While Zoro is a CoA specialist and his CoO hasn't really been touched on by Oda as of yet, I think it is an integral part of Zoro's journey to become WSSM. This is evident by looking at two of the strongest swordsmen after Mihawk, Shanks and Fujitora. Both are masters of CoO.
Shanks showed some of the best FS feats we have seen, looking 10 seconds into the future to see the effect of Kid's damned punk. Fujitora, a blind swordsman, has potential to have even greater CoO as he relies on it entirely as his only form of vision.
So why is CoO so important for swordsmen? Well apart from the simple fact that nobody wants to get blitzed and 1 shot like Kid, I think a major reason for the prevalence of FS and ACoO amongst master swordsmen comes down to the extent of master swordsmen abilities.
Mihawk, as we have seen, easily has island+ tier ranged attacks. His casual slashes were traversing the entirety of Marineford and those attacks didn't even have ACoC imbued into them(as evident by someone of Jozu's caliber blocking them). Fujitora, via his gravity DF, also easily has beyond island level range.
Therefore, when master swordsmen clash, they might not even need to be in the same city or possibly even the same island. A battle between master swordsmen can likely envelope entire nations and hence CoO mastery is essential for one to be a master swordsman. How else is one supposed to fight people like Mihawk or Fujitora, who can strike you down without even being in the same city as you?
This isn't to say all top tier swordsmanship is essential sword sniping, but given the range of top tier sword abilities, sword sniping must most definitely be a thing.
Shanks showed some of the best FS feats we have seen, looking 10 seconds into the future to see the effect of Kid's damned punk. Fujitora, a blind swordsman, has potential to have even greater CoO as he relies on it entirely as his only form of vision.
So why is CoO so important for swordsmen? Well apart from the simple fact that nobody wants to get blitzed and 1 shot like Kid, I think a major reason for the prevalence of FS and ACoO amongst master swordsmen comes down to the extent of master swordsmen abilities.
Mihawk, as we have seen, easily has island+ tier ranged attacks. His casual slashes were traversing the entirety of Marineford and those attacks didn't even have ACoC imbued into them(as evident by someone of Jozu's caliber blocking them). Fujitora, via his gravity DF, also easily has beyond island level range.
Therefore, when master swordsmen clash, they might not even need to be in the same city or possibly even the same island. A battle between master swordsmen can likely envelope entire nations and hence CoO mastery is essential for one to be a master swordsman. How else is one supposed to fight people like Mihawk or Fujitora, who can strike you down without even being in the same city as you?
This isn't to say all top tier swordsmanship is essential sword sniping, but given the range of top tier sword abilities, sword sniping must most definitely be a thing.
