The guide for Ibuki in Arcade Edition was recently completed by myself here on Eventhubs.Ibuki has a very specific range in which all of her pokes are very effective. That range is where her far standing Light Punch will be blocked by the opponent. From there, Ibuki can perform all her overheads and mid-range target combos with ease. It's also the best range for her to jump so she can land a crossup (or fake crossup).
Once you knock the opponent down, it's all about the Kunai toss. The Light Kunai is the one you will be relying exclusively on as you cross up for an attack. The opponent will have to watch Ibuki carefully to see which way to block, which is not easy. If the opponent tries to Focus->Backdash out of the Kunai, try to chase them down with your Slide.
It's important as well not to get knocked down with Ibuki. Her low stamina and stun coupled with bad reversal game will always be a factor in a match, so it's best not to try too many gambles against characters with strong knockdown games.
Thanks for going through the effort to do all of this and organize this data.
good tutorial for beginners (which IMO is very important), but there quite a few things here that should be noted.
1. starting a vortex with a light Kunai is not as important as people make it out to be (by now everyone has learned to block it). on wake-up mixing it up (including using the light Kunai, at a limited number of times) is a key factor. and there are many ways to do it.
2. people with gdlike backdashes, can easily destroy her wake-up Kunai vortex (pointing out why its not good to rely on it too much as in post 1). Chars like Rose, Guy, Ibuki and Mak etc... make her Kunai vortex useless. and if they do FA backdash out of it, the only thing you can do to catch them with is a Raid (which if mistimed or blocked, can result in punish situation). and its very hard to react to it...trust me.
anyways the guide is awesome, but i just wanted to help beginners who are taking Ibuki into consideration, to not rely on her wake-up Kunai game to much. its best to have a balance. oh yea and dont get knockdown :)
Thanks for your input Bison (who is good in SSF4, top 7 I think?).
You're right about the Light Kunai, but in order to catch people with good backdashes it's best to just go with a safe jump + crossup, or a non-crossup jump-in. I don't know if Raida is fast enough for an OS against characters like that. If the crossup is ambiguous enough, opponents won't know which way to backdash.
Also timing the Light Kunai is important. But I expect people who start off to find their own timing because each character stands up differently in this game.
best character in the game. Fun wise and spectator wise
Awesome guide, noobs like me need it. And Ibuki really is fun. I've taken down much much better players than me with her unpredictability.
Nyoro: I never got around to adding my list of option selects, but a j.hp with a buffered Neck Breaker catches a ton of backdashes and teleports. It isn't a universal option select, but it's definitely a better option than Raida.
While it sounds unsafe on paper, it *is* an option select. If they block the j.hp by standing still, the Neck Breaker never comes out, so you're usually safe.*
* Do not use against a grappler.
I respect the effort, Nyoro, but I feel like your guide is too incomplete. For example, you don't go into much detail with Ibuki's normal moveset, especially hitboxes. f+LK may be fast and hard to interrupt, but it is nearly useless (poke wise) if your opponent isn't using low normals like cr.MK. In fact, it's very easy to interrupt if you use a normal with a high hitting hitbox, such as Dictator's st.HK, or any normal without a low hurtbox for that matter, such as Chun's st.MP.
And then in the general strategy you say Ibuki's ideal range is far.st.LP range. Okay, but what if you can't ever get in that range? How then are you going to get in close enough to do far.st.LP on someone like Dhalsim or Chun? In reality, Ibuki's normals are poor or average at best, and she will almost never reach that range unless she knocks her opponent down first. In my opinion, if Ibuki isn't at a frame advantage or pressuring her opponent, then she should be outside her opponent's effective poke range (because her normals are usually worse) looking to whiff punish something or get in via gimmick (such as forward dash, TK kunai, SJ j.LK, etc.) or just play super patient. Getting into far.st.LP range is simply an unrealistic goal unless you are like playing against Abel or something.
Another thing I'm concerned with is that while you say super jumping is a beneficial tool for Ibuki, you hardly give any situations where it would actually be used except SJC U2 (in fact you don't give any situations where SJ is useful except SJC U2). For example, TC6 and other launcher resets become devastating at the hands of an Ibuki player skilled with SJC command dash execution. Additionally, launcher resets become basically Ibuki's only means of mixup in certain matchups (such as vs Gouken), due to the inability to vortex. And this is just considering SJC command dash. Similar to CViper, Ibuki can SJC into whatever special she wants, such as doing TC6 xx SJC lk.tsumuji for a blockstring, or even SJCing into FA. These are only a few examples which barely scratch the surface of what super jumping does for Ibuki.
Additionally, you say "there's not much use for this (super jump) approach-wise." I completely disagree. In certain matchups, such as against charge characters, using super jump to avoid their effective antiair range can be very useful. For example, in the Boxer matchup, you'll basically jump over his headbutt, and well over his cr.HP range. His only options to antiair you then is to jump and go air-to-air, such as j.HP, but this means he has to give up charge. Or his other option is to trip guard you, where again he generally has to give up charge, to get out of the way first else you'll simply hit him with sj.LK. When you start getting into your opponent's head, then you can start faking instead with a sj.kunai.
(this post was apparently too long so I had to cut it in half)
(here's the second half)
Next, I don't really agree with the setup of your guides. I appreciate that you make basic guides for many characters, but in each one, you have an over-emphasis on their special attacks. It's almost like you want everybody first learning Ibuki to be spamming tsumuji at midrange like it's a poke (it's not, and it has terrible priority, not to mention the hitbox awkwardness where sometimes the full tsumuji won't even combo), and spamming neckbreakers because it auto sets up her vortex.
When learning a character, the first thing they should do is check out the character's normals. In a real match, unless both players are really bad or unless it's a special case, you'll be seeing at least a 10:1 ratio of normals to specials being done. That being said, learning specials and their applications are important too, but putting them first before normals sort of puts of the emphasis on the wrong area.
Also, b+MP xx command dash does not have to be a hard hitconfirm at all. You can simply buffer the command dash (preferably HK, not MK, because HK will always cross under, whereas MK will be spacing dependent, which can and probably will screw up your kazegiri/raida/whatever input) and then just reaction juggle of your choice.
Lastly, what does "has to play quite tenaciously against grapplers" even mean?
#14, playing Tenaciously against Grapplers means she must always be on the offence and must always be moving. Constant hit and runs, jump outs, and bascially she is most dangerous to grapplers when she is a little buzzing hummingbird around a bird feeder. A character like her can't really play defensivly or too directly offensively against a good grappler.
all that being said I've never lost to an Ibuki, the most she's ever done is annoy me briefly and i've never played as her so i'm just going based on what I know to beat her.
Great work Nyoro. I think about learning Ibuki to counterpick Ryu.