I-No is a bit tricky to use, but has great potential when mastered. Her biggest strengths are her explosive damage combined with her difficult to block high/low mixup. Rather than having a standard ground dash, she possesses a unique hoverdash that makes her airborne, allowing her to use her aerial moves low to the ground without needing to land from a full jump. When she makes an opponent block a multi-hit music note projectile either on oki or from neutral, she can safely utilize her difficult to block mixup using her quick overheads, feints into lows, and generally unprorated damage if she has meter for the conversion. This grants I-no some of the most dangerous okizeme in the game, which means she also has explosive comeback potential.
However, I-no possesses weaknesses to offset her strong oki game. The biggest one is probably the complexity of her neutral game. While her hoverdash is amazing for high/low mixup, it is incredibly prohibitive for movement and pressure. Her normals and special moves are typically good at one specific job, so you will be forced to guess more often than with other characters. And though her defense isn't as low as other characters such as Millia, I-No is just as susceptible to being dizzied. Eating a single counterhit from some characters can end the round in a loss, which discourages you from taking certain actions and can make you more predictable in a sense.
That said, landing a well placed counterhit in neutral, confirming the full combo, and succeeding on oki with an unrproated normal can be enough to destroy the lower defense characters.
I-No I-No is a bit tricky to use, but has great potential when mastered. Her biggest strength is her explosive damage combined with her difficult to block high/low mixup.
- Strong Mixup Tools: Hoverdash for quick overheads, TK overhead options, j.D and all of it's associated techniques.
- Safe on block overdrives that can typically be converted from on hit.
- Explosive burst damage using optimized character-specific combos.
- Superb aerial mobility thanks to double air dash and dives, including her force break which restores jump options.
- Versatile special moves such as HCL (projectile reaching 2/3 screen that negates 1 hit of other projectiles while passing through them and remaining active) and music note (projectile with vertical control that gains hits the longer it's on screen).
- Above average tension gain.
- Fourth longest total backdash invul in the game allows you to escape some situations other characters can't escape with their backdash.
- Her unique ground-to-air "hoverdash" has 9 startup frames, which creates difficulties in escaping some situations, inhibits certain types of pressure and weakens her throw game.
- High execution barrier for advanced combos and her neutral game movement. You will drop things sometimes no matter how much you practice, and I-No is the type of character where it will hurt when it happens.
- Low damage output midscreen without the use of tension.
- No meterless reversal, and her metered option (ground super) can be thrown when she's not protected from throws on wakeup.
- Worst airthrow range in the game.
- Below average health rating and guts.
Warning/Disclaimer
Be prepared to put in effort over a long time period. Her execution requirements are a struggle, but it's so worth it when everything comes together. If you want a character where you don't have to be precise with your button presses, you should look elsewhere. If you want to be rewarded for that precision with damage and mixups as filthy as I-No's vocabulary, then play I-No.
- Combos are difficult and more character specific than with other characters. You're also more likely to get blown up for dropping a combo than with other characters.
- Optimized meterless combos will utilize 1~2 frame IAD links at mid screen. This is the same 5H > IAD j.K/j.P link that gets used in Xrd (if you played that), but +R does not have the input buffer, so you must execute the IAD with more precision.
- Must apply multiple advanced techniques to use the string "5K > HCL > FRC airdash", such as Jump Install, dash splitting (6 > FRC > 6), and hitting a 2-frame FRC window. This is a high damage option that allows you to confirm in many situations where you otherwise couldn't, so you need to eventually learn it.
- She is difficult to learn neutral with.
- You can't microdash and FD Brake to close distance against zoning, or to pass under someone who is jumping in due to her hoverdash.
- Anti-air is situational and requires more finesse than other characters: 5p, 6p, j.P, 5K, airthrow, 6H, and VCL are all used.
- Also, some jump-ins flat out cannot be counter-poked from the ground when your opponent spaces them properly because their hurtbox shrinks in a way that I-No's ground normals do not reach before they land.
- I-No struggles with counter poking effectively on the ground. You need to deeply understand I-No's hitboxes and hurtboxes, as well as your opponent's hitboxes and hurtboxes, which takes time. This knowledge would help any character perform better in any matchup, but I-No players can struggle until this clicks (it'll feel like you have to guess a lot). You can't really count on a move to "just work" as a poke like you can with some other characters.
- Moves that you'll typically counter-poke with carry risk and require precision. All of her moves are good, but they each do a specific job well.
Unique Mechanics
Hover Dash
- I-No's dash makes her airborne
- Feet are off the ground on frame 4
- 9 frames of startup. The fastest you can start acting is on frame 10.
- The fastest you can land is on frame 20, even if you whiff a normal (like j.H) to try to land faster.