Bowser and Charizard comparison, and what I find to be an inconsistency in the general consensus.

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I won't be active until after this weekend but you can PM me and I'll shoot you my Friend Code. I have a few people who I need to play from here. I'd be more active this week but..its midterms. -_-

 

[Knee Smasher]

In order:

1. For Glory is not the most reputable source to be basing your opinions off of. For Glory contains far more lesser experienced players than experienced. A majority of established Smash players already have a network of players to add to their friends from previous installments or use some of the more competitive oriented mediums. I'm not saying you can't find a good player on For Glory but overall in short: It's full of scrubs. It offers a vary narow perspective of the actual metagame currently. That could change as time goes on and people grow though.

I dislike it when people say this. I have found matches extensively on both GameFAQs and this chatroom, and have been the King of this room (I defeated a Lucina, a Mega Man, a Captain Falcon, a Sheik, another Mega Man, and then finally had my streak ended by a character Charizard fares poorly against, Yoshi), and the vast majority of players I have battled in With Friends mode have only been on par with the average player I meet in For Glory 1-on-1 at best. I will honestly tell you that by far the most skilled players I have ever battled against in Super Smash Bros. 3DS are none other than certain Japanese players I met in For Glory 1-on-1. They are the ones responsible for about 90% of all the losses I've ever experienced in For Glory 1-on-1. A certain Japanese King Dedede I met in For Glory 1-on-1, who beat me 10+ times in a row when I was Charizard, was the one who taught me just how bad the Charizard VS. King Dedede matchup is for Charizard. The Japanese are the best at this game, and it does not appear that they frequently use websites like SmashBoards or GameFAQs, but they are everywhere in For Glory 1-on-1. So For Glory is, in my opinion, the best way to get practice as it's the easiest way to find good players, even though you won't always find them in that mode.

2. So...you think Dedede destroys us but believe we go even or beat Rosalina, Sheik, Zero Suit, and certain other top tier threats? Please explain in detail your logic behind this. Matchup specific information would be helpful. In other words, I strongly disagree with this point.

Of the three characters you mentioned, the only one who I feel could have a positive matchup against Charizard is Rosalina, just because I feel that my experience fighting against Rosalina may not be an accurate indication of her true potential, as she probably has the single highest learning curve of all characters in this game (I have tried her before). However, yes, I do think that Charizard has a roughly even matchup against Sheik and Zero Suit Samus, as Charizard just destroys them with its jabs, Nairs and grabs from my experience, while punishing their projectiles by either jumping over them and then using Firebreath, or if they are at high %s, even Flare Blitz through the projectiles to KO them. Those two have some deadly combos against Charizard to rack up damage quickly though, so it's roughly even.

Just because a character is "top tier" doesn't automatically mean that they will have a positive matchup against every lower-tiered character (and I am not even 100% sure if those characters you mentioned will actually be higher-tiered than Charizard). In SSBM, Link had a positive matchup against Peach, despite the latter being far higher-tiered than the former.

Also, I do not like the way you implied that King Dedede is certainly not a "top tier threat", because I know at least three characters have a near-unwinnable matchup against him: Charizard, Bowser, and Little Mac (I know this may sound like it's contradicting my previous point, but having not one or two, but three easy matchups should be somewhat of an indication of how good a character is). King Dedede punishes each and every single one of Charizard's/Bowser's approach options with his Gordo, while his Ftilt alone beats Little Mac's entire moveset.

3. You list only 5 out of 49 characters and say that he's easier to use than all of them. That may or may not be true but how about the other 90% of the roster?

OK, fair enough. Maybe the other characters are easier to use than Charizard (I am certain Little Mac is), but I am just speaking from my general experience and saying that Charizard has been incredibly easy to learn for me.

And once again if you are basing your logic off of For Glory online matches, I have an issue. Taking into consideration the abundance of players with terrible, exploitable habits juxtaposed with wifi lag in some cases, hard hitting characters like Charizard do quite in these settings. That does not mean that the character is not difficult to use. When I refer to being difficult to use, I mean in terms of high level, competitive play. Myself and many others feel that Charizard requires more of an effort to excel in highly competitive scenes. And I at least believe that at his core, Charizard is a more complicated character than he appears to be. You don't have agree with me, but once again please explain your logic in full detail. Thanks.

Fair point.

 

[Lew Paue]

I think Charizard is easy to pick up and do pretty good with, but i feel in order to max his potential it requires a lot of skill due to the fact you have to land you moves properly and know when to abuse your super armor. I do agree with the fact Bowser is extremely easier to play than the dragon.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

Flare Blitz is the most overrated move in the game. It does nothing to really help Charizard at all. There's tons of contradictions in your post, I mean just this statement:

an easily punished KO move is better than a KO move that cannot consistently hit in the first place

An easily punished move, IS a move that is not going to consistently hit.

 

[Knee Smasher]

No.

IF Flare Blitz gets blocked, it's easily punishable by a dash attack, but it also hits often.

Bowser's Fair does not hit as often as Flare Blitz does, but IF it doesn't hit, it's also not as easily punished.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

No.

IF Flare Blitz gets blocked, it's easily punishable by a dash attack, but it also hits often.

Bowser's Fair does not hit as often as Flare Blitz does, but IF it doesn't hit, it's also not as easily punished.

It's more than punishable with a dash attack. You take damage even if it misses, and the endlag on it is so bad you can lose an entire string to your opponent. I have a feeling Flare Blitz hits often when lag and latency is a factor. It's the same reason Ike was played a lot in Brawl online. His high risk high reward moves were hard to avoid with the general lag of online. Anyway I don't get why you claim in the title that there has to be this consistency with the judgement of both Bowser and Charizard, and then go into an entire post about how much different Bowser and Charizard are to play. =P

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I dislike it when people say this. I have found matches extensively on both GameFAQs and this chatroom, and have been the King of this room (I defeated a Lucina, a Mega Man, a Captain Falcon, a Sheik, another Mega Man, and then finally had my streak ended by a character Charizard fares poorly against, Yoshi), and the vast majority of players I have battled in With Friends mode have only been on par with the average player I meet in For Glory 1-on-1 at best. I will honestly tell you that by far the most skilled players I have ever battled against in Super Smash Bros. 3DS are none other than certain Japanese players I met in For Glory 1-on-1. They are the ones responsible for about 90% of all the losses I've ever experienced in For Glory 1-on-1. A certain Japanese King Dedede I met in For Glory 1-on-1, who beat me 10+ times in a row when I was Charizard, was the one who taught me just how bad the Charizard VS. King Dedede matchup is for Charizard. The Japanese are the best at this game, and it does not appear that they frequently use websites like SmashBoards or GameFAQs, but they are everywhere in For Glory 1-on-1. So For Glory is, in my opinion, the best way to get practice as it's the easiest way to find good players, even though you won't always find them in that mode.



Of the three characters you mentioned, the only one who I feel could have a positive matchup against Charizard is Rosalina, just because I feel that my experience fighting against Rosalina may not be an accurate indication of her true potential, as she probably has the single highest learning curve of all characters in this game (I have tried her before). However, yes, I do think that Charizard has a roughly even matchup against Sheik and Zero Suit Samus, as Charizard just destroys them with its jabs, Nairs and grabs from my experience, while punishing their projectiles by either jumping over them and then using Firebreath, or if they are at high %s, even Flare Blitz through the projectiles to KO them. Those two have some deadly combos against Charizard to rack up damage quickly though, so it's roughly even.

Just because a character is "top tier" doesn't automatically mean that they will have a positive matchup against every lower-tiered character (and I am not even 100% sure if those characters you mentioned will actually be higher-tiered than Charizard). In SSBM, Link had a positive matchup against Peach, despite the latter being far higher-tiered than the former.

Also, I do not like the way you implied that King Dedede is certainly not a "top tier threat", because I know at least three characters have a near-unwinnable matchup against him: Charizard, Bowser, and Little Mac (I know this may sound like it's contradicting my previous point, but having not one or two, but three easy matchups should be somewhat of an indication of how good a character is). King Dedede punishes each and every single one of Charizard's/Bowser's approach options with his Gordo, while his Ftilt alone beats Little Mac's entire moveset.

(too lazy to break up into multiple quotes)

Sorry mate but you're gonna be hard pressed to convince me that an environment where you can't control who you play is better than one where you can. You listed your sources and that's fine. But I can tell you from being a very active, involved Brawl player that there are plenty of good players outside of Japan. I have many good players added on my friends list; people I've networked over the years. I find it to be more effective. Japan probably is better than everyone else right now because their masses have had the game longer than we have. But there's no guarantee I'll get to play one any time soon. I'd rather go on Nintendojo or hit up my friends. I know where they come from and their background. You don't have too much of an idea of who you're playing in Gamefaqs and some of those other rooms you listed. We're getting off topic though. We can just agree to disagree.


And: Let's just assume that Dedede actually does have 3 totally free win MUs for a second. There's 46 other characters. Just because he does well against those characters doesn't make him a top tier threat. How does he do again the rest the cast? Dedede in Brawl destroyed pretty much all of the low tier and most of the mid tier and ended up as low-high tier. What tools does Dedede have that make him top tier in your opinion? How do these tools translate into free win MUs against the characters you listed?

And I really don't believe Charizard gets destroyed by Dedede yet. It's an annoying MU but you losing over and over to one player doesn't make the matchup unwinnable. Go find multiple high level Dededes first. See what other people think about the MU. I can't really take your statement seriously if you're just basing the bulk of your logic off losing to one player. As far we know, you could have been losing more to the player and not the character. You can't prove otherwise unless you have videos.

I don't really want to get too far track from the initial discussion but if we're to have such a discussion, I reserve the right to question anything that sounds suspect.

 

[Fairycancel]

Guys, relax

 

[Shog]

Just want to say that Up Tilit is key against Bowser. But I don't have an opinion otherwise. And Nair is godly

 

[Lew Paue]

Just want to say that Up Tilit is key against Bowser. But I don't have an opinion otherwise. And Nair is godly

what kind of moves can chars utilt knock bowser out of safely? i am just curious, i have been trying to land those, i think it is better on stages w/ platforms too.

 

[YeahVeryeah]

My first impression of d3 is that his value will contract over time. He looks like a character without a future. His matchup with charizard is certainly not in our favor, but as gordos become easier to deal with, it will even out more.

I have a few people who I need to play from here. I'd be more active this week but..its midterms. -_-

I'm still itching for a fight, I have plenty of afternoon time Monday to Wednesday.

 

[Xmark]

Charizard's face when he sees he's not high tier

 

[Knee Smasher]

Sorry for bumping this topic, but I just want to point out an observation of mine now that I've gained far more experience with Bowser and Charizard than at the time when I made this topic:

If you look at Bowser's and Charizard's matchups against the rest of the characters, there is literally not a single character besides possibly Zero Suit Samus (mainly due to Bowser's ability to punish her dash attack with Whirling Fortress out of shield) against whom Bowser has a better matchup than Charizard. On the other hand, I can name several characters against whom Bowser has a bad matchup, yet Charizard does not struggle with at all: Duck Hunt Duo, Greninja, Sheik, Samus, Pikachu, Mii Gunner. This is especially notable on Final Destination and Omega stages.

 

[-LzR-]

Charizard doesn't struggle with DHD, Greninja or Sheik? What game have you been playing?

 

[YeahVeryeah]

Charizard doesn't struggle with DHD, Greninja or Sheik? What game have you been playing?

Against sheik, our damage per hit comes into play. 1 rock smash is 12 seconds of them comboing us. a jab combo is one of their uptilt strings. they will have to get us to 180% at least to straight kill us, and stage spiking with bair can lose to fly's armor. Fair spam will still put us in that low corner, though.

 

[-LzR-]

I guess that's true, especially now that Sheik was nerfed quite hard. Greninja and DHD are still problematic. I wouldn't call any of those MUs anything better than a disadvantage.

 

[YeahVeryeah]

I'm pretty sure flare blitz bounces off the can, and the gunman is a problem. I think we have better cqc than him, though, which is a rare plus for us. i think we can d-air him easy as balls.

2 things i forgot to mention with sheik: U-B and bouncy fish deserve respect. U-B is a kill move and combined with D-air and fish, we will have a hard time keeping her out of neutral, and she'll have options when we go offstage. probably a good matchup for flare blitz.

edit: on flare blitz vs sheik: you can punish fully charged needles on reaction with flare blitz.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Charizard doesn't struggle with DHD, Greninja or Sheik? What game have you been playing?

My experience tells me that Greninja is one of Charizard's easier matchups, Duck Hunt Duo is not hard to beat at all with Charizard, and on that list, Sheik is the only one who is really a challenge for Charizard, but I am not sure in whose favor that matchup is.

 

[Udlr Customs]

Flame Thrower as an edge guard is so under rated! When I fight Charizards online they hardly ever use it. I get so many KOs with it especially on Ness and Little Mac

 

[RadianB]

Sorry for bumping this topic, but I just want to point out an observation of mine now that I've gained far more experience with Bowser and Charizard than at the time when I made this topic:

If you look at Bowser's and Charizard's matchups against the rest of the characters, there is literally not a single character besides possibly Zero Suit Samus (mainly due to Bowser's ability to punish her dash attack with Whirling Fortress out of shield) against whom Bowser has a better matchup than Charizard. On the other hand, I can name several characters against whom Bowser has a bad matchup, yet Charizard does not struggle with at all: Duck Hunt Duo, Greninja, Sheik, Samus, Pikachu, Mii Gunner. This is especially notable on Final Destination and Omega stages.

Tbh I don't think Charizard has any bad match ups except maybe against Dedede and Ness, and that's a maybe because I don't play against these 2 very often so I don't really know what they're going to do. Majority of Charizard's match ups are even with some favourable. He's like Akuma in SFIV.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Ness is one of Charizard's easier matchups in my opinion, due to Ness's extremely easily disrupted recovery combined with Charizard's incredible edgeguarding abilities.

Having gained more experience using Charizard, I currently think his bad matchups are (from most hopeless to least hopeless):

1. King Dedede (by far)
2. Rosalina & Luma (only if they are extremely skilled, Charizard has no problem with 99% of people who use this character)
3. Yoshi
4. Zero Suit Samus
5. Mega Man

 

[YeahVeryeah]

1. King Dedede (by far)
2. Rosalina & Luma (only if they are extremely skilled, Charizard has no problem with 99% of people who use this character)
3. Yoshi
4. Zero Suit Samus
5. Mega Man

Speaking of 4, those buffs of hers really hurt the matchup for us.

 

[RadianB]

^ I'm pretty sure ZSS's buffs were confirmed not true.

Ness is one of Charizard's easier matchups in my opinion, due to Ness's extremely easily disrupted recovery combined with Charizard's incredible edgeguarding abilities.

Having gained more experience using Charizard, I currently think his bad matchups are (from most hopeless to least hopeless):

1. King Dedede (by far)
2. Rosalina & Luma (only if they are extremely skilled, Charizard has no problem with 99% of people who use this character)
3. Yoshi
4. Zero Suit Samus
5. Mega Man

Yeah Ness is easy to kill off stage but on stage he completly destroys Charizard and he can juggle with his PK Thunder. Also his Fair beats out our Fair and Nair.
Also his back throw is a guaranteed kill.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Ness is one of Charizard's easier matchups in my opinion, due to Ness's extremely easily disrupted recovery combined with Charizard's incredible edgeguarding abilities.

Having gained more experience using Charizard, I currently think his bad matchups are (from most hopeless to least hopeless):

1. King Dedede (by far)
2. Rosalina & Luma (only if they are extremely skilled, Charizard has no problem with 99% of people who use this character)
3. Yoshi
4. Zero Suit Samus
5. Mega Man

Where is Toon Link?

 

[YeahVeryeah]

^ I'm pretty sure ZSS's buffs were confirmed not true.

Yeah I feel dumb now

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

tbh from my perspective, the only person on that list I thing is in the top 5 of annoying is Rosalina and maybe Yoshi. Toon Link, Link and Sonic are the worst for us. Maybe DHD instead of Link but I think that character design more so with Link and Toon Link i far more obnoxious and harder to deal with.

 

[Pazx]

This thread has degenerated into
"Charizard struggles against this character"
"No he doesn't"

Less "Charizard is better than X", more "Charizard is better than X because Y".

 

[-LzR-]

And please stop pretending that matchups are as simple as "we outrange character X so we beat character X" or something like that. Matchups are very complicated and you could probably write a book for every matchup in order to explain them in detail.

 

[1FC0]

I don't think for glory win rate will be a good indicator of player ability for a long time, because right now most everyone online is really free.

Since you can significantly increase your win ratio by D/Cing against good players after 1 game and staying against bad players, I think win ratio is pretty meaningless as long as this stays the case.

Personally I trashed about 90% of the people I met on fg 1v1, yet my win ratio was below 70%. How come? Simple: Whenever I met someone who was much worse than me he D/Ced after 1 battle thus giving me 1 win. Whenever I met someone who was clearly better than me he did not D/C that quickly thus giving me for example 10 losses.

Whenever someone brags about their win ratio I always doubt if he is a good D/Cer or a good player.

 

[Zombreed]

Bowser is so 2001

 

[Meek Moths]

bros, there is nothing wrong with OP basing his experience on 4glory, it is after all the most played smahs mode now and is in the end more important than tourny

 

[Steeler]

DDD doesn't body Zard... use Flamethrower a ton to zone him. Gordos are not as good offline, easier to hit back. Your edgeguards are strong because his aerials and mobility are slow. There is 0% chance that DDD is worse than, say, Diddy.

 

[Knee Smasher]

King Dedede became easier for Charizard to handle after the patch as a 2% hit from Flamethrower can now reflect his Gordos, whereas prior to the patch, it was completely impossible for Flamethrower to reflect a Gordo. I still maintain that King Dedede is Charizard's hardest matchup though. Diddy Kong does not feel like a negative matchup for Charizard to me, especially when you realize that you can gimp him easily by destroying his Up B jetpack with Flamethrower.

 

[Rashid]

On what basis do you make that assumption? D3 doesn't seem that hard to me.

 

[Knee Smasher]

I'm not making an assumption, I'm documenting my observations based on my experience playing the game. And for those who question the meaning of For Glory records, do note that I am currently on the first page of Anther's ladder (out of 38 pages), ranked at #22, under the name "UltimateChampion", and currently having a win streak of 14. Charizard is the character I used the most to get that high on the ladder, by the way. So I am very familiar with the nature of Charizard's matchups against all different characters.