I recently started to learn Makoto and I have a pretty good handle on her except I can’t consistently combo off of a medium axe kick or a karakusa. Like I can get it about 6/10 times in training mode. Like off an axe kick I usually begin the hp too early. Anyone have any tips on timing both the axe kick and karakusa? Is there something to watch for? Like when Makoto’s feet hit the ground, or when the opponents feet hit the ground, or something? It seems so much less fluent to combo off of than jump-in normals lol.
Are you playing on stick? Try plinking your buttons if you’re not sure you can hit the timing perfectly.
With the axe kick, there may be some unfortunate instances where you’re unable to combo off of it due to range / height hit at. It’s best to recognise these instances early and not get punished for it. It’s also dependent on whether the opponent was crouching or not.
For karakusa, the timing is just after Makoto releases the opponent from the grab.
Get into training mode and just practise. Muscle memory is far more reliable than visual / audio cues. Try practising the following:
Mk axe kick - Ultra 1
Mk axe kick - HP - Hayate / ex oroshi / ex fuki
Mk axe kick - crouch mp - mp hayate / ex fuki
Mk axe kick - Sweep (Cr.HP)
Try them on crouching opponents too. Different characters will reel back differently so you may need to adapt your strategy.
Medium axekick has a lot of hitstun ( something like 20 or so ) but also a lot of landing recovery ( 12 frames of landing ) , you need to wait a little more to press buttons after she lands.
Some characters make it harder to combo afterwards. When i land a tsurugi on Rose, I have to cmp. If i use smp or shp, it will fail. The pushback may vary a lot depending the dummy you chose.
- Try to find the different ranges of your normals (clk, clp, smp, cmp, shp, chp, …)
- Look at their startup speeds and find the easiest way for you to combo
- Make it harder step by step