Not dissing Mr. Flash Metroid, who is the man for kicking ass on a regular basis. Just commenting on this assessment of Makoto’s ability.
In my personal experience with Makoto, I can only find maybe 1 in 10 players willing to let me run normal strings and hayate feints on them all day long and that only lasts until one of their twitch-response reversals or jabs pop out and they realize they don’t have to fear anything Mak’s got any more. She gets in your face? Pretend she’s a training dummy. The math says odds are in your favor.
That being said, I am bewildered at the effectiveness of FM’s Makoto. It really makes me think I’m missing something.
Well, Flash can do all of Mak’s links at will, so his opponents are reluctant to try a random reversal. Have you ever had a game when you’re hitting all her links with no mistakes? I’ve had one of those, and let me tell you, every time my opponent tried to mash lights or reversals, he ended up eating so many hits that he was dizzy in no time. The next round, I realized I could throw out non linked normals because he was so scared of getting his ass kicked. Man, I wish I was always that consistent. For Flash, consistency is not an issue. Random bullshit isn’t going to work on him, thus he gets instant respect and doesn’t have to spend as much time training his opponents (IMO).
@ShinobiBrown: I’ve seen Flash’s opponents (in other vids) try to run, backdash, walk-backwards against him, and that didn’t work out so well for them either. Bottom line, Flash is just f*cking good at reading his opponents intentions.
I’ve also seen Flash’s opponents just straight up NOT block for god knows what reason. See the second round of this video -> [media=youtube]CrtlrZNyse8&feature=related[/media]
Flash played off the ignorance of the players he was up against and took advantage of the unearned respect they were giving Makoto and he shat on them for it. It’s as simply as that. I’m not trying to downplay Flash because the guy’s good (hence why his opponents are getting shat on as bad as they are). It’s just his opponents OBVIOUSLY didn’t know what to do and Flash made them pay for it. There is a reason why Flash doesn’t main Makoto and would never pick her against any of the other highly known players. Viper’s a hell lot more solid of a character than Makoto and the reasons should be as clear as day. Flash doesn’t even like Makoto, lol. Plays her for “fan-service” to the Makoto fans.
Bottom line: When I see Flash doing this shit to the likes of Justin, Sanford, Ricky, etc. then we can talk.
Being able to link even on the first frame perfectly every time does nothing for you against a blocking opponent. Take this scenario for example:
You manage to get in close without eating any of the many options your opponent has to interrupt your dash in. You strike against the blocking opponent with s.mp, which earns you +2 frames to work with, Makoto’s highest possible frame advantage out of all her moves against a blocking opponent. You opt to go for another s.mp (a very common choice with mak,) which leaves the opponent with 3 frames with which to react.
All it takes is a casual mashing of light punch from many characters to nip this string right in the bud, not even considering beastly reversals like SRK. Your best bet is to follow it up with s.lp, which is generally less effective than s.mp in every way except for speed. This is assuming you’re NAILING the timing perfectly here.
Stuff like this is all over the place with Makoto…speaking strictly theory fighter here, looking at the numbers in most of her typical situations, she has a CRAZY tough time mounting something effective. Why does your opponent EVER need to block when they really have nothing to fear in retaliating with an attack? How do you mount an offense when it is not possible to limit the options of your opponent?
The only time I can think of is after a knockdown.
well somehow flash does manage to make his opponents not mash reversals. I guess you could argue that all of his opponents that he’s ever beaten with Makoto suck and are ignorant on how to fight against Makoto. But even then I’m sure even people who didn’t know how to fight her would eventually start doing reversals and owning flash’s Makoto. Honestly I think there’s a little more to it than that, Flash is amazing at adapting to the opponent, whether it be using F+HK to catch a back dash or training them to block.
Eventually we might see a Makoto going up against one of the top players and winning, it’s definitely not impossible. It will take awhile to get her up to that point but I think it will happen, not to mention that most people are using their main they’ve been playing since vanilla SF4.
How a match plays when your opponent knows the majority of Makoto’s offensive is not respectable. -> [media=youtube]0KeVhmGtk7Y[/media]
I honestly find that match (CW vs MagMan) more convincing on how to handle Makoto in this game and what to expect from players until they take a hint and start to adhere to that kind of conditioning displayed in that vid. Granted, MagMan didn’t exactly do that, unfortunately, and lost because of it. He kept DPing even though NinjaCW was causing his DPs to whiff so he couldn’t FADC them.
Note: To be ignorant doesn’t necessarily mean you suck. J Wong was ignorant to the Adon match up and got knocked out by Gamerbee because of it. Doesn’t mean J Wong sucks at the game.
I’m beginning to think part of the effectiveness in FM’s Makoto is the safety of hayate feint. Maybe the opponent doesn’t know it’s safe to reversal because they fear a feint might come out instead of an attack, meaning their reversal could be blocked. Maybe he’s actually begging for a reversal in a sense. I’m trying to experiment with it more…
He’s winning the matches because he plays well and they’re not mashing c. lp or walking back all the way lol. Against people who mash SRK/Flash Kick then FADC backwards into fire ball spam again… well you guys who play her know how it is.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Hayate hit -> FADC -> s. MK.
I’m trying to condition them not to jump. MP -> Hayate Feint works wonders for a good mix up game as well.
In terms of corner pressure I can see that being a legit tactic. Kara-canceling the feint would make it more effective as well since it advances Makoto further. In terms of mid-screen use, the opponents option to backdash out of the Hayate feint pressure shenanigans shits on the concept. Even then, that doesn’t compensate for the characters who have reversals that can change momentum when blocked thanks to FADCing. That’s why it’s more favorable to have reversals whiff. The FADC option is taken away and more risk is involved.
Basically, Flash uses Makoto’s feint shenanigans in the vain of Viper’s…only Viper has better mix-up options after them.
Yeah, I noticed that too. Hell, Viper and Mak have a lot of the same weaknesses, but Mak’s weaknesses are just worse. I truly hope the SSF4 arcade version brings a balance patch for our little freight train.
Thanks for the NinjaCW vid, I haven’t seen it before. Pretty impressive how he handles fights that are clearly not to his advantage.
You guys need to get over the whole omg makoto is bottom tier mentality imo. She’s quite clearly not f tier. And im pretty sure flash is using her against better opponents than you guys face online.
Dude if you’re +2, st mp becomes 3f startup, thus if they are mashing 3f jab really hard it at best trades. You don’t think st mp is a good trade with a light?
I agree, a lot of these posts give off a very negative connotation when talking about Makoto’s weaknesses Lol.
Ninja CW plays very solid, although he seemed to make a bunch of execution errors when he had them in a karakusa = \ I hate when I do that lol.
He still beat that Ryu from just playing solid though.
Don’t get me wrong, I abuse s.mp as much as any other Makoto player. My point with that scenario is it is probably her absolutely MOST advantageous situation as far as mounting an offense in the traditional sense goes (as opposed to attacking against a jumping or prone opponent or something unconventional in footsies) and it’s still relatively unforgiving compared to most of the roster.
Your response was that you can use this to trade. Doesn’t that highlight the obvious problems in this situation? Trading is NEVER ideal, something you want to do when you have few other options and preferably when you’ve got a life lead…which Makoto often does not start with thanks to her lifebar.
Also, good luck trading with SRK.
It is the nature of a weakness to be negative.
I think Makoto is awesome, which is why I’ve been using her since pretty much immediately after the game hit. But, as time goes on and players become aware of her flaws, I’m forced to consider alternative strategies…and bashing out crazy pressure block strings hasn’t had as much reliability as I would like. This is a critique thread isn’t it? Well, unfortunately, there are some weaknesses about Makoto and the way we use her.
Again, I’m thinking that Hayate feint could be some sort of solution to that issue. I’ve been trying to experiment with it and I’m finding a lot more success in my pressure game. Beyond the obvious merits of screwing with peoples’ rythm, it almost seems to have a sort of “should I counter or not?” mix up element to it.
Backdashing has been mentioned as an escape method but, that doesn’t seem too terrible…they’re still retreating toward a corner and it’s WAY better than taking damage.
Wow that’s an amazing find, I can see this being an incredibly useful tool. I don’t fukiage anywhere as much as I should be, can’t wait to try this out for myself.