How to Beat CETRION [Strings, Zoning, Specials and More]

[M.D.]

1. this is why i dont come here often anymore lol

2. Let's look at your scenario. Taking cetrion for example, if you block a boulder it does 2% chip damage. Cool. So that means I have to have you successfully block it 50 times to win. That's a lot of work, especially considering all your options of movement. If a rushdown character gets in and hits me with a combo once, im likely eating 40%+ also cool. That sounds like balance to me? If I manage to successfully implement my gameplan I shut down your options to defeat me. If you successfully implement yours i have 2 1/2 chances to defend myself or im dead. You have less opportunity to hit me, but a bigger payoff whereas I have more opportunity to hit you with a smaller payoff.

Also FoN is ass.

It looks ok on paper, and indeed this is the strongest argument for zoning. But it's true in most cases only on paper.

Why? Because it's not a back and forth. My rushdown tactics cannot activate until I get in.

When I am not in, I have to make 5-6 guesses right in a row with no punishment to the zoner if I guess right.

However if I guess a single one wrong, it resets the entire situation, kind of like a super meatboy level.

Once I get in after 5 right guesses, I don't even have my turn guaranteed, as I still have to make 1 or 2 guesses more, to avoid d3 pillar/d3 pillar amplify stuff.

And only then, after all this work, I get my single attempt at enforcing the guess on the zoner.

If I guess right, sure, 35% but guess what, they have breakaway at all times because they have no use for the meter. And then they have to guess wrong again. Otherwise, back to square one.

If I guess wrong, back to square one. Guess wrong here means she blocks whatever I press, giving her her turn up close to enforce more guesses on me with staggers, throw and pillar, each wrong guess setting me fullscreen.

Without the ability to maintain pressure once you get in, on block, any block from her is a tremendous disadvantage.


So it is not circular, not a game of, your turn my turn.

It's a game of several "your turn" where i'm not allowed mistakes at ALL, and after that I get one shot at a mixup, or it resets everything.

And the fact that my combo would do 40% the second time he guesses wrong(if), because of breakaway, does not balance it at all.

You lose more than that in chip and wrong guesses trying to get in once. The damage on projectiles and chip is way too high to consider the mistakes balanced against a 35% combo.

Keep in mind I'm talking about characters that do not have a single tool to enforce risk on the whole 123redlight game we have to play to get in the first time, and characters that have no tools to maintain pressure up close and any blocked hit leaves them at -5,-6. Which are a lot.

 

[STB Shujinkydink]

It looks ok on paper, and indeed this is the strongest argument for zoning. But it's true in most cases only on paper.

Why? Because it's not a back and forth. My rushdown tactics cannot activate until I get in.

When I am not in, I have to make 5-6 guesses right in a row with no punishment to the zoner if I guess right.

However if I guess a single one wrong, it resets the entire situation, kind of like a super meatboy level.

Once I get in after 5 right guesses, I don't even have my turn guaranteed, as I still have to make 1 or 2 guesses more, to avoid d3 pillar/d3 pillar amplify stuff.

And only then, after all this work, I get my single attempt at enforcing the guess on the zoner.

If I guess right, sure, 35% but guess what, they have breakaway at all times because they have no use for the meter. And then they have to guess wrong again. Otherwise, back to square one.

If I guess wrong, back to square one. Guess wrong here means she blocks whatever I press, giving her her turn up close to enforce more guesses on me with staggers, throw and pillar, each wrong guess setting me fullscreen.

Without the ability to maintain pressure once you get in, on block, any block from her is a tremendous disadvantage.


So it is not circular, not a game of, your turn my turn.

It's a game of several "your turn" where i'm not allowed mistakes at ALL, and after that I get one shot at a mixup, or it resets everything.

And the fact that my combo would do 40% the second time he guesses wrong(if), because of breakaway, does not balance it at all.

You lose more than that in chip and wrong guesses trying to get in once. The damage on projectiles and chip is way too high to consider the mistakes balanced against a 35% combo.

Keep in mind I'm talking about characters that do not have a single tool to enforce risk on the whole 123redlight game we have to play to get in the first time, and characters that have no tools to maintain pressure up close and any blocked hit leaves them at -5,-6. Which are a lot.

So you’re basically saying you have no options against zoning. Even if you somehow manage to get in you still lose. You just lose regardless.

This appears to be your argument correct?

 

[M.D.]

So you’re basically saying you have no options against zoning. Even if you somehow manage to get in you still lose. You just lose regardless.

This appears to be your argument correct?

Like I said above, of course you have options:

Option A)

Guess 5-6 times in a row correctly while crouch walking in losing chip, then hope you won't guess wrong on stagger/pillar, and hope he guesses wrong so you can get 35% and get breakawayed, then hope he guesses wrong again to actually get 35%. Meanwhile, at any point out of the SEVERAL points in this, one single mistake from you is a reset to ground 0 to start over.

Option B)

Character select to someone who has tools to actually make the zoner take a risk whenever braindead spamming his projectiles/screen control moves.


I'm pretty sure in all tournaments and most sure in 90% of your ranked matches, you are experiencing option B).

 

[Sazbak]

The zoning stuff was even more annoying in I2 where the zoner kept building meter with his zoning(while the opponent just tried to walk in)
and then he could use pushblock or roll or a move with pushback like mb low rifle to get out of close range.
Not to mention that I2 zoners like Deadshot or Starfire had pretty decent closeup tools as well.

 

[STB Shujinkydink]

Like I said above, of course you have options:

Option A)

Guess 5-6 times in a row correctly while crouch walking in losing chip, then hope you won't guess wrong on stagger/pillar, and hope he guesses wrong so you can get 35% and get breakawayed, then hope he guesses wrong again to actually get 35%. Meanwhile, at any point out of the SEVERAL points in this, one single mistake from you is a reset to ground 0 to start over.

Option B)

Character select to someone who has tools to actually make the zoner take a risk whenever braindead spamming his projectiles/screen control moves.


I'm pretty sure in all tournaments and most sure in 90% of your ranked matches, you are experiencing option B).

tournaments I think if anything have proven the opposite. The viability of characters and harder to win with say a zoning archetype. If we look at CEO top 8 for example almost all characters we saw outside of one cetrion(Dragon) are rushdown based characters. Sonicfox also beat dragon with Cassie in the YAAS Queen variation which doesnt even have low shot. This is at a high level though so I dont really expect yourself and other casual players to adapt like that, but I do think that it shows the balance between the two playstyles

 

[M.D.]

Sonic switched to Yass Queen because it was the only one able to keep up with Cetrion, it's an accepted fact that this is the variation to go against Cetrion in order for Cassie to stand a change.

Sonic wasn't the underdog here, he actually counterpicked against Cetrion.

This is at a high level though so I dont really expect yourself and other casual players to adapt like that, but I do think that it shows the balance between the two playstyles

It's not balance if only at ultra high level (like, 8 people out of the entire tournament) are able to "adapt", or to correctly put it, to literally put in hundreds of hours of work, in order to balance the matchup.

This is exactly what I'm saying and you perfectly summed it up. You only see this at high level because they are the only ones able to work 50 times harder than the Cetrion player, and still win.

The fact remains that the ammount of work is tremendously higher, which means it's not balanced.

Also It's funny you mentioned CEO because we can clearly see Dragon RUSHING DOWN KUNG LAO WITH CETRION, with a zoning character, filled with staggers, guesses, and godlike strings, while also OUTZONING him and 3-0 ing him in the end.

We also see Sonic trying out Jaqui, the most horrendous rushdown character in the game, and failing. Why? Exactly because the guess game is not balanced ,like I explained in my posts above.

I don't want to sound off like a jerk (although I most surely do) but this downplaying gotta stop man.

 

[Zer0_h0ur]

My noob may be showing, but what do people and you guys mean when you say "this character has good footsies" or "they don't have good footsies"? I thought footsies was the player's control
Do yall mean dash speed, walk speed, etc?

 

[Rodney Quillz]

tournaments I think if anything have proven the opposite. The viability of characters and harder to win with say a zoning archetype. If we look at CEO top 8 for example almost all characters we saw outside of one cetrion(Dragon) are rushdown based characters. Sonicfox also beat dragon with Cassie in the YAAS Queen variation which doesnt even have low shot. This is at a high level though so I dont really expect yourself and other casual players to adapt like that, but I do think that it shows the balance between the two playstyles

I don’t really agree with him about Cets zoning, it’s certainly is annoying but I’m more mad about her having decent buttons, if anything she should be like your former main and absolutely DOA once someone gets in/she gets knocked down.