Have a few questions related to ibuki's air kunais. Can anyone help?
Does anyone know the frames on Ibuki's air kunais and air ex kunais on block? Are they plus, negative but safe, or unsafe?
What is the best answer to Ibuki mixing up air kunais with regular jump ins? Reactive air to air or invincible anti air if you have it?
On knockdown, can she do a air kunais "mixup" that hits cross up? Seems to always hit in front in my experience.
1. I dont know the frames off the top of my head, but if its a regular kunai and hits anywhere but your foot or ankle, she is negative. ON HIT. Reg air kunai are shit unless they *very* low. If one hits you in the chest you can literally take the hit and be at advantage when she lands. Ex Kunai are a different story and are + most of the time on block I *believe*. She may be negative if they hit really high up. Grounded Kunai are all -2 OB and +2 OH, with ex being +18 OB (yes, +18, its her 'I NEED FRAMES' move) and OH obviously it launches. So basically, just watch where the kunai landed, if its not an Ex, it has to be almost perfect or you dont have to respect it, even on HIT.
2. Invincible AA is always the best option but leaves you open to being baited and CC'd. The real answer to this IMO is to just move.. If she doesn't land them perfectly you dont have to respect them at all, so screwing up her timing and spacing will work well. Not to mention she has a finite number of them without reloading and they do very little damage. If she is abusing air kunai and doing it constantly, well thats kinda good for you if you just stay defensive and keep her from converting. This is just my opinion, but if I think shes going to kunai, instead of worrying about AAing her and possibly eating a jump-in, Id just block her out. Let her piss those resources away.. She needs kunai for a TON of stuff, and without them her Vtrigger loses the vast majority of its power. If she spends a bar to EX one, you just have to eat the plus frames - but again, playing defensive here is a good option because Ibuki ALSO needs bar for a TON of stuff.. So if she jumps and throws away two important resources and you just block her out.. that's a really nice trade for you. Of course if you feel confident you can AA her, do it, but the risk/reward is pretty skewed here, and Ibuki really relies on converting her resources in to damage/effective situations, so you need to keep that in mind. Again, IMO, if she's got a good air game and is doing a good job of mixing you up and punishing you hard when you misread her jump option, stop playing that game,. stop letting her trade those resources for damage and screen advantage - Block her out and let her piss away some of two resources she has to use *a lot*. If you're lucky she will get mad and keep trying and you'll drain her resources while taking next to no chip damage, leaving her on the back foot and needing a HKD to reload some Kunai or just more time to rebuild meter.
3. I am unaware of ANY way she can make her kunai hit as a cross-up.. And even if she did, a regular kunai that high up would be bad for her. I haven't labbed it but I'm pretty sure you can purposefully take the hit and be at frame advantage (in the case of a Kunai hitting so high up as to be a potential crossup).
This is just a personal thing, but Ibuki's Kunai do 40 damage.. there are a lot of situations where people are afraid of them and this gives her precious frames to advance or set up offense. There are times when TAKING the hit is worth it, since its actually bad for her. Obviously you dont want to take an Ex hit ever, but reg. kunai.. Ive seen matches where someone is throwing fireballs or zoning and STOPS because Ibuki gets a couple Kunai to land/punish the fireball game with them, which is kinda silly IMO, you have infinite fireballs and they do more damage.. let her throw away a resource she needs to make some things safe and a resource she needs to flat out make her cvtrigger work right.. Im sure there are Vtrigger setups without Kunai, but we most of the big setups Ive seen require 2-3 kunai and 1-2 bars to run through. Hell, her basic ass bomb-in-to-damage Vtrigger 'BnB' thing takes at least one.
Ibuki is a weird character who can be really scary until you realize you dont have to respect a HUGE array of what she does. She has good pressure when she's point blank, dont get me wrong, but unless she's sitting on resources and frame advantage, she cant do a lot, and a ton of what people get away with in neutral isnt even a LITTLE bit real. If you have an Ibuki who likes cancelling in to dashes to mix you up, mindlessly spam your 3f button the second you see her dash animation, and you will tag her almost every time - and that is mashing it. Practice the timing and you'll blow her up. A note though, I do NOT think there are, but there *might* be situations where she turns the dash in to a frame trap of sorts to counter hit you out of mashing - but I dont know of any and I dont think there are any, I just add the warning to be thorough.
