Lau at medium advantage (+4 to +7)

What's good my fellow Lau-players!

FS has been out for over two months now and lately my attention has been shifting from getting familiar with the renewed system to actually learning how to play Lau (effectively).

We all know Lau can be a motherfucker. He deals tons of damage if the opponent makes careless mistakes and if one isn't too familiar with all of his setups, it can sometimes seem as though Lau never has to stop attacking. However, if the opponent dóes know what to do against Lau and keeps his game tight, the opposite might be the case: us Lau players might feel that Lau has to work very hard to get his damage in.

I personally feel Lau's main problem lies in the fact that he lacks a mid launcher that can be used at medium advantage. This is a problem, because it means that he cannot force a strong nitaku at disadvantages less than -8, therefore Lau players will usually have to guess right an extra time before they can get their damage in. The rest of Lau's game seems to be very solid, his punishment is toptier, his ranged game is very strong and he has tools to deal with pretty much anything that comes his way.

So that's why my main purpose for this thread is to discuss ways to deal with the issue of not having a solid mid launcher: how can we put fear into the hearts of our opponents when we have them at a medium disadvantage?

I consider medium advantage to be ranging from +4 to +7; anything below +4 is just a basic jab/elbow game where anything slower than those (at +3 3p is a notable exception) can get stuffed by 2p.

At +8 big launchers become uninterruptable by 2p, so that's what I consider big advantage.

So let's start at the bottom end of the medium disadvantage range: +4!

At +4, moves with 16 frames of execution open up as uninterruptable options. In this category, I feel Lau's most notable options are 6p+k and 6k (+5 vs 11-frame jabbers).

6p+k can be hitconfirmed into the p followup on any hit for a knockdown. It's not a lot of damage, but since it's only -6 on guard and pretty much safe on evade, it's a very nice option to have. There's also a lot of room for okipressure. If you can get the timing down, a crouchdash into fully charged p+k can not be evaded on any tech, so the opponent has no choice but to either let it hit or guard it and on guard it will give you a guardstagger, which allows you to press nitaku.

6k gives a deep stagger on counter hit, that will give crazy combos if the opponent does not stagger out of it. I have to be honest and say that pretty much noone seems to stagger out of it online, but when I go into dojo it doesn't seem thát difficult to get out of the stagger, so I'm not sure how viable this move really is. 6k is cdfuzzy-safe on block, but is at least -14 move punishable on evade! So look at your opponent to see if he's abare and/or evade-happy. If he can escape the stagger, skip the move, cos it's too risky. 6k is also very vulnerable to backdashes, it's very short-range.

I'm finding 6p+k to be the best option most of the time. It's very consistent and risk-free, which is great. The follow-up threat also means that even on block it doesn't have to mean you lose the momentum. The downside is that it doesn't do much damage at all (just 30 in total with the followup p). If you want some reasonable damage potential at low risk, 3p is your move.

There's also 3k, which is one of the few moves that leaves Lau at +8 on MC.

At +5 moves with 17 frames of execution open up. The most notable options for me are 1p, 66p+k and 46p+k.

66p+k is a weird move that comes with its own set of tactics. It leaves you backturned at +4 on any hit (because it hits twice, the second hit cancels out any MC properties), which makes BT 2p uninterruptable (which is just 3p). There's a ton of different tactics you can employ with this move, so I think it'd be more appropriate to create a separate thread for it. Note that while its execution is 17 frames, effectively it's actually 18 frames, because of the dash command. Maybe it'd be better to put this under +6..

1p is actually just a 2p with more range. Very effective against reversal characters. Also, safe on both guard and evade

46p+k is a move I have to work into my game a lot more. It's a half-circular high (covers your back), which gives +15 on MC! So yeah, 2p will beat it, and you'll get punished hard if your opponent evades to the correct side, but on counterhit it will give a ~100 dmg combo. Just a very scary option if you can predict their evade direction.

46p+k and 66p+k both cover a different evade direction!

I'd still use 6p+k as my mainstay move here.

At +6, nothing too noticable happens.

Same with +7, except for the fact that MC 2p and 1p leave you at +7 and in a crouching state, so you can use 46 as a nitaku option! It's heavily punishable, though.. (-15).

I'd like to discuss how we might use these moves (and others that I haven't described) to come up with some effective strategy at +4, +5, and +6/7.

Any insights?

 

This is a great post and a great starting point for talking strategy. I think you've hit the nail on the head as to the key weakness in Lau's moveset.

In the absence of a punisher, is a solid option IMHO because it's so versatile - It's still fairly safe, you can hit-check the first hit, and then can press on into , (with or without Kokei) or otherwise use a launcher.

I think is not a bad option even though it's high, can hit-check either a counter-hit for a combo, or if they guard use , to shift into Kokei and maintain an advantage. But obviously if the opponent crouch-guards this won't work, and this comes back to the original problem that Lau doesn't have a fast combo starter that will beat a crouching defender.

The other side of this is adapting a playstyle to work around this weakness. Lau's mid combo starters are slower but mostly have pretty good range, so I think it's better to try an work your game where you are closing in on your opponent with mids from a distance ( , , , ), and also trying to gain counterhits with moves like , and , , rather than going toe to toe trying to trade moves.

It's a tricky problem, unfortunately I don't think there is a simple solution but I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinions on how to get around it.

 

At +4

No anti step available ( edit: , back escapable) but at this small disadvantage people don't often step.
I like 6( can be rewarding but yes, you must be up close) 3 and 3 but 6 and 6 are very good options too.

At +5

People tend to step more so 6 6 and 46 ( I should use this one sometimes^^") are both very good options, 4 is good too ( Kokei).
If you face the wall or edge you can try a 4.

 

That thread is great and thx Krye a lot. Im new to lau though.

At +4, i use,,and most commonly. I find great move, also it could be used as a tool to do more damage depending of the stages ,mostly to wall stages, for example when you have the wall in your side( not close enough to wall), if you hitconfirm you can do a nice damage cause following float opponent diagonally to the wall(requires check stances) and then big opportunities for a wallcombos > W! > ...etc.(video could help if you are not understand what i mean, ill try to find video or make one to show what i mean).
is great, staggering in CH and opportunity for a high damage combo and is fuzzyable.
, hitconfirm= great string.
just amazing move, hitchecking,then CH mix up kokei.....with simple words.. great move.

At +5, between and i use more instead to due to kind of hit ( mid) plus to these amazing wallstuns that give you when you have the wall in your side, is high and risk but give you the opportunity for a really high damage combo.

 

This is all good stuff... I would just add or echo that 6pp->kokei is nice. at least then Lau does get his fast mid launcher...

If you 8kk a lot at small adv, you can discourage the opponent from 2p abare. This lets you do moves like kk or 4pkk kokei mixups or 3kpp mixups without worrying about getting interrupted with the 2p. I think that the delays and the kokei mixups are the most fun thing about playing Lau. The lack of a good fast mid launcher and the risk of his mid and low half-circular moves are the reasons why he is low-tier in FS as far as I can tell. It makes me a little sad when I eat half damage from the quasi-spammy technique of dodge---> launcher (I say quasi-spammy bc some guys do this kind of mindlessly in one motion without even knowing what they evaded) 66k+g is good against this technique from a distance and so is p,g 6k up close

 

Quite some reactions you have there if you can confirm 6PP on normal hit. I'd call 3P series a stretch too from the first hit. 6P+KP is doable though as far as I remember.

 

3p is really easy to confirm. 6pp is really hard. Also remember that after going to kokei after that, ecd beats pretty much anything lau can do without going into shenanigan territory.

 

Yea 6P is really hard to hitchecking it and yea with edc you can punish lau's kokei K+G really hard