GGACR/May/Strategy

May

Overview

Starter Guide

Combos

General Tactics

May has a diverse and deep tool set. You can freely move between very aggressive "sticky" play, where the opponent can find it very hard to get you away from them, through mid-range pokes to far ranged ways to make your opponent move. Each of these approaches to play also has quite some depth so it is possible to keep your opponent on their toes at all times. Within this freedom there are three typical ways to play May at any point in time.

Patient

May has some of the best buttons in the game and benefits greatly from beefy counterhits such as 5H and j.H in neutral.

Counterhit buttons can lead to insane damage, knockdown and then okizeme.
May's backdash is highly invulnerable and fast, it is great for adjusting spacing very quickly to mess with opponent ranges.
5K, 2D, j.H and 5H are great for space control, they might not necessarily be the fastest normals in the game but they make up for it in long active frames and short recovery.
May's hurtboxes are small and she is lightweight, with some characters it can be hard to confirm into much more than a single poke against her.
May is fast and mobile, it can be very difficult to catch her - playing patiently does not necessarily mean playing slowly.
Hoops are a great space control mechanism and can force opponents to move across the screen toward or away from you.

Forcing the opponent to deal with all of the above options and then hitting them with a counterhit 6P when they are frustrated into trying to come in can make dealing with May players with strong defense hard. A single read or reaction can win May a round.

Keep in mind though that properly using this playstyle requires a good deal of knowledge and recognition to be able to adequately poke holes in opponent's offense. IB, jump out, backdashing, and proper FD usage become vital, lest you get completely mixed while trying to find an escape route under pressure.

Aggressive

On the flip side, May has some tremendously powerful close range buttons and once she is standing on your shoes it is very hard to push her off.

May's P buttons are very fast and have great hitboxes, using them in stagger pressure lets you stay close and build a throw game.
5H is +7 on block and lets you frametrap or pressure with more buttons.
j.D FDC can be a great tool for giving May a KoF style short hop which is really hard to anti-air and can make opponents start worrying about blocking high in the middle of strings.
Overhead Kiss and normal throws can open up very defensive opponents, especially when you mix OHK in with pressure resets such as dash 2P.
Force break Mr. Dolphin Horizontal (56D during [4]6S/H) and Vertical (58D during [2]8S/H) allow extended pressure.
6[P] and 6[H] have kara-cancel windows that you can use to fake out buttons and cancel them into any special move.
2K, 2H and 2D all hit low which is scary when a strong tick throw and command grab game are implemented and used in frame traps where tick setups are expected.
Corner pressure lets you get good damage for little meter. So you can use it for okizeme or extending pressure to increase guard gauge and make corner counterhits terrifying for your opponent.
5D has a built in mixup on button hold, is safe at range and can be a basic but effective high/low mixup.
Hoop lets you get safe okizeme or force your opponent to block a projectile which doesn't disappear even if you get hit.
TK srr can be a 13f overhead from a standing position, this is the third fastest overhead in the game but requires meter to really capitalise from. This gives May a strong up close pressure game but it does require you to be very close lest it whiff.

This style of play takes plenty of practice and an ability to quickly suss your opponent's defensive habits to decide whether you have the time and space to reset/extend pressure or use your dust. It can be easy to use FD to push May away from you and whiff punish pressure strings if the May player is not prepped or does not have the high level of execution required. A lot of the ways to retain pressure such as 5P 6H [2]8S and j.D FDC are difficult to perform. May has many ways to reset pressures and it is important to be able to use a quite wide variety of strings to be able to keep your opponent guessing.

Clown shoes

May has some moves, notably all Mr Dolphins and Rolling Restive, which can be hard to deal with. They will cross up when you least expect them to, they are very active and some characters can have a very hard time just dealing with the moves themselves. There are lots of risk associated with using these moves a lot in neutral, but this play style really starts to begin to be more scary when May has meter. The ability to mix between force break dolphins to catch people trying to beat them or FRCs to catch those trying to punish the moves let you start to make people very frustrated. It becomes particularly effective when your charge game is very strong so that you can use 6H and 6[H] to keep them pinned down with big and scary buttons.

The nature of Guilty Gear and fighting games in general will require that you mix your approaches to the game against skilled opponents. Over reliance on one of these will leave you with holes in your gameplan. So, you must find the proper balance of all three, whatever that is for you as a player. Despite lacking in some areas, if you are willing to overcome the walls of nuance, and some character specific knowledge requirements, May can take you far.

Okizeme

Doc with deeper explanation of May's okizeme by Aloysius

May can start her okizeme once she scores a knockdown on her opponent. There are four main ways May can score a knockdown to begin her okizeme: 2D, [2]8H, throw, and air throw. In the corner, May's mixups can lead into ridiculous amounts of damage for only a small meter cost. At midscreen, May's high/low mixups without meter are much less damaging, however May also has opportunities for very ambiguous crossup setups.

May's basic oki is of three main types.

Safejump mixups
Meaty buttons and projectiles, frame traps and throw baits
Left-right j.2H mixups

Safejump mixups

A little bit of a misnomer, these mixups revolve around the premise that you have got and will use a safe jump.

Although there is a slight manual timing to these, you can quickly get accustomed to it. The idea for all of them is that you complete your move which knocks down, perform a short dash and then jump toward your opponent. If you time it correctly then your jumping button will hit them on the first frame after standing up and you can land in time to safely block any reversal they perform.

This can help you to establish respect from your opponent and it is this respect you are looking to exploit with this mixup type. Your options are

Safejump j.S followed by 2K. This hits high and then low and will keep you safe from reversals. It should be used frequently to establish it. Once your opponent blocks then this is an excellent opportunity to try to use some frame traps and baits.
Empty jump (no buttons pressed in the air or a button which is whiffed on purpose to make it look like you are going high), followed by 2K. This hits low and can catch an opponent who is expecting a high. You can choose to make this safe from reversals as well but this stops the 2K being meaty.
Late air dash. Typically j.S > j.K for a high followed by another high. This can open up lots of opponents at all levels. This can also catch opponents who prefer to backdash as a reversal. This option is also not usually safe against reversals, you give this up to hopefully open your opponent up.

{{#evt: service=youtube |id=https://youtu.be/-RiLecvlmVE |dimensions=640×480 |description=Safejump Okizeme |container=frame }}

Meaties and frame traps

May’s buttons are really very good. They have excellent and wide-ranging hitbox properties. This means that you almost always have a good button to use in any situation.

May has quite free gatlings. Lots of buttons which are good as meaties that have a lot of different gatling options. Some of these options leave gaps, of varying sizes, and others don’t or have gaps in different places. Some examples are

5K > 5H, there is a gap in here between the two, if your opponent mashes a non-invulnerable button then they will likely get counterhit by 5H and staggered
5K > 6P, the same as the above but with a slightly larger gap and different reward.
5H > 5H, not a gatling, but 5H is +7 on block and just doing it again can establish fear of it (or net you a nice counterhit and a stagger)
5P > 5P > 6H, the aim of this one is to try to catch opponents jumping out after 5P

Similarly from hard knockdowns you can summon a hoop (Applause for the Victim) which is released immediately and will hit your opponent meaty. This allows you to stand at a safe distance and react to what your opponent does.

Another typical scenario is when you knock down an opponent with an invulnerable rising reversal (for example Sol’s Volcanic Viper or Ky’s Vapour Thrust). In these situations you can press 2H or 2K from a little bit further out to make them need to block it as they wake up, but if they perform their reversal you “low profile” it, where the hurt-boxes you have are either pulled too far back or too close to the ground for their move to hit you, allowing you to punish that option.

To add depth though, there is a very old-school tactic that new players mostly won’t recognise. You will stand in front of your opponent and tap down a few times allowing the character to return to neutral in between. You might call this “teabagging” now, but here it is better described as animation misdirection, and does not carry the same idea of disrespect. What you are doing is trying to trick your opponent into believing that you are buffering a motion which involves down. There are a huge number of videos in which you will see this and opponents taking the bait and performing wakeup reversals only to have completely mis-read the situation. It is best used sparingly but it can be very effective for setting up one of the meaty button scenarios mentioned above where it only looks like you’re trying to do something else.

Similarly to this, May has the ability to fake out some of her moves. In ACPR May was given the ability to “kara-cancel” both, her 6[H] and 6[P]. If you are charging either of these buttons they can be very scary to block or get hit by. It is possible to use this fear to let you cancel the startup of the button (before it hits) into an overhead kiss or any other special move. This can be particularly effective at beginner levels and is a good okizeme option to drop in occasionally. Especially when you also start to use 6[H] > 63214K, letting the 6[H] hit.

Ambiguous crossups

On a hard knockdown, midscreen it is possible to make your opponent guess which side of them you are on. The idea here is simple, for the beginner version you knock your opponent down, you run up to their corpse, jump forward and use j.2H to make them guess which side you are on. Jumping sooner can leave you on the same side, jumping later you will cross up.

{{#evt: service=youtube |id=https://youtu.be/Ek1d3aj4n3I |dimensions=640×480 |description=Ambiguous Crossups |container=frame }}

Beyond the basics

More complex okizeme with May has a higher execution barrier and typically a need for more meter to be used to force the guess.

The standard safe jump mixup above can be extended. There are a lot more mind games at play here and the execution is more demanding. Intermediate players may also want to set up a stronger corner carry using e.g. 2K c.S 6P [4]6S (whiff) > run > jump to set up this situation.

j.S > 2K [high > low]
j.P > throw [high > throw]
j.S > j.623S FRC > ... [high > high > high]*
j.S > j.623H FRC > 2K [high > high > low]
j.S > 2K c.S > TK j.623H [high > low > mid > high]
late air dash j.S > j.K > 2K [high > high > low]
late air dash j.K > j.P > j.K > 2K [high > high > high > low]
late air dash j.K > j.P > j.H(whiff) > 2K [high > high > fake high > low]
late air dash j.K > j.P > j.H(whiff) > throw [high > high > fake high > throw]
empty jump 2K 5D [low > high]
empty jump 2K 5[D] [low > low]

This is not an exhaustive list but aims to inspire you to add lots of variety into a basic mixup to make it far more complicated to guess how to block. Some of these are easier to react to but with enough variety your opponent’s mental stack will be too full looking for other things.

Tips and Tricks

This section is intended to support you in learning common and useful things for playing May as well as some strange and off-kilter tricks that you can pull out when it matters most. Before you begin it is worth reading the Guilty Gear Encyclopedia to familiarise yourself with terms and ideas from the game. It is also worth reading Machabo's discourse on fundamentals to develop a stronger idea of how to approach becoming good at Guilty Gear.

Charging strategies

Application: opening damaging combo routes, understanding the flow of how and when to charge

Difficulty: Beginner

Introduction to Charge Moves

"Charge moves" are special moves where you need to hold one direction for a specific amount of time before inputting another direction and a button. For May there are two different moves, namely Horizontal and Vertical Mr. Dolphin ([4]6S/H and [2]8S/H respectively). The duration for which you need to hold either back or down to be able to perform both of these moves is 30 frames (0.5 seconds). New players often find it difficult to understand when they should be generating charge and how to do it in combos.

The directional inputs are not typically described this way but they are "fuzzy". This means that any direction which includes a back input (e.g. [1]) can be used for the Horizontal charge and it can be completed with any direction which includes a forward input (e.g. 3). The only exception to this rule is [1]9S/H which will always give you a Vertical Mr. Dolphin. This is because the inputs are suitable for both charges, but the game prioritises the inputs for the Vertical version of the move.

Appraoching charging in general

You may have heard people saying "always be charging" when they are talking about charge characters. This is not necessarily the case in Guilty Gear. Typically you should favour movement over generating charge for special moves. Your focus initially needs to be on playing around your normals and generating charge during a hit or whilst your buttons are coming out.

One exception to this is when you are defending. Whilst you are holding back or down-back for blocking you are also building charge. This can be very useful in getting you enough time to be able to anti-air any jump follow ups into potentially big damage. This is, however, a double edged sword and you do need to be careful not to mis-time Dead Angle Attacks as you might end up performing the special move. A tip to avoid this is to always use 6(PK) to perform your Dead Angle.

Charging in combos

May's combos involve three different types of charging. It is important to be able to do them all.

Natural charge: This is achieved naturally during the buttons you are pressing if you use a simple trick. Suppose you want to do 2K 2D [2]8H. The duration of your 2K and 2D means that by the time you have confirmed that it has hit and are inputting the 8H the charge has already built. Similarly, if you replace the 2 inputs with a 1 then you can cancel into Horizontal Mr. Dolpin in the same way. Another example is 4S 4H 1D 6H which completes a Horizontal Mr. Dolphin off of the sweep.

Buffer manipulation: The most important means for generating charge in May's standard combos. The idea here is to take advantage of the game's lenient input buffer. Suppose you want to do c5S 5H [2]8S, as in the combos section. Here you will press c5S and immediately dial in 5H and move your input to down. This will let you start charging for the dolphin before 5H even begins to come out. This also applies to the far more difficult 5P c5S [2]8H - the idea is the same, but the window in which you are allowed to do it is smaller and it is just harder.

Plain old hard: Some combos require you to do one move, and then move into a charging position whilst that move is happening and then cancel that move's recovery into your special. Examples of this include 6H [2]8H, 6[P] [4]6H and 6P [4]6H. There is no trick to doing these, you simply have to perform the move and quickly begin charging. They are difficult but starting by learning how to perform the charge with the charged versions of the move can be a good place to start. Even kedako fails these on occasion and there is no player with better execution than him.

Hiding charges

It is possible to mask charging by holding a down or back input whilst performing another action which is not a button.

Jumping: you can hold both down or back during a jump so that you can perform a charge move as soon as you land.
Running: it is possible to obtain a down charge whilst running, but not a back charge. You perform this by starting a run and then changing your input from forward to down-forward. This allows you to continue running but also lets you cancel the run into a vertical dolphin when you have enough charge.

The importance of 5K

Application The cornerstone button in May's toolkit, it does so many things

Difficulty: Beginner

Learning to use 5K properly is a very important part of playing May. It should be your go-to neutral poking, horizontal space control button. It is fast, hard to beat cleanly and hard to whiff punish.

May's 5k has no throwable hurtbox from frames 4 to 14. This means that you cannot be thrown out of it on those frames, allowing you to stand point blank against your opponent without having to worry about them throwing you. The fear of this button also then allows you to stand very close to your opponents on wakeup and use something else completely different, but only once that fear has been established. Just by virtue of not being able to throw a single button, your pressure game is allowed to be more varied and gives you a privilege to stand right next to somebody on wakeup that so many other characters just do not have.

This button has no hurtbox in the lower third (below where May swings horizontally from the anchor). This means that the move is good at going over low-profile moves and landing you a hit on your opponent or allowing you to avoid getting hit. This includes, but is not limited to Potemkin's Slidehead, Chipp's 2D (at most ranges), Slayer 2H and more. This is why it is sometimes referred to as a "low crush", it beats moves which hit low.

5K has gatling, special, jump, RC and super cancel options meaning that if you do hit it or force your opponent to block then there are lots of ways to capitalise on the situation. It might not always lead into knockdown (as 5K 3K is hard to confirm) but you are able to use it to force them to react to whatever you want to do next. When used from close range you can use 2D, jc.623S, 5D or 5[D] to create a rudimentary high/low mixup game where the high can be a complete guess or hard to block. In this way 5K can open the door to decent mixups and pressure.

Abare

Application: You want to try to counterattack when on defence, but don't know what to do

Difficulty Beginner

May has excellent buttons. Sometimes, on defense you will be tempted to press them or you will be trying to use fuzzy abare. However, you need to begin developing a good read on the situation you are in and your opponent's offense in order to pick the right tool for the job. Each button can be used and will find different places in which it excels at this task.

I want a fast button: then your abare option is 5P (5F startup) for its good horizontal range or 2P (4F startup). Both of these buttons are "mashable" and chain into themselves, even on whiff, allowing you to press them multiple times to confirm that you have hit and obtain a knockdown.
My opponent loves lows: then 5K (9F startup) is the one for you. You need to be sure that there is a gap big enough for this one as it is a little bit slower.
I smell a pressure reset coming: 2K (7F startup) or 2D (7F startup) are very fast and good for preventing people from simply running back in at you.

Kara-cancels

Application: you need additional, tricksy ways to open up your opponent

Difficulty: Beginner

May is able to cancel the startup/charging of both 6[H] and 6[P] into special moves. Typically this will be Overhead Kiss (63214K). This is performed by charging the command normal and before it becomes active performing the special.

This technique has niche use as a way to catch an opponent who is afraid of getting hit in the air by 6H or 6P or whose mental stack is full. As such, its best used when you have used a variety of options already and your opponent will be guessing about what comes next.

{{#evt: service=youtube |id=https://youtu.be/ysRTofAuPEw?t=4538 |dimensions=640×480 |description=Kedako using 6H kara-cancel |container=frame }}

Dash momentum

Application: increasing horizontal range on moves such as dashing shd

Difficulty: Beginner

It is possible to use dash momentum to extend the "range" on some of your moves. These are some options to help you get the options more reliably.

Dashing whiner for OTG is a good way to extend a normal throw's damage if it will kill. However, whiner won't reach from the range at which you are left and the window is pretty tight. To make this easier you can try to use either 663124H or 6321466H as single motions instead of 66,63214H as separated inputs. This one is just a case of combining the dash into the whiner input or prebuffer the whiner and take advantage of the input buffer memory duration.

Dashing Horizontal Mr. Dolpin: Sometimes you want to cover a lot of ground quickly but do not want to do something quite as telegraphed as [4]6H. It is possible to cancel a dash into a Horizontal Mr. Dolphin by taking advantage of the buffer memory duration. The key is to do this using [4]66~S so that you have the charge before you dash, allow a short dash by delaying the S input and pressing it late. It will not be something you use very often, but knowing how to do it means you have more freedom to play around with horizontal distances and not be in the position your opponent may expect.

Using dash end animation to help with 6H/6P cancels: When cancelling your dash into a normal there is a small duration after pressing it that your button is registered and does not come out. This allows you to start pre-charging your cancel in the same way as using buffer manipulation allows you to charge during standing normals.

Mixup execution tips

Application: you are leaving damage or opportunities on the table and want to up your game

Difficulty: Intermediate

Fuzzy guard setups

The concept of a fuzzy is pretty straight forward. This is something that having safejumps allows you to take advantage of, but with May's jump arc and speed it is difficult.

{{#evt: service=youtube |id=https://youtu.be/OkX_AZ0WCNA |dimensions=640×480 |description=Fuzzy setup on Slayer |container=frame }}

This example shows the basic premise, if Slayer switches to a crouching block here the game does not immediately shrink his sprite to crouching state and he can be hit high with the j.K, although at this point the combo should drop and the follow up j.S will whiff and their sprite will be in crouching hit state. Other examples include using a jump installed Jackhound, 214D RC j.D. Here the j.D hits fuzzy. These can be really good ways to close out rounds where people expect May not to have ways to mix them up.

The main way May will take advantage of this property is with the same safejump concept, but through using Restive Rolling, j.623S. If the opponent crouches following the jump button you might expect that the Restive Rolling will whiff. It does not, take full advantage of this to keep your opponent guessing during games more generally than the above.

Tiger knee Restive Rolling

S Restive Rolling, j.623S immediately off the ground gives May access to the third fastest overhead in the game (at 13F from standing to hitting). Here are some inputs to try to help you to improve your consistency with it. There is no minimum height requirement for the move so it is difficult to tell if you have gotten it right. The best way is to go to training mode and set the dummy to crouch and block. If they have to stand up to block it then you have input the move correctly. If you are able to FRC the move consistently then another way to check is if you have access to an air dash after doing the FRC. If you perform the grounded Restive Rolling instead then you have no air options after FRC.

923S easiest on hitbox and keyboard
6239S easiest on pad
6321493 easiest on stick, but can be very alien to begin with

Defense Cancels

Application: Altering your air momentum to change your timing, position and fall speed

Difficulty: Intermediate and Advanced

For lack of a better term this section discusses faultless defense cancels (FDC) and slashback cancels (SBC). May is able to cancel the startup of some of her moves into faultless defense or slashback attempt. The most useful of these are the moves which alter your jump momentum as part of the move. Specifically j.2H and j.D.

Use of these changes May's possible jump arcs and allows spacing to be far less predictable or allow King of Fighters style short hops. Operation of these techniques differ slightly between the two options.

j.2H

This is usually performed by making use of the H button press itself by simply holding H when performing the input and pressing one other button almost immediately afterwards. If you wish to perform the SBC version of this then your only option is to press and hold H and piano into S. For FDC you can take your choice of P or K and perform it in the same way.

j.D

Performing the j.D cancel is more difficult. This is because your initial button press does not include a button which is used for faultless defense or slashback. This technique is further complicated by your own current burst status. If you have burst then it is more difficult to perform either the FDC or SBC than when you do not due to the overlap with burst inputs. Initially you may not be able to get it at all without activating burst but it is possible.

The typical input for the j.D FDC is to press j.D and quickly then press both P and K together in order to more easily differentiate it mentally from the SBC version which is the same but with S and H.

Applause Rebuffer

Application: you can summon a hoop but also use the button which charges it for a short time afterwards

Difficulty: Advanced

Applause for the Victim (aka Hoop, 41236X) has an FRC point at frames 23-24 which can be done with any three buttons. Following the FRC there is a period of time before the hoop is considered active in which you can press any button, including the one you used for the move and hold that button in order to charge the hoop. This enables more complex okizeme and pressure.

For example: 41236K, press PKS for the FRC and then press 5[K] to get a 5K to come out and also use that button to be charging the hoop. The window for this is wide enough that you can always press 5P and rebuffer the button for the hoop behind it without the hoop activating.

Pseudo-unblockable setups

Application: force your opponent into situations using Great Yamada Attack, 236236S, where they cannot block following the super freeze

Difficulty: Advanced

May's Applause for the Victim, 41236P/K/S/H/D, released dolphins are able to continue moving during a "super flash". These are the frames at the startup of a super where both your inputs and your opponent's inputs are not registered and the characters are fixed in place.

May can take advantage of this by using her Great Yamada Attack, 236236S. The idea is to place a hoop over your opponent, perform the super and release the dolphins from the hoop during the time in which the super causes the screen to freeze. If your opponent is not blocking prior to the super causing the freeze then the released dolphin is guaranteed to hit them (assuming they are within range) and this then combos into Yamada-san and allows you to get a further pick up depending on character and screen position.

Note: this is not a true unblockable in the same way that other characters have. The way to block it is to already be blocking when it happens. This is a 'pseudo-unblockable'.

{{#evt: service=youtube |id=https://youtu.be/z6UUS9-zo3k |dimensions=640×480 |description=Unblockable setup |container=frame }}

This becomes scarier when you use FRC on the hoop to reduce the time before you can perform the super, at the cost of higher tension use.

Fighting May

May has a very versatile toolset. Whilst not the strongest keepaway game, she can zone very well with her buttons and hoops. When she gets into pressure situations (range 1) she can very easily delete your health bar. She has an excellent jump, in terms of speed, height and initial acceleration which allows her to jump out of a great many setups that no other character can. Her walk speed is quite slow but her other movement options are fast and she has a lot of non-linear movement options.

When fighting May, your priorities should be:

 1. you typically shouldn't let her play mid-neutral (ranges 1 and 2) 
 2. don't let her get above you
 3. do not get counterhit by over-reaching

If you can successfully do these, and do them well then May's options become severely crippled. If your character has options to prevent may getting to within counterpoke, whiff punish or pressure games then even strong May players can quickly become frustrated and start to put themselves into much higher risk scenarios to just gain an advantage. Be on the lookout for excessive IADs, both sets of Mr. Dolphin ([4]6S/H, [2]8S/H) and Overhead Kiss (41236K).

Points of note

May's buttons are tremendously strong once they are out, but the big buttons are slow to start up and the small buttons lead to much smaller reward and have much shorter range.
Mr. Dolphin can be easily played around by instant blocking them and punishing. Some characters can even punish Horizontal Mr. Dolphin on hit.
Damage output, strong neutral play and powerful mixups are locked behind meter usage outside of very select scenarios.

How to handle May pressure

If May does get close to you then you need to use this as an opportunity to first do some information gathering. There are lots of things that you can and should be afraid of, but you need to also know how the May player is operating. Do they know how to deal with you just using FD to push her out and punish a whiffed button? Do they use lots of frametraps? What are the ends of the blockstrings? How much do they rely on Overhead Kiss? There is a huge amount of information that is needed to combat a May offense.

May's strong pressure buttons are short range. If you can use FD to push her away after her opening gambit then May can use meter to get back in, or simply accept the return to range 2 and both of you playing neutral. May's 5K is throw invulnerable, it is very good for baiting wakeup throws and throw mashes so be careful if you do try to counter her play with a throw.

Faultless defence if you expect a string
Fuzzy or FD jump if you expect a tick throw or Overhead Kiss (make a note of whether they can perform the FRC on it)

If May gets above you then things can get more difficult. What you can do in this situation depends completely on your character and you should try to find out what you can do. For example, Dizzy's 2S and Slayer's 5P can work really well here and the options are different by character. One strong option is if you have a fast horizontal lunging move which can just reposition you away from the situation.

How to pressure May

Whilst May does not have a traditional reversal she benefits greatly from using system mechanics such as FD to make space so that she can freely manoeuvre out or fuzzy jump/fuzzy abare with 2P. Her backdash is tremendous in a snap, she can low profile lots of things using 2K, 2H, 3K, 6P etc. and she has some of the best overdrives in the game. Whirlwind (63214S) is armoured and very plus on block if the opponent cannot perform the slashback punish or throw/reversal overdrive the startup, Ultimate Whiner (63214H) is a very fast invulnerable reversal and Great Yamada Attack (236236S) has pre-startup that can be beaten but once it is out is very large and can lead into massive damage and stun.

You must play around all of the available options that May has.

How/when to burst vs. May

May combos are typically not particularly burst safe but this does not mean it is easy to burst against her. You should not burst far range buttons like f5S as the hurtbox is quite disjoint and retracts reasonably quickly on whiff, dolphins when they hit you bounce away very quickly (unless they hit you from above) and so a burst will easily whiff.

Places you can burst: air strings where you expect the next button to be j.D, expected chains c5S into 6P or 5H and Mr. Dolphin before it hits.