All About Makoto / Read this first

Punish harder than that. After Ken’s you can get a st. FP > EX hayate you want them to know that shit aint cool and they will DIE for it.

reversal ex fukiage is tyte too.

What it sounds like you are dealing with is people who never block, this is probably because you are also not blocking so their moves are just beating yours. Try not to be overly agressive in this situation because you dont have wakeup craziness and if you’re playing SAII you dont have nonsense xx super.

Just block and punish. Work on your execution so that when you DO get an opening you get some decent damage. If you fumble your punishes then your opponent has no reason to not go crazy offense.

In terms of specific matchups with shotos:

General shotos:
-Sweeps you can punish with c.mpx MP hayate, FP hayate, or dash throw.

-if they FP shoryu post hayate and you block you can FP fukiage sjc into whatever nonsense (FP or RH tsurugi).

-if they are constantly attacking on wakeup move around back and forth or spam attacks when they’re on the floor, then block as they are about to wakeup. I’ve found this builds meter, tends to pysche out people sometimes, and will cause them to be more likely to attack because you’re behaving so aggressive.

-At close ranges fireballs are punishable on block, hit or parry, unless they knockdown.

-You dont see a lot of kens tatsu but you can karakusa it on hit even I think.

Akuma I could never figure out how to punish his correctly, sometimes it will cross you up if he uses it right. Just block low see if it’s going past you, and change your direction to block it. Regardless you can get a c.lk x LP hayate afterwards(SAI after hayate if you have the link down too).

Ryu I cant remember what you can punish his tatsu with, but again you dont see many ryus use it out of combos anyway.

Ken

I think ken vs makoto is a tough matchup because jab shoryu shuts down any mixups makoto has in a lot of situations.

Your best bet here is to bide your time and wait for attacks to punish. You may be accustomed to rushing down recklessly with lower tiered characters, but kens jab shoryu and super will punish pretty much anything you do on block as well as stuff any of your moves in progress.

-Fake hayates are a dangerous game since being overly fancy will make you eat supers really bad on this fight. If you have really good timing it’s a great way to punish whiffers going for meter, but you might end up actually dashing into the poke if you’re not careful

-if you know he’s going to jab shoryu block then karakusa x FPx EX hayate. Two of these are stun. Then you get a free super/jump in whatever. Plus you’ve probably got them in the corner by then so if it doesnt stun you can get a reset in or a wakeup mixup.

-Fireballs are trash in this game short of EX and even then you dont exactly see spamming of them, so I doubt this is the problem

-Unless you’re fighting REAL scrubs you probably wont be seeing ken tatsu, which I think you can punish ON HIT with karakusa.

-Karakusa will grab ken out of SA3. I doubt you will ever do this on purpose, or is it possible to do it on purpose, but it happens sometimes.

-if you get a blocked super go for karakusax whatever

-SAI is the way to go if you are new and you’re finding yourself in a situation where you can land the super. Although the ex from SAII is nice, you probably cant do the 100% stun reliably Im guessing and SAI is nice to have the GTFO for overly offensive people.

Ryu I dont really have any suggestions for, unless you mention something in specific your having trouble with. The only thing you should really have to fear is dashing into poke super/ex nonsense or shoryu.

Akuma I would advise learning the ghetto 90% stun combo for since it’s a full stun on him. A lot of akumas tend to be very aggressive and will pin you into the corner, so chances are you’ll have a chance to land it if they’re not careful.

I’ve seen the 100% combo but…how is it done?

It’s like Karakusa->HP->SAII->Dash->MP SRK->Dash->Kara LP Srk?

I don’t think that’s right…

look in the beginning of the thread, it’s been asked a million times.

vs. Akuma all you need for 100% is karakusa, Fierce xx SA2, dash Fierce DP sjc Fwd axekick (stunned), taunt, sj Fierce land Fierce xx Hayate (dead). Don’t bother doing anything fancy ever, there is pretty much no way to screw that up. If they aren’t a program pad, even MASH HARDER won’t get out of the stun in time because of the float from the Fwd axekick.

Mike Z

Posting to subscribe.

I’m wondering if they’re just reversal Shoryuing you after you hit Hayate, but then again I’m not sure you’re even landing Hayate.

If the Hayate is landing: You can block after landing Hayate. Hit them with your Hayate, then block and watch them reversal shoryu right into your block and laugh as you Karakusa them.

If Hayate is getting blocked: Nothing much you can do.

Even after you’ve hit them? Last time I checked, Hayate has a pretty good hit stun with it, so I would suggest…

SA1 link after it
Standing lk> Hayate/EX Oroshi
Crouching lk> Hayate
HK Karakusa

I’m pretty sure landing a Hayate isn’t something that the Shotos can just shrug off.

reversal ex shoryu/ or any other 1frame super might win if you miss you’re link other than that you should be good.

~speculation~

Some more fun stuff for shotos!

Ok, so you want to be a Makoto/Pokemon master right? Here’s my rundown of what works against shotos.

What works:

Kara-Karakusa: This is a given for most characters since it’s a total mindfuck and most people don’t know when or where it’s going to come out. This is highly in your favor as Makoto. Unless they are a complete dumbass and try to reversal shoryu everything, you should win this battle 90% of the time.

Forward HK feint into HK Karakusa (from 3/4 to 1/2 screen): Super easy to do, looks nifty (to me anyways), and most of the time your opponent isn’t going to try and Shoryu you out of something that comes out from across the screen. I would suggest doing this after a Karakusa>FP>EX Hayate. It even goes THROUGH wakeup super fireball attempts (the karakusa anyways, but you knew that right? :p)

Hayate Mixups (OMG): Yes it’s true, these do work and no amount of Reversal shoryu can stop you from killing your opponent if you are smart. This all hinges on your ability to do several things.

  1. Mixup
  2. Read your opponent and watch for tendencies
  3. Knowing your options immediately after landing the Hayate
  4. Being Fearless

Let me break those down.

  1. This is a given, because you already know what Makoto can and can’t do off of a Hayate. So you just have to look for ways to land the things after it. Believe it or not, BLOCKING after landing a Hayate is a mixup too. Most guys that play Shotos (ineffectively) will try to rely on you being overagressive and throwing/mashing a reversal shoryu. Once you block their puny shoryu, it’s all in the bank. That’s free damage for Makoto.

  2. This comes from actually studying your opponents. Watch a few of their other matches if you’re able to. Watch for things they do against opponents that are beneath, at, and above their level. You’ll learn a lot about things they get away with from the scrubs they play, and people that are better than them will show you how to punish their mistakes. Also, when you watch them, think about “How would I counter that?” “What can I do in that situation?” when you watch videos analytically and think about what you can do in that situation, it makes the learning process much esaier.

  3. See #1. You know what to do, if not, then that’s what this thread is for.

  4. You can’t back off with Makoto, it simply just doesn’t work. You have to realize that if you’re a Makoto player, you are already pretty ballsy. Most people will run to Shotos or Chun because they are easy to pick up and use. Makoto players have to think to win. Makoto is high tier because of her guessing games, and she is a high-risk, high-reward sort of character. She can land damage in a hurry and keep your opponent on their toes. But you have to be able to do things without hesitation. You can’t be afraid of trying something because someone is landing a reversal shoryu and killing your momentum. If you keep trying, you’ll find a way that works eventually against that said opponent. Like it or not, all Ryu-s have the same movesets.

/pep talk slash epic post

I never used Makoto till yesterday and I’m really liking her. Thanks haunt for putting up this informative guide!!! I will now be trying to really get great with her, I’m a Ryu fiend but he is very limited and can only do so much to win a match. I can’t believe they didn’t put Makoto in SFIV she is so unique, oh well guess we’ll have to wait for SFV, apparently the heads of Capcom say the odd number SFs are always end up being more technical.

for makoto’s 100% stun combo, who is the easiest of the playable cast to do it on? Like i got it on Urien in a match, but am thinking that thats prolly one of the easier characters to do it on, am i right? (btw, i finally got it! does little dance)

Damn you Orochi!!!
I can’t get it down… Plain and simple… Lol.
Congrats to you… You deserve it, Lol.

Alright, i asked a stupid question, i was being lazy and finally tried it on everyone else and its pretty much the same on shotos and even yun.

thank u :woot:

best advice i can give you is not to try it a lot and just play makoto tons, eventually you’ll do it cause you’ll feel makoto out.

urien is pretty easy, the Q & Elena variation is easy also hugo is easy as well as necro

and ofcourse bye easy i mean i can do it 10~15% of the time when Focusing hard. :slight_smile:

but remember with makoto you don’t need a super to win just good mix ups :slight_smile:

Can I get some general help against Hugo? Plz.

I like this kind of question. Even though most people prefer specific questions, this kind of question lets me ramble and digress.

So anyway. You have to change up your Makoto plan against hugo until they stop trying to play the Hugo game, then you can go back to what you do best.

Most obvious thing to me in MA vs HU is that you can’t stick around after a Hayate. Dashing back is really simple and you can C.MP as soon as you recover and hit them while their 360 whiffs. The whiff animation for 360 is very exaggerated so you can’t miss it; cancel your C.MP into a Hayate if you see the whiff. Don’t be surprised or spaz out if the backbreaker over your C.MP.

On wakeup it’s kind of similar, don’t stick around and do your standard okizeme until you’ve SHOWN that you’ve adapted to the most base level of Hugo play. Jumping back early with c.mk beats grabs and backbreaker, but it doesn’t get you much, nice for finishing off their life if that’s all you need. So I would dash back on wakeup a few times, meaty C.LK and S.MP into stuff then start going straight into Karakusa when you feel confident about it.

AA’ing with C.HK gives you the fun side effect of being able to parry a slow jumping attack after you have your C.HK air parried. It recovers very fast. And all Hugo’s attacks are slow. Just keep in mind that they can parry, do nothing, land and 360. It’s a guessing game at that point, the funnest thing however, is if their jumping game has degenerated to parrying your C.HK’s, then you can counter that by going straight into Karakusa to grab them as they empty jump expecting an AA. Also, EX and normal Fukiage is pretty strong against wide characters, and they dont’ come much wider than Hugo (Earthquake from SS is all I can think of).

As for the neutral game (when nobody has momentum). It’s the same for the most part, except that you can run away and build meter pretty easy and coax them into following you around. S.MK all of a sudden becomes better as a poke. Dashing in can be done on reaction to slow whiffs, though it can become bait if you face a good Hugo. So if you’re playing lesser opponents, then watch for whiffed C.MK’s and S.MP’s. You’ll probably see that if they’re afraid of your dashing game, but it’s likely to stop if they have any adaptive skills.

There’s more if I spent more time on it, but I hope this helps you somehow.

Thanks. I guess that’s all I need. Another question. You think 3rd is gonna drop after SF4 comes out?

s.mk is also very strong poke to punish wiffs also a good AA :wink: post hayate jump back mk is good too :smiley:

I’m having trouble going from Karakusa to HP and then into SA2. It would always hit with the high punch and the SA2 medium never comes out. I’ve only been able to do it on a HP to SA2 High in training mode but that would never come out in a real match. Like what moment am I suppose to start the SA2 motion?