New player seeks Zoner recommendation

General Discussion
1

Hello all,

I’ve been looking into KI, reading Infil’s guide, watching videos, etc. I’m looking to get a recommendation for a zoner character specifically. Besides the three combo-traited zoners, I’m also considering Fulgore & Eyedol as possibilities for characters who can play a strong zoning style but don’t fold as quickly if you bypass their zoning.

As I watch videos I mostly see Fulgore and Glacius playing a classic zoning style where you could in theory do all the opponent’s life from across the screen, with Gargos needing to engage in close before he can build minions, Eyedol alternating play styles with stance, and Kan Ra’s trait drawing him in to finish combos (though perhaps his zoning is more about using traps and Swarm to protect Clutch spam than combos).

Are these assessments correct? Thoughts on skill floor (probably rules out Fulgore) and ceiling for these 5, and recommendations for a new player? Anyone else you’d add?

Thank you.

2

There isn’t really a true zoner in this game. Glacius and Kan-Ra are more “trap grapplers,” Gargos and Fulgore are more balanced, and Eyedol is…Eyedol.

Difficulty wise, Glacius and Eyedol are probably the easiest to learn.

3

For someone looking for a zoner to start with I would say fulgore is a good choice. Learning to properly use pip cancels is intimidating but aside from that there’s a lot of reasons why I think fulgore is pretty easy. His dashes are very good so it’s simple for him to adjust his position in zoning to somewhere he’s more comfortable being. Heavy laser is a tool that generally prevents him from being outzoned and lets him safely get light fireballs on screen to cover himself. His AA is godlike which is great for a shoto-y zoner like him. And, of course, his offense is also potent, so he can easily transition to playing a pressure game, making him very unpredictable.

Overall fulgore is very flexible and pretty forgiving. Fullscreen, midrange, point blank–there’s no range where fulgore is bad. The only caveat is that you can’t only play him as a zoner, you have to spend time playing the close game as well to keep his resources building at a reasonable rate.

4

Eyedol is a random stance character lol

5

To my shame as a scrubby player for several decades, I’ve always been crap at the DP motion. I mean, I can do it, just not always reliably under pressure.

I’ve also heard that Fulgore and Spinal have among the highest skill requirements of all characters in the game.

6

Personally I think the difficulty of playing fulgore is way, waaaaaay overblown by a lot of this community. It takes skill to use his tools to their full potential but as far as just picking him up and playing I’d say he’s the easiest of the zoners other than, like, jago (who is barely a zoner.)

7

Honestly, I’ve always been ■■■■ at dps, but KI has “fixed” that for me.

I recommend using the dojo repeatedly for practice when starting out. A lot of people seems to just use it once then jump online, with no clear understanding. Again, use it often as a refresher and you’ll pick things up relatively quick.

8

I find odd that nobody mentioned Shadow Jago

Great walkspeeed, long range dash, teleport divekick, super fast fullscreen slide, an attack that cross ups and convers lots of space in air…

All this assets combined with a fast(although not damaging) fireball, that can be powered up, and also used in the air. He can play a frustrating runaway and zoning way, frustrating your opponent, and converting a fireball into shadow divekick(which also recaptures! so it’s useful against airborne opponents)

I mean, his zoning skills are notable, and yes, he needs to get in to convert into real damage, but he can easily frustrate some people just using his zoning skills

My recomendations:

1-Fulgore. Easy to play at basic level, his best setups demands being unpredictable and mix your options. The hardest part is managing his shadow meter, but he has THE tools. Fireballs, fullscreen eyelaser, long range advancing special, teleports, good normals, good walkspeed and dashes… As @DEClimax says, he is hard to use at max efficiency, but at basic level, not so hard
2-Shadow Jago. Basically what I said before. Easy to frustrate other players just playing runnaway, but that alone will not take you far. Has good tools up close too, and some “newcomer friendly” tools, like anihilation(guaranteed unbreakable damage if you land it properly)

As zoners, I don’t recommend this characters for newcomers:
-Eyedol will have long periods without acces to his zoning tools(although when he has them, its a monster)
-Kan-Ra is very hard to use, so no newcomers friendly
-Gargos, similar reasons to Kan-Ra
-Glacius is an excellent zoner, but paradoxically, his zoning skills are harder to master than his up-close skills. There are very successful Glacius who barely uses shatter, and prefer a more rushdown oriented Glacius. As zoner, he is one of the best, but his lack of mobility, and somewhat unorthodox zoning makes him harder to use than he looks

9

That was actually part of what attracted me about Glacius - Cold Shoulder and Puddle Punch make it seem like he’s not simply screwed when someone gets past his top tier zoning. Plus no DP motions required!

But I take the community’s recommendation of Fulgore seriously, and will probably learn both. (Plus Hisako, but that’s more thematic and has no place in this thread.)

10

I mean maybe I’m ignorant but I don’t see anyone mentioning a couple characters that come to my mind in terms of traditional zoning. Those being Omen and Shadow Jago.

Omen is more of a frame trap monster I’ll concede but he has a lot of projectile tools with meter. I don’t normally see omens enhancing their fireballs, but maybe there’s some potential there? Shago I think can be pretty strong at playing a keep away zone game he has an amazing back dash, the ability to use his projectile in the air and strong mobility that can get him out of the corner fairly easily. In instinct he excels at zoning because if he hits you he can replenish his shadow meter while keeping you out. His overhead and low specials also cover pretty good distance.

11

I agree he’s not terribly difficult to pickup and play. But the problem with just playing him without touching his true potential is his damage is very week. If you’re going to play him like jago, just play jago because you’ll be rewarded with far better damage and you’ll get meter from blocking to boot.

12

My point is that it’s not hard to NOT play him like jago.

13

For my way of thinking, to qualify as a zoner a character should have a realistic gameplan to take the opponent from 100%->0% at a distance. This is not to say that you’ll ever be able to do that for a whole game against an equivalently skilled player, but that’s a goal for a zoner, just as “carry to corner, unleash frametraps and mixups” is a rushdown plan. Whereas as I understand it Shago and Omen (and others, not limited to Jago, Spinal, Mira, and Maya) are using projectiles as cover to get in on their terms or to harass from a distance, but the bulk of their damage output is coming from short range. Happy to be disabused of this.