Honest discussion: How does playing online affect Charizard?

[Knee Smasher]

As a player who predominately plays online, I have had countless people tell me how much of an advantage a Charizard player gains from the fact that a match is online, as well as how the match would go a lot differently if it was offline. They love to say that he is safer online, and how Flamethrower is a nightmare when used in online play, even though I can see numerous arguments regarding how online lag hinders him, such as the fact that input lag can make it harder for him to react to attacks, which is debilitating for a defensive character. And how slow-motion lag makes Flare Blitz ridiculously easy to see coming and shield.

What are the thoughts of the people here on the Charizard board?

 

[-LzR-]

There is a fundamental force in the universe that causes the player the experience worse than average game as usual because of the lag. The trick to this force is that it never harms the opponent, in fact it makes them play much better.
So in short, everyone gets a big boost in lag, except whoever is holding the controller.

 

[Smudges]

There is a fundamental force in the universe that causes the player the experience worse than average game as usual because of the lag. The trick to this force is that it never harms the opponent, in fact it makes them play much better.
So in short, everyone gets a big boost in lag, except whoever is holding the controller.

Lol, every single one of my friends....

No but honestly, almost all characters are adversely affected by the online lag. While certain play styles become more effective, such as (unfortunately) Spammy Links, or Spamus, they too suffer lag that makes it harder for them to react to your actions. Of course, it always seems like they react perfectly, but I dunno.

As for charizard, Flare blitz becomes safer/harder to punish because of lag, they don't shield in time, or miss the perfect shield, or just plain don't punish. Flamethrower is harder to get around. However, Charizard suffers because his combos are rather precise/fast ie Down Throw to forward air has to be performed quickly and read DI. So It evens out. For Glory lag rewards bad play/unsafe play. Bottom line. Unless you manage to find a guy who doesn't lag.

 

[Steeler]

Yeah I have to hard read in order to get anything off dthrow, unless I go for full hop nairs.

 

[Mightyno.M]

i guess it could make things such as sliding rocksmash and b reversed/bounced much more dangerous

 

[RadianB]

Since Charizard is a character that relies on reads and doesn't have many safe options on shield I'd say he suffers a lot more from lag than someone like Mario or Shiek who have better frame data.

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

Yeah, sadly Charizard really likes working off of reads, and lag is not conducive to that. All of Zard's advantages, like SH-aerial, quick grabs and great throw combos don't really amount to much when he's unable to get the read to get the pain train going.

Lag really hurts Zard in some of his more important aspects.

 

[Dre89]

As a player who predominately plays online, I have had countless people tell me how much of an advantage a Charizard player gains from the fact that a match is online, as well as how the match would go a lot differently if it was offline. They love to say that he is safer online, and how Flamethrower is a nightmare when used in online play, even though I can see numerous arguments regarding how online lag hinders him, such as the fact that input lag can make it harder for him to react to attacks, which is debilitating for a defensive character. And how slow-motion lag makes Flare Blitz ridiculously easy to see coming and shield.

What are the thoughts of the people here on the Charizard board?

Everyone plays worse in lag but some characters benefit from it more than others.

Generally, projectile characters and simpler characters benefit more, and Charizard is the latter. Complex movement is harder to do, and that's what the top tiers rely on more. It's also harder to punish unsafe moves, which favours Charizard more because he's less safe than the top tiers, and can't punish many top tier moves on reaction anyway because they're normally so safe.

He also doesn't have anything too core to his meta that is super technical and has very precise frame-windows to pull off.

Lag just lowers the skill ceiling of the game. That tends to suit the simpler characters.

 

[Muskrat Catcher]

Actually, I have some evidence that Charizard may benefit from lag more than it may seem. So on Anther's ladder, the person who finished at number 1 on the 3DS ladder — Mbub — used Charizard in 65% of his matches, Yoshi in 23%, and ROB in the remaining 12%. However, I talked to him, and his main is Yoshi! I asked him why he was using Charizard so much, and he said "I got tired of using my main (Yoshi) online. Too many misinputs and too hard to space with him in lag." Charizard was actually his third best offline, but he lives in France, so it is to be expected that a lot of his matches will be with American players, and as such, lag will play a significant role in many of them. He certainly has the results to suggest that Charizard can still be very threatening if played in lag, and I have to agree myself that lag does favor Charizard in the majority of matchups.

 

[Grizzlpaw]

I pretty much just... don't play zard if it's lagging. Makes you want to smash things... like rocks

 

[Leety]

I feel it hurts Zard more then anything. But that's mainly because my style of play relies on observing, speculating, and reacting to precise movements so I'll be exactly somewhere I want to be and getting the punish. With lag, my movements get sluggish, predictable, and often whiffing an unsafe option where I got the read, but the Wifi gods just said 'NOPE' and then I suffer a bunch of lag causing a free punish. Kind of irritating really

I think people mainly get salty when they loose so they start complaining about the character and condition instead of improving their game.

The truth:

Lag in a sense 'benefits' every character or 'cripples' every character depending which way you view it.

Universally long lasting hitboxes such as projectiles will benefit since it requires just a press of a button to be there. Meanwhile, the opponent has to time their shield.

Throwing out random Smash attacks is also benefited through lag. One will eventually hit so might as well use all of them until one hits, amIrite?

Rolling. Ugh, this is rather stressful. The oppenent needs to press a single button, they're invisible. The one that's reading their over-reliance of rolling needs to use their move X frames earlier then usual. And that X can very depending on how many frames of lag there are making timing for this very inconsistent.

In short, those that can throw out quick Smashes, have good rolls, and lots of projectiles and the player who chooses to use them are going to benefit heavily. This makes characters such as Link, Samus, Mario, and Yoshi very frustrating if the opponent plays like this.

Those who are trying to utilize good fundamentals are most likely going to get frustrated if the opponent has poor connection to the internet. Pretty much, the better you get, the worse you get.

 

[Dre89]

I feel it hurts Zard more then anything. But that's mainly because my style of play relies on observing, speculating, and reacting to precise movements so I'll be exactly somewhere I want to be and getting the punish. With lag, my movements get sluggish, predictable, and often whiffing an unsafe option where I got the read, but the Wifi gods just said 'NOPE' and then I suffer a bunch of lag causing a free punish. Kind of irritating really

I think people mainly get salty when they loose so they start complaining about the character and condition instead of improving their game.

The truth:

Lag in a sense 'benefits' every character or 'cripples' every character depending which way you view it.

Universally long lasting hitboxes such as projectiles will benefit since it requires just a press of a button to be there. Meanwhile, the opponent has to time their shield.

Throwing out random Smash attacks is also benefited through lag. One will eventually hit so might as well use all of them until one hits, amIrite?

Rolling. Ugh, this is rather stressful. The oppenent needs to press a single button, they're invisible. The one that's reading their over-reliance of rolling needs to use their move X frames earlier then usual. And that X can very depending on how many frames of lag there are making timing for this very inconsistent.

In short, those that can throw out quick Smashes, have good rolls, and lots of projectiles and the player who chooses to use them are going to benefit heavily. This makes characters such as Link, Samus, Mario, and Yoshi very frustrating if the opponent plays like this.

Those who are trying to utilize good fundamentals are most likely going to get frustrated if the opponent has poor connection to the internet. Pretty much, the better you get, the worse you get.

The lower skill ceiling in lag benefits the worse player or character. So if you're Charizard vs Sheik and and your opponent is of a similar skill, the lag benefits you more.

 

[kendikong]

In extreme lag(more than a second of input lag), I can say Charizard is definitely one of the easiest characters to play normally. sh autocancel nair approach to jab combo is safe and easy to pull off from muscle memory. And a surprise flare blitz is hard to react to in that kind of environment.