Ibuki Q&A Thread: Ask simple questions here!

I’ve gotta get this down.

Just practice it in training. It becomes easier than sjc vortex because its more dependent on speed than timing. Therefore online lag wont mess you up. After neckbreaker, use lk. CD, then insta-kunai. If you did it properly then you can combo right after.

The kunai will also always hit them from behind. Unless you do it insanely fast. Your opponent wont know whether to block front or back unless they have freakish reflexes.

yeah, i’ve done it and hit people with throws, or started combos. Just not all the time lol

So insta-kunai do you have to SJ for it to be safe? cos I’m still getting raped after it.

thats how i’ve done it. Just down, up/forward, roll to down and punch in one fluid motion

im thinking its similar to cammy’s instant dive kicks

lol why would you need to super jump an insta-kunai?

The only reason sjc makes the regular vortex safe is because of the height and angle that she throws the kunai at. Super jump canceling an insta-kunai is useless cuz ur releasing the kunai too low to make a differece.

Just jump and do a kunai. No need for a tigerknee motion or a SJC.

I may just be the worst Ibuki player ever. Maybe her style just doesn’t suit me. I’m trying to stick with her but I’m winning about 10-20% right now. I lose to even terrible players that have no idea what they’re doing. How long did it take you guys to start getting good with her? She’s freaking hard to use. I hope I’m at least making SOME progress. I was doing pretty well with DJ when I picked him up. I’ll lose to people that know what they’re doing but I’ll beat the terrible players with no problem. But with Ibuki, it seems like even terrible players are an up hill battle. This is very discouraging considering I’ll annihilate 95+% of the people online with my SF4 main.

I still suck with Ibuki but I’m a noob with 3k bp and 500 pp =X

What I hate is that I lose to scrubby kens that upper all day! but I do well against people to know what their doing -__-

I hear you bro. I used to be like that when I first started. I kept losing to scrubs too and playing ranked I would just lose to the average flowchart Ken. I was like, “fuck this why don’t I just go back to Ryu and school the shit out of these scrubs?” It took me at least 2 weeks to even get the general framework of my Ibuki down. Target combos, vortex, pressure game, etc.

But really, just keep at it. 2+ weeks of training everyday (at least 3hrs or so a day) and you’ll get there. Every time you get lose a match, or lose a round, or every time you get hit, ask yourself what happened? Analyze every inch of your gameplay. Why did you lose? Why did you get hit? Even if you’re not losing, keep studying your gameplay. Are you spacing yourself correctly? How is your rushdown? Are you on point? And then study your opponent. Does he look like he knows what he’s doing? Is he mashing? How can you use this to your advantage? Etc. You need to be analyzing your gameplay after every move you make, before, during, and after.

Once you realize any mistakes, make it a mission to make sure you don’t make that same mistake again. Hope this helps.

Is turtling a viable strategy for Ibuki? I’ve been gone for a 3 weeks or something, and now all the mid-level scrubs spend a lot of time jumping back and throwing kunais, trying to get the knockdown and start the vortex. Basically playing Ibuki like an Akuma-clone.

I feel like there is a chance that it is perhaps easier to counter this strategy than I realize, since normals beat out the kunais. Please enlighten me!

Yeah, some of my problems consist of not knowing how to punish in certain situations. I know a move is punishable but I’ll be pushed out too far or I just don’t react fast enough to it. It’s frustrating when people pull out the unsafest things and either I punish wrong, don’t punish, or eat something because I was too late. I’m also not completely familiar with how fast her moves come out and their range. My vortex is getting a little bit better but I think I still need to mix it up more instead of falling into a pattern.

Other times, I won’t know the best ways to approach the opponent to get the KD. Plus I don’t know which characters are safe to vortex and when. Some characters you just can’t vortex or some you can but only if they have no bars or ultra. All of this combined with crappy execution = my terrible Ibuki. But the execution is getting there. Her bnb links really aren’t that bad. I just have to keep at it in training mode so it becomes muscle memory.

Turtling is not a viable strategy for Ibuki, and kunai zoning is not the same thing as turtling. If you manage to knock Ibuki down, you can really pressure the shit out of her if she’s not too experienced. But really, a kunai zoning Ibuki is not scary at all compared to a rushdown Ibuki, unless she has the life lead.

Countering kunai zoning… well I guess that would be character dependent. The universal counter would probably be to just forward jump over the kunais, timing your jumps so you don’t eat the kunai on your way down.

What I do as ibuki is dash in under kunai with 236 k and trip her just like akuma… works for me but i don’t play many ibukis so dunno if this would work for most of them

Zoning is a much more general concept. I was playing the matches, it’s my call. I was just really wondering if it’s a good strategy. The problem for the players I played were that they got into the corner way too fast. So to what extent CAN Ibuki “kunai zone”? Can she keep her position on the screen against a fireball character?

I believe “kunai zoning” is not very reliable. It seems if I neutral jump and kunai, my opponent usually FA absorbs and dashes to punish. If I jump away I eventually get stuck in a corner. Air tatsu seems to usually go over my kunai or knock my kunai out of the air and proceed to hit me. I believe kunai zoning would not work on fireball characters, unless they decide to only throw fireballs and do absolutely nothing else. That’s from the little experience I’ve had with Ibuki so I might be wrong.

Are you mixing up EX kunais and empty neutral jumps as well?

I manage to keep out some characters for a while, such as Zangeif with a mixup of random jumps and ex kunai, but characters like Ryu or Ken jump and air tatsu me.

Are you doing it at the right ranges? Something like the range you start with at the beginning of a round looks good. I’m pretty sure they’re not reaction tatsuing you. They’d have to jump almost at the same time you jump, not to mention time it right. Plus you can always neutral jump with MK and it’ll totally stuff it. Chances are your opponents are just throwing it out there and you can punish it.

Can anyone tell me the best Utra to use with Ibuki?

Many people say U2 if you can SJC(which I cant do at all) but others say U1 is better.

So whats the one to use?

Most likely I’m staying too close to the opponent. You’re definitely right about them just throwing tatsus out there. I was fighting some shotos doing random attacks and I remembered being hit by a few tatsus while throwing kunai. =/