Did nobody see my post? I was wondering on strategies to fight the big three that are giving me trouble; Elena, Cody, and DeeJay. While I may eventually be able to eek it out against Cody, it feels like Elena and DeeJay are towers of safe options built to frustrate me.
I read and found your post useful RoK.
As for Deejay, I also have problems with him, but a good post on him is in the “Worst personal match up” thread by Noocta. It’s helped me out a bit.
Elena…well…the bad Elena’s have started to die off imo, and it’s now a struggle against good ones. Fortunately, I think we can stuff most of her stuff. I’ve knocked 2 Elena’s out of her Ultra 1 with a s.mp on her wake up.
Looks like I’m about to abuse meaty st. MP. Arigatou gosaimasu!
funny stuff, ex karakusa grabs decapre off her u1 even if you do it late and the projectile disapears
probably don’t want to do it meaty.
Makoto is fantastic…
It’s so much easier now to land karakusa since people are holding down after realizing we have a hit confirm into low and big damage or a reset. It is truly a guessing game for them now. I feel more in control of the metagame than ever
Sorry to keep harping but this is how I see it. Everything comes at a price. all of Makotos major issues were fixed. DWU breaks vortex from most, ex Fuki adds and makes hit confirming into CLK even more dangerous than Cammy hit confirms as well as adding another dimension to the danger of cLK and cMK poking, red focus makes sHK viable viable on combos, I mean come on? Any other defensive issues have always been present but her game play is either in tact or improved from previous versions. The Ex Fuki ALONE makes her slightly OP IMO. I can count on one hand how many times I landed EX Fuki in Super, AE, and 2012. But along with the other shit she’s soooo good and demands respect in ways she couldn’t demand before. Yeah she was nerfed in some damage and stun areas… And tsurigi got nerves OK fine. But Capcom obviously wants players to depend on her old moves less and try this new bitch out. And she is a badddd bitch.
Edit - as a Makoto fiend who has been maining her and her alone since super, I can now truly understand that statement “started from the bottom now we HERE” lol.
offensively I agree with you but defensively she’s trash! her defense is worse now than it was in 2012. the back throw nerf makes it impossible to tech at certain ranges, the cr mk nerf (which no one seem to be aware of) means she trades or get beaten more often, the U2 nerf means it’s useless defensively. no one respects makoto on wakeup, DWU or not! honestly man, the backthrow nerf is just stupid!!!
I agree, offense is crazy. No one respects Makoto on wake-up because you can throw her out of all of her options. EX Fukiage has no invincibility, she gets thrown. EX-Oroshi does not have throw invincibility, nor does EX Hayate. Basically, she is terrible once an opponent gets a knockdown and she has to depend on Option-Select Grab break and not falling for nonsense. However, that seems to always have been the case; Makoto is a purely offensive character anyway, so I feel she suits me more. That Vortex is real.
I’m going to reiterate something I’m sure xian said. you just have to know your options. the backthrow situation has only affected me on the opponents wake. to fix the problem just neutral tech when you feel or see a throw coming. I’ve done some testing but not enough to be 100% sure but i don’t think they did anything to cr.mk. people tend to forget that you don’t ALWAYS have to do something on wake up.
So I was fooling around with fuki combos to see what would be the best punish combo with it. FFS into ex fuki, dash lp fuki into ex tsurugi for 364/689, the execution barrier is high like on 3rd strike but the combo is very rewarding and more consistent than doing a Kara fuki. Now that her defense is worse your offensive game really gotta be on point.
Defense is worse? Game mechanics heavily favor Makoto defensively, imo. Are we talking about losing U2? If that’s the main concern, a lot of Makoto players have bigger fish to fry.
Speaking of Elena, I vsed my first one last night. It was a shitty player but the games were closer than they should have.
I was using Poison but it would’ve ended the same for my Makoto too. I had trouble telling where the hell she was exactly on screen cause she moves around so much even when standing still. Really annoying because the guy should not have been able to get anywhere near winning a single round. :\
Elena is tricky. I think the matchup is 5-5, because she easily wins the footsie game with her great walkspeed and pokes, but we win on the knockdown/damage side. I focus on neutral jumping a mid screen to beat a safe slide, and watching for her specials, which are all pretty much unsafe, and most of them can be punished with reversal U1. Aside from that, yeah she can poke Makoto well, but the damage is small in comparison to what Mak can dish out, so I’d treat it like being Gief and using life as currency to beat her.
Elena also has only 900 stun. Keep that in mind in this match up.
[quote=“EasierToRun09, post:1253, topic:151906”]
Defense is worse? Game mechanics heavily favor Makoto defensively, imo. Are we talking about losing U2? If that’s the main concern, a lot of Makoto players have bigger fish to
I should rephrase and say it’s more of an adjustment because ultra 2 doesn’t have a flash on start up and when it gets stuffed it’s hard to tell when it’s been used, then on the other hand sometimes it can still be used to catch or escape a bad jump in. Just makes it seem worse.
game mechanics helps everyone, even those with good defense already, and as it stands, makoto’s is comparatively worse when compared to AE 2012.
as far as the backthrow nerf, yeah you could go for neutral throw to tech but holding back or downback while blocking and hitting two buttons is a lot easier than droping the stick to neutral or shifting the stick forward or down to throw or crouch tech respectively when you’re under heavy pressure. in that aspect, yes, defense is worse, because other characters don’t have to go through all that and there is more room for error (the minute you drop the stick to neutral etc., you’re no longer blocking, and you’re now open to whatever).
U2 is now almost useless outside of combos IMO. it gets beat on the way up, at the wall, and on the way down. the only opponents getting caught by this thing are the ones unaware of it’s purpose.
sure DWU is good in some situations but I have to ask, have you NOT been cornered by a decent poison yet? DWU IMO does not help and it’s the same for a lot of characters that don’t necessarily rely on hard KD to apply pressure in the corner.
the cr mk thing, either something is different about it, other characters jump ins are better or online lag due to the change in the net code is killing my timing, but I just don’t remember getting beat out so many times during AA when using cr mk in 2012. it’s not just getting beat, I’m trading and flat out whiffing from ranges that I know this thing should work.
hey, I know she’s always been crappy defensively but that doesn’t mean she should have nothing to work with when other characters have so much. I mean this isn’t 3rd strike where u could parry your way out of anything… she needs something!
To fill in those who haven’t tried Poison properly or played a good one, it’s ridiculously good/fun. Especially if she has EX bars.
If Poison gets you in the corner there isn’t much you can do with a lot of characters. 
I barely ever use crouching MK because it just looks weird to me, always have. I tend to use standing MP because it flat out beats whatever it is or trades; I do not think I have flat out last and exchange against it when used under the right conditions.
As far as Poison goes, I have fought good ones and it is a pain in the ass that she has such a good Anti-Air and such a good fireball (Especially with her cr.MK being so good). I think the trick is to be reckless as fuck at the beginning and trade life to get into their mind that you are not afraid to go in. Not to mention you also need to make sure you also make use of Focus to absorb a fireball, Dash in and EX Karakusa to absorb whatever hit and grab her. Put her into a vortex or into a corner and use f.MP and f.LK to great effect and do not miss dash in karakusa opportunities. Also, if they are trying to jump out of the corner, neutral jump MP and standing MP works like a charm.
I feel Makoto is meant to be heavily offensive and her payoff is good, which is why they did not give her many options on wake-up (Or none rather), though it makes no sense because even Dudley has crazy pressure, f.MK is +2 on block, has a combo’able overhead and he can get out of situations with EX DP if he really needs to.
I think we, as Makoto players, need to just realize that we will just have to work harder to win; but I feel in return we have the most satisfying character to play when doing well because she can completely blow someone up, especially if you get them to block and you Karakusa them, it is priceless.