Question - Cybernetic The proverbial "next level"

[Devin Thorn]

So with some help from user bdizzle, a lot of forum lurking, and a ton of time in training mode my Cyber Kano is pretty good but not tourney worthy for sure. What are some things you top Kano players like to do when your zoning falters and you're getting defended against well? Sorry for the vague question haha

 

[NoobSaibot]

I am by no means a top player but when you say defended against do you mean they're just turtling full screen or that they're creeping up by running or jumping?

 

[Devin Thorn]

Turtling mixed with creeping up by jumping in have been issues I've ran into, particularly against characters with fast punish strings and especially those who know the matchup that like to bait my grabs knowing I have no overheads. I guess it'd help if you knew my main mix ups: d4 into a b23db1 or a f4 ldb1/f4df2. Anti air with up ball or b1. b13df2 or b13db1, and a lot of knives. I feel my own uppercuts wifff a lot as well. I think a lot of my troubles occur when I don't know the matchup well (getting hit by Cassie's quick f23 string I think it is, that overhead low mid string that can be hard to block in lag at times, Ermac in general)

 

[FlappyDaniel]

hard to tell what you're missing in your game without seeing how you play.

 

[FlappyDaniel]

Just to make sure though. "Zoning" isn't just throwing knives to you is it? I think a lot of people go into zoning with the mindset that projectiles = zoning and this isn't completely true. D4,upball and instant air ball are amazing zoning tools on top of your knives of course. Control the foot space by poking low with D4 if he starts getting close, it has amazing range and you can link it into knives in Cyber according to some thing I've read which is AMAZING if it's true because you basically have low shortxxfireball like ryu or evil ryu in SFIV lol. Stagger your knives too. Do some empty crouching if you're full screen to try and get your opponent antsy and jump prematurely then throw out some knives for his dumb ass to land on coming down or do an air kano ball to knock his ass out of the air and close the gap if you wanna stay in his face.

kano is all about mind games IMO. if you can keep your movement ambiguous as possible it'll help your opponent misstep, you just have to make sure to have punish ready if they decide to read your fake out games and run in your face.

 

[Devin Thorn]

Ha very good question, no zoning is not just throwing knives at all, I definitely know what you mean, I will have to try and get some match footage up of wins and losses because I knows probably impossible to know without seeing a bit. But when it comes to my zoning I do try and control space with my up ball, staggered knives and d4 is a big part of my game as well as b2. However I haven't been linking d4 into knives which is something I saw footage of last night and I think that will help add a big wrinkle to my game because part of my issues come from when they adapt to my d4 into a b2/Kano ball tactics. After I play some matches tonight I'll upload a couple wins and losses