By the way, when someone tries to ultra you point-blank, I think that mashing out U1 can be unreliable. E.g. I tried it vs DeeJay’s U2: I beat him the first time but his ultra beat mine the second time. I speculate that because Makoto’s U1 starts up relatively fast compared to other ultras, it can lose its invincibility first even if you do it second.
Makoto’s U1 feels like a pretty reliable anti-air, too (vs characters without air specials that can change their trajectory). The timing is relatively lenient: there’s maybe a 3/4-character-height window where they can be in the air when you use U1 in order for them to fall into it. The hitbox seems to extend surprisingly high, e.g. I’ve hit T-Hawk during his air-dive when he was coming in towards my hair.
Fukiage is a difficult anti-air to use. You have to anticipate their jump-in and react to it almost immediately to beat their attack clean. If you’re even a tad late you’ll get a trade, which requires different timing to juggle with mk-tsurugi (but if you just hold uf you can change your tsurugi timing on reaction to whether you hit or traded).
Oroshi is not an anti-air. It seems to have little vertical reach, despite the arc her hand makes. EX-karakusa only works against safe-jump timing, which no one needs to use against Makoto since she has no real DPs anyway. For later jump-ins that come in from above her head, her fastest “anti-airs” seem to be, in order of speed:
forward dash
instant j.lp/j.lk (low damage, though)
jump-back instant j.hp (this works great: it hits really early in the animation when they’re above her and has a nice hitbox)
EX Oroshi has similar anti air properties as Viper’s EX Seismo.
Fukiage is really good when you know that someone is going to jump straight up to avoid a karakusa or throw setup.
U1 is generally really bad to counter someone else’s ultra with. You’re just not invincible enough to get through the beginning active frames of someone else’s ultra. I’ve actually used Makoto’s U1 in response to other characters’ ultras sometimes causing BOTH ultras to whiff and both characters recovering at similar times.
No one has tried to punish my cr.hp yet. What do people use to punish it at max range?
I’m finding it really useful since some people just block high so that they don’t get hit by surprise oroshis. But it’s not worth risking if it’s going to lead to a painful punish combo, especially when Makoto has such low HP. If it’s not safe, then I guess she basically has no high/low game. :shake:
From a level-2 focus you can still hit IA lk or mk tsurugi, but the timing is tighter than a level-3 or counter-hit level-2 focus: too slow and it knocks them into the air.
So you can do something like:
level-2 focus, IA mk tsurugi, s.hp, etc.
Personally, I use lk tsurugi instead: you lose 10 damage and a little stun, but it comes out a bit faster so it’s a bit easier to time it right, and you can still combo into s.hp or ultra.
Ya I just tested it thats udder fail, most characters get a free sweep chun can hit U1 and various people can punish it with super. Man … that really hurts her. At peak range it’s pretty safe against most meterless options. Bleh the more I play the more I think she very well could be the worst character in the game, just so many options that are bleh and no matchups that are looking to be advantageous. Here’s to hoping something ends up working out!
cr. LK doesn’t reach unless its after a FP hayate so post hayate and cr. LP does not combo after cr. LK. cr. LP > cr. LK is possible, but not after a hayate.
Her sweep is a lot like ryus but its even slower startup so imagine ryu’s sweep that can’t be combo’d into. Also if people jump after you press cr. FP they’ll punish its recovery. People didn’t do that to ryu because he had an SRK, you have a command grab and no high damage reliable anti-airs so people WILL do this to you. I had a problem using it because of the second but with better focuses and it being punishable on block that move theres less and less reason for someone to hold down back instead of back. If someone holds back instead of db they can literally WALK out of karakusa, such trash.
I MAINED ryu in the last game and know how crappy his sweep was and I always got at least sweeped when using it, its like that but worse.
Sweep being unsafe at anything but max is nothing new. Sweeping against chun or people w/supers is also never safe for any character and the risk/reward is not in your favor. And Mak the worst character in the game? No. Shes not 3s Mak and will never be as good but shes still good.
How is a character who has no mixup, is low damage, and can’t combo into ultra reliably without a full super meter good? Karakusa works into ultra but its almost impossible to land against anyone with 2 ex stock, anyone who knows holding back after hayate walks out of it, against some character who can even hold down back and not hit, against someone who mashes jab.
Having a completely skewed risk reward ratio that is in your opponents favor makes a character bad, not having any matchups that are advantageous is a bad character, having a lot of bad matchups is a bad character.
The list goes on, I’m not saying the sweep is what breaks her, I’m just saying she has medioicre footsies (good pokes are easy beat when you walk like molasses), mediocre damage, mediocre mixups, and no panic moves. Thats pretty much the definition of a low tier character. Play the game and you’ll see what i’m talking about, 3s mak is not what i’m asking for a character whose command grab will hit someone who has a semblance of how to escape it is.
No mixups? She has more mixups then most of the characters in the cast. Her mixup isn’t the same as in 3s. She’s a poke/counterhit character with a great kara reg grab and a command grab after people are scared to push buttons because of your pokes and IA tsurugi after people expect grabs or low poke. All of her options get raped by random jabs or reversals but because of all of her options shes great at baiting and CH setups. It’s shitty but this is SF4 and that’s how offense works in this game. Low damage? Without ultra she has ok damage but nowhere NEAR low. There are a lot of characters who have worse damage. With ultra or super her damage is scary. As for comboing into ultra she has it better than 75% of the cast.
And saying she has no advantageous matchups and having a lot of bad matchups is STUPID when most of the supposed bad matchups are characters which people have been playing for 1 year vs a -4 day Mak.
Edit: All I’m saying is it’s too early to say what her bad matchups are or how good/bad Mak is because it’s day -4.
Not saying every matchup people feel are unwinnable are going to be, she just doesn’t have answers for certain things. You call her a poking character but how do you beat half the cast whose pokes are as good if not better than yours and they can play a better footsie game than you because they walk well? How do you mixup with a characters whose highest damage punish for a backdash is like 100 damage that isn’t U2 and doesn’t lead to an untechable knockdown? She doesn’t have to be the worst character in the game from 5 - 6 days playing her pretty much every day its just my opinion she is going to be bad. She just doesn’t punish people for what they do for nearly enough damage, she just isn’t able to control the flow of the match because every 3 seconds you have to stop to bait a low risk option of your opponent that can lead to 300 + damage on you. st. MP is awesome and retarded but its not enough to win consistently off of she needs more and that just isn’t in her game.
Tsurugi is to slow to do anything at all off of. People can just mash away and whiff like 3 - 4 jabs and still have time to block this when its tk’d. If you use it poke war you risk getting focused, also since its a mid it has very low chance of hitting at all but if it does hit you get about 250 if they focus they get 300+ easy. If they backdash it they get an easy low damage punish.
Karakusa they get a full combo for backdashing it or jumping it. 300+ easy and without ultra the most you get is like 230. Going for this move unless you can EX hayate one of the fukiage character into the corner or if you have ultra is just silly because the odds they will spam backdash is so high because makoto can’t punish most character hard at all for doing it. Hell some characters like juri are AIRBORNE during their backdash making a high damage punish just impossible. A lot of the cast can backdash even a cr. MP after a hit fp hayate, its just silly.
Her Fukiage is a completely unreliable anti-air and I admit even if it trades its ok, but most ranges smart players jump at you it will simply lose at. If it hits awesome but street fighter is about limiting your opponents options and its easy for someone to completely remove this one.
Oroshi, EX oroshi’s only purpose is for gaining an untechable knockdown imo. People are going to throw you a lot because makoto’s only option is to tech and it loses to that, so all in all as a reversal I think it sucks as its punishable on block also so as a mixup tool its only ok. easy to block, but honestly it does what its designed to do which is more than her other specials.
Hayate - easy huge damage punisher on block, bleh damage on hit and leaves in a barely advantagous situation on hit. Its useful, but the scenario afterwards is just so devoid of viable mixups that it really hurts her game as a mixup character. If she could combo FP hayate off a medium strength move probably would think she’s a lot better but she can’t so after a hayate you opponent is just going to late mash moves, backdash, or jump and you have to guess which is an unfavorable rock paper scissors for you. as karakusa loses to multiple options, her high options are only viable after an FP version and even than they lose to both backdash and mashing, and her low options are punishable on block except cr. LK > hayate which is a single light hit confirm into a special that is punishable by several raw ultras on block. Its like rock paper scissors but your opponent has the dynamite option to just auto-win most scenarios and you don’t.
She can’t interrupt most people game plan so divekick characters give her fits, People with better pokes than her make it impossible for her to run her own game plan, and people with FADC’able reversals can completely stop her mixup options.
Playing makoto is like playing zangief if he didn’t have EX green hand, SPD had normal throw range, Had crap walk speed, Didn’t have lariat, and had no crossups that lead to an advanatgeous situation.
What you’re describing is a mid/high mid tier character. Which Makoto probably is. And I think you’re really underestimating a lot of her options.
Tsurugi stops any jumps and ex beats focus. Also to me it seems a lot faster. After training people to tech throws and learning their pattern for lows , tsurugi instead of throw is fast enough to punish throw attempt or low.
Karakusa is risky and you’re right if you miss you eat a punish but that’s what happens with every grab. Karakusa should only be 25% of your offense, the rest should be throws/pokes/ex oroshi. People are going to spam backdash if your offense revolves around karakusa. People aren’t going to backdash/jump away and eat pokes/punishes over and over and that’s when you replace a poke in your CH setups or ticks with a karakusa. I dunno that’s just what worked for me.
Fukiage beats crossups to the point where crossups aren’t smart against Mak. As for regular jumps, Fukiage is poor but thats where cr.mk/s.mp etc works decently. Her AA is weak but not as weak as some other characters.
Ex Oroshi goes through close range jabs/pokes and it’s one of the faster overheads. Oroshi/Ex Oroshi stops jumps and it’s only punishable on block by very few options if done from far and even then it’s a pretty hard special to punish if blocked because it’s an overhead and can be safe due to different spacing.
Hayate is meh but it does it’s job. Using it outside of combos is never smart so it doesn’t matter if it’s punishable on block and the kara kara/poke/bait mixups after hit, while weak, is still decent.
Maks options are situational and sometimes poor but I think you’re really underestimating them.
Honestly though, sephiroth, while most of your points are valid I seriously don’t think that you’re testing most of these things.
And she does have great pokes and normals, it’s just that she has terrible footsies. This has always been the case. She just has to dash in order to use them, but they work pretty damn well there. High risk sure, but that’s just part of her game.
Tsurugi honestly doesn’t look as bad as you say it is. You say that it’s slow and FA bait, but I can think of many situations where it can be used without needing to worry about those. It seems same on block and leads to good damage on hit, and you can use it to go voer fireballs. Doesn’t as trash of a move as you keep saying.
Also, about the karakusa backdashing problem, didn’t some people say tsurugi stop them cold? Not too sure about it but there might be that option at least.
Jumpers has always been a problem, you just need to guess. I’m still cr. MP will stop that and jab mashes, though for jab mashes we seem to have st. MP which should beat most things.
Fukiage is an unreliable AA but we already have so many stupid good AA options I honestly don’t think that it’s needed.
Divekick characters like rufus and cammy would give her fits on knockdown, but hell, they give most of the roster fits. :lol: I still hoping we can find some counter to it, but we’ll just have to do like most of the cast and block it out. Akuma might a problem too with his vortex but the same thing applies.
And you never use hayate in a situation where they can block unless it’s EX, which is perfectly reasonable.
Honestly obviously my opinion might not be true seeing that I haven’t played yet, but that’s just what I think so far.
I know your theory fighting and I thought the same thing till I DID test the stuff. her only option against most back dashes is literally dash forward without reacting (suicide) or ex hayate. Nothing else works agianst the top 50% of backdashes. Her shit is just mad slow and she isn’t at good frame advantage after a hayate.
She is high risk she’s just average reward with high risk, that’s very crappy and shows in her matchups.
The main problem with hayate on block is that the only unpunishable low mixup is cr. LK and i’ll admit its just a player thing but that shit is mad hard to hit confirm and if you do a hayate on block a good number of the cast can just ultra you. not a matter of meaning to have it blocked and not that it happens often, but if it does your having to put forth all the skill and effort against someone mashing on the other end and their shit is just more effective than yours.
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Honestly I’ll wait till the game drops and the tierlists start coming out but my current impression is that shre really sucks. Her dash also sucks FYI and thats the main problem when you compare her to 3s makoto, 3s makoto could dash in for a mixup and that kept your opponent on his toes. You dash forward in this game and your eating a combo or throw pretty much every time, she can’t even dash forward to punish whiffs like in 3s. I’m all for a “new” makoto, but this one doesn’t have high reward has more risk and dash throw honestly just sucks donkey ballz. She can be new, but crappy is just annoying.
Sephiroth, you are right in most of your points… but they reveal that, as you said, you were maining ryu in vanilla. ALL characters except the holy trinity (sagat/ryu/akuma) in this game have weaknesses and rely on gimmicks and have to live with them.
Mak is no exception imho.
She has also positive points.
(and you should stop bringing up hayate on block situations. )
