First: I am not by any means a master zoner, nor am I ultimately a fan of zoners, however in order to strike balance in the game, there needs to be "the no doubt, dedicated zoner"
That being said.. Erron Black boggles my mind..Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...
Marksman.. A sniper...,has a rifle.......and a fucking tackle. Give his marksman a few different other gunshot variations.... And for Christ sakes, a simple gun shot/air gun shot like
@SaltShaker said ala Cassie..
His move set reminds me a LOT of the Joker, while his combos shout Harley Quinn
Onto some potential positives:
-He does have that move where he kicks the hammer and a shot fires, not sure if that is only in combo, or could be a quase simple shot..
-It appears that many of his moves leave the opponent high up in the air, and the stream guys didn't do anything to follow up on ANY of it. What this wreaks to me is.. Keep out, keep distance, make them lose their patience and come in at you carefree, punish a stupid jump in and blow them the fuck up with meaty combo's, get your distance again, and re-assess, repeat.
- if you watch, many of his specials move him backward, and with long reaching normals (pistol in hand to extend range) I think this is going to be the "zoner" you are looking for. (Unless Kenshi gets revealed and is similar to MK)
I still stick to my first assessment of Erron Black- General Population will jump on Erron due to the bad boy/ bounty hunter appeal, however while he will have a strong showing at release, general population will seat him mid tier at best, shelf him, forget about him, and move on. I do believe (again: frame/advantage pending) that with the proper work put in, dedicated zoners like
@General M2Dave ,
@SaltShaker, and others will find surprising success with him.
I am sorry to say it
@SaltShaker, but it looks to me that NRS is going the way of grapple/rush down, in character and variation, and the zoning mans zoner is not found yet. Just because someone has a gun, or a fireball does not mean hey are a zoner. However, at the end, let's not forget, this is not MK9, run meter management is going to be huge, almost to the point where it needs to be learned just as much as combo's and variations. I believe that lots of things as a whole in the community I have read are treating this like a new version of MK, and are ultimately sleeping on a burnable run bar.
P.S:
The triple hip fire rifle shot- will be good to use mid combo.. Outside combo it will be like JC throwing out random shadow kicks, or Raiden throwing out random "he owe me moneyyyy".