S2 Laura: Now with 50/50 more grappling fun

Playing SF5 ranked with Laura with two toddlers (this morning):

Daughter (16 months) loves Laura. She is a girly girl, and Laura is a girly girl. She understands the stick makes the game go.

Son (3 years) no preference, but is trying to learn to play the game like dad.

Me trying to play ranked with both kids: daughter claps when Laura does her Critical Art. Son cheers Dad on when he wins and gives me the thumbs up. Once breakfast is over, son takes the second stick, and pretends to play and says is winning every round.

Daughter wants to play. Tries to take the stick from my son. Fight ensues. Dad loses separating the kids. Tries to continue playing… start losing to scrubs. Dad can’t concentrate and loses his focus. Dad gets salty and flips the stick (bad role model). Daughter starts crying. Son gets annoyed and a bit sad. Dad turns off the ranked search, gives the boy the custom stick, the girl the second stick (a x-box wireless Tekken stick that was 20 bucks from a friend). Daughter of course insists on Laura. Son picks FANG for some reason. Turns on training mode and the second player dummy to player controlled.

Both start laughing and having fun. Dad, still salty, learns the lesson: no more ranked SF5 when either of the kids are awake.

But he is happy his kids like Street Fighter, and especially happy that his daughter’s favorite is Laura.

^^^^^^^^^^^^LOL

That’s future relationships goals! You never know you may have birthed another Diago or Gllty on your hands!

(the fact that she claps every time Laura does her CA is too adorable. lol And honestly I only do ranked now when Im COMPLETELY alone.No boyfriend, no guest, NO ONE. If someone is there its Casual or Battle Lounge only.)

Kinda off topic, but I recently got a chance to play the beta and came away with the feeling of “finally some progress is being made!” I’m in central Arkansas and at times it feels like I’m in a desert because of the lack of matches. I get paired up with Canadians more than Americans at times. And connections outside of the US? Forget about it! So imagine my surprise when I entered a battle lounge, got paired up with someone with the Korean flag, and WON. The lag was minimal, and the rollbacks weren’t nearly as dramatic as they usually are. The background was having an epileptic seizure but it didn’t affect my timing. Finally.

The Laura changes are so miniscule that they don’t really warrant ultra in depth analysis. Unless you heavily relied on cr lk or the meaty elbow. Cr lk still has a use, but it isn’t auto pressure anymore.

Give your son ten more years and Laura will be his favorite, too.

So here’s a dumb question that I have a bit sorted out but not fully and it’s very simple so I feel like a fool asking it but here goes:

When I try to do something like command grab> lp bolt/fhp… people tend to just block… but when I watch pros like wolfkrone play they hit people with those moves a lot… I’m not saying I never hit them, just that my rate of success is something like 3 or 4 out of 10… is there any way to increase this? The other problem is when I try to do something obvious to make them pay for blocking (like dashing in) I get jabbed like 95% of the time.

The only thing that really seems to work is doing ex command grab… is this the only thing that can be done?

I’m trying to make my post command grab mixups work better but I’m having trouble finding good options so any help would be beneficial. I’ve looked at lots of Laura mixup videos and stuff and all they usually say is fhp or lp bolt… but not what to do if the opponent just sits there… in other words they don’t tell me how to train the opponent to get hit. The only times my opponents tend to get hit are when they are panicking and I’ve already established that I’m the better player. Other than that if I’m playing people that are equal to me or even better… doing fhp or lp bolt seems like a good way to put myself at negative frames up close…

I’ve looked into whether I’m being predictable with my mixups and in many ways I am, I tend to use a binary option field… use this until it works then use the counterpart… but if I’m using that option and I’m finding people doing well agains it I will tend to go for a 1112111 mixup instead of the normal 111111 till they get it, then 2121212121212 once they understand… but it still usually ends up with me only hitting like 10-20% against good opponents and I don’t think Laura can really be viable with that low a percentage of conversion.

Well it’s hit or throw, that’s all there is to it. I haven’t played Laura in a while but I always mixed it up between dashing up and throwing/command grab or using both strike options or maybe even a slightly delayed st.HK. Slightly walking forward and then hitting cr.HP can also work sometimes since some people react to non-attack movement with a button because they think you’ll be going for a throw.

Yeah, I run into that, too. I know dash up grab is an unsafe oki option but sometimes I swear my opponents are psychic with the jabs. I don’t think there’s a good answer. Like Maryokutai said, it’s hit or throw unless you landed MP or EX bolt and get a string going. Against someone with really good reactions Laura’s oki is pretty limited. I think it’s fair but it is frustrating that most of the time your turn after a successful knockdown is over after a single blocked hit.

One thing I try to do with mixed success is vary my strategy by rounds. Like, say the first round I’ll go for grabs almost exclusively and the second round it’ll be all hits. Or sometimes I’ll say to myself, no overheads this round, etc…Still, some players can see my advances a mile away and I just have to try to adapt.

Jump OS is on its way out so that should help to some degree.

Haha… Thanks for the love guys. FYI: my son landed on Vega (I HATE VEGA). He picks him consistently. I know he is three and just jamming buttons, but he has managed to pull off a critical art more than once. Next Daigo confirmed?

On topic, I’ve been trying to mix my command dashes and regular dashes. The command ones are faster and go further, but have delay on buttons. The regular ones don’t have that issue. Most people rarely see Laura’s regular dash so it has led to a few WTF moments on my opponents behalf. It also leads into a good CR LK. It comes out slow so your opponent may figure it out. Your milage may vary of course.

On a positive note, I’ve shaken off the rust a bit. I’m beginning to adapt to my opponents during a match more consistently, instead of running on auto-pilot. Woo!

Er no, raw command dash forward is 22f and regular forward dash is 17f. The difference in range outside VT is negligible too. The only advantage in doing the CD is that it puts her in a near-crouching state so she can low profile or cross under.

Yeah, for surprises, regular dash is always better. It’s faster and doesn’t have an audio cue like her command dash. It’s hella negative but I do occasionally cancel into VSF after a blocked 5HP if I think I’ve conditioned them to expect an ex clap.

Oh yeah and I forgot, command dash counts as a special and as such it can be CCed.

There’s also cr. MP which is the only normal that is safe on block if cancelled into VSF.

Good to know. I guess I wasn’t being clear, the perception I had was that the command dash looked faster. At least I know why the buttons came out slower on command, and I was able to buffer command throws better on command.

Mixing them up does throw your opponent off I’ve noticed. I’m guessing most people are trained to expect the command dash since most people I’ve seen use that instead of the regular dash.

Fuck You Laura Players.

As one of the 20 people or so that watched and loved your defensive tutorial video with regards to svc chaos…

I am disappoint.

This is an even bigger compliment than rage quitters. We’ve finally arrived, Laura mains!

Yo @DrGulag, saw you almost made it to top 32 at UFA. Congratz!
Was thinking of going there to watch the event but I decided to drink beer instead.

Thanks @OceanMachine ! : )

It was my first tournament and I actually was pretty close of reaching top 25. I ate a raw critical art from an Asian Birdie (cafe96) player and lost a close set but that’s ok, it happens! Had some nice matches and sets with people like Dogura and Tokido. I definitely recommend going to these events. The tournaments can be be pretty brutal but the casual sets make up for any unpredictable losses.

There were lots of Laura players there for obvious reasons, it was Paris after all. But I just felt like many of them are a bit too vskill happy, take unnecessary risks and refuse to play the neutral game with st.lk buffers etc.

I see this alot online, you can blatantly tell who mained Laura in S1 versus picking her up now. Even the diamond players do alot of stupid shit with her that makes no sense, or if I didnt fall for the command dash into command throw the first 4 times what makes you think Im going to fall for it the 5th?

And I just have to LOL at the forum talking about how cheap and overpowered Laura is now. Even that Bison player saying its too hard for him to slide because of her fireball…REALLY??? Even homeboy and his sweet Ryu going in on her. Yet shoto players last season told everyone they need to shut up and let the game go a full year with their constant BS.

I’ve blown up a few diamond players who obviously jumped on the bandwagon in season 2 and I noticed the same patterns. If I’ve blocked and punished your volty line 5 times, take a hint. And, yes, if you keep dash canceling blocked normals to try and grab I’m going to jab combo the hell out of you. Those of us who struggled through season 1 learned those lessons a long time ago!

@DrGulag congrats sir. Always good to hear somebody from our slice of the net is doing well in tourneys.

I live literally 15 minutes away (walking distance) from Head to Head Gaming Area in Santa Ana. I’ve thought about joining one of those Wednesday Night Fight Night Tournies, but I don’t think my scrubby skills would do well against some of the pros that show up there. Plus they just opened a BeerCade literally between there and my home (5 minutes walking distance)… and the idea of drinking beer and playing Galaga/Moon Patrol while drinking craft beer sounds so much better to me than getting salty watching my bae Laura get crushed at a SFV tourney.

That said, are peeps still complaining about Laura? Aren’t we at the point where her game has been pretty much downloaded by the net? Tell that salty M Bison player to stop pushing buttons when you knock down Laura hoping for that crush counter, and your slow-poke buttons won’t get destroyed by a non-reversal wake-up EX Bolty line.

Its my goto move on M Bison Players now when I get knocked down. Its great after you do that three times in a row and watch them get utterly confused because their autopilot attacks aren’t working anymore. :dizzy: