You are not grasping the fact that you can play the best zoning Kano out there, it will not matter in this game.
Any compenent player will find a way in, they will snuff out your zoning and your jump baits.
Once they get in Kano's kit is extremely hard to manage any player using a character with a balanced kit.
Every character should have something that they can use to at least apply some form of legit pressure on your opponents. Otherwise you become a one trick pony that any good player will snuff out and capitalize on.
Its just not plausible to say Kano is a zone character, so zone. That isn't realistic and you won't win a lot of games that way.
If he was to be strictly zone heavy, they should give him safer moves to counter what a lot of these other characters bring to the table.
It is incredible how one sided some of these MU are when comparing it to Kano's overall kit.
You have to work ten times harder to win against so many of these characters, not because a lot of Kano mains are bad but because there are a lot of characters in this game with a much better kit and mixup game.
Cassie Cage is a perfect example, her normals just about take priority over everything that Kano can do in Cutthroat and Cyber. That is just her normals, I'm not even talking about everything else she has at her disposal.
You can argue it till your blue in the fave but Kano has taken a dramatic fall post patch, he just doesn't have the tools that most characters have been blessed with in this game.
If the competent player is getting in then you're not zoning them well enough. It's more than just the projectiles. He also has competent footsie tools to help him play the neutral game, you're focussing
way too much on his "pressure" or "rushdown" or "mixup" game. He doesn't have it because that's not how you're supposed to play him.
The assumption that you're making, that "Every character should have something that they can use to at least apply some form of legit pressure on your opponents", is untrue. It's true for rushdown characters and characters that actually are supposed to apply pressure but Cybernetic Kano isn't one of those characters. He's designed to keep them away and keep them at a distance where they can't get in as easily as they'd like but if they do get within a certain distance you play the neutral game.
Look at his B2, great reach and leads to full combo. You should be applying this move a decent amount because anything within jump distance should be playing a game of footsies instead of the knives at that point.
B1, great anti-air (which is what you should be focussing on more than using it in pressure) and great for trip guard and punishes too.
B3, not horrific distance, leads to B31 which is +1 or full combo, can mix B31 throw with B312 for "mixups".
F4, good distance, pretty fast, safe, leads to full combo if it hits.
D3, decent range, safe and a good footsie tool.
D4, great range, good for counterpoking, allows a safe knife throw.
Why does he need safer tools? Most of his strings
are safe. And countering what others bring to the table? What do you even mean by that?
Ten times harder? Even though half of your gameplan against rushdown characters is knives knives knives? Lol I mean it's harder once they're in yeah, and that is inevitable, but ten times harder? Nah.
Forget about Kano's mixup game, that's not what he's designed for. You're looking at him the wrong way because he's not designed to be good at mixups. If you look at him as a rushdown character then I can see where you're coming from but he's not a rushdown character. Zoners are best at...zoning. That doesn't always mean projectiles mind you, it can also include playing footsies, whiff punishing as much as possible (which he has great tools to do) and baiting. If you can do that then you can do at least decently against most.
Cassie Cage is east to fight with Cybernetic Kano! That's one of his easier matchups lol. All you need to do is position yourself correctly, bait and walk back. I can't tell you how many times I've whiff punished B12s and sent them back to full screen.
"Dramatic fall" is a hell of an overstatement. They changed the recovery on one move and fixed the frames for a few others, half of which you're not even going to use realistically. Hell they actually made some stuff plus on block as well that
does get used, like B31. Those changes are barely noticeable in my opinion because they haven't changed the way I play and win so you might just be looking at playing him the wrong way.
Yes he doesn't have the best tools in the game but he's well balanced and damn it that's a good thing. It'd be nice to have a top tier character and all but he really doesn't need anything. Someone has to be slightly worse, and he's still hella viable so I honestly think he doesn't need anything. Anything he gets that makes him top tier is just a bonus.
I'm always open to criticism and wanting to improve.
. Anyway back to the subject, I mentioned this because I'd rather see a fix like this than Kano having something just as abusable or broken himself.