“Meaty Pierce” is the term used to refer to one of the most changed aspects of Zato’s kit in 2.0, a result of the 3 extra active frames given to Pierce: these allow for situations where the gap between Pierce 1 and Pierce 2 is 4 frames or less. This means that, on meaty Pierce setups, you can’t mash, jump, or backdash, but can only use a reversal or other resources to escape. For Zato, getting similarly tight pressure as what you get with drills for lower Eddie gauge cost is extremely valuable, especially after wallbreak (where you will likely see meaty Pierce the most often). The most crucial difference between meaty Drills and meaty Pierce is that the former does not allow for reversals, while the latter does; against characters without a reversal or without the meter to use one, meaty Pierce often functionally serves as a cheaper, no-downsides alternative to Drills.*
This page is mainly meant as a resource for Zato players rather than as a counterplay guide; on the defenders’ end, especially without a reversal, regular Zato blocking protocols tend to apply. Something to note is that, since quite a few of these setups rely on manual timing or on very specific gravity scaling, it’s not impossible that some meaty Pierces you encounter in actual games will leave a mashable 5- or 6-frame gap; I still wouldn’t recommend mashing, just in case it is actually meaty.
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By far the most valuable meaty Pierce setups are the ones that allow you to meaty with Negative Edge Pierce, leaving you free to perform other actions. These do, however, require a larger frame advantage than 236P setups, meaning they are viable in less situations.
If you’re +5 to +8 after summon, or +33 to +36 without accounting for summon, you can automatically time a negative edge meaty Pierce
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Without summoning first, 236P can be a good way to get a meaty Pierce out in situations where you don’t have enough time for NE Pierce (so, less than +33 advantage). It is significantly less advantageous, but if you’re close, you can still get very good and often gapless pressure afterwards.
You can also use 236P after already having summoned (clap), primarily as a way to autotime meaty setups with more frame advantage than the NE ones.
If you’re +22 to +25, you can automatically time a meaty 236P
If you’re +20 to +23 after summon, or +48 to +51 without accounting for summon, you can automatically time a meaty clap Pierce
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The reason I’m putting so much emphasis on the frame advantage you need to automatically time meaty Pierce is that, frankly, autotiming is extremely useful here.
There’s only a 4 frame window to get Pierce to be meaty without a mashable gap, which is a much shorter window than what you’d have with something like Drills.
One of the more understated changes in this patch is that there is a buffer on Negative Edge moves, allowing for very easy timing for what was previously frame-perfect.
By using autotimed setups, you can guarantee that your opponent won’t be able to mash, rather than gambling on your own pressure. This page mostly focuses on these autotimed setups, and if you find any more, please let me know!
</aside>
Autotimed, NE
Zato’s various OTG options are extremely useful for meaty Pierce, as any OTG hit that leaves you +8 to +5 after summon will allow you to get a meaty Pierce every single time, regardless of the previous combo’s scaling. OTG frame advantage varies, as does OTG damage and the range for each move you can OTG with — I’ll try to simplify things for this page (although I have a messier, more detailed write-up that I have sent in the Zato Discord, so let me know if you want to see that). On any non-throw HKD, OTG 2K, 2S, 5H, or 2D will allow you to autotime meaty Pierce, while on throw specifically, you can also c. S.
The fact that you can get meaty Pierce on any OTG means you can get meaty Pierce on any combo that ends with 2D, 6H, Drunkard Shade, Leap, throw, or Amorphous. Most notably, this includes the following situations: