what is zoning?
what is zoning and is it important to be successful for high level play?
Responses (3 total)
Zoning is keeping your opponent outside of their effective range with pokes, fireballs, and anti-air moves. It is most effective against characters with no fireballs (Cammy) characters with slow fireballs (Chun Li) or slow fireball recovery (Juri).
Take for example Ryu's cr.Mk, which is an excellent poke that has great reach. With it, you can keep your opponent from advancing on you via the ground while (in some cases) keeping yourself right outside his poking range.
The Hadouken coupled with the shoryuken can make a seemingly impenetrable wall of sorts. Ryu can pepper you with fireballs from across the screen and if you try to jump in on him he can, if he recovers quickly enough, knock you out of the air with his shoryuken. All these tactics within a match is called zoning, albeit less experienced players call it "spamming."
Zoning is absolutely necessary for high-level play. You must understand the concept (and applicable matchups) before you can approach a player who uses this strategy to keep your non-projectile character at bay.
to my understanding zoning is knowing the reach on your characters and the opponents moves and keeping them at such a range that you can hit them and they cant hit you
take fei long for example his c.mp or c.hp are great pokes they are fast and have good recovery time so if you miss most likely your not going to get punished his standing hk is also good for jumpers although sometimes they go over you or the hit will trade with theres (you both get hit)
the same as what gturtle343 mentioned about ryu this will almost make a wall that the other character cant pass if they try to get close and the more knowledge you have of everyones attack range the more solid your gameplay and strategy will become you'll know what to do and at what time to win your match
