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Question Definition of Fundamentals and improving them.

Squeaker101

Show me what you can do
As the thread title suggests, I'm having problems wrapping my head around the definitions of fundamentals, and in turn, am struggling on improving on them. I have a general idea, so I'm not completely hopeless. Anyways, here's what I have so far:

Zoning:
From what I've gathered this is hanging back and throwing projectiles most of the match. Characters that excel in this area would be Kenshi, Freddy, Kabal, Reptile, Liu Kang, etc. Now I know there's something a bit more to this, such as baiting and what-not.

Footsies:
I know this is character dependent, and MU dependent. But that's as much as I know, I have no idea who would excel in this area.

Pressuring:
The opposite of zoning, where you're in your opponents face and chipping them to death. Characters that excel in this area would be: Johnny Cage, Sonya, Kabal, Liu Kang, Jax, etc.

That's as much as I know for now, any help would be much appreciated. I'm also hoping for character recommendations for each definition, so I can improve on understanding them.

Please add anything I might have missed.

PS:
Hopefully this'll help other people out, as I'm probably not the only one who doesn't fully understand fundamentals.
 

Critical-Limit

Apprentice
From my experience Zoning isn't just projectiles,

it's just controlling space between you and your opponent. It just so happens that projectiles are largely used for this purpose.

like if I back dash with Jade, Johnny whiffs his F3, I punish it with B3,2. while I "baited" I was also zoning him out. but I didn't use a projectile.

atleast that's always been my understanding.


basically controlling space and forcing your opponent to be in a specific situation.
 

Critical-Limit

Apprentice
^^^ those are probably the hardest things to get good at. because reaction time is strict on some things.

On mortal kombat it's not much of a chance to excel in these things because you got dial a string.

And you have to commit to things early, thus ruining your chance to block/hit confirm.

like Scorpion's F4, spear. you can't hit confirm that you have to commit because of how early you are required to input spear. things like this won't help your hit confirm skills for other fighters.
 

Faded Dreams V

Retired June 2012. Unretired June 2013.
As the thread title suggests, I'm having problems wrapping my head around the definitions of fundamentals, and in turn, am struggling on improving on them. I have a general idea, so I'm not completely hopeless. Anyways, here's what I have so far:

Zoning:
From what I've gathered this is hanging back and throwing projectiles most of the match. Characters that excel in this area would be Kenshi, Freddy, Kabal, Reptile, Liu Kang, etc. Now I know there's something a bit more to this, such as baiting and what-not.

Footsies:
I know this is character dependent, and MU dependent. But that's as much as I know, I have no idea who would excel in this area.

Pressuring:
The opposite of zoning, where you're in your opponents face and chipping them to death. Characters that excel in this area would be: Johnny Cage, Sonya, Kabal, Liu Kang, Jax, etc.

That's as much as I know for now, any help would be much appreciated. I'm also hoping for character recommendations for each definition, so I can improve on understanding them.

Please add anything I might have missed.

PS:
Hopefully this'll help other people out, as I'm probably not the only one who doesn't fully understand fundamentals.
Zoning isn't just throwing projectiles. As mentioned above, it means controlling space. Naturally, if your character has great projectiles (Freddy), he excels at zoning though.

Footsies is essentially ground based combat. Consists of several factors, such as anti-airing, spacing, frame data knowledge, whiff punishing, etc. If you know your frame data, you'll have an idea of what grants you advantage, and how to follow things up at any given situation, especially pokes.

And pressuring isn't really "chipping to death" as much as it is what it implies--you're putting your opponent under pressure! When a good Cage pressures a player, the opponent is forced into a mind game where he has to guess where to poke out. If he doesn't, then yeah, he gets chipped to death. If the player guesses wrong, he gets punished and resetted.
 

GLoRToR

Positive Poster!
Fundamentals:

1. Footsies
1.a. Pokes (Difficulty: Beginner) Knowing the range on your moves, checking your opponent with your fastest move.
1.b. Spacing (Difficulty: Intermediate) Knowing the distances on your and your opponent's moves, understanding "whiffing" and "punishing"
1.c. Pacing (Difficulty: Advanced) Knowing frame data, walkspeed, execution speed relative to frames and spacing.

2. Offense
2.a. Pressure (Difficulty: Beginner) Knowing your safe moves, blockstrings.
2.b. Zoning (Difficulty: Intermediate) Knowing your distance attacks be that projectile or teleport or anything with reach.
2.c. Hitconfirming (Difficulty: Advanced) Committing to your options vs treading lightly.

3. Defense
3.a. Counter-Pressure (Difficulty: Beginner) Knowing when to play footsies during pressure from your opponent and when to block.
3.b. Counter-Zoning (Difficulty: Intermediate) When attacking becomes defense: how to get in on an opponent who is zoning you.
3.c. Kaboom. (Difficulty: Advanced) Blowing up your opponent out of a whiffed string and continuing your offense.

4. Mindgames
4.a. Your own mind (Difficulty: Beginner) Not to thwart yourself from winning by being scrub-a-tonic. It's a bit like catatonic, except, no cat.
4.b. The Mindset (Difficulty: Intermediate) The correct mindset to win in fighting games. (Winning, losing, and why it's important)
4.c. The opponent's mind (Difficulty: Advanced) Understanding why the opponent does what they do, and how to counter it.

Credits:
Two great guys who taught me a lot about fundamentals.
Asodimazze
@Drake Aldan (of 8wayrun.com)
and of course, myself.
 

LesMore

Top 8 Injustice Frosty Faustings VII
From my experience Zoning isn't just projectiles,

it's just controlling space between you and your opponent. It just so happens that projectiles are largely used for this purpose.

like if I back dash with Jade, Johnny whiffs his F3, I punish it with B3,2. while I "baited" I was also zoning him out. but I didn't use a projectile.

atleast that's always been my understanding.


basically controlling space and forcing your opponent to be in a specific situation.
What you are talking about is actually called spacing...
 

Critical-Limit

Apprentice
What you are talking about is actually called spacing...
Zoning is just controlling space.

thus spacing... goes hand in hand with zoning in some instances.

Keeping people at pole tip range as jade, is Zoning.

I'm back dashing... to control how far away johnny cage is from me. thus controlling space.
 

GLoRToR

Positive Poster!
Zoning is the act of combat out of the opponent's reach thus related to the footsies of spacing but it's a form of offense.