Beginners Guide to Ino Yamanaka

Now I tried making this guide before, but I got logged because I took too long to publish it. So here I am again with a fresh new mini guide to Ino Yamanaka!

Now before I start I will say that I am in no way saying I know everything about Ino. So if anyone has any suggestions as to what I can add to the guide, feel free to say so.

I. The Flower
Based off of what I see on the leaderboards, and in various matches, Ino is a very under-appreciated character when it comes to her play style. I feel she is by far the most gracefully strategic fighter in this installment. Her jutsu is quick, her charged kunai has a decent damage-over-time effect, and not to mention her ougi is deceptively quick (in the words of Kswizzle) along with her grapple. Be that as it may, she is not perfect. Her detonating flower jutsu can sidestepped if used at a decent distance and her grapple, if missed, can open you up for severe punishment, such as a team ougi. Though there are some flaws to here fight style, which there should be, if used correctly Ino can be a force to be reckoned with.

II. Pros and Cons
As stated above Ino has various strengths in terms of her jutsu. Not to mention her melee attacks do a decent amount of damage and hit fairly fast, considering you don't get knj'd repeatedly (which will most likely happen). One of which is her Detonating Flower ability. This jutsu is extremely quick and is great if you need to gain some distance after coming out of a knj or just catching your opponent when they're not paying attention. The move has an incredible range to it as well. It can reach across an entire small map and even if it misses it leaves a trail of explosive tags along it's path that can stop shurikens, certain jutsu, and support characters. If your opponent touches the tags they will staggered briefly giving you time to land another one for full damage or, if you're close enough, an ougi. Lastly, it is an extremely good dash cutter. Meaning if you time it correctly, you can halt and opponent that either dashes at you or uses a jutsu that physically connects with you (such as chidori or rasengan).

Another bonus to Ino is her grapple, which is the fastest in the game. The only drawback is that if you miss and/or it gets knj'd you will be temporarily unconscious leaving you vulnerable for just about any combo your opponent can think to do. But don't be alarmed! If your opponent strikes you with anything you will restore consciousness and be able to knj unless they grapple you or punish you with an ougi. Good times to use the grapple would be immediately after a knj or chakra dash.

Lastly we have her chakra shuriken which has a poison effect. It doesn't do a ton of damage but it can make a difference in a battle if kept up the whole fight. Note that the poison will not kill your opponent if they have 1% health. You have to deal that damage yourself. The only bad thing about the shurikens is that they don't follow your opponent like other basic chakra shurikens do. Instead it launches a bundle of spread-out kunai that go in one direction. So they are very handy to use once you knocked your opponent on the ground.

III. Items
One thing I hardly notice in my battles online is item usage. And when they are used, they are used horribly. But before I get into that I will explain what Ino's items do. Her d-pad up item is a chakra recovery item that restores a good chunk of chakra. The d-pad left is a poison tag, which I feel is a tad useless considering she has a practically infinite supply of poison kunai. D-pad right is kunai rain (or bomb, whatever it's called) where you lay out three ballons that explode after about 3 seconds and launch a mediocre amount kunai at your opponent. And finally, d-pad down is a defense pill which gives you a temporary boost in defense.

Ino's chakra recovery item is one of her most essential because it can help you in just about any situation where your opponent is pressuring you and stopping from recovering your chakra. It can also be used after you spent a good amount using a juggle combo and want to get a quick boost to enable you to juggle into an ougi.

The kunai rain ballons are good for when you need to take a quick second to charge chakra or force your opponent to block in order to gain or close some distance. If timed right, you can even land a grapple after they connect. Even if they get knj'd you can grab your opponent just before they hit the ground with your grapple.

The defense pill is what I feel to be the most important item that Ino has and since there are only two you are limited to when you can use them. Here are some key situations that you should use the pill.
1) when your opponent awakens and you know you will take inevitable damage.
2) When you know you left yourself open for a combo/ougi
3) When you are on the brink of losing and you need temporary defense to make a final stand

Keep in mind that the damage reduction is minimal, but it can safe your life in a tight situation. Everything counts always.

Lastly there is the poison tag. Though I find it to be somewhat useless, there are still times where you can use it to your advantage. For one, it's free. Meaning it costs no chakra. So if you have the opportunity to get it off, then you might as well. Secondly, it can pierce through regular shuriken and basic projectiles (such as Deidera's and Temari's).

All items, regardless of what they do, have some use to them. So my advice to anyone reading this is to learn exactly what your items do and use them to their fullest potential.

Note**
Sniperworm was kind enough to contribute some solid facts about Ino that I will post in addition to my own.

Contributed note from Sniperworm

Section II:  Pros and Cons
General – I’d say that Ino has bad melee in that she deals average to below average damage in an average amount of hits that are easily to knj.  Not only that, but her moves have little hitstun, which means that she cannot combo into jutsus/dashes during most parts of her combos.

Ougi – More needs to be said about her ougi.  The fact that it is invincible against normal attacks, shuriken/items, throws, and physical jutsus means that it serves as a good escape tactic if the opponent gets you in a bad spot (multi-hit support + grab traps are a common one).  You can ougi opposing chakra dashes, but you must do it late or they will bounce off at a funny angle and Ino won’t follow them.  This is her best way of protecting herself from chakra dashes and chakra dash to support attempts (assuming the support is a physical jutsu).  You can also ougi people that spam air chakra shuriken at mid range if they have long chakra shuriken animations (Sasuke, Gaara, etc.).

Section III: Items
Blast Kunai – These are honestly her worst item as they serve little purpose other than distractions.  With that being said, there is one thing I like doing with them.  The fact is, they’re good chakra dash bait since they’re so big and obvious.  Throwing them out tends to draw chakra dashes, so you can chakra cancel into a jutsu or ougi to stuff them and get some free damage.

Poison Tag – This item is highly under appreciated.  You need to ignore the poison effect (which is garbage) and focus on the fact that it is a fast, long range, disjointed, difficult to see, moderate priority (beats out shuriken) attack which has good hit stun and can be canceled at any point.  When you think of this as a setup move rather than a method to poison people, you can realize just how powerful it is.  I’ll give you one of my favorite uses below:

Poison tag leads to one of Ino’s best jutsu setups from a neutral position (close to mid range):  poison tag canceled into jutsu.  If done correctly, people will not notice the poison tag simply because the jutsu is so loud and obvious.  This will cause them to try and move to avoid the jutsu, but if done correctly, the tag will hit them as they start to move and will stun them long enough for the jutsu to hit them.  The fact that they weren’t expecting to get hit at all means that this tactic is rarely knj’ed (since by the time they realize what happened, the jutsu will likely have hit them already).  This tactic is especially effective if you throw out a few random jutsus every match, basically forcing your opponent to realize that the best way to handle the jutsu is to dodge around it rather than block/knj it.



IV. Combat
I find Ino to be an extremely fun character to fight with, without being cheap or using my jutsu repeatedly(spamming), or relying on my awakening to win a match. But dont get me wrong. Spamming is a cheap way to win a match and it requires no effort to jump in circles throwing shuriken while you bide time to get your team gauge up, but it is by NO means an excuse as to why you lose a match. Too many people use spamming as an excuse as to why they lost. Anyone has the capability to beat a spammer regardless of how cheap it may be. One thing that I find to be extremely key to winning matches is "reading" your opponent. Take a moment to learn their fighting style. See how they react in certain situations and pay attention to how they use their support. Once you learn their style, fight back accordingly. I'll use this example.

You have an opponent who constantly dashes in circles and throw shuriken at you. Basically disabling you from standing in the same spot the whole match. They'll send one support at you and try to force you to guard and ONLY then will they charge you and try to land a powerful combo. If they fail, they call in their second support create a wall between you two so they can back off and continue the "circle jerking". There is a very simple way to beat an opponent like this. With Ino, I will run (not jump or dash) in a circle counter to the direction they are running. If you do this you wont get hit by any shuriken. When you see an opportunity, dash at them then immediately back off. This will force them to go into a short panic and call out one if not both of their support to create that wall again, but the reason why you back off is so you can avoid the support and move right back in to put pressure on their chakra. I'll use Choji to force a block/knj then grapple them straight away to get off a nice chunk of damage. Once they're on the ground I'll poison them with the charged kunai. When they stand up I'll use Shikamaru to block any support character they try to pull out to gain distance and in the confusion I'll use detonating flower. If I need to, I will back off and recharge a little charka and then go right back in to add pressure on there chakra pool using the same method as previously mentioned. By this time my team gauge will be charged enough to start using strike-back(attack support). Strike back is important to be able to juggle your opponent into an ougi or air combo. Once I have a full team gauge I will back off, giving them the idea that they should start running in circles again. But what most people don't realize is that brief moment where the take off into the sky and toss their shurikens, they are wide open for a team ougi. So once they start circle jerking again run in a counter direction to where they are running while closing that distance between you. Now, if timed perfectly, the moment they take off into the air you can charge up your team ougi and strike before they even touch the ground dealing massive damage if you are using a "pure" team such as Ino-Shika-Cho. If you haven't won the match at this point, they will probably try and awaken. Let them. 98% of people who awaken tend to get aggressive and try to charge you repeatedly. At this point, pop your defense pill and wait for them to charge for a chakra dash. Once they take off, use detonating flower to stop them in their tracks. Not only will this knock them back, but it will trigger strike back which you can use to attack with another detonating flower and at this point you should have won the match.

Also make sure you take full advantage of your juggles. While your opponent is in the air you can execute a team or regular ougi. Or even just hit them with your jutsu to trigger strike back into an air combo.

Now the above strat isn't full proof. But it is tested against your typical circle jerker and works great in that instance. I am not telling you to use this strat in all your fights because you should this
[quote]Take a moment to learn their fighting style. See how they react in certain situations and pay attention to how they use their support. Once you learn their style, fight back accordingly.


This is key to winning any fight.

Hope you found this to be useful. Over time I will add more to this guide so be sure to look out for my updates.

Happy fighting and I hope you learn to use Ino to her fullest potential =)


**Updates!**

1) So I was messing around with Ino's tilt and it turns out to be a great punisher. Basically what it does is cause Ino to "home-run" slide on the ground then launch your opponent into the air. This attack does trigger strike back which you can use to punish your opponent even further with dash/item cancels and such (refer to http://theninjastorm.com/forum/index.php?topic=37.0 for details on that). I'm still working on this to find every possible way to use it to it's fullest potential.

2) Contributor: Sniperworm
Ino’s damage per your request.  Damage is based on your opponent’s total life (so 100% is equal to both life bars).  Remember, I’m a PS3 player, so attack notations are per the PS3 version.

Neutral Combo (OOOOOO):  13 hits, 17.6% damage
Up Combo (OOO Up OOO):  11 hits, 17% damage
Side Combo (OOO Side OOO):  13 hits, 17% damage
Down Combo (OOO Down OOO):  11 hits, 18% damage
Air Combo (OOO):  4 hits, 7.5% damage
Tilt OO:  6 hits, 8% damage total
Throw:  9.9% damage
Shuriken:  0.2% damage each (total of 0.6% damage)
Ninja Move Shuriken:  0.2% damage each (total of 1.2% damage)
Chakra Shuriken:  5 second poison (3.6% damage total)
Jutsu:  10% damage (2% damage for residual explosions, 12% damage for direct hit that doesn’t knockdown (2 hits))
Ultimate Jutsu:  30% damage
Left Item (Poison Tag):  2 second poison (1.4% damage)
Right Item (Burst Kunai):  lol, never tested
“Custom” Combos
- OOO Down OO > Jutsu = 22% damage
- OOO Down OO > XX > air OOO = 19.5% damage
- Tilt O > Jutsu = 12% damage
- Tilt O > XX > OOO = 9.6% damage

Other random info I felt like including:

Down Item (Tortoiseshell Pills):  Defense Up – 5 seconds (16.67% damage reduction)

Awakening Mode (less than 50% health):  15 second duration, 15 second recovery (standard bonuses (inflict 30% extra damage, extra guard damage, harder for opponent to KnJ, etc.))

Support Combinations (R = red dots, B = blue dots, P = purple dots):
- Sakura Haruno – Rivals in Love (1R, 5B, 0P)
- Sakura and Karin – Aiming for Sasuke (2R, 4B, 0P)
- Shikamaru and Choji – Ino-Shika-Cho (1R, 1B, 4P)
- Asuma and Shikamaru – Team Asuma (1R, 2B, 3P)
- Asuma and Choji – Team Asuma (1R, 2B, 3P)


Here is some video footage, courtesy of Sniperworm.

Holy this is a detailed guide, and on your first try too. I like Ino's tilt, it seems to be so difficult to sub out of!

Trust me, it wasn't just me. Sniperworm contributed a good deal to it as well and there will be more information in the future. That's a little more general. I'll get into more advanced situations once I do the right research. Sniper will also be contributing a little more. I thank him mostly for my information.

Edit: and as for Ino's tilt, the first few hits (the slide) is the hardest part to knj. The last hit seems to be a little easier, but if you dash cancel into an air combo or an item you can set your opponent up for more damage.

Great guide. It is very informative, and I'd even go as far to say that is an advanced guide not a beginners, which is beneficial in Ino's case.

I personally main Ino, and most of the things you have here is very insightful. I knew a lot of it, but the items section and the damage output sections were new and very helpful. I also like how you explained how to counter the basic side dash, shuriken strategy and how you emphasized taking the time to read your opponent. I'm also a believer that it is the player's fault if they lose to something as simple as spamming.

I appreciate the feedback. The guide did start as a beginner guide, but as time went on information got added and it will continue to become more and more advanced once I do some more theory-crafting with Sniper. So keep an eye out.