Makoto Strategy and Match-ups

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
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IA Tsurugi on wake up is good against those guys who like that double Oichio shit or after his Hands FADC Oichio attempts.

I haven’t had trouble against Hawk. Same strats apply to him as everyone else. Standing mp. You may want to step back a bit and stick with standing mk as your primary poke, so you don’t get limb grabbed. In situations where they like to 360, go for the IA tsurugi for good damage. Also, you get some nasty combos on Hawk, do to his ridiculous size.

Mpx3 xx MP or EX Hayate
Fierce feint MPx2 xx MP or EX Hayate
EX Hayate in the corner, lp Fukiage, EX Tsurugi

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IA Tsurugi on wake up is good against those guys who like that double Oichio shit or after his Hands FADC Oichio attempts.

I haven’t had trouble against Hawk. Same strats apply to him as everyone else. Standing mp. You may want to step back a bit and stick with standing mk as your primary poke, so you don’t get limb grabbed. In situations where they like to 360, go for the IA tsurugi for good damage. Also, you get some nasty combos on Hawk, do to his ridiculous size.

Mpx3 xx MP or EX Hayate
Fierce feint MPx2 xx MP or EX Hayate
EX Hayate in the corner, lp Fukiage, EX Tsurugi

Standing MP beats his Hawk dives, so long as he’s not doing them on your wake up. After a blocked dive (incase you, for whatever reason weren’t ready to spam MP… shame on you), you can hit him with f+fp. If you block a cross up dive, you can hit him with mp xx hayate or whatever beefy combo, since he lands closer to you.

Punch the shit out of condor spire. If they like to 360 after it, IA Tsurugi it. That should make them want to start DPing you, in which case you can block (or maybe focus?) and punish accordingly.

Aside from the massive damage he can do, dive cross up shenanigans, and the fact that he has about 200 more life than you, it’s not a terrible match. In my book, a character that does more damage and has more life than you can’t be called even, but I think this match is most certainly winnable to a decent degree… if that makes sense…

Edit: How the hell did I get a partial double post?!

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in case anyone was wondering or if this was already discussed but needed some visual proof, here’s some Honda randomness

[media=youtube]hYNdQMKnrRI[/media]

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Dude you have the best avatar ever.

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I am having the worst time against Zangief.

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Yea me too…HK sweep and lp hayate are the only effective moves Ive had against him so far its not a fun fight

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for Gief since I had to take some stuff to the lab:

if you’ve ever played bison or chun, abuse the SHIT out of s.mk, you can punish lariats, non-ex hand attempts, jumps, everything. this normal is godlike in the match, and we get the option of following up with hayate(although to be honest, I never want to be near him)

for close lariats, lk-hayate works, but it has to be on top of you, c.mp DOES NOT GO THROUGH LARIAT UNLESS IT’S IN THE RECOVERY FRAMES, don’t use it, it just goes through him, if you’re too far to lk, go for c.FP for UTKD.

U1 beats lariat clean even on top of you. I haven’t tested U2 stuff against him.

obviously don’t quick tech his mixup on wakeup, be patient, also a good note: ex karakusa beats lariat up close, although whether you want to play that guessing game is up to you.

c.RH is ok, not as good as s.mk to beat lariat, but it does work.

well-spaced lk or mk tsurugi can beat the crouching gief-lariat game, and you can setup whatever you want after it depending on your spacing.

for standard jump-ins, neutral and jump-in RH beat lariat, but only neutral from a decent range will net a combo since jump-in has to be done relatively high on his hitbox to hit lariat.

that’s all I have for now, i’ll probably play around with U2 but in all honesty I just see it as a way to get away from his retarded mixup.

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Gief’s small time, THawk is a pain for me.

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unfortunately no one I play has hawk down enough to where I can actually test the matchup, any of the hawks i’ve fought was just me zoning them with solid normals. his DP is pretty punishable, jumping condor dives can be punished by hayate or hayate-super-ultra, the whole ground forward dive into command grab you can stop just by doing neutral jump RH

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Yeah, the same problem. So far that only Hawks I’ve seen have massively predictable and only been using his special moves. I think only one or two (max) of them have actually used his normals on me, which is saying something.

I think Makoto might have the advantage against Vega as well as Hakan. It kind of depends on whether or not he still loses a stupid amount of his HP when he loses his masks since if he doesn’t it might just be even (which isn’t bad). Then again, it doesn’t help that most of the Vegas I’ve been facing have been whoring backflip, which Hayate punishes, and loving to crouch block as well as attempt Izuna Drop.

Oh, speaking of which, Makoto’s forward Dash goes under Vega’s Flying Barcelona Attack (his d, u+P move where flies off the wall at you claw first). It’s kind of funny, especially since I’m sure she can punish him after it.

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ryu:
watch for random hurricanes if he’s close
cr.RH stuffs hurricanes clean
basically want to creep just out of his poking range, and wait it out…if he fireballs, jump in and land a nice combo
if you block a sweep from close range, sweep him back or s.MP->MP hayate (or just ultra)…f.FP SHOULD punish…it’s fast enough (-14 on block, f.FP is 13 frames) but couldn’t get it to hit from max range in training, he’d just block
I had a lot of success with just shutting ryu’s down by just…standing there and jumping at his jumps with j.FP till he got to the corner and then using neutral j.FP

granted…this was against moderate to shitty ryus >.>

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if you’re jumping against ryus for free, that is some exceptionally bad ryus you’re fighting

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Holy shit!!! forget all that. Abel is a fucking nightmare. Seems to me that Abel does everything Mak does but better. His tornado throw acts like the kara and ex kara should, and he has better pokes, and the damn Breathless Ultra is IMO the best Ultra in the game (unblockable, nearly full screen instantly, has armor, can be canceled, huge damage, anti air, anti fireball!!! gimmie a break!). how the hell are you guys dealing with good Abels?

Also, what are you guys doing against smart Sims? My friend was playing both and I lost 0-10 between the two. Ugh…

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only jumping when they jump or over a close range fireball…but yes…they were bad >.>

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I believe the most an abel can do against IA tsurugi is psychic air throw, I don’t think any of his pokes can follow up off a blocked one either.

zone him with your normals, and when he’s finally afraid to push buttons start a solid karakusa mixup.

once again s.mk works like a beast for keeping him zoned, I think this normal in general needs to be abused more, all I can think of it reminding me of is a linkable chun/dictator RH. other than that for normals, c.mp, s.mp, f.mp, c.lk all work pretty well, just make sure you’re not getting within tornado throw range unless you’re somewhat sure they aren’t going to see karakusa coming, WHEN IT DOES LAND, try to go for some fp-cancel-karakusa resets, mix up after hayate with IA tsurugis, there’s a lot of mindfucks you can play with abel since he really doesn’t have a way around solid normal mixups, except possibly getting through one with EX COD(which isn’t that threatening in general)

mmm that’s about it, if there’s anything specific happening I can test it with a buddy of mine who plays a pretty solid abel. oh also, during his mixup shenanigans EX karakusa can catch him but watch for tornado mixups too. his mixup game is still deadly but there are ways around it.

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As I main Abel. I would probably tell you to back dash a lot. and abuse her axe kick. nothing he can really do against a low axe kick unless you’re really obvious with them, then he can ex falling sky. Just remember if Abel wiffs a tornado throw his recovery frames are insane. You can jump over him and still punish him when you land. And his anti air options aren’t great. Unless you’re really obvious with your jumps.

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yes, f.FP punishes pretty much any range ryu sweep, just has to be REALLY right (mash it >.>)

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I need help with Adon. I can’t seem to get close enough for a karakusa and he’s always jumping around. It’s frustrating how much shit he pulls and get’s away with.

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Ok so, this is somewhat pertaining to Makoto and her general strategy in Super.

I find myself playing too closely to her play style in Third Strike, and even though I know I am, I can’t stop. Sometimes I go back and play Third Strike with some buddies of mine, and the only character I use there is Makoto, so that’s not really helping my case. I need some tips that’ll help me with the switch from 3s to SSF4, because I win one out of every 15-20 matches against my friend, who I used to be on equal ground with in SF4.

As much as I like Makoto, if I can’t get over the hurdle of switching between 3s and Super, I’m considering maining someone else, but I really don’t wanna do that. My biggest hype about Super was Makoto, and I don’t want to give up that easily, but it’s just feeling too difficult to play her. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not saying she sucks or anything, but rather I can’t seem to get over the switch.

If anything, I might drop her until more matchup informationis released, and then switch back because honestly, I’ve been super depressed lately playing SSF4 since I keep losing. Don’t wanna get to the point where I lose so much that I just stop playing. I like playing competitively, but so far, it’s been hard with Makoto.

Anyway, yeah… Any tips/advice would be super useful. Thanks in advanced and I apologize for this, somewhat depressing post.

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oops; shitty internet forced a double post.