1601

I really want to know where this idea that Ibuki has mediocre/bad normals came from. She has SOME normals that are mediocre/bad (just as many characters do) but she has an overall fairly good set of normals.

She has solid normals with her cr.MK (doesn’t lead into anything but it’s got solid reach and has really good frame data at 6/5/9 +0/+3. Her far LK is good, her far MK is amazing, her far LP is borderline broken. Her b.MP is as good as Cody’s in terms of hitbox and has the ability to be followed up if you hit on the first frame. Her close HK has a great anti air hitbox too and can be followed up.

Her far LK has a solid hitbox as a poke as does her fwd LK. Her fwd LK, MK and HK are good footsie tools when used correctly and have solid hitboxes. Her cr.MP is amazingly effective due to its wopping 7F active and tons of reach. Her cr.HP would be a good anti air if it was a tiny bit faster, the hitbox on it is great but it’s got a 9F startup. Her sweep is only 6F.

Her slide is amazing, has the lowest to the ground hurtbox of all slides AFAIK. It can even slide under Sagat’s low tiger shots.

Ibuki also has some of the highest count of active frames in the game on her normals with the majority being 4F active compared to characters like Guy who are basically 2F across the board.

Ibuki has some really solid normals which most importantly can almost all lead to a hard knockdown.

1602

Actually it can be read. You don’t need to look where she is on the screen when you try to block kunai. Instead, you can pay attention to what she does before she jumps (whiff normals, walk forward/backward, dash/ command dash) and the type of knockdown. Those matter more than the kunai throw timing. For kunai throw timing, a meaty kunai is what Ibuki players should aim for so that it’s safe against reversals. She can’t throw it too early or too late. Too early can make it whiff and too late can make it unsafe. But from my experience meaty kunai lands in front while kunais that crossup are unsafe against reversals with good autocorrect like Ryu’s DP before the kunai hits because they’re not meaties. If crossup kunai hits, then it’s safe and you eat a full combo into another hard knockdown. So basically, it’s more like familiarizing yourself from each type of knockdowns and setups that go with them. It’s heavily telegraphed once you recognize the setups. It takes experience against Ibuki, but that’s just another thing to learn about a matchup. I never felt like it’s a coin flip thing. So, this is the method I use to defend myself against Kunai Vortex and it works far better than me trying to figure out where she is on the screen.

Air also has similar idea.
http://www.airryu.com/?p=110

1603

I don’t think the kunai vortex is that bad, you can learn to block it. The scary ibukis do other stuff

1604

Tell that to Justin Wong against Ren, he was eating kunais like a fat kid at a candy store

1605

To be fair, Jwong doesn’t have a lot of strong ibukis to train against and A LOT of fighting Ibuki is memorization based. The only Ibuki I know of that he gets to play against regularly is ClakeyD and I don’ t even know if he still play SF4 at all anymore tbh.

1606

ClakeyD is a professional LoL player now, and has been for a while.

1607

But this is problematic, allowing a character’s mechanics to be extremely dominant unless you are very familiar with them. There’s 40 characters after all.

1608

And where exactly did I say that Ibuki has bad/ mediocre normals ?
Does she have some solid normals ? absolutelly. Is she top when it comes to normal moves ? No. Then why a character that is not top 5 and no great tournament results should be nerfed ?

1609

Emannuelb I think the problem lies in the dichotomy “nerfed” or “buffed”, when the real issue should be “fixed”. The issue is not how “strong” a character is in terms of results, but how elements of his moveset affect gameplay in general. The result is that the debate ends up with two sides arguing completely different issue: one side arguing that the character in general has fundamental flaws which balance out their favorable mechanics, which can be seen in tournament results, and the other side arguing specifically about those mechanics.

This is the real cause for outrage against the so-called broken characters: mechanics with a low-risk/high-reward ratio and which are not *fun *to deal with. That their mechanics don’t break the character, they just sort of kind of sort of ruin the game.

Ibuki isn’t broken, but her kunai is a broken mechanic. It is a gamble, it leads to too much of a positive result with minor risk and it requires tremendous skill to be dealt with accordingly. This is a broken element in the character.

There are parallels to this in other characters: Viper’s burn kick, Akuma’s demon flip, etc.

The call for nerfs on these things do not necessarily imply that the character is overpowered, just that this specific element of their moveset is overpowered and even worse, makes the fights not fun. This could be balanced out by favorable buffs on other elements of their game. This would balance the character.

Another issue is how those broken mechanics relate to the rest of the characters’ tools, and this is where we discuss whether a character is broken, or just an element of their game.

If you look at close-up game only, then Zangief is broken. Hell, even Dan would be upper tier. But a price is paid by being relatively ineffecive from other ranges.
Dhalsim is the opposite in this. Vega is a midrange beast but can’t deal with pressure.

So is a character that is competent in all areas broken? No. Ryu is the quintessencial balanced character and he is good no matter where he is. But you don’t see anyone calling for buffs or nerfs.

A character is broken when his tools at a certain range as exceptional paired with his ability to attain that range. And in this sense, the vortex game shines. Akuma, Ibuki, Cammy, Viper, all of them with their safe wakeup mixups that lead to damage and more of itself, are top tiered in this game. I’m not going to start a bushfire by saying that these guys are broken.

But the mechanic is broken. The vortex is broken. And all of them should be nerfed somehow. But don’t mistake nerfing a boring, unfair and broken mechanic, with considering the character overpowered. Those are two different issues.

1610

  1. Emanualb has the right idea, and why I disagree with any nerfs to Ibuki. Removing unblockables will already hit her hard, since she has a ton of set ups involving them. She is borderline top 10 now, and definitely a level below Akuma, Cammy, Fei, Adon, Seth. Her tournament results are pathetic compared to some of the other characters, as Emanualb said in a different way. When we are hearing that Yun is getting HUGE buffs, I don’t know what to believe as far as who is going to be buffed or nerfed and how much. So I don’t automatically assume Ibuki is going to receive nerfs, nor do I believe she deserves them.

  2. mOOntiger has explained much better than I ever could, how the kunai vortex is not some brainless unreadable unstoppable 50/50.

  3. Variable wake up timings are a system change, and hey at least that nerfs all the other vortexes as well so it seems fair. Though some characters, such as Ibuki, would need buffs in other areas or different properties to moves to make her still tournament viable.

1611

I missed SEAM but Rufus shouldn’t have trouble with Kunai. EX Messiah is free escape. IIRC he can force himself to juggle with wake up LP snake strike when having no meter. Worst thing he can get hit is by followup Raida or DP. Either knockdowns can’t setup for another vortex. It must be JWong being unfamiliar with Ibuki. She’s under represented especially in US after all. I talked with Hoodaman about this yesterday and this is new stuff to him too.

So just because it requires work to figure out in the lab it’s OK to nerf it? I never say to remember ALL setups, that would be impossible because different Ibuki players do different things on their setups. There are some popular setups I don’t use myself. You just need to get the gist of it and you’ll likely to block a lot of kunais. I still get hit by them and I don’t complain about it. I’m still learning this mechanic. It wouldn’t make sense to nerf it when she can still combo from her crossup jumpins that can lead to loopable hard knockdowns.

1612

People want Ibuki nerfed now? OMFG!

I swear people just want nothing to be good in this game.

1613

That’s taking it to the extreme. No, just because it takes some work to figure out setups it does not mean it’s necessary to nerf it. It is a combination of factors: the risk/reward ratio which is skewed, the number of possibilities presented, and how a bad guess will lead you into this exact scenario once again.

All of these together warrant a nerf of this mechanic, this aspect of the character, yes, though very minor as suggested above. This can also be offset by buffs in other areas in which the character is lacking, to keep her equally competitive overall.

1614

Lol @ yun needing buffs.,as an yun player, i feel he only needs about a few damage buffs. Mainly on cr strong and his mk dp. Other than that, this characte rocks.

1615

Considering that everybody else good is gettong nerf bombed you could leave Yun as is and he would probably end up in the top 5.

1616

Yun is part of that solid tier of very well rounded characters that are perfectly balanced within the game, together with, say , Ryu, and Boxer. Few people who main these characters feel a need for changes in the interest of balance.

1617

I’ll remember this for 2014 when you’re complaining about the top tier Yun.

1618

Sometimes the Kunai isn’t what you should be worried about they change it up with j.LK or cross up MK

This character by far has the most options to combo into UKD

1619

What people don’t remember is that there are mid/low tier characters whose gameplans revolve around knocking you down and that nerfing post-knockdown mixups would take them down too, main mentions are Hawk, Dudley and Gief. So you either think of some good buffs for them or ask for buffs in other areas for your characters.

1620

This is why such a system change probably won’t happen, it would be way too much work to balance everything out.