IbukiBot v1.0

Difficulty Advanced

Focus Mixup Defense and Punish Spacing

IbukiBot is a simplistic bot in actions, but advanced in terms of what she can teach most players about their own chosen characters. While she does use some of the more difficult bot-input techniques, her leniency is higher. Both leniency and specific variants can be used to tailor her to the player's character.

Successful play against this bot is primarily about learning punish spacings and the variations thereof, both for Ibuki's blockstrings, and, in turn, the available punishes for the character the player is using. Another bot that can be useful for learning the options available when aiming to learn a new character.

Gauge Settings

As with all bots, 1P Health should be set to "Normal". 1P CA Gauge can be set to either "Normal" or "Auto-Recover", and 1P V-Gauge can also be set to either "Normal" or "Auto-Recover".

Settings for 2P are Health - "Auto-Recover", V-Gauge - "Maximum Start", CA Gauge - "Auto-Recover". If the player wishes to primarily interact with Ibuki's V-Trigger bombs, they can set V-Gauge to Infinite and V-Timer to either Infinite or Minimum Start. The latter option will mean she uses more cancels, the former will remove cancels.

Goals

Completing each action gives 1 point. Try to get to 10 points without dying, and without Ibuki getting to 10 points, if in Extreme Difficulty mode.

Points System

Difficulty Levels

Action #1

5HP+HK, hidden [236MP+LP, 236], end recording immediately.

Replay this by itself. It should result in repeated aerial Kasumigake into Ground/Air EX Kunai. If no Kasumigake occur, retry the recording end. Speed is essential in ending the recording, as for all 'edge-shifting'. Try doing Shinten into EX Kunai cancel first to get a feel for this before entering it.

Action #2

66 (dash) into range of opponent, 5LP, 5MP, end recording immediately.

The recording ending should be so fast that if this action plays into #1 with V-Meter not at full, it will cause her to do full LP MP HP target combo (Shinten).

Action #3

From close enough to hit, 5LK+MK, 2HK, 1HK (should combo), hidden [63214], end recording immediately.

This should be able to cause an EX Kunai recharge if played back into itself when Ibuki is out of range to hit with the LK HK HK Target Combo. If not, but she does MK, the recording end must be faster, as with all edge-shifted inputs.

Action #4

6LK, hidden [6MK], 1LP+LK, end recording before the end of the throw whiff animation.

This is done fast enough that there is no chance of both the LK and the 6MK overhead attack happening in the same playback. Generally the throw should not be able to follow the 6MK either. Even when poking Ibuki to interrupt her to check if she can do the 6MK, it may be quite difficult to get her to actually do it, so it is often best to just use the bot and note if it just seems to never happen. It is intended to be relatively rare.

Action #5

Perfect

5LK+MK, hidden [5HP], 236, end recording.

Acceptable

5MK, hidden [5HP], 236, end recording.

Variant

3LK+MK or 3MK can be input instead of 5 for the first input (that is, change the direction from neutral to down-forward).

In order for the variant to work, the 3MK should also be edge-shifted, i.e. the direction and the button press must be simultaneous. The variant results in slide sometimes, and Kazekiri at other times, but reduces her ability to do M-Kasumigake. The hidden HP is pressed with no delay at all. This allows the MK input to be ignored and this will also act as 'finishing Shinten' when Action #2 replays into this action. Be aware that using the Perfect option changes it so that occasionally this is a LK input. If so, adjust the timing, or use the Acceptable version (and still attempt to adjust the timing if you want to practice the punish more than the awareness)



In-Depth

IbukiBot is an advanced bot, meant to teach you skills that rely on you being more experienced and familiar with your characters options, and trained on how to think about your options in order to maximize the benefit you gain from them. IbukiBot does well in teaching you three things, mixup defense, punish spacing, and the art of standing still. Mixup Defense and learning how to take advantage of openings in her pressure strings given the different spacings they push you at, are the most direct, and the most relevant to players just starting to work through our bots.

IbukiBot puts stress on the player to defend against her many target combos and mix up tools. As you get well acquainted with IbukiBot, you can gradually start to understand the bots possible rythms and mix ups. Eventually this lets you develop an autopilot for your defense through some of her more standard mix ups. This frees up your time to think about your plan for action to take once the mix up ends, and to observe your own spacing for punishes. This should prompt you to start thinking about how you wish to punish things and what situations you wish to set up as a result of those spacings.

As you gain more experience in the game, the third function of the bot comes into play. Your defensive reflexes, and your spacing awareness for punishes, give you the tools to defend better, but in a real match, being able to hide your intentions like the ninja you are facing, allows you to more quickly deal with IbukiBot's continual onslaught of tools. To take your IbukiBot training to the next level you must, instead of blocking premptively through crouch block, learn to stand and react even more quickly to her actions, blocking or prempting with your tools. You will need to learn not only how to react quicker, but also how to see her possible intentions, trust your instincts more, and where you want to stand.

This is the beginnings of style. There are many styles that cannot work without this skill, but it also forces the player to consider more carefully how they wish to deal with the situation of an advancing Ibuki. Do you wish to defend, perhaps expecting that she will push too far leaving you at advantage? Are there buttons you can feel confident in preempting her advance depending on how you think the IbukiBot will approach? Do you wish to move to a more comfortable location? The answers to those types of questions and what you choose to do as a result is your answer for 'how to use IbukiBot to help develop and hone your style.'

The reason IbukiBot is useful for this purpose is that, because of her tool set, both her command dash, good buttons, and ability to change her spacing relative to yours, she is able to put the player in a large variety of situations compared to most other bots. Her relentlessness and good pressure amplifies this, forcing the player to actually deal with the situations rather than it being just a mere threat.