Introduction
A contractor for a PMC, Luke uses his elite military background to teach mixed martial arts. His days off are spent eating junk food, playing video games, and fighting, but make no mistake—Luke plays to win.
Luke Sullivan is a shotoclone character with an emphasis on a strong midrange and whiff punishing. Luke has all the standard shoto tools you could want, but puts several unique spins on them to craft his own style. Where Ryu is defensive and neutral-oriented, and Ken is aggression and combo-utility oriented, Luke focuses on crafting a strong midrange game with excellent pressure once he's gotten in.
Luke's signature move is Sand Blast, an exceptionally good fireball. Unlike most fireballs, Sand Blast is incredibly fast and goes nearly fullscreen in the blink of an eye, allowing Luke to snipe out most approach attempts with ease. Outside of Sand Blast, Luke can use his great 2MP, 5MK and 2MK to push opponents back, or lunge forward for punishes with 5LP, 5MP and 5HP. Luke has plenty of Target Combos from these pokes, allowing him to convert even the smallest of pokes into sizeable reward. If he chooses to spend meter on OD or Drive Rush, then Luke becomes capable of dealing monstrous damage and carrying you deep into the corner.
Here, Luke becomes truly terrifying. Luke has an excellent corner game with everything a character needs to keep you blocking. Easy throw loops, a fast and safe overhead, many ways to be plus or even fully reset pressure, and consistent combo enders with great okizeme. Many of Luke's normals lunge him forward, which synergizes with Drive Rush to create hard-to-escape pressure sequences and surprise whiff punish opportunities. On defense Luke excels at well, with his 2LP being a 4f jab with a great hitbox. He has a great DP with Rising Uppercut and a fantastic anti-air in 2HP.
Luke is a character with few meaningful weaknesses, and can perform well at all levels of play. While his jabs tend to be on the slower side outside of 2LP, this is because many of them move him forward for better punishes and thus exist as a tradeoff rather than a weakness. Sand Blast similarly does not travel fullscreen outside of the OD version, but this is another tradeoff for its powerful speed. None of these differences create meaningful weaknesses in Luke, allowing him to craft a strong and reliable gameplan. If you want a shoto with more of a focus on pressure and playing out the midrange, you should hit the streets with Luke.
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