I’ve been silent for awhile now, because I’ve just been kind of sunken into my droned out practice state. Just sitting in training mode practicing, with the occasional casual set to see if any more of the muscle memory has stuck. Slowly but surely this character is starting to feel natural to me – a lot less overlapping muscle memory from 3S Ibuki creeping in, and I’m functionally using and remembering more and more setups as time goes on. I really kind of wanted to wait until I felt like I had an okay grasp of the character before I posted again with some thoughts on her, since it’s been kind of a bumpy road of mixed emotions.
Before release I sort of predicted she’d be one of the better characters, sitting around Vega or a little higher in regards to Tiers. Getting my hands on her, that impression seemed about right – then I hit a bit of a stall as the flaws of her buttons and game plan started to really peak. Then there’s now, where I’ve figured out some solutions to those problems, some work arounds, and have overall come to grips with some of her more… less than stellar points. In the end she kind of came full circle in the span of only a week. I think she definitely is sitting as one of the better characters in the game, and as time passes, she will only get stronger – at least, for a few months, after which, she will start to get weaker. Her tech will reach it’s peak of discovery, and then only the counter measures will be discovered, and she’ll start to really show her actual tier.
No matter what hiccups are found along the way, she is seemingly really solid as a character. She has some great fundamentals, while also being probably being the worst abuser of the 8 frame delay with some of her setups, which may as well be borderline unblockable with the delay. Yet, she is also one of the best at overcoming the bullshit meta that is entirely shaped by the 8 frame delay: Lots of random jumps and dashes, one of which she has b.MP/c.HP/HK/Kunai Release/Dash under/Air Throw to deal with, and the other she has the easiest knee-jerk reaction to in the form of her LP-MP-HP target combo. I fuckin’ hate this delay bullshit meta of SFV and I hope it gets fixed, but it’s nice that she can counter it easier than others – heh, while also being the worst abuser of it.
As an analogy to her own V-trigger, Ibuki is quite literally a ticking time bomb of a character design. She essentially gets weaker as the match goes on and she gets closer and closer to running out of Kunai, with one last explosion in waiting in the form of her very game winning V-trigger. Personally, I keep my Kunai pokes to a minimum, and only start to poke with it if I feel overcoming the neutral without them is becoming too difficult. I tend to prefer using her Kunai for getting in or making riskier poke conversions safe. While her neutral is solid, I think right now, there is a vast abuse of match-up inexperience going on in every video I see, be with Sako or otherwise. I think as time goes on, her neutral is going to get figured out, and she’s going to have a harder time.
That said, she has a great neutral, but also possesses one of the best V-Triggers in the game in my opinion. Any poke from Ibuki can be converted into damage, that converts into a mix-up or extended pressure. I think one of the more important aspects for Ibuki players to master is the ability to convert and realize the potential of each conversion. She has a very Guilty Gear style way of comboing, where she can kind of freestyle for more, if she wants – burn more meter to extend the combo further.
Example where you hit with a very far 2MP:
2MP, Kazekiri
2MP, EX Kunai, LKDash, LP Raida
2MP, EX Kunai, HKDash, a.Kunai, LP Raida
2MP, EX Kunai, HKDash, a.Kunai, Kunai, EX Raida
2MP, EX Kunai, HKDash, a.kunai, Kunai, (n)VT, Dash, LP Raida, MKDash, HP Raida
All useful additions to the combo if you think you can finish the opponent off. In general however, you’re much better off simplifying your combos in favor of resets. One of the few things I took away from SonicFox’s Ibuki was some of his reset choices, the rest of his game plan seemed less than stellar to me. Much prefer Sako’s way of playing, but even then, still a bit different than what I’m usually trying for.
Far as match-ups go, I think the only ones she’ll have a particularly hard time with are against (shocker), the shotos. Despite the fact that Ibuki handles herself pretty well in the footsie game against them and has a lot of fireball evasive stuff, none of her anti-fireball tech is instant. Much like SFV as a whole, there is a delay on all of them: slide, jump kunai, V-skill, f.HK, EX Raida, they all have some sort of start-up where they aren’t fireball immune. So a Ryu with a good fireball game is pretty rough, as it is for pretty much everyone, on top of that, he does crazy damage, and Ibuki dies in seconds.
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I think if I had to site a reason right now as to why I’m not thinking as highly of Ibuki as some others in here claiming her to be the best ever, it’s quite frankly because I personally am not afraid of Ibuki when I’m playing against her. In-fact, of the cast, she is the one I am least scared of. This is likely a result of facing nothing but bad Ibukis or ones in learning, but we’re all on that side of the fence too, and I hilariously have a 100% (I think) win rate against other Ibukis right now. I lost to one, but I got a run back, so that’s evened out, no clear winner there yet. My winrate against other characters as Ibuki has definitely not been so great, but it has been slowly climbing.
If there were things I wish this Ibuki version had, it would be these two (+1):
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5MK was cancelable: This really did throw me off, and it still makes me sad to this day, because her 5MK still feels just like it used to, and if it was cancelable, it (and I), would be making people cry all over again. I was at least hoping that it would get the Laura treatment and a CH 5MK would allow a link into 5LK, but alas, that doesn’t work. A real shame.
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Ability to change j.EX Kunai trajectory: This would likely be too strong, but I miss being able to do massive throw punishes with SAI in 3S, it was quite literally my favorite thing to do in all of fighting games. That feeling when the game pauses and you see their hand outstretched, grabbing no one, it really lets you know you got the read right. Same feeling for using it to punish predictable low attempts. You can jump Kunai throw attempts in SFV, but you land at a disadvantage even on hit, and you’d have to burn all of your Kunai to get a combo off of it. Not great.
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The +1 is basically that I’m sad they added in such a useless move to Ibuki’s arsenal in the form of her glide. It’s as bad as I thought it would be. Really slow, high height restriction, you can’t cancel Kunai until the end, you have a long recovery – it’s basically a guaranteed punish by 90% of the cast.
As for how I’ve been playing Ibuki, whelp, you guessed it, I’m playing 3S Ibuki as best I can. Lots of MK, lots of trying to get into that sweet spot just outside of throw range, and a lot of f.HKing over lows. I think her V-skill is okay, upon further use I’ve found it to be a bit risky, but it’s certainly really good, especially once the corner becomes more prominent. V-trigger is basically completely ignored or a game winning turn – pretty damn good, and I mostly use it for resets or just for the presence factor.
Really though, 5MK target is really good. It’s pretty much my entire goal to get things started. I’m actually really sad none of her target combos can be started from other points. I would love to be able to do 2HK, 5HK as a far ranged punish tool. Would be amazing. But yes, 5MK is life. While 6MK kind of became pretty meh, 2MK and 5MK are still holding their own in making the MK button for Ibuki still the most important button.
Now if only Capcom would fix the input delay, I might actually enjoy SFV a lot more. Sighs If only…