Does Makoto have a weakness on her wakeup? Her backdash is great and that anti-air of hers eats jumps and DK’s for breakfast…
This is in the OP, but DF Palm o/s sweep kills Makoto on her wakeup.
In that case how fast is her AA reversal?
Makoto is super free on wake up. Got to master your OS.
By far she is the easiest to OS till she gets U2, but if she is using U1 you can palm OS Sweep her all day long and she can’t do anything but block.
Slow as hell and only works above a certain height. You can be rather relaxed on your safe jumps and still land safely.
Awesome man thx 
Cant you just jump? Also, you can just check it out in training mode right?
From my experience, as long as she’s not very far from the wall (she has to get there and it’s invincibile till she reaches it, then the screen flashes) we can still cancel the recovery of our OS sweep into U1 and stop her from spamming that shit (it’s kind of effective though, she either gets you in the air or simply runs away) on wakeup.
She has to be far from the wall or the Raging Demon will run out of invincibility before she gets there.
Haven’t tested it, but OS U2 could be interesting, since it should punish both backdashes and U2 with the huge invincibility. Basically should ruin every option she has, considering palm beats pretty much everything else there is.
Basically we just have to avoid crossup tatsu, because she has no upper hitbox whatsoever and she rapes us for an easy 328/496 combo (that’s retarded off a mistimed jump in if you ask me, but at the very least it has no invincibility and starts in 8f).
I think she can also use EX Hayate after the first Tsurugi to push to the corner.
Some Deejay numbers on his sobats on block:
LK: -4
MK: -7
HK: -9
EX: -8
Plink that sweep, and SRK his LK if it’s close.
If you have Ultra 1 stocked, you can OS sweep her all day, even if she gets Ultra 2. Cancel your sweep into Ultra 1 and itll beat her Ultra 2
There are situations where she can use U2 to get out of trouble and you can’t punish with Demon. However you can still beat U2 with OS SRK if Makoto is in the corner. Outside of the corner it is too risky.
You just have to be aware of those situations.
jumping would be the last thing you want to do against bison after blocking scissor kick…
i just thought that you guys would probably have known this more than me…if i tried out everything myself,it would be such a chore that playing sf4 will feel like a job, i would probably be spending too much time on this game and there wouldn’t really be any reason for me to bother going to the forum asking…
anyway. few hours after the post i went down the arcade and tried.
it works. but not very well since its still a guessing game (loses to s.mk,s.hk,2nd scissor) but at least i don’t have to worry about (c.lk,c.mk,psycho crusher).
whiffing s.lk against bison is awesome.
Hi everyone,
I’ve been working behind the scenes with some of our heavy hitters to generate some more detailed character writeups to add to this matchup thread. This project will take a while, but I’m happy to present the first major character addition for Balrog. Huge kudos to MBR, LoyalSol and Superlollo for taking the time to write and review these.
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BALROG
SPACING
Akuma is most effect either at full screen or up close. At full screen, try to bait his dash punches with air/ground fireballs, fireball feints, whiffed normals, demon flip palm whiffs and empty jumps. Take advantage of Akuma’s walk speed and constantly walk in and out of poke range to bait more mistakes (for misjudging your spacing). At close range pressure with safe block strings and tick throws; he can’t do much to you if he has no meter. For block strings, cr. MK xx Hadoken should also be avoided because it’s not a true block string and Balrog can do Headbutt – U1. If Balrog is mashing jabs, just throw him.
Stay out of midrange because that’s where all his options lie. His pokes reach the best at this range and all dash punches are safe. Balrog gets a lot of damage out of baiting and punishing throw attempts, Shoryukens and teleports so careful, patient footsies are a necessity.
FOOTSIES/ZONING/PRESSURE
If Balrog has charge you CANNOT play footsies with him - he can just dash punch for free and push you into the corner. His regular dash punches can be punished on reaction with a well-timed focus attack, and all dash punches can be punished on reaction with a well-timed 2/3 hit Shoryuken or cr. MK xx Tatsu. With the exception of the overhead smash, up-close dash punches can be punished with reversal HK Tatsu. The best punish for a blocked overhead is st. LP xx Tatsu or st. LP – Sweep. EX dash punches can also be grabbed on reaction, which puts Balrog into Akuma’s vortex.
If Balrog blocks your sweep, they will often do a dash punch. A good counter to this is to do cr.MK xx LK Tatsu right after the sweep recovers.
If Balrog has meter, be careful doing frame traps because he can EX dash punch or EX headbutt to counter.
Telegraphed TAPs can be punished on reaction with fs.HP or in some cases, st. HK (into full combo). Once U1 is stocked, buffer 2 jabs into every sweep so that if Rog tries to TAP (or EX dash) through it you can punish with Raging Demon.
ULTRA CHOICE
Both Ultras are viable in this matchup.
U1 can punish every EX dash punch (cr. MK xx U1) and can also make ground fireballs safe against TAP or EX dash punch (buffer the jabs into the Hadoken input, finish if you see one of those special moves).
U2 is also excellent in this matchup. Option selecting U2 off of a wakeup flip palm beats all of Balrog’s options, forcing him to block. Having U2 also enables Akuma to teleport for free. Also, crossup Tatsu-U2 works on Balrog.
ON WAKEUP
Balrog has a hard time dealing with Akuma’s wakeup pressure. Safe option selects and block strings are effective. Do not get predictable with DF throws since it can be punished with headbutt into U1, which puts Akuma into the corner and does a fair amount of damage.
Aside from the option selects listed, the following are effective vortex options on Balrog:
Crossup Tatsu.
Empty jump cr. LK (or cr.LK + cr.LP)
Safe jump HK/DF dive kick
Demon flip throw (Loses to headbutt)
Fake crossup command dive kick
Crossup air fireball
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As always, your feedback is welcome. 
Finally, someone is getting around to making a real matchup strategy. I appreciate this, and I also greatly appreciate Balrog being the first mentioned. He’s the character I still have the hardest time with.
That’s not to say the original posts didn’t have a wealth of information; they just didn’t really help put it all together for anyone just learning the matchups.
Holy tornado that things is massive, great stuff guys!
Wanted to ask about the blocked Overhead punch: it says the best punish is st.LP, but will cr.MP (xx Tatsu etc) work too, or would it be out of range? Or is st.LP (I’m assuming it’s far LP here) better just because of the larger window to punish?
Remember cross up tatsu into Raw U2 is also possible against Rog. Another reason to take that Ultra
Thanks to those who compiled the Balrog writeup! I learned a few new things, gotta hit the lab to confirm the timing for myself. You should try Dictator next. 
hi guys, can anyone shred some light as to how should you play footsie against gief?
im losing to gief doing s.mp,and random c.hk. not that i’m losing extremely badly but i find it extremely uncomfortable feeling its 1-sided gief advantage.
divekick doesn’t work at all. and s.hk can be occasionally risky, i mean on block its not anyone’s advantage and if gief buffer c.lk greenhand on time its trouble.
safejump is extremely hard…only viable safejump is safejump palm from a distance.
i was playing a gief in endless about 10-20 games. by the end of it i was just playing lame doing neutral air fireball and force him to jump and dp him which took very little away,my AA is not the best but is working.( coz i occasionally get 1hit dp instead of full2 hits).
St.hk, back dash. Cr.mk, back dash, cr.mp back dash
Watch Tokido vs Gief, he back dashes ALL the time and punishes whiffed SPDs
just a quick question. I’m not sure if this is me just mistiming my os. But against mak, when I go for palm os sweep and she does her upward punch, I’m safe because it whiffed but palm whiffs and she gets hit by the os sweep. Basically I’m wondering if the sweep is supposed to come out in that situation since I want a harder punish than just sweep if they decide to reversal.
The palm whiffs so the sweep comes out. The game doesn’t know if Mak backdashed, it just knows the palm whiffed. I suppose you could Palm OS cr.mk. It may be long enough to catch her back dash, and if she up punches you can hit cancel to lk.Tatsu, BnB blah blah blah