I V-Reversal Bison all day. No hesitation. Until then I just block for as long as I can or until I can punish something. What can Vega do against Laura besides play solid? Was trying to think of some MU tips for my buddy who plays Vega but am at a loss. One thing I’ve noticed is Laura’s neutral is actually pretty good, but situational. She doesn’t have many all around great footsie normals but she can hold her own very well if you know what to press and where to press it in each MU. Some of her normals fair really well against Vega and Nash for example. You can’t throw stuff out randomly but I think her footsies are better than people say. I feel like people underestimate her in general, actually.
The MU’s I really struggle with personally are Gief and Karin. But even the Karin match up feels less like a Laura specific problem and more of a Karin specific problem.
How often do you guys use fwrd+hp? I use it very often. The Vega player I mentioned said it makes her more mobile than she should be. If anyone’s having trouble closing the distance or just wants a little more mobility/reach, try using fwrd hp more. It’s really easy to confirm off of and with a little practice you can counter hit confirm cr.mp into combo like it’s nothin’.
I only use f+HP when I feel that my opponent is reluctant to press buttons. But the fact that so many character have faster walk/dash speed than Laura means that they can make it whiff easily and then punish.
The very issue I found with Gief matchup is that most of her moveset makes her move forward right into his command grab range. Whiff or throw a slower move and you’ll eat a SPD. I got grabbed even while trying to sweep him…
On paper it looks like a hard match up, but the guiles I fought online were pretty bad (or the match up is not as hard as I think). I definitely need more experience with it
It’s tough, but in my experience you need to be unpredictable with overhead vskill. No one loves to hold db more than guile, so you just need to catch him off guard when he isn’t ready for it. The other way to get in is obviously ex bolt through sonic boom, but you have to almost predict it due to its fast recovery. Once you’re in, you need to determine whether or not they like to abuse ex flash kick. If they do, bait and max punish every time. If they don’t, or don’t have meter, abuse the hell out of them on wakeup.
Yeah, when you fight a good Guile online it can be a horrible disaster for Laura. She really has no way to get in on him between his fast recovery on his Sonic Booms, and jumping is a no-no with his Flash Kick or cr.HP(?). The only success Ive has getting in on him is using EX Elbow when he’s charging his VSkill and trying to capitalize on his knockdown and reading if hes gonna do a Flash Kick or not and trying to apply pressure before he gets that meter. Other than that it’s an extreme struggle because he can space her out so well and his Sonic Booms beat out everything she has to offer. Just pray I guess.
Btw has anyone had trouble with connecting cr.HP -> QCF+MP? Alot of times I get QCF+HP after the cr.HP and I have no idea why, even when I do input training itll come out.
You can also just wait for him to do the V-Skill and jump in, it’s easier to get a hit out of that.
Another important thing to know is that Laura’s st. MP stops any non-EX FK thanks to the new hitbox. He has to burn meter to get past your meaties.
The ones I always end up playing have known for a while. I would be okay with Laura’s wakeup being garbage if her oki were a little better. She’s supposed to be a mixup character, but she ends up being the one guessing more often than not, especially on wakeup.
I’m having the same problem. I’ve watched top players fight this match as well and even when they win, it’s never by a big margin. The only way that I’ve found to neutralize his sonic booms are to use her ex fireball or fully charge her fireball. Her ex shoulder is only useful when he just throws the regular sonic boom. When he v skills then throws a boom, the ex shoulder doesn’t go through. If there was a way to build meter better, it wouldn’t be so bad. I saw Wolfkrone go full screen and do some fireballs to build meter, but if the guile is offensive, he can easily put you in the corner. I think it’s her worst match up, even though the consensus is Chun. Honestly, I’d rather fight Chun.
That’s not a reliable wake up anyway. You can easily stuff it with throw as well. Laura is one of those characters that is scewed when she get knocked down unfortunately.
BTW Ryus have learned that with his st.lp every single one of her jumpins and crossup attemots are done, so no matter where you are you can’t get in on him even if he mistimes it unless you are directly in his face. So…
Same with Necalli, Alex, and others. The anti air jabs need to get nerfed. No one should have an anti air that braindead/safe that works in 99% of all situations and leads to a mixup.
Honestly Laura is still a very funny character and a much better one than many people think (including us). A few tweaks and she can become a solid mid to high tier.
I’m getting more comfortable with her neutral and I don’t think she’s half as bad as people describe her.
cr mp, cr hp, and st lk are really good normals that you can use for whiff punishes.
st mk and st hp are very good at stopping your opponent approach because of their forward movement
I think people are too focused on her zomgreset into stun and forget the ‘how to get there’ part
I agree also. She doesnt need anything overpowered or broken tier, but she need something to at least buff her to be able to deal with the cast without feeling like she has absolutely NO options to the commonly used characters. Karin, Ryu, Ken, Necalli, Chun Li, Zangief, Cammy, Guile, Nash, Alex, Vega, hell and even F.A.N.G., can completely rape her with how neutral dependent the game is with their superior long range normals (in all honestly this seems to be a problem with the game as a whole rewarding constant pressure and long and safe normals coupled with the major input lag), leaving her with no chance to every really get a turn to play unless for a few instances in which she has to seriously make it count. I think moreso the issue is that these are the only characters anyone plays online, so its an uphill battle everytime you log on which drains the fun. There hasent even been barely any Laura tech to help with all of her bad or even slightly bad matchups other than, “try to get a knockdown or use EX Elbow!” which is risky as hell either way and will get you’re ass stomped either way if it doesn’t work.
I look at replay videos and you can tell Laura has no options to a lot of BS things that the rest of the cast can throw out, no matter what ranking. Also that Laura has absolutely no help for herself what-so-ever. V-Reversal is a help yes, but it does not mean anything if the person can just run right back or keep you out, and repeat the same thing knowing she can’t do anything about it. Alot of the Laura’s if seen and, as stated before me, are winning by a thin margin and it too really seems based off of luck or if the opponent completely doesn’t know what the hell to expect. They relied too heavily on her being able to mix up, but she just has no way of defending herself or being able to keep up even in the basic neutral game unless the opponent is straight up slow or getting extremely overwhelmed with dealing with mid normals.
And who the hell has a fireball and overhead at 0 on hit?! That makes no sense! But let’s keep sucking the shotos dick so we make sure they’re the only ones played all the time… -_-
I don’t think I’ve ever been so ready for a balance patch to come out…of course I’m really drunk right now off of Lokos also so what the hell does it matter what I think too much right?
You’re really being overly dramatic here. Ken, Necalli and Ryu surely have shorter range than Laura in their normals, Guile’s neutral isn’t as scary as he was before and Nash is more annoying than threatening. Even Claw is far from being unbeatable, not to mention that like Nash he’s basically free once knocked down.
Of all characters you listed only Chun, Cammy and Gief have a clear dominance in footsies on Laura. The others have more reasons to keep her away than to play the neutral against her, especially because on hit OR block she can cancel into something relatively safe that gets her right in your face.
If you look at Krone and Will2Pac you’ll see how she can do some relentless and safe pressure out of a single hit. You can’t be the 5th-6th character in the roster for presence in top 8 without being able to compete with everyone.
AFAIK almost every overhead in the game is 0 on hit (Alex is +1 and Ibuki will be +3, but nothing more). Also no other overhead can strike from half screen AND score crush counters. A little less startup and less disadvantage on block and it would be straightforward broken.
Like I said before, IMHO all they have to do is buff HP bolt a little bit by making it airborne and invincible on the first couple of frames (basically the same window where EX bolt has no armor), and that will cover her wakeup deficiency. That means:
She gets an escape move on wakeup that avoids meaties/throws and lets her switch sides, so she can get out of corners
She gets an extra read option during pressure that gives her a way to shut down throws and jumps at the same time (and even a few random reversals)
It improves her anti-air game by relaxing the move’s timing a bit with a late execution buff
For risk, she’s still punishable if they read the move and aren’t already jumping (since it doesn’t go very far they don’t really have to chase her down like Mika), and a non-meaty attack will still hit her on frame 3 anyway. But once you’ve got the opponent thinking twice about meaty timing you can mix it up with wakeup EX bolt and her wakeup just becomes overall safer.
And IMHO that’s really the only buff she needs. Everything else is fine. Her normals are fine, clap is fine, EX bolt is fine, overhead is fine, hell even EX SSW is fine if you know when to use it. She can compete.
Ken, Ryu, and Necalli have shorter range normals? Lol I wish Laura had a shoto length crouch MK or LK. There are a few other normals that may be longer reaching but if you take walk speed into account (ryu/ken) I don’t really think it matters at all. Necalli has frame traps and block strings for days with his “stubby normals.”
