while character balance is a big contributing factor, I disagree. kabals iAGBs are stupid. a 10 frame instant air projectile that does 9% on hit, 2% on chip, builds ungodly amounts of meter, and acts as a full screen AA combo starter into block string pressure...... couple that with his low buzzsaw that cant be reflected by any character other than smoke without spending a meter and his zoning outclasses every character aside from the other two on this list
how is this not character specific ? Liu Kang and Mileena has IAFs too. where are they ? Kabal's version maybe superior but that's not what makes him so monstrous. take out his dash cancels and he instantly becomes average despite his IAF and buzzsaw.
but lets say Kabal's IAF is imbalanced. just fix that. maybe increase it from 10 to 12 frames or something. similarly, if Kenshi has moves that are too fast or too strong in some way just nerf it to balance.
when you talk about "zoning" it is a universal thing. it means fireballs or projectiles in general getting nerfed. for example, the average startup of all projectiles being increased from x to (x+2 frames) or the average damage of all projectiles decreased from 8% to 7%. this in turn will yield a fighting system where characters like Cage, Sonya, Lao etc are beyond godlike (they are very strong already). Lao has won back to back Evo(s) despite zoners being so powerful (apparently) and Cyrax won the other. what this means to me is that if you're ready to apply yourself and be patient there are very effective ways to neutralize or outmatch zoning.
i'm not disputing how strong Kabal and Kenshi are. i'm just saying that zoning is not to blame here. its a few specific moves that are overpowered. think about Noob. he symbolizes zoning more than any other character but he is not overpowered at all. actually he seems a bit underpowered.
its all character specific.
