Zoner? I didn't even know her!

Fun fact : tohou has a fighting game that is basically everyone being a zoner and somehow works,is a really good fight game

The thing that i like about zonners is that when you DO get in, it feels so much better than hitting any other character

The lonely zoner tries to free his mind at night

I think something that's underdiscussed when talking about why zoners are frustrating is that at lower levels the risk/reward doesn't line up. When playing Ryu vs. Ken at lower levels, you know you're not playing the characters at full strength, but that's ok. You don't punish everything you could, you don't always do the optimal combo, and you don't always throw out the best option, but neither does your opponent, so it evens out. If developers balanced the game so Ryu and Ken were equally likely to win neutral, and can each kill off of 3-4 interactions at high level, at low level the same thing happens over 6-7 interactions and it's still fine. With zoners, however, there's a missmatch. Each stray JP spike or Guile boom deals the same damage at bronze as it does at legend. However, when a low level player does get in on a zoner, they're not going to get as much damage off their combo and probably aren't going to have as good of oki, so they're more likely to get sent back to full screen after only doing half the damage they needed to. Sure, low level zoners can't generally anti-air as well or do strong combos, but that's often less relevant. When the formula for a game is "I can hit you with 30 10 damage projectiles each time you get in, then you do a 300 damage combo when you actually land a hit", then non-zoner only does 150 damage before getting DP'd back to full screen, it stops feeling like an even fight.

Worst types of zoners are those who can cover multiple approaches with one use of a special.

Zoning is at it’s most fun when you HAVE to select the right option for the specific situation because then it becomes a game of trying to condition and read your opponent for both sides.

I like Peacock because she is very interesting as a zoner.
It is not about just dashblocking through projectiles.
It is about the unique tools you have to counter her zoning.
About navigating her dead zone.
About paying attention to item drop cooldowns.
About spacing around M item drop shadow.
About M/H shadow tradeoffs.
And assists make it even more interesting adding a layer on top.

Like I can call H Hilgard 2 hir armor fullscreen projectile assist, but it takes time to come out and can be hit before it comes out. So I want to step forward with my point character and guard the assist to get it come out. Amazing.

when I hear “broken top tier zoner” I think of injustice superman, chills

Trap zoning is probably the most messed up of the 3 types of zoning but also the type I enjoy the most playing vs and as. Fighting Testament in +R is something you really have to experience to understand and appreciate.

I can see why people like sf6 sagat. Hes got a muay thai anesthetic so makes sense people would like the version who's elbowing more.

Zoners tend to be really badly designed. They tend to either violently hose characters that don't have proper answers or they are actually solid characters with strong ranged options, aka the old Netherrealm special..

So even when they're terrible, they're still extremely frustrating.

I WOKE UP WITH A ZONER

When my man started showing Sagat in his later apperances, I now realize how fucking HUGE this man is. I didnt realize how tall Sagat was, like good god. He's even taller than Zangief!

Something that personally makes imo zoners a lot more frustrating to deal with now more than ever, despite their zoning being weaker, is that modern games have a tendency to give them access to tools, universal or character specific, that let them ignore their designed flaws.

The biggest example of this is GBVSR, which is a game that gives every single character in the game access to a metered reversal that you cannot safejab (unless youre Vaseraga), and every single zoner in the game also has the best version of that option, which is a strike Ultimate Reversal, because it has general invul, meaning that you have to actually just respect it and hard read it if you wanna call it out. The game also gives these characters a resourceless, safe on block Guard Cancel, meaning that even if you do get in on them you cannot run normal offense really. And because a lot of zoners are also ironically very good at pressing out of spaced pressure, which is the only type of pressure that doesn't easily die to Brave Counter and strike Ultimate reversals, with a lot of them having quite good reward from said spaced abare, it means their designed flaw of being bad on defense does not really exist. And if you look at the tierlists of the game, basically the entire top 7 is either made up of zoners (Metera, Ferry, Eustace, Cagliostro, Grimnir), characters that kill zoners (Grimnir, Beatrix) and characters that snowball so hard from their wincon they dont care (Cagliostro, Grimnir, Vaseraga).

SF6 for the longest time, I probably dont even need to mention him, had a zoner that was better at midrange, close pressure and defence than characters with specialized tools. That being the character design faux pass that is JP. But SF6 is also a game that hates zoning to the point that they make zoners good by letting them use projectiles to skip neutral. Its moreso just a symptom of the same "lessen strengths, get rid of weaknesses" mindset modern FGs outside Avatar have been experiencing.

earlier i was thinking of a video i would like to see you make so this is like a topic suggestion: i think it could be a fun topic to talk about really complex or technical characters that arent very strong in practice
anyways, great work as always!

I’m a grappler player always have been and you’d think I hate zoner’s but honestly it can be a lot of fun certain zoner’s do piss me off but that’s less them being a zoner and more happy chaos being a horribly poorly designed character

I am a Tekken player and I was like "Muay Thai fighter is a weird pick for a zoner" but then I realized Fahkumram legs can reach from one side of the stage to Africa so I guess he's somewhat of a zoner too even though he doesn't have any projectile.

The streets need that 6 minute rant on JP.

As someone who grew up on the touhou fighting games where projectiles were universal and dashes were projectile invincible, I think zoning in general is more interesting for both sides when everyone on the roster can do something from full screen, not necessarily be effective at that range but having an anti-projectile tool or some kind of projectile be a universal adds complexity to neutral at all ranges and prevents the rushdown characters and grapplers from finding themselves just waiting to walk forward slightly until neutral starts again.

Zoners more annoy me when I'm using characters that don't have easy answers for it. I don't often play zoners, but I am interested in trying out Metera just to deal with other zoners.

Edit: After I made this comment, I just remembered that I main Dizzy in Strive.