Played the game a lot today here is what I found:
LP hayate mixup
They don’t exist really. You can do st. MP but if they jump you will catch them in the air, if they backdash and you whiff any attack like an lp you can’t punish with any OS i’ve tried (EX hayate, sweep, any normal hayate, etc.) in general baiting is the only semi-safe strategy here unless they are in the corner where you can consistently get a cr. LK mixup, for some reason A LOT of the cast this will whiff on and if they jump it escapes your mixup for free. cr. Jab can be inconsistent also. Also if you whiff don’t try to fukiage or anything to punish you typically will get caught if you whiff something and than try to anti-air.
MP hayate
Things are more favorable after this. You can do st. MP and they can’t leave the ground which gives you a MP hayate or Ex one resetting the situation. Next you consistently get a low mixup though it only combos into LP hayate. Also karakusa is better as Kara-EX grab can’t be mashed against.
All honestly though karakusa in general is just a bad move most of the time as if they try to escape in any way jump, backdash, or FADC reversal you eat an ultra combo. Really no matter when you use this your putting yourself at tremendous risk, you gotta train them HARD to even think of using this move. Also I take back my comment on the range, its GARBAGE RH version has about 1.25 x throw range. You have to kara the ex version of this to ever hit it reliably as people mashing jab makes it impossible to hit the normal version of this move, seriously it becomes IMPOSSIBLE after any mixup except a st. MP on block and even than that will whiff against some characters if they are holding back and not downback.
FP hayate is the same as MP hayate in terms of mixup.
her main option typically should be bait or st. MP, if she baits a jump that she can fukiage your most damaging punisher is HP fukiage, HP fukiage, EX Tsurugi or if you want stun HP Fukiage, nj. FP. Unfortunately fukiage is almost completely worthless, any range someone should jump at you at only the EX version has any chance of hitting clean and normally trading is the best this move does. Against Balrog you shouldn’t ever use this move unless they are just being stupid, need to experiment with kara-fukiage but thats so slow that I doubt it can be done reliably.
On the positive side of the day I figured out something kind’ve cool if you hayate feint you don’t have any pushback so you can get some cool blockstring extensions by hayate feinting properly.
Her strongest point is poking and she has some cool tricks I figured out.
At 2/3rd the screen too 1/2 screen you can punish most fireballs on reaction with a TK RH Tsurugi. VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY useful. Be careful using tsurugi though as the move is trash the majority of the time as it often leaves you at like +2 or to even making most followups afterwards trade : / st. MP is giving me best results.
Also don’t EVER EVER use this in nuetral game she focus fishing is really effective against makoto.
Next point, focus fishing with makoto is pretty effective, but its REALLY effective against makoto. Honestly Makoto’s dash imo is very very very easy to hit and in general has a pretty sizeable delay at the end making dash up karakusa or throw not a good idea against focus chargers. Best option is typically get out of there or EX oroshi but its annoying that her karakusa sucks so bad that in the corner if they are within jab range you can’t punish it with EX karakusa typically.
Dash up throw in general is going to make you eat > low > special > FADC ultra. Its a gimmick and one that won’t last long. Her dash is slower than 3s and the fact its not terribly difficult to react to and the fact normals are faster in SFIV than in 3s makes dashing suicide forcing you to poke…
her pokes are ok but f.FP is really risky as if they jump you eat a 500+ dmg combo. st. MP is the only one that stands out and if you try to sweep them and they jump you eat a combo cuz it has shit recovery and isn’t even good after a hayate as its to slow to catch jumping. it has good priority though so its useful.
Honestly after really putting her through the ringer I think she is just going to have to punish and try and bait responses with long normal strings to setup Karakusa and use pauses to create openings to bait dp’s. In general it seems your going to have to out think your opponent several times more than they have to you because generally it seems they have 3 or 4 options that you can’t punish heavily and they ultra punish each of yours.
