’ll still go through my fireball because reasons?
Combofiend and Capcom can honestly go to hell. There is no way they looked at Laura’s moveset compared to the rest of the cast and said, “Yup, she’s good and that’s viable!” The majority of these matchups just dont make any sense and just results in people making unsafe guesses that will totally cost you. Hell even the Zangief players are upset.
And arent these characters suppose to be balanced around Ryu? Why does she have such a horrible time with him if thats the case? Jesus let’s not only make him basic as hell but let’s also make him one of the most powerful in the game.
Some potential buffs for Laura that could make her better not broken could be:
Decrease Laura’s recovery time on Thunder Claps when charged. Why does she take so long to recover from a move that takes so long to charge? What’s the reasoning here?
Make each strength command throw unique. eg. lk command throw will beat normals. mk command throw will be strike invincible. Ex 1 hit of armour. etc.
For instance there is currently absolutely no reason to use mk command throw - None! why have three different strengths of moves and 1 is useless.
Lp bolt charge will have the same enders as mp bolt. It’s not fair Laura gets a hit or finally gets in and she still has to guess, especially against DP characters.
In the same vein. V-Trigger cancels from her bolt charge moves. Can’t figure out why Ken has so much V Trigger cancels from specials and other characters have zilch.
This will help Laura continue the pressure and keep with her design philosophy: “Boom, that’s how you start a round and finish it quickly!”
Laura’s jumping attacks, crossups, neutral etc can be all stopped by Ryu’s and Alex’s. st.jab.(others possibly) Is this intentional? Please fix this if it isn’t.
Armour on frame 1 from her EX bolt charge? Why can’t Laura get the armour from frame 1. It costs an EX bar and it starts up in 12 painfully long frames.
DP’s cost no bar.
V-Trigger meter building. Apart from getting hit and landing a Crush Counter. Laura has 1 way to build V-meter, her overhead V-skill. The v-meter gain on hit from an overhead v-skill is so small it’s laughable. The overhead V-skill has slow startup and is highly punishable on block. Please balance this out by either decreasing the startup on the overhead v-skill or decreasing the recovering on block , or making the move gain more v-meter on hit, or a combination of these things.