Stop there. You’re choosing to call it random, but as Armando said, IBing is something players do consciously in response to your offense. It’s something in the game that you have to deal with, and choosing not to deal with it or think about it doesn’t make it random. Otherwise, as I said, anything your opponent does on defense that you were not expecting or prepared for is “random”, like a DP.
Regarding your example for BB, I already mentioned that BB had to adjust IBing two games in a row to get it to a level of acceptability, so you’re already ignoring the examples I’ve been providing of where I think it’s well designed (GG) and using examples from where I think it was poorly designed (BB).
But specifically, if ABC is normally a “tight” string and Hazama can IB in the middle and reverse with Jayoku, then if you’re smart, you’ll either 1. stop doing string ABC and try to find a safer alternative, or 2. find a way to bait Hazama into reversing where you can punish him for it. This is playing the game, it doesn’t randomly change how moves work. The moves work that way within the context of the game. Move A is safe in Situation B and unsafe in Situation C. Throwing fireballs against certain characters may be safe from range X and unsafe from range Y, which will all depend on the characters’ given options.
To go even deeper into it, since I used to play the Ragna/Hazama matchup in CS against one of the best Hazama players in the country and watch the matches online a lot, most Ragna players will quickly learn that if they are fighting a competent Hazama, then using 2B in strings is basically off-limits, because if Hazama IBs that move, not only will Jayoku interrupt any chained followup, but it can also punish 2B even if the Ragna player chooses to do nothing after it. So there’s an example of situation 1, you simply don’t do 2B in strings normally because it’s unsafe. It’s a fighting game, shit happens sometimes.
On the OTHER hand, if I have 50% meter, I can choose to RC the 2B late when Hazama IBs it, and now if he reverses with Jayoku, I can block it and then get a free punish with 2C, which will be a Fatal Counter, leading to one of CS Ragna’s standard bullshit combos that does a billion life for no reason. So this is an example of situation 2. An even better example is I could do a move that is normally punishable by Jayoku but is also late cancellable, then when I see the Jayoku flash, I can cancel to Blood Kain, which is invincible. I then, once again, get a 2C Fatal Counter, except now I’m in Blood Kain so Hazama is probably gonna die.
But again, IB in BlazBlue has been stupid from the get go and had to be toned down twice, plus Jayoku has been nerfed as a combo starter since CS2, which just goes to show that was a bad example. IB in BB being overpowered is more a function of the offense in that game being so shitty, which is another reason why I think JG in SCV will eventually really kill some people’s enjoyment of that game.
Isn’t that move technically a “special low”, which means you can jump it? Does it track? Pretty much everything has a counter. Plus Yoshi still has iMCF in SCV, yet all I’ve heard is that he sucks in that game.
