Having Trouble with Some Characters, coming from a Smash Background

Hello KI forums! I come from a smash brothers wii U and project m background, and have some pretty good fundamentals coming from there. I’m not having much trouble with the combo system surprisingly, after studying the game some, and I’m also somewhat well off in the game after only one and a half months of playing- 800 points in gold ladder with Riptor, and really enjoying her mixup potential and movement (I come from smash, movement is really important). I have some pocket characters that I pull out every once in a while, like Jago, Aria, and Wulf, but I can’t seem to be able to play some of the more zoning heavy characters, like kan ra or glacius. Is there something I’m missing here, or do I really just need to practice more with these characters?

What exactly do you think is your main issue when fighting those characters? Once you pinpoint what that is, you should focus on getting past that issue in training or something.

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Playing as Kan-Ra or Glacius?

So, firstly, if you’re comfortable with ARIA, then she might be a good place to level up your zoning skills. Her combination of bass body, assists, and shotgun/grenade normals make her a strong zoner. Fulgore might also be worth a look-in for something closer to a traditional projectile zoner than KI’s principal zoners, as well as many tools reminiscent of Jago’s loadout (a DP, similar frame-trapping tools, a pseudo-wind kick).

Secondly, zoning is pretty difficult to get the hang of: it’s as much about presenting the illusion of space control as it is about literally pushing your opponent away with pokes. Glacius and Kan-Ra further complicate this by also being grapplers: an important part of their game plan is not only zoning you away from them, but also into specific locations and into a general state of panicked downbacking so that they can grab you with their respective command grabs. To that end, a strong zoner needs to lab up some tricky setups that place projectiles and/or other threats in awkward places for their opponents, and also develop some game sense about how to mix up between, say, throwing out a poke to actually impede an opponent or using the threat of said poke to instead put time into setting something up like a projectile.

For my part, I’ve been trying on-and-off to learn Glacius, but I also suck at zoning, so I can’t offer anything other than the probably-slightly-wrong generalizations above. I’m a Jago main, and I learnt long ago that Jago doesn’t have a credible zoning game. (At least until season 3, that is.)

Thank you for the reply! I may try to pick up fulgore now before I get to the grappler zoners. And when season 3 comes out I may try doing a zoning based Jago, too. :slightly_smiling: