Guerilla tactics
You're gonna want to get close to your opponent most of the time. I'm gonna talk about the options you have to do that. You can go by air or by land and all in all you have quite a few tools. I'm not gonna talk about what you do once you do get in, that's a subject for another day.
By Land: Dash Tactics
Dashing is the simplest and most versitile way of getting in. If you have a very inactive opponent it's hard to resist dashing in and grabbing them. However, after even a few matches people will realise how dangerous the dash is, and will start putting out moves to counter it. If their counter move is slow you can let it whiff and dash in after it. I personally have been dp'd on reaction after such a dash attempt, so it's not fool proof. Another way to punish the whiff is by holding a Hayate and releasing it as you see their attack miss. Some moves are too fast to punish like that. Things like low shorts, jabs or shoto crouching strongs etc. Countering these brings us into the higher levels of guessing. Hayate's will beat certain moves on hitboxes alone. Even so, if we're talking about someone truely spamming a fast move over and over again, then chances are we WILL hit them in either the startup or recovery frames of that move. EX Hayate will even give you that extra blanket of security if it happens to be blocked, it is probably your best option in such a situation since it knocks down and pushes them a considerable distance towards the corner and is safe on block. The problem with both regular and EX Hayates is that certain low moves will beat them, most notably Shoto low forward and Chun low forward. But there's more, f+hp works well because it moves you forward about as far as the dash does. Again, those low moves will beat this option too. When you're already pretty close but are looking to get those last few steps to throw/Karakusa range other options become available, things you would normally not think of using as a way to get close but now become useful because of their evasive properties: neutral hk, toward + lk and universal overhead. All of these avoid low attacks to a certain extent. All these attacking options are no substitute for what a dash can do. My personal opinion is that mixing up all your options prevents you from becoming predictable, so all these things are viable. A rule of thumb would be: if a regular dash gets beaten then a delayed dash would have probably worked. This holds true for most situations. Even moves like Chun's low forward which is very fast and mostly impossible to punish on reaction has an opening. If the Chun player has meter he's probably buffering the super motion after the low forward, this means there will be a delay before his next move and also a longer period of time before his stick goes back to blocking, use this to your advantage. The extra time you get because of players buffering super motion is not much, but it can be enough for you to safely dash in after the whiff. If there is no question of buffering super and the player is purely spamming normals outside range, then dashing is less risky but also more prone to failure. When facing a wall of limbs, a random Hayate (EX and regular) or toward + hp will do just fine
- Dash vs. block/nothing
- Delayed Dash vs. slow normal
- F + HP and Hayate(EX) etc. vs. attack spam
By Air: Jumping
Makoto's jump arc is pretty good, maybe just average. Besides the regular variation in timing/depth as well as air parries applies to Makoto as it applies to all characters. In addition to the standard jumping trickery Makoto also gets the Tsurugi aka axe-kick. The move will suspend Makoto in the air for a short period of time and the move itself is quite slow making it a little hard to parry. It counters people that parry too soon and don't move the stick back to block afterwards. I've had it hit people who try to throw based on timing alone, they sense a certain amount of time pass without contact and seem to react as though it was an empty jump. The EX Tsurugi is more likely to evoke such a reaction because it can be done lower to the ground without getting canceled by the landing. Whether or not you choose the hk version for the knockdown/mixup or the mk version for a possible followup combo is entirely up to you. Makoto also has a crossup in the jumping mk, but it's not as good as other ones in the game. The hitbox is a little small on the back leg so it's less forgiving with the spacing than the shoto jumping mk. Other notable features of Makoto's jumping game include the vertical reach of her jumping mk and jumping hp which can let you vary the timing of your jumpins even more. Early/shallow jumpins tend to get parried less often since they also represent a smaller threat than the deeper ones which open up combo possibilities. The last thing about the air attack I'd like to mention is that if you're faced with an air to air battle jumping lk sets up a nasty crossup dash after landing especially after an air parry. It's something I've seen J (skilled Japanese Makoto player) do quite frequently.
