Charicific Valley • The Project: M Charizard General Discussion Thread

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4esgT4xkyQ (first match)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSSFx9deqZw
This is me vs Ice's Falcon... I think i probably did some things right, so maybe you can compare this to your playstyle and see where you could benefit by doing something else.

Your strenghts are the Nair ("safe" distance to put pressure on CF and remove ability to dashdance endlessly), Massive juggle combos because of weight, edgeguarding and techchasing. I abuse dashattack a little vs CF (techchase), because just getting him off the edge quickly is really worth it.
And yeah, TapA is amazing, as is downtilt, if you know how to use it.

 

[RKM]

Thanks yomi.
On a slightly different note, does anyone ever autocancel fair/dair instead of shffling?

 

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

i don't shffl alot with charizard (except nairs), i'd say use what you want
If you want to do it on shield, you have to shffl them though, because your goal is to hit as late as possible before hitting the ground and being able to perform something else.
And i think in most cases shffl fairs will allow you to move quicker after hitting, which is important for follow-ups because charizards dash is much faster than his air speed i believe. No frame data here, just off the top of my head.

 

[JOE!]

So, Falco makes me salty as all ****. You guys have any tips for that MU?

Mainly just how to escape pressure reliably, as if I do catch the bugger it's usually lights out with juggles, but Falco just being Falco irritates me to no end.

 

[metroid1117]

So, Falco makes me salty as all ****. You guys have any tips for that MU?

Mainly just how to escape pressure reliably, as if I do catch the bugger it's usually lights out with juggles, but Falco just being Falco irritates me to no end.

Powershielding is the best tool against his laser spam, but if that's unreliable (as it is for most people), then wavedash OoS is the next best thing; try to position yourself so that after Falco's laser hits you, you have time to wavedash backwards to make him whiff his approach. Rolling also isn't a terribly bad option unless the Falco starts baiting it. I relied mostly on match-up inexperience, but I beat SFAT's Falco at BH3; if you're interested, the video might give you some ideas on how to deal with the pressure.

 

[Nausicaa]

Challenge him a lot, F-air to the face if he ever jumps, that type of thing.
When it's established that you'll be aggressive, you'll get free bait-and-punish opportunities if he ever tries something while he's scared to shoot lasers/apply pressure.
Up-B OOS is fun too. Seriously, hit him with one of those to get him off-stage at anywhere above 30% and it'll scare him even more.

Charizard relies a LOT on making the opponent 'respect' him and his presence. So you HAVE to establish this, especially against choke-point characters like Flacy.

 

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

Use charizards golden nair-distance :D

space yourself, so that the falco can't spam lasers comfortable (nair threat), and don't let his shieldpressure irritate you.
Look for the option to roll or wavedash out if you can't get anything in during his pressure.

 

[Yeerk]

Wow, this thread died. Anyways, hiyo, I second Charizard. Does anyone know a reliable combo from the ledge when your opponent is forced to land on the ledge? So you're hanging on the ledge and CF, Sheik, etc., is forced to up B onto the ledge. What can you do to to rack up % or force them off again (on reaction)? I've only tried a little bit, but ledgehop dair -> downsmash -> bair is all I've thought of so far.

 

[Nausicaa]

WL on Jab/U-Tilt/whatever.
Let go of the ledge, turn around with a DJ and N-air... not better than other options, but sexy.

 

[Yeerk]

WL on Jab/U-Tilt/whatever.
Let go of the ledge, turn around with a DJ and N-air... not better than other options, but sexy.

I may not always be able to WL on reaction and still be able to follow up with something. I'll practice, but I'm more looking for an aerial -> combo. Also, I didn't say this, but assume the opponent is low percentage, so CC is viable for them against glair, etc.

edit: Gimp options from this situation also appreciated.

 

[metroid1117]

Wow, this thread died. Anyways, hiyo, I second Charizard. Does anyone know a reliable combo from the ledge when your opponent is forced to land on the ledge? So you're hanging on the ledge and CF, Sheik, etc., is forced to up B onto the ledge. What can you do to to rack up % or force them off again (on reaction)? I've only tried a little bit, but ledgehop dair -> downsmash -> bair is all I've thought of so far.

Edgehop DAir -> run past -> BAir or Heat Wave is a nice way to reset edgeguarding situations if they're at mid %s. If they're at high %s, then you can edgehop DAir -> Fly -> (UAir) -> up+B for the potential kill. If they're light and you condition them into DI'ing hard to the side against DAir, then you can also hit them with edgehop FAir at high %s.

I may not always be able to WL on reaction and still be able to follow up with something. I'll practice, but I'm more looking for an aerial -> combo. Also, I didn't say this, but assume the opponent is low percentage, so CC is viable for them against glair, etc.

edit: Gimp options from this situation also appreciated.

Strong Bad said that glair goes through CC'ing; I haven't tried this myself, but even if it were true, I'd still go for an edgehop DAir. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that DAir is powerful enough that it'll usually break through CC's, so if they try to CC, they'll probably go into a missed tech state where you can jab, DTilt, or maybe even DSmash if you're fast enough.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I found this out when playing around in Brawl and it works the same way in Project M, though the useful application is more limited due to the ubiquity of dashdancing. Thought you might like to know--

Just found something neat while playing around with movement stuff.

When you stop a run (by no longer holding forward, rather than jumping, shielding, etc.) and Charizard goes into his skid animation, during the first few frames of animation, he moves forward faster than he would by just continuing to run forward.

This means that if you're looking to grab, U-Smash, or shield in front of the opponent at an optimal spacing, going into the skid animation beforehand gives you extra speed/distance covered beforehand. This should catch some people off-guard and improve his approach/spacing options a little bit.

 

[Nausicaa]

Cute.

If looking for low-% things, basically if you're talking about Falcon/Sheik/etc, just go into full combo off D-Air/WL U-Tilt/whatever. You can usually set-up another edge-guard after some %. Otherwise, basically what metroid said for quick-resets. Skip the combo if you don't want to give them a chance for re-positioning, and HeatWave. Even D-Air > F-Smash is possible a lot of the time.

 

[Heroofhatz]

Hey guys, I'm a Charizard main from Colorado, although I recently played in a tournament where I had to play a Sonic, and honestly kind of got messed up. Does anyone have any advice for Zard vs. Sonic MU? It seems like it is so hard to pin him down and his weight makes combos almost impossible. And edge guarding him seems really hard, usually I like to use the ending of n-air to cover below the ledge which also gimps, but Sonic can usually stall on a walled ledge (ie. Dracula/Wario Ware). Is is sort of like trying to cover the edge against tether characters where you just fall down with a hair to gimp them? Thanks for your help!

 

[Nausicaa]

Don't pick gigantic stages like DC, for starters. If you're having trouble with Sonic, you might want to remove any cheese he has against you. When you're comfortable with him, only then go to those places. They're fine, and actually pretty good against him (he can't kill things nearly as well as you), but if you're having trouble in neutral (likely), don't give him all the room in the world. Less room vs a more precision character than you = better chance you'll get that hit from cheese in neutral.

If he hits your Shield with something at mid-%, Up-B OOS. He needs a lot of resets, and can't auto-kill you off a hit, so getting punished for it in exchange for the potential positioning and damage from that, as well as the scare-factor if something comes of it, will do you wonders. (Don't get baited into using it, just do it when it will actually produce something like an edge-guard or GTFO option when he'll take some knock-back)

Approach with Shield and Jab lots. It's non-committing and still provides you with the edge of making him debate doing something.
It will force him to either try snapping at you with something to prevent losing room/getting jabbed, because you're closing a gap and will do something close to nonpunishable at any moment, which will either show some patterns he has in movement/approach/evading, or let you get a free hit on your shield (Jab/Grab/Up-B/N-Air OOS if he goes passed you), or he'll try catching you with a direct-Grab just as he normally would in a raw-Neutral, but he'll have to line it up with some focus given you'll be 'attacking' him, and grabbing a moving target that might jab him will make him think twice about going for them, since you can punish them if he whiffs.

Edit: This applies to many smaller half-aggro-but-not fast characters. Lucas, who seems to give people trouble, you just need to watch for Up-B OOS a little more, since he's so mobile in his pressure. Don't go defensive against them. Be hyper-aggro. It's worth going out of the 'safe-zone' more than it is trying to deal with 'THEIR' game.

 

[Heroofhatz]

Don't pick gigantic stages like DC, for starters. If you're having trouble with Sonic, you might want to remove any cheese he has against you. When you're comfortable with him, only then go to those places. They're fine, and actually pretty good against him (he can't kill things nearly as well as you), but if you're having trouble in neutral (likely), don't give him all the room in the world. Less room vs a more precision character than you = better chance you'll get that hit from cheese in neutral.

If he hits your Shield with something at mid-%, Up-B OOS. He needs a lot of resets, and can't auto-kill you off a hit, so getting punished for it in exchange for the potential positioning and damage from that, as well as the scare-factor if something comes of it, will do you wonders. (Don't get baited into using it, just do it when it will actually produce something like an edge-guard or GTFO option when he'll take some knock-back)

Approach with Shield and Jab lots. It's non-committing and still provides you with the edge of making him debate doing something.
It will force him to either try snapping at you with something to prevent losing room/getting jabbed, because you're closing a gap and will do something close to nonpunishable at any moment, which will either show some patterns he has in movement/approach/evading, or let you get a free hit on your shield (Jab/Grab/Up-B/N-Air OOS if he goes passed you), or he'll try catching you with a direct-Grab just as he normally would in a raw-Neutral, but he'll have to line it up with some focus given you'll be 'attacking' him, and grabbing a moving target that might jab him will make him think twice about going for them, since you can punish them if he whiffs.

Thanks, do you have any advice for edge guarding? I know that one option recover he does have is homing attack, which is terribly unsafe on shield, but in the air can n-air beat it out? Should I try to cover the edge with d-tilt or reverse n-air? Because edge hogging him seems pretty hard.

 

[Nausicaa]

I'm not really sure, but thinking about it, I would probably gravitate to being hyper-aggro against him even off-stage. Charge Fly according to his trajectory height, flail Fast-Fall N-Air, F-Air, and D-Air, stuff like that directly at him with both jumps as needed until he's dead. If he goes low (hitting him with HeatWave/Up-B OOS), then half charge Fly and FF F-Air/N-Air to try catching him out of his DJ if he Side-B's first, if he goes high from a hit due to DI or something, full charge Fly and force/bait the Side-B/DJ/Homing Attack out of him with either an attempt to trade with my F-Air, or get him to recover lower than usual and FF D-Air/Glide Attack back to the stage if he Up-B's. Stuff like that.

For the most part, trading hits way out there is juicy, and trading with HA is great for you (if that's the main thing you're having difficulty from on-stage)
If he's far enough out, and low enough, that he's forced to Up-B, or at least HA from below Stage-Height if he gets close enough, then decide between waiting on stage to grab the ledge/act, or being aggro with Fly > FF aerials off-stage.
That's just some guessing, as I haven't had to deal with edge-guarding him, especially as a ToD-worthy character like Zard, despite playing against a Sonic fairly often and I'm sure needing to at some point, but I would likely attempt that route for a long time until I flushed out the dynamics and variables of it before trying anything generic or 'normal' in this case. I'd suggest trying that to start, if whatever you've tried before seems to be flushed out and you want to explore other options.

 

[Heroofhatz]

I'm not really sure, but thinking about it, I would probably gravitate to being hyper-aggro against him even off-stage. Charge Fly according to his trajectory height, flail Fast-Fall N-Air, F-Air, and D-Air, stuff like that directly at him with both jumps as needed until he's dead. If he goes low (hitting him with HeatWave/Up-B OOS), then half charge Fly and FF F-Air/N-Air to try catching him out of his DJ if he Side-B's first, if he goes high from a hit due to DI or something, full charge Fly and force/bait the Side-B/DJ/Homing Attack out of him with either an attempt to trade with my F-Air, or get him to recover lower than usual and FF D-Air/Glide Attack back to the stage if he Up-B's. Stuff like that.

For the most part, trading hits way out there is juicy, and trading with HA is great for you (if that's the main thing you're having difficulty from on-stage)
If he's far enough out, and low enough, that he's forced to Up-B, or at least HA from below Stage-Height if he gets close enough, then decide between waiting on stage to grab the ledge/act, or being aggro with Fly > FF aerials off-stage.
That's just some guessing, as I haven't had to deal with edge-guarding him, especially as a ToD-worthy character like Zard, despite playing against a Sonic fairly often and I'm sure needing to at some point, but I would likely attempt that route for a long time until I flushed out the dynamics and variables of it before trying anything generic or 'normal' in this case. I'd suggest trying that to start, if whatever you've tried before seems to be flushed out and you want to explore other options.

Thanks!, hopefully one of these days I can get some videos of my playstyle uploaded, since I would like some advice on things I can do better/haven't thought of.

 

[Nezha the Scout]

Hi guys, I'm Charizard main here in Puerto Rico, I belong in a local gamer club full of 146 smashers... melee, brawl and project m smashers. The thing is, I'm the only one who uses Charizard, and boy let me tell you, using Charizard is a bit too much strait forwards. Trying to vary what you are doing makes it difficult to stop people reading my mind in battle. In order to avoid that, I rely in safe n-airs to do much of my jobs, when I find myself trying to recover and head for a ledge, I use the momentum given to me by my glide, and thanks for the Project M collisions, you can slide up and down on a side of a stage (like final destination), then when your momentum is about to stop and your opponent is open, use the glide attack to slide up the stage and hit any nearby opponent away to guarantee your recovery. Use your n-tilt to accommodate distance and prepare for some combos... if you find your opponent overhead after you did the down-b you can use your u-air to finish it off instead of your up-b since you are not that vulnerable and can still attack if you missed. I have more techniques like these, but I think they were already mentioned here.

This is my Project M 2.6b strategy.

 

[Heroofhatz]

Hi guys, I'm Charizard main here in Puerto Rico, I belong in a local gamer club full of 146 smashers... melee, brawl and project m smashers. The thing is, I'm the only one who uses Charizard, and boy let me tell you, using Charizard is a bit too much strait forwards. Trying to vary what you are doing makes it difficult to stop people reading my mind in battle. In order to avoid that, I rely in safe n-airs to do much of my jobs, when I find myself trying to recover and head for a ledge, I use the momentum given to me by my glide, and thanks for the Project M collisions, you can slide up and down on a side of a stage (like final destination), then when your momentum is about to stop and your opponent is open, use the glide attack to slide up the stage and hit any nearby opponent away to guarantee your recovery. Use your n-tilt to accommodate distance and prepare for some combos... if you find your opponent overhead after you did the down-b you can use your u-air to finish it off instead of your up-b since you are not that vulnerable and can still attack if you missed. I have more techniques like these, but I think they were already mentioned here.

This is my Project M 2.6b strategy.

Another thing you might want to consider is if your opponent is above you, to not down-b into up-air, because there are certain moves that can out prioritize it. One of the things I found effective was to down-b and space in such a way that you hit the flame portion of nair, you keep good spacing, and pop them up again for another nair etc.

 

[Heroofhatz]

Is anyone here in the PMBR? And if so, does anybody know if there is any work being done to put in the mega evolutions of Charizard into the clone engine?

 

[metroid1117]

Is anyone here in the PMBR? And if so, does anybody know if there is any work being done to put in the mega evolutions of Charizard into the clone engine?

I'm a part of the PMBR, but I cannot say whether anything is being done with the mega evolutions.

 

[GunBlaze]

Is anyone here in the PMBR? And if so, does anybody know if there is any work being done to put in the mega evolutions of Charizard into the clone engine?

GHNeko confirmed no Mega Evolutions will be part of Project M.

 

[JOE!]

Just something I've noticed, but does Zard have a sort of Blindspot diagonally above him on the ground, and diagonally below in the air?

 

[Heroofhatz]

Just something I've noticed, but does Zard have a sort of Blindspot diagonally above him on the ground, and diagonally below in the air?

Diagonally on the ground in front of him he can use jab as a quick anti-air but is sort of depends on the angle. As for grounded behind him...probably a well spaced nair can cover most approaches if you scout it.

As for in the air, nair can cover both of those areas if given enough time to loop correctly. Or use side-b to get some space while hopefully hitting your opponent away.

 

[JOE!]

Jab can work, but the time it takes to actually cover that spot can be iffy, the same with Nair (it takes time to get in front of you). Heatwave also is a cone: it doesn't actually cover diagonally below you with the inner hitboxes.

Behind him is the worst place for an opponent though

 

[Heroofhatz]

Jab can work, but the time it takes to actually cover that spot can be iffy, the same with Nair (it takes time to get in front of you). Heatwave also is a cone: it doesn't actually cover diagonally below you with the inner hitboxes.

Behind him is the worst place for an opponent though

I don't know...jab is pretty dang fast for a launcher like that. And yeah nair is less than ideal, but you don't really ever want to be above an opponent in the air with you unless you have the advantage. The heatwave is not necessarily for the hitbox, but fast fallen, it creates a good trajectory that is hard for most characters to punished.

 

[JOE!]

welp, preview of my next thread / proving a small point about what I noticed: Zard's wing is actually a vulnerable area for nearly 2x as long as it is a hitbox diagonally in front of him :/

 

[Heroofhatz]

How exactly did you get the frame data for this? Also thank you.

And what exactly would you want to change about the hurt boxes?

 

[JOE!]

The pokedex.

Not exactly needs to be changed IMO, its more a bit odd that charizard seems to have two floating hurtboxes seen here:

To make his wings hittable. One thing to note: attacks involving the tips of his wings / latter half of his tail are disjointed!

Back to the wings though, it's almost like a Melee Mewtwo situation in that he just kinda has two floating targets behind him due to how the hurtboxes are aligned on his wings, as opposed to somethign like this:

(change in green, should be a smidge bigger to be the same dimensions as the normal hurtboxes but you get the idea)

Here is an example change that could be used, but the current version is totally fine too:

Spoiler

 

[Heroofhatz]

Not that I don't disagree with you, but the fact is that the wing is part of his body, it isn't like marth's sword so it really shouldn't be a massive disjoint. Also seriously could you tell me where/how I can get this data? I have a feeling studying it might help out in some way along that road...

 

[JOE!]

Right, it is a part of his body, but the hurtbox is literally just kinda floating there away from his body. On top of this, the hurtbox is also on the "membrane" part of the wing more or less if you wanna get technical, it'd be like wearing a baggy shirt and somebody punching just the dangling fabric, but you getting knocked back from it.... what?

Anywho, I am using Brawlbox to view the data and I'm making a thread that will compile all the relevant info

 

[Heroofhatz]

Right, it is a part of his body, but the hurtbox is literally just kinda floating there away from his body. On top of this, the hurtbox is also on the "membrane" part of the wing more or less if you wanna get technical, it'd be like wearing a baggy shirt and somebody punching just the dangling fabric, but you getting knocked back from it.... what?

Anywho, I am using Brawlbox to view the data and I'm making a thread that will compile all the relevant info

Thanks a lot! I messed around a bit with Brawl box a while ago, but I didn't know that was how you got the frame data.

The way I see the hurt box is trying to be a compromise by essentially trying to make the whole wing a hurt box, since no part in particular would be incredibly solid. Not having it there at all would create a weird disjoint that wouldn't necessarily be any safer, but would make spacing against Zard more of a hassle. And when you think about it, a swipe from a sword sends people flying, so it isn't necessarily 1:1 physics, also I'm pretty sure that Pikachu's tail has some weird hurt boxes as well.

Really I think it just comes down to semantics, but thanks for the data again, and let me know if you make a new thread to post it in or whatnot.

 

[SmashBroski]

I wonder if this/these would be more fitting for Charizard's blue alt.(recolor, NOT costume) in future installments.

Spoiler

which is arguably similar to:

Spoiler

 

[GeZ]

After playing a few matches against Dantarion's Charizard, and being wow'd enough to try picking him up myself, I gotta say he's one of the most interesting pokemon in P:M currently.

That being said, what do you guys think of his techchase game? Chasing off of Dthrow seems good because he's got a moderately fast jab and Dsmash to cover missed tech's and can chase pretty well. I use it to some effect when I try to use Zard.

Also I still think that one of my favorite posts in these forums (and I wish I could find it again) is someone in these forums saying Charizard's Nair covers so much area and has such good hitboxes that they can't see why anyone would use ANYTHING else. Now whenever I play games I'll go whole stocks whittling people down with a combination of his Nair and great mobility/ space control while giggling til I cry.

 

[metroid1117]

That being said, what do you guys think of his techchase game? Chasing off of Dthrow seems good because he's got a moderately fast jab and Dsmash to cover missed tech's and can chase pretty well. I use it to some effect when I try to use Zard.

I think Charizard's tech chase game is extremely good, but I wouldn't recommend DSmashing for tech chases unless your opponent is at a higher % where they cannot CC it as easily; until then, I've had more success with the standard JC grab -> BThrow, since BThrow will either lead to combos if they DI in or more tech chases if they DI down and away.

 

[GeZ]

I think Charizard's tech chase game is extremely good, but I wouldn't recommend DSmashing for tech chases unless your opponent is at a higher % where they cannot CC it as easily; until then, I've had more success with the standard JC grab -> BThrow, since BThrow will either lead to combos if they DI in or more tech chases if they DI down and away.

Yeah, I know that his Dsmash doesn't work well til mid to high percent. It's just a nice trick in those situations. Haven't been using Bthrow though. I'll try that.

 

[Heroofhatz]

From what I've experimented with, his tech chase game is good, but it certainly isn't the best. Back in 2.1 when he had a ton of frame advantage it was almost unbeatable, and I know Metroid's style focuses a lot more on tech chases. It works really well I find if your opponent techs a lot, the tech animation for most characters is long enough for you to read it and regrab before they do anything. However if they don't tech, then your only option is to jab, and for me, I usually end up jabbing during their invincibility frames. Usually back throw is preferable cause it is easier to read the tech chase or you get a free combo with bad DI.

Also, nair is too good :D

 

[metroid1117]

From what I've experimented with, his tech chase game is good, but it certainly isn't the best. Back in 2.1 when he had a ton of frame advantage it was almost unbeatable, and I know Metroid's style focuses a lot more on tech chases. It works really well I find if your opponent techs a lot, the tech animation for most characters is long enough for you to read it and regrab before they do anything. However if they don't tech, then your only option is to jab, and for me, I usually end up jabbing during their invincibility frames. Usually back throw is preferable cause it is easier to read the tech chase or you get a free combo with bad DI.

Charizard's DSmash can also cover missed tech if you're trying to tech chase based off of just covering options instead of reacting to where your opponent goes. If your opponent is in the middle of the stage, charging a DSmash next to where they land covers every option except techroll away, since techroll towards can be covered by the back hitboxes of DSmash. If they're at the edge of the stage when they tech and have no room to techroll away, DSmash can cover every option. On reaction, DTilt can also cover missed tech and, if you space it so that you cover missed tech or standing tech with tipped DTilt, you might have enough time to run after them with a JC grab if they try to tech away.

 

[Heroofhatz]

Charizard's DSmash can also cover missed tech if you're trying to tech chase based off of just covering options instead of reacting to where your opponent goes. If your opponent is in the middle of the stage, charging a DSmash next to where they land covers every option except techroll away, since techroll towards can be covered by the back hitboxes of DSmash. If they're at the edge of the stage when they tech and have no room to techroll away, DSmash can cover every option. On reaction, DTilt can also cover missed tech and, if you space it so that you cover missed tech or standing tech with tipped DTilt, you might have enough time to run after them with a JC grab if they try to tech away.

I usually have a lot of trouble as of late trying to space Dsmash correctly. I was fine in 2.1 (I think) but whenever the range was shortened I've always had trouble spacing it to cover both options. I know that it is sort of like DK's Down b and is incredibly useful, I guess I'm not sure if I need to Wave Smash to space it or if I'm just being silly.

Oh and another thing. I've teen finding that more often than not when I go for Dsmash and space it correctly, they always seem to have just enough time to put up their shield and block it. Or more often than not, if they neutral tech they can act pretty much just as fast as I can and will hit me. I think some of it might be I'm used to reacting instead of predicting, and I also know that there was a time when Zard got a ton of frame advantage off of a Dthrow, so am I just not buffering the input in correctly? Or is it something else? Thanks for your help!