Funny you mentioned pacman because I was just thinking about something related to the topic at hand. Is pacman overly reliant on fruit/hydrant zoning? I think so, but only if he continues to be played the way Abadango and many others did/do currently.
He isn't being played to his strengths because well...Pac-Man is not a zoner. In fact, he's terrible at zoning and more people will realize this as time goes along.
Now before many of you unsheathe your keyboards and angrily explain how I am wrong, I want to explain why he isn't the characer we initially thought he was.
Unfortunately, many of us Pac-Mains have adopted a game of "set up a fortress and run" as a primary focus in nuetral. This goes against the natural strengths of the character. Pacman isn't a real zoner because fruit and hydrants aren't built for keeping people out. Fruit come out on frame 12, have an FAF of 45, 5 of them bounce off of shields which allow opponents to easily catch them, and they lose to most attacks when thrown. You can't dream of zoning an opponent out with data like this. Same with hydrant. Loses to any attack when launched, can be sent back to us by the opponent, and fast characters can straight up quantum tunnel right through it (man that is a dumb mechanic).
All of these flaws lead many pacman mains to lean heavily on gimmicky, complex, and all around situational setups to keep the opponent out. It became the bulk of our gameplan. It sort of covers up the flaws of his individual "camp tools".
But we've neglected our normals, our z drop game, our offensive game...we've put too much into one inefficient gameplan.
The way I see our fruit and hydrant tools is the same way I view spin dash. Spin dash is also misinterpreted as sonic's only gimmick. The famous "Spin2Win" strategy of FG newbies.
In reality, spin dash is a weak move when used this way. It loses to most attacks, can be punished by OoS aerials, disjoints give it hell...sound familiar? For sonic, spin dash is only meant to compliment his game play. It forces you to keep guessing sonic's next move and punishes you heavily for overextending and guessing wrong. Pac-Man's tools are the same way, but complement a different style of play.
It isn't zoning, it isn't rush down, it isn't bait and punish or hit and run... I don't know what it is called but he continuously forces you into trap situations with his tools that allow him to transition into a heavily damaging offensive game. An example of this can be how the trampoline is downright broken when used to limit options on the ledge, but rather weak when used against a rush down characer to slow down an approach in nuetral. We should have a free combo on the opponent when ever the trampoline launches them into the air instead of simply waiting on the other side and b-airing them back to the other side.
His normals are further proof of this. He was given average moves all around because his traps + better normals would have been too oppressive. His grab is trash because his z drop fruit pressure already handles it. Oh...and for some reason, fruit are indestructible when z dropped.
A better analogy for those of you that have played yugioh is that Pac-Man is like an Aggro/stun deck (my favorite type!)
Using stun as a means to limit all of your opponent's options so you can relentlessly beat them down. People are currently focusing too heavily on the stun aspect.
sooner than he can, but he has an easier time coming back to neutral thanks to his fruits (assuming customs off throuhgh).
