Also is actually a relatively large buff for kunai. They’re great for sniping a single hit on somebody really quickly and safely as is, but 1/6th of your kunai stock for 40 damage isn’t really worth it. Adding an extra 50+ damage from unrecovered white health is very promising, however. Add up enough and your opponent is going to be very scared of pushing buttons in neutral too liberally in case they get whiff punished by a kunai.
Did she get a steady boyfriend or is she still throwing that thing out to anyone catching?
Did Karin make an honest women out of her?
She gets trolled hardcore. Everytime she tries, a mishap occurs.
I don’t disagree that EX reload probably should have been there from the beginning, but it is still lazy design, because it’s a bandaid fix on a fundamentally unintuitive mechanic. Risk reward is something which is massively incorrect throughout SFV as a whole, and Ibuki’s ammo system is no different. The fact that her options to reload safely require either missing a golden offensive opportunity or by using a kunai before hand anyway is not good design.
Did you know, that outside of using EX Kunai and stopping the combo there, or using a bomb combo, that 90% of the methods of reloading are negative? And I don’t even mean slightly negative, like punishable by most of the cast negative? This post is actually the first time I actually went and researched just how much, and boy, we should be glad Ibuki wasn’t picked up by many people, because the match-up inexperience was helping. It is so easy to punish all of her kunai reloads in every instance.
After HP raida, if you reload, Ryu can just buffer a tatsu on his wake-up and if he sees you reload he can just press HK and punish you? Did you know that in mirrors you can do the same thing and just do the farthest EX Kunai to net a full punish? You can MK dash, regular dash afterwards to get a raida, or stop after the MK dash to Kunai into a bomb combo.
Did you know that she is negative even after her beloved MK target combo while reloading? You can punish her with a Kunai of your own into a super or bomb cancel.
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Look, defend Ibuki, that’s fine, she’s a solid character outside of this, but don’t defend bad design decisions. Ibuki really shouldn’t NEED to spend meter on Kunai if she is doing well. Do I think Ibuki should be able to get her Kunai back freely in neutral? God no – THAT’S when the EX reload should be used, when you’re down and out and need supply. Do I think she should be able to stay at a relatively steady supply while performing successful offense (barring any Kunai intensive combo like releases)? Absolutely. There are sooooooo many ways to better design her ammo system, and Capcom is just throwing an EX reload in the pile and hoping for the best. Allow her to cancel her specials on hit into kunai reload – hell, make it so pressing a button after a special makes her quickly pocket a Kunai, make it have it’s own animation and naturally play out and be organic to the character. Can you imagine how gracefully Ibuki could pocket a Kunai in her Kazekiri backflip ending animation? That’s 1 of so many ways, and we need only look at ArcSys games to find 5000 more options.
Ibuki lost a lot in her transition to V, and most of what she gained uses this ammo system, so if the ammo system is garbage, then so will Ibuki be. Every Ibuki now says “I never run out of Kunai.” Of course not, cause you’re restricting your usage of them by necessity of their limited nature. If you could throw more Kunai, would you throw more Kunai? Probably!
Not to meeention her releases suck, even just on their own with infinite supply they aren’t too great, but the fact Kunai are scarce and getting them back means getting hit means that throwing them *all *except on a killing blow is kind of a brow raising decision. To me, it is obtuse design for a move with such poor reward to also have such a price attached to it. Before this I used to think I had a choice of reloading or going with the follow-up Raida or whatever after a release hit, but now after testing, I realize that even reloading there is negative. It’s just… so poorly designed.
There are other areas where I think Ibuki needs to be improved, but her ammo system is mostly what is holding her back. They gave her a fireball, let her use it more, and since that fireball is also the basis of her combo kit, then let her get some back afterward. I know SFV hates rewarding the person on offense, but it’s got to stop. Don’t punish the person doing well, punish the nut who threw all his Kunai on a down backing opponent in the first 4 seconds and now has no ammo.
I’m waiting for the buffs to make a full judgement on everything. I’m not a very kunai heavy player any ways and even before the patch I wasn’t feeling like nearly all the matches I lost were due to kunai. People are going to eventually clamp down and sit on block if they know you want to go ham with kunais.
I think I have like 4 posts total in the Ibuki forums not including this one, but within them i’ve clearly stated a long time ago and even in here that Ibuki has almost no truly safe method to reload kunai unless the opponent is passive. I’ve noted it as a glaring fundamental problem since the beginning. Ex kunai, ex kazekiri~air ex kunai into kunai release, and b.mp from an aa or air combo situation are literally the only 100% safe methods for reload and all except the second one means you have to neuter damage. We’re definitely on the same page in that regard. I’d even agree with your prospects for unique built in animations for reloading a kunai which is creative but that in itself effects balance as your still dishing out damage while gaining immediate access to a flexible tool that does it’s own damage.
What I definitely disagree with is Ibuki’s new SF5 incarnation revolving around stock generally pulled from anime games being a bad design decision. It’s actually quite fun and technical enough that it adds a layer of depth to a character that distinguishes her as a unique character in a game with very basic designed characters that are relatively samey. The design is sound and well balanced from a balancing standpoint as well just with a glaring oversight that could have easily been fixed with an ex reload. I firmly stand by that because the point is to have a method that gives back in “BULK” an meter usage to do it makes sense since she starts with it from the start unlike Juri who doesn’t and should naturally be able to reload faster without the need for meter.
Contrary to what everyone believes Ibuki’s damage is fine and actually high just distributed differently and unable to generally do it because of a lack of a faster reload option. Her aa damage is one of if not the highest in the game via b.mp and all the ways you can spike the damage. Her charge kunai confirms is also one of the highest in the game losing out only to Ryu, Ken, and Karin in terms of damage without resources vs damage with resources and not actually hard numbers. It just didn’t make too much sense to do them cause you burned everything and had no solid method of getting it back. Now you do provided the speed of ex reload is damn good. Her counter hit damage with or without resources like ex.kunai is actually high as well. Ibuki’s damage is only on the weaker side from NH confirms without resources which imo it should be as her reset and general opportunity game is super high. Giving her access to beefy damage to those normal situations by way of her choices is silly. Last but not least her actual real fireball is her v-skill. Kunai is just the extension. Her v-skill which is a projectile is unbelievably good. If anything else were to be buffed it should be small tinkering with hurtboxes and frame data or brand new moves.
yeah, I didn’t feel like ibuki needed any changes really. I just wanted to see the top tiers brought inline
better normals would be nice and it seems like its what we are getting. and our setups are stronger now
Yeah Ibuki’s damage is fine. Her oki post hit is among the best in the game. Especially for a character that isn’t a grappler. She rarely ever has to deal with a back techable knockdown and has standing reset options which are important to have anything close to real mix up in this game without a command grab. I’m hearing she’s supposedly getting damage buffs so I’ll take it too.
The ex kunai reload buff makes it more viable to use her charge kunais in the neutral as well. Some of the spreads are really good to use vs characters like Gief and Dhalsim and the ex reload will make them more viable.
I would like better hit boxes on her light and medium normals so she won’t have to counter poke so much, but it’s basically her style at this point. s.MK being plus one I’ll take for sure as I love that button and how it sets up meterless standing reset. Can’t really expect a rushdown character who walks faster than most of the poking and zoning characters to have gdlk normals.
oh god i was missing this thread. I dont want to read everything, but have a single question, was Ibuki cr.MP touched at all for S2? That and cr.MK are the only things i want upgraded for Ibuki honestly.
until full patchnotes get released nobody knows for sure. ibuki buffs are not detailed, nobody cared to research
There’s some twitter stuff out there, but that’s it. Can’t 100 percent trust the stuff we have been seeing, but gives us a good idea of what to expect.
Haven’t heard anything about c.MP or c.MK yet.
i mean, i’d love a slide v-trigger cancel but i dont need it haha
tbh slide vtrigger for ibuki would be a waste of a bomb lol unless it actually hits and you can follow up. on block - complete waste
its a cancel, wouldnt you be left in their face +?
So we have a deviation in thinking then. You are sacrificing pressure after a knockdown to regain a Kunai in a safe manner, to me, that is a satisfactory trade-off to replenish that which was used. If I could use a Kunai release combo and regain a Kunai afterwards and still be in an okay position as opposed to being punished, then I would consider that a more apt and well designed trade-off. But to have a move which is 100% punishable in near all instances and is required to be used eventually without losing access to 50% of your toolset (two of which use the ENTIRE resource), to me, is terrible design. It is as poorly designed as Tsujigoe – although the glide took over that move’s incompetence.
I love the uniqueness to it, and I LOVE character unique mechanics. If it was up to me, ArcSys would have provided assistance on this game and made it so all V-skills and V-triggers were actual unique mechanics to each character, as opposed to fairly bland special moves or power ups (mostly). I like having an ammo system, I am merely saying that the way it is implemented is POOR, it is not well designed, and it is not intuitive. Even if Ibuki jumps up tiers, it will not somehow undo the poor design of this mechanic.
If you can explain to me why you feel that Ibuki is required to sacrifice not only her pressure after a knockdown, but potentially her own life to regain ONE Kunai I would appreciate the insight into your mindset. Why should any Kunai recovery require your own life or your meter?
Her damage is fine, I never stated otherwise. She is a generally low damage character, reliant two or three strong sequences of attacks to win a match, this has always been her thing. She also has potential for good burst damage, which remains to continue to BE burst damage even within the contexts that I suggest. If you use Kunai release, you’re still using ALL of your Kunai, with the potential to go in without any for pressure afterward or safely regaining likely 1 (more if you’re greedy and thus, opening yourself UP to being negative and punishable). You are still sacrificing all but 1 of your resources and sacrificing pressure. In your mind this is still too strong? We could even include the EX variant to this and maybe you could use that to regain 3 or so of them, by way of meter. That sounds fine to me.
Sin from Xrd is likely the most comparable resource system to Ibuki’s Kunai, and he can choose, if he wants, to cancel into eating food to regain his bar at the end of his combos (or in the middle if he’s a nut and wants to die), his oki becomes immensely diminished from doing so. This sacrifice is not enough to you? I don’t mind disagreeing, but I would just like to hear what your thoughts are on what is and is not too strong.
For me it’s for two main reasons. The first being kunai is a multi-purpose tool and the second is that she starts with a full stock. Both of those reasons is why the trade off your proposing while not a game breaking one isn’t actually a trade off. Ibuki doesn’t have to work her way up the stock like Juri starting at zero but instead has to manage working down and she get’s them back in full per round while traditional ex meter carries over. Huge contrast in terms of balance. Going back to the multi-purpose part it functions as a zoning tool, combo extender, frame trap, and a damage modifier from the air or ground tackling a bunch of different situations and covers every single range. As a result she shouldn’t have free access to them imho without having to burn resources. Especially considering she has another more traditional projectile that’s a godlike footsie tool among other things like deviljin mentioned like raida denying tech being grappler like but not an actual grappler.
You need look no further than Juri for the argument tbh. The only other archetype in the game the same as Ibuki but opposite properties which support the argument i’m trying to make. Juri doesn’t start with a stock and thus has to work her way up so she on the other hand should have relatively free stocks without the need for ex meter. Continuing off the same two reasons given for Ibuki her stocks by comparison aren’t as multi-purpose and don’t cover all ranges nor the speed at which Ibuki’s does.
Honestly the only change that would make the most sense would be the one ZeroEffect proposed which would be essentially partitioning the stock during its use which would also improve design while maintaining balance while also adding a rather significant layer of depth to the character.
For the sake of creativity as well a great way to bolster character depth for anyone in the game would be to revert back to alpha style supers and layer that same philosophy on v-skills and v-triggers like Infiltration proposed instead of choosing one before hand at the title screen. Obviouly that would require extreme balancing but Akuma just entered the fray with alpha style supers tied to non v-trigger/v-trigger state. A year worth of balance (since that’s the method they’re using) could do the same for v-skill and the same for v-trigger. So for example Ibuki’s inspiration for some of her animations like her CA and V-reversal are narutoish. Let’s say following this last paragraph’s argument they gave her a naruto like ninja pill for her second v-trigger put a timer on it and gave her a speed buff among other things like her v-skill instead of giving Ibuki v-meter siphons the opponents and augments her kunai use for that timer. It would make more sense.
I’m happy to at least understand your thinking, but I do wholeheartedly disagree.
My biggest problem with the end result of your reasoning is that it leaves a useless move in Ibuki’s arsenal, and as she has always had useless moves in her arsenal, I would like one game to go by where she has all (even situationally) useful tools. Non-ex reload being punishable from all distances in 95% of instances to me is horrible design.
I also don’t think using Juri as an example is very apt considering she has problems as a character as well. Her ability to gain charges while performing offense/zoning in SFIV was more intuitive, and her SFV variant suffers from poor range/utility on her ability to gain charges, and as well with the same issue of risk-reward in terms of what she can accomplish without charges. She needs them, but can’t perform in ranges or in offense without them, but can’t gain them as easily as she once could. The result is she is kind of clunky to use, and is either hampering herself by going in early or being predictable by going out early. Mechanically, just like Ibuki, she can easily work if tweaked just slightly. However, much like Kunai reload, her ability to gain those charges/kunai is poor.
Anyway, agree to disagree then, but I’ll summarize my sentiments:
- Half of Ibuki’s kit uses Kunai, and is limited in supply, thus a method to regain supply is a must, else she would be better off with Johnny’s coin system of having a limited number that can never be regained (depending on the game).
- Most of Ibuki’s more clever offense requires use of Kunai, sometimes multiple.
- Every Kunai in neutral should result in a net loss of Kunai, and restocking in neutral should be a big risk.
- Unsuccessful use of Kunai in pressure also result in a loss of Kunai.
- On successful knockdowns, choosing between Kunai or Pressure is a completely reasonable choice as pressure is vitally important in any fighting game. A very even trade in my view.
- Risk-reward on Kunai releases aren’t worth it except on kill, thus need changing of the moves themselves or the Kunai attached to them. Losing all of my Kunai for a tiny bit of extra damage and rendering myself Kunai-less is a skewed as hell risk-reward. Especially as they require a charge as well.
- Ibuki burns through meter more than most characters, requiring the use of that meter on an EX variant barring any specific playstyle choice like zoning Ibuki is a hampering design decision and renders regular reload useless.
The disagreements are fine. The actual debate/argument on the philosophy behind her design is entertaining so the conversation in itself is worth it. Juri was used as an example because both apply to the same game, are opposites despite using the same mechanics, and both are the first stock characters for SF if i’m not mistaken. Juri has a host of problems but her charges aren’t it. As a character she is lacking everywhere. But to respond to your sentiments…
- We both agree a method to regain supply is a must just our choice of how is different.
- Clever sure. Solid no. A strong fundamental and footsie game refutes that. I personally finish tons of matches with plenty of Kunai in stock even against the aggro type.
- Agree (how it should be)
- Agree (how it should be)
- Choosing between the two is indeed a reasonable choice. Where we disagree is just giving that to her as she is now. Her damage would have to be scaled to do less in this scenario for her to freely net another multi-purpose option on top of what she already gets.
- This last one I definitely disagree with as the damage add on isn’t tiny but rather fluctuates on how many you have in stock before release and at what point you use the charge during scaling. I personally use it now but it depends on the matchup and I don’t burn Kunai without cause as all Ibuki’s should. For example hitting a dash happy opponent with a st.mp/cr.mp, kunai release, dash, kazekiri for 264 without even touching traditional meter is serious damage. Landing a shimmy or delayed frame trap with cr.hp, kunai release, kazekiri for 294 without touching traditional meter is also serious damage. As it is now its simply on a per matchup basis. For me ex-reload will open this up for use in more matchups and she can dip into both worlds ex.kunai, kunai release more practically and safely.
- Disagree because one is a chance read at sneaking one back in stock and the other is a less chance read at sneaking them back in bulk.
I barely even use v-trigger half the time and in some matchups not even ex kunai. Ibuki vs Rashid for example just v-reversal and ex raida destroys the entirety of the shit he runs against the rest of the cast. The retracting hitbox on her v-skill does wonders for his annoying as normals too. It really all comes down to what’s more dire vs who.
Yeah once I see her buffed tools I won’t be bothered about the principals of the kunai system too much. If she has what she needs to win, good enough for me. This is not Guilty Gear, it’s Honesty Fighter V and Ibuki just needs to be good in honesty fighter. Which is probable since she’s not super honest in a game trying to promote it.
I just wanted more ways to get or reload kunais so I’m good here. I was hoping for being able to get 1 or 2 more stocks, but I’m totally down with EX reload. Slightly less recovery on the reload would be nice too, but I’m fine either way.