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Yeah i tried those things, i was either too slow or too fast or something. It would work some times and others it wouldnt. It was just frustrating that it was essentially a flow chart blanka and i knew what was coming and yup. Just frustrating. Trying to move on.
I don’t think i’m going to play online for awhile. Just gonna stick to training mode for awhile. I get too angry and want to stop playing when i play online and i will never improve that way.
For some reason you’re afraid to get close to Makoto. You seem interested in only throwing out kunais, and landing cr.hk, st.hk target combos, and random neckbreakers. After a knockdown you should always follow up with some form of offensive pressure up close, whether it be safe jumps, or vortex, or just a regular attack string. Not once did you get close to Makoto and put her on the defensive.
For the defensive side of things, don’t be afraid to use focus+dash cancel to get out of her attack strings. It beats out many installed option selects, and her dash is really effective at getting you away from Makoto, so that you can find another opportunity to do damage.
Pretty much sums up my gaming experience. I have learnt through my own mistakes that if i get up close to someone i am easily punished yet I can never seem to do the same (and by never i mean i do it like 1 in 10 times =/).
And this is what I know i need to improve on… Thank you.
I think i need to work on things like f+MK, cr.LP, st.MK xx neckbreaker or something simillar. Is the sort of offensive pressure you’re talking about?
Also, things like st.MP, st.MP, st.MK xx MK Tsumuji… how often should i be attempting things like that? should I be throwing out poke st.MP all the time and if it connects to follow through? When im doing footsies im really at a loss as to what i should be using to poke with, what i should be looking for as an opening etc. This is why i end up spending most of my time defending and trying to counter attack as it leaves slightly less room for them to punish me (in my head).
As for the kunai and neckbreakers, those are a bad habbit im trying to break from a long time of noobing it up before taking the game seriously. The kunai’s are a result of “hmm nothings happening, better build some meter” and the neckbreakers are like “sooo far away, wonder if i’ll get lucky”. I kinda do them from muscle memory now and out of lack of patience. And that’s a direct result of being a noob and thinking this game was all about special moves. I know alot better now but sadly it’s gonna take just as many hours to unlearn that crap as i spent doing it in matches 
Really appreciate everyone taking the time to give me advice, i know my matches must be painful to watch. I hope in a couple months we’ll be able to look back on these videos and all have a laugh at how terrible i was - or rather i’ll be able to laugh coz im sure you all are now 
haha
Cheers
Playing footsies with Ibuki is not easy. I think it’s well known by now that her normals are far from the best at midrange. But it’s still doable as long as you do away with the idea that you have to have a universal, high priority, spammable normal in order to play footsies. As Ibuki, you should instead focus on countering your opponent’s pokes: ie: counter poking.
This is going to take a good understanding of Ibuki normals, as you’ll have to cater what you press and when you press to what your opponent presses. Things like f+LK to counter lows or sweep as a whiff punish or utilizing the outstanding hitboxes of far.st.LP and far.st.MP, etc.
Hmm ok, i thought i had a good grasp on her normals and unique attacks… I think i better have another re-read of the player guide from start to finish and not skip over anything this time. Looks like I need to re-evaluate some things 
When you’re up close it’s important to know which of your attacks are a true blockstring, and which are not. No opponent can punish a blockstring since you don’t have any gaps in your offense to allow a reversal. For example, the third “kick” of a mk or hk tsumuji is not a true blockstring. Anybody can reversal the 3rd attack, or focus+dash and punish. However doing 4 cr.jabs in a row, is not punishable.
Usually st.mp, st.mp, st.mk xx mk tsumuji is reserved for punishes, since it does the most damage. However you could also substitute a neckbreaker in there for more stun and positioning, or an EX neckbreaker to setup for unblockables. You could start off by doing cr.jabs, since from there, you can hit confirm it into a combo, or if the opponent blocks, you can go for a throw or a frame trap, or another cross-up to continue the pressure. Be sure to read over the Ibuki guide to get a very comprehensive list of combos you can do.
Every kunai you throw should have a purpose to it. If you feel the need to “build meter”, you’re usually safer doing lp raidas at full screen if you want, but that time is usually better spent at mid-range fishing for openings to attack. Your normals are going to win most of your matches as opposed to doing a special move with no purpose. Eventually you’ll train your muscle memory, and your mind, to be patient, and to play a more surgical style.
Mingo makes a good point about Ibuki’s footsies. All of her normals should be used in certain scenarios, and she certainly has no “one button win move” that’s going to dominate in footsies. You sort of have to be creative in using her attacks to get in on someone. For example, f+lk is great for beating low attacks such as ryu’s cr.forward, but you can only combo into it off of a counterhit. Her cr.mp is universally used as an option select to beat high-attacks and to lead to a knockdown, but it tends to lose to fast, low, long range pokes. Her f+HK can be used to stuff all low attacks, but cannot be combo’d into, and may leave you too close to the opponent, which you may or may not want. st.jab is your fastest poke that can punish certain attacks, and leads to combos, and st.mp is great for stuffing honda’s headbutt and blanka’s ball. These are just some examples.
We’ve all been a “freebuki” when we first started using her, so don’t sweat being a bad one. Personally I don’t mind helping anyone level up their game as long as they’re willing to listen and put in the time and effort to improve, as opposed to whining about her weaknesses and beggining capcom to patch her asap.
@Mingo
Ahahahaha this is sooo true. When I started playing SSFIV, I tried to play Dudley, my vanilla main was Ken,and I remember that each time I lost to a supid flowchart shoto I was so angry that I’d continuously try to rematch the guy, take Ken, and punish him ^^
Just one thing. STOP NECKBREAKERS. But really. STOP. Don’t EVER neckbreaker without any kind of hit confirm before. If you can’t do that for now, I’d recommend you to spend some time fighting without even using neckbreaker, and relying on Tsumuji only, which is way safer (LK-Tsumuj’ing is way safer at mid range than neckbreaking…). Once you can get rid of these neckbreaker, you’ll just be a;ble to incorporate them back to your game, only at the end of combos. The only way you could be using “natural” neckbreaker is an EX one to slide under a fireball.
Also, don’t EVER leave your opponent alone if he’s down. This is the best situation you can be in: you standing, him laying on the floor. If you wait for him to get back on his feet, you just lost a probably huge opportunity.
I’d recommend you something: don’t quit playing online, but don’t play online if you don’t know how to.
You just have to evolve following a logical order. Don’t even try to start with something too difficult
1st, please stop using the target combo cr.HK st.HK. This combo is a launcher for tricky mixups afterwards. If you don’t know how to use it, you just actually loose the close range when you hit your opponent, and loosing close range is all you want to avoid! You’ll be back to this combo later, don’t worry. And learn one or two safe jumps, it’s still nice to know them
2nd, Train a lot to perfectly know a combo leading to an untechable knockdown (let’s say the classical cr.LP st.LP st.MK xx Tsumuji, beware that it’ll whiff on small characters crouchin such as Blanka, you can transform it to cr.LP st.LK st.MK Tsumuji… Or why not just the classical target combo LP MP HP xx Tsumuji. As a matter of fact when I started Ibuki I played for months with ony this target combo to neckbreaker + jump kunai at the end, and I still had a pretty decent win ratio ^^) and learn a post-tsumuji mixup (the easiest one is super jump - LP kunai. If you LP kunai on top of your jump,you’ll hit crossup. if you LP kunai a bit before, you’ll hit normal, this is a terrible nightmare for all of your opponent).
Once you get this, play online and kick people’s asses.
When you’re cool with it, try to incorporate neckbreakers instead of tsumujis, to add some depth to your game, and learn some post-neckbreaker mixups (let’s stick with sj.kunai if you want. After a neckbreaker, do a whiffed st.LP and immediately SJ LP kunai, it’ll hit crossup and stuff Ryu’s shoryukens). Play again.
Once you get all these mixups, learn to anti-air correctly
And then you can go more advanced (super jump cancels to ultra…)!
Thank you for the time it took to type that out Damascus…
This kind of step by step logical order of things is probably the kind of response I’ve been looking for. It’s helpful to know that it worked for you and it was the steps you took. I know the bulk of my losses are my own fault, and like i said, i’ve been trying to stop that neckbreaker lol. I played SSF4 alot when it first came out but only at a friends house or when i visited his work (he worked at EB - a games shop) and we would just muck around when no customers were around. It was very unskilful and neckbreakers won me the game lol. i’ve got alot of bad habbits to unlearn, so i’m gonna take those things you have said to training mode and nut it out in there for a while before i give online a go.
Until then i think i’ll troll with dhalsim online when i need a break. I know his normals are different but it should at least help with my reactions for anti airs and stuff and also my footsies game seems that’s what he is all about - at least to me!
Any other pearlers you have, send them my way - at this point im willing to give everything a try. And i’ll keep working on leaving out the neckbreakers for good!
Oh one other thing, i play on a hit box and the reason i dont tsumuji often is because if i was just holding backwards, then do the input for Tsumuji, it actually comes out as a backwards DP and i do that jumping kick thing - you may have seen that in my 2nd video! This is not the fault of the hitbox, but rather my sloppy and rushed input - i have to train myself to have a slight pause after release back and make sure it gets the neutral state otherwise the game reads it as a shortcut reverse DP
For the record, you cannot use shortcuts for Hien. If you’re somehow doing a perfect Hien input when trying to Tsumuji, try starting in downback position instead. Or just insert a slight pause like you said.
I practice whatever mix-up I’m have not yet mastered, which atm is the cr.Roundhouse xx st.Roundhouse mix-ups. Recently I’ve been doing st.Roundhouse SJC CD Mix-ups, and last Tuesday I was doing the CD Mix-ups after cr.Fierce until it came out consistently.
Most of Ibuki’s mix-ups are 50/50s, so if you have to decide on one, either pick one you haven’t used in a long time against the same opponent, or use which ever has the best set-up. Against Blanka I’d rather do launcher mix-ups for example, but against Ibuki I go for j.Short mix-ups.
I only actually go for the Kunai if I know my opponent is really good at blocking, since then all I want is block-stun with the chance of hitting once in a while, usually once every 3 times haha.
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MingoDynasty, I forgot to mention. When I played last week I was rinsing st.Strong, st.Roundhouse. It is actually a pretty good frame-trap or hit-confirm after CD when meaty. Easy plinkable 1-frame link, does a ton of stun.
LENGTHY POST COMING THROUGH!!
I was watching some older videos and I came across a certain Ibuki player who got worse over time. I wanted to talk about using Reversal DPs, and the main problem this particular Ibuki player was having.
EX Kazegiri, being a 5-frame invincible DP, is good to shift the momentum. Of course it’s a huge risk, but if that risk isn’t presented, nothing stops a player from mixing up frame-traps and throws very easily.
I want to make clear that in SSFIV (unlike 3S), there is no risk for frame-trapping besides getting hit by a Reveral/DP. Certain moves give frame-advantage and this allows a player to consistently apply pressure until forcing their opponent in the corner. However, blocking does give meter, and Ibuki needs this before she can retaliate.
The purpose of using EX Kazegiri, besides counter-poking and shifting the momentum, is to make your opponent think twice and possibly losing out on frame-advantage as they wait for it. If I were to walk up to you on wake-up, do a bunch of attacks, then wait to try and bait a Reversal, this is actually YOUR chance to get some block-stun.
It shouldn’t be either block, or EX Kazegiri. Instead look out for when your opponent is trying to bait it, and while you can’t punish them, take advantage of their pause with a 3-frame attack like far.st.Jab. Ibuki is very scary because she has ambiguous set-ups after a throw, but understand that you have to keep yourself in range of a throw in order for a frame-trap to work.
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I tend to see st.Forward xx Short Tsumuji -> f+Short xx Forward Tsumuji. Not only is there no reason for your opponent to crouch-tech here (because you’re too far away), what you’re doing isn’t a block-string. The only thing you’re getting is chip-damage and pushing your opponent into the corner. But Forward Tsumuji is +0 on block, you have no advantage after this.
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I also want to talk about dealing with Tournament pressure. I’ve only attended a couple… or maybe 3, but I don’t have any pressure anymore. This may be because I’m familiar with the environment outside of Fighting Games, but you should realise WHY you feel pressured in the first place.
Before you start your matches, ask yourself why want to win. Do you want the money? Do you want people to be impressed? Depending on who you are these could be legitimate and powerful reasons for why you joined the Tournament. More often than not however, there are other ways you can acquire these. With money, there are many better ways you can achieve this, and with impressing people, there are many easier and better ways to do this too.
Then, they aren’t your reasons. If you feel that is HAS to be through a Fighting Game Tournament, then you are playing for a different reason. Perhaps you just like to test yourself? Regardless, once you find out why you’re really there in the first place, and you’re honest with yourself, the pressure won’t make you sweaty or drop combos. Instead it will drive you to do better.
When I joined WSO last Tuesday, I did it because I didn’t want to go home whilst it was still bright, just so I could run in peace. This isn’t a very good reason, but I can relax whilst playing. When I first went to a Tournament, I wasn’t really sure why I joined. Was I doing it for the Ibuki forums? Was I doing it to impress you in case I came out on top? I wasn’t sure how important it was to me so I tried so hard not to make a single mistake I flopped the most basic of combos.
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If you don’t see Tournaments as being more important than any old casual match, then not only will you not have to worry about pressure, but you’ll be consistently playing at your best. Another big mistake people make is “switching off” whenever they’re not playing for something. Yeah it’s harsh to try and play seriously all the time. To be honest even in the middle of the Tournament I sandbagged on the other side of the screen trying to Raida any normals from my opponent, but I do this whether it’s in a Tournament or not. If I told myself to only go into “serious mode” once a week whenever I went WSO, I wouldn’t be practicing during the week would I?
I’m not the most sporting person in the world, but if you’re going to play a certain way in Tournaments, practice playing like that as often as you can. Otherwise you may as well have a different character for Casuals and Tournaments.
Hense: money matches are good practice. You’re probably playing for the exact same reasons why you went to a Tournament. To either prove you’re better than someone, or bag some spare change to buy a big fat cheese burger (or whatever floats your boat).
P.S. Yeah I personified the Ibuki forums. So Sue Me. =)
I’ve only been to a few tournaments, about 3-5, all local, and I still tense up during matches, to the point where there was so much adrenaline in me that my hands were basically shaking even after my matches were over.
I’d have to say the main cause is that there’s shit on the line (money, moving up the brackets). If you’re fighting someone better than you, or rather someone that knows the game well enough, then it gets amplified even more because you know that if at anytime you fuck up (mash dp at the wrong time, dropped 1f link combo, etc.) then there’s a good chance of you getting severely punished, and/or losing the round which you (probably) worked really hard for.
I think the only real ways to combat tournament pressure are to have lots of solo experience, and lots of tournament experience. By solo experience I mean your execution is top notch when you’re playing alone, whether it be perfect antiairs or 0 dropped combos. And by tournament experience I mean being in similar tense situations over and over. Playing top players over and over; playing money matches over and over; been in numerous situations where both players are low on life; been in situations many times where a crucial setup could end the round, etc. It’s through this familiarity that you can alleviate tournament pressure and focus more on doing what you need to do: winning.
I guess I don’t appreciate how long it takes to get rid of the pressure since I’m sure my past experiences outside of fighting games is doing me favours here. In which case you’d be spot on. The more experience you have being in those tense situations the better.
I just remember a while back when doing something totally unrelated to Street Fighter, where winning a particular tournament meant so much (it was actually to get a date with a certain girl so whatever), that the seriousness of the competition made me do better. It probably doesn’t really apply to Street Fighter as it’s more a calm sport rather than something you put power into, but I do believe that if it really was very important to you, your mind would be doing you favours.
The last game I played was CSS, where you’re often put in clutch situations (eg: you’re the last one alive), so that’s probably helped me handle the adrenaline.
I can only wonder how people with zero competitive gaming experience deal with that epinephrine rush. There’s probably a bunch of tips on Google that tell you how to deal with it, like focusing on breathing and envisioning yourself successful/winning/etc.
Fun fact: chemistry/biology 101: with adrenaline, your body also releases dopamine, which is a basic pain killer. The next time you’re fired up during a vital tournament match, have one of your friends punch you stomach afterwards, and see if you feel anything. Better yet, just have your opponent punch you in the stomach, so he can relieve some of his anger too.
haha, Fighting Games would probably be made illegal if that caught on.
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You know the fighting game community kinda reminds me of Secondary School (High School for you guys).
About tournament, I have a pretty big competition background in other sports (football, or soccer for US fellows here; table tennis, karate, and being a football referee aka the most pressured position in the world cause everybody’s against you haha) and never felt any kind of pressure. When I joined my first Street Fighter tournament on arcade, my hands were shaking, and I ended up dropping stupid things such as TC4 - neckbreaker.
What matters in a Street Fighter tournament imho is, of course, your motivation, but there is a big space here for your self confidence. I often see players who happen to face one of the top players here and directly say “haha you’ll rape me as usual”. Wtf are you doing in a tournament if you’re directly putting yourself on the looser’s side whenever you meet a good player? Also, you MUST have fun here. I don’t know if it’s only me, but when I try to take a competition-driven activity seriously, I always end up doing shit because I keep pressuring myself. So I adopted a different approach: you’re here to play so… just play as if you were at home. Saying myself “omg man you’re in a ranked tournament and you’re about to face France’s number one omg omg” will just make me end up shaking for no reason 
It’s okay Damascus. It won’t stay that way forever. So some of us deal with this thing faster than others, but everyone makes it in the end. You’ll be laughing at how it used to be soon haha.
Haha, now I’m really looking forward to play in the next local ranking to see how I’ve improved. I love these moments when you realize that you actually improved a lot your game. And I’m starting to be a bit popular at the local arcade with my extra-too-much-offensive Ibuki 