Everything you got in here, so we can finish this quickly !
Wanting to see what Karin players think about the Laura matchup : We need to wait for a thread to be created
Karin Frame data (when available) : Here
Reserved
This has to to be Laura’s worst match up. So frustrating with her great normals and walk speed.
He footsies is too good BUT everyone of her special can be punished except :
EX MUJINKYAKU
OROCHI
They are -2 so you can still try something safely.
I know that her specials are unsafe theoretically, but what if your opponent knows this too and decides to never do them. I played two Karins who never used them and it was Hell trying to find an opening.
yeah, a karin that just holds down back all day and hits cr mp when you dash, standing HP when you jump and standing mk when you approach = wth.
Even as a near-gold laura I lose a lot to vanilla silver karins that just decides to turtle and once they get meter it’s even harder to pull off anything.
As for -2 on block standing mk and -4 on standing hk… Laura simply doesn’t have the range to mess with those. As justin wong has shown us, he can spam the roundhouse for days and nobody can stop it.
The only way to beat Karin(and a lot of other characters with DPs) is through hard reads and pull off a medium/ex bolt on whiffed normals and hope you get something on the oki.
If someone can enlighten me on a better method to approach all of these match ups, that would be great.
A defensive Karin who saves her meter for ex DP is a nut I can’t crack either. The only way I’ve been able to occasionally win is by being braver with vskill (overhead). Not predictable, but more willing to throw it out now and again and pray that she doesn’t jab or DP out of whatever mix up I follow up with.
Did you know that if you try to vreversal her rekka and she goes for the slide followup, she will low profile your reversal and you’ll get punished? I didn’t…
Maybe I’m weird but I like the Karen match up. Unlike Chun and Ken, she has no ability to control space outside of her sweep range, and her sweep is punishable if you’re just inside of it. She’s tough because she punishes mistakes so well, but I think it’s a fun and fair match-up, a solid 5-5.
For aggressive Karens you have to learn how to use fireballs, especially EX fireballs, safely so that you can bait her to jump or attack you unsafely, then you punish and go into 50/50’s, which she has no great answer for, assuming you can bait an EX DP every once in a while.
For defensive Karens, I’m not sure what that means exactly @Tiers4Fears but in my mind that means she’ll let you fireball and back her down into the corner. Once you have corner pressure you should be able to out damage her into death. If she’s saving her EX for DPs, I would look for a read on when she likes to burn it. In my experience the DPs tend to either come out right away early in the round or set, or when the person thinks they’re going to die, like around one third/one quarter life. If they come out right away, I immediately go into safe pressure to bait it out again, making sure I stay close enough that I can keep my turn if she doesn’t DP. If she likes to save it, I wait until she’s around a third or less life and I’m about to mix her up, then I go into bait mode. I’ll bait 2 or 3 times in a row and it will basically always come out. I don’t think anyone alive will save an EX DP for a 4th bait, if they haven’t DP’s by then you can just command throw.
What you’ll find if you’re moving to a baiting approach, is you really need to work on your footsie game so that you can maintain close spacing and still pressure her. Baiting doesn’t do any good if it doesn’t work and you give up your turn, after all.
To give one example, one of my favorite ways to bait and keep pressure is to use my V-Reversal. If I go for a bait and she doesn’t bite, I make sure I’m standing outside of throw range and I wait for her to press a button, then I immediately V-Reversal and go back on offense. If I have a read on her back-rising I’ll dash forward and EX command throw, or go into some other pressure. You get to bait, AND get your turn back, AND get that white life.
Karin’s max range, blocked sweep can also be punished with lp bolt (reversal timing) or with st lk into whatever.
Probably more a general Karin question than Laura related but I just realized that I have no idea how to properly punish her overhead special. I know it’s minus something big since you can theoretically hit her with a medium button after blocking it, but if she chooses to cancel it into the air grab she can evade the punish. What’s the go-to move in that situation for Laura?
Cr jab immediately after blocking high. Will punish low follow up and make the air grab whiff for a better punish. At least I think that’s what I do, come to think of it haven’t played many karins in S2. So please someone correct me if I’m making this up!
Was hoping for something bigger since it can be hard to react to but it’s better than nothing. Thanks.
Wish I could say I hadn’t played many Karins… Don’t know if she got better or worse in S2 but she’s infuriating as ever.
I think with Cammy being around theres not really a point in playing Karin.
As for her over head the best is like T4F said, cr.jab immediately. You can follow up with the elbow and mix her up.
Also what ive noticed with Karins is that they are not DP users, rarely do I get one that even activates it in Laura mixups. They all horde it to unleash their CA after her rekkas in VT.
Yeah, should have been more specific, Cr Jab into lp elbow which puts them in guess mode. Doesn’t have guaranteed damage like a CC punish but a free lp elbow should be all laura needs to take control of the match.
I have fought a few Karen’s that ex DP in the past but I figure I’ll just let them do it. She doesn’t get a great setup after and she just wasted meter. My memories are returning lol. Was she nerfed into oblivion? I seem to remember thinking she was still okay but I haven’t played one in months.
Well, she got some nerfs but nothing that really changed anything. Like her moves becoming less positive or neutral on block and such. Her VR pushes all the way across the screen.
Her gameplan still remains the exact same. Wanna piss off a Karin mainer? VR her rekkas. lol
It’s all or nothing. Karin players usually EX DP all the time or not at all. I’ve yet to play more than two or three Karin players who use it sparingly.
Karin for the most part, is unchanged with a damage buff to EX orochi and rekka overhead being -2. Other than that, the match is still the same, but Laura definitely gets bigger payout if she get started.
In what way? Her damage is the same (less damage on Bolts, more damage on command grabs) and her mixups are the same. Don’t really see how anything should have changed for ether party in this matchup. Unless you mean the overhead linking into combos but I rarely hit people with that anyway.
Harder to escape pressure do to low chain into elbow buff. Walking back is no longer an option
She still stun and hurt like a Mack truck on a character who have 3rd lowest vitals in the game
Things have definitely changed in some aspects. However, the flow is largely the same. If Karin don’t win in neutral, then she likely is dying in like 2-3 mix ups.