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How is Charizard's Up Smash Balanced?

Murder Space Dragon

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 4, 2019
Messages
35
Title, it's faster than other infamous up smashes like Mario or Fox's, but has much better reach, a bigger disjoint and is more powerful. I'm glad that Charizard has gotten buffs to be on more even footing with the other Pokemon, but Zard's up smash seems a bit ridiculous to me. Even in pro play you see a lot of Pokemon Trainer players throwing it out super often when they're looking for a kill because it's so ridiculously fast despite its reach and power. Simply making it come out on frame 9 or 10 would make it not so ridiculous while still being a good move.
 

ZephyrZ

But.....DRAGONS
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Zard Up Smash is very good but it's hardly the most busted move in the game, or even PT's kit I'd say. It's fast and disjointed but it doesn't hit far in front of Zard, and it's pretty weak for a super heavy smash attack. And it's still unsafe on shield or on wiff, so it's not that spammable.

Nerfing it to frame 9 would remove one of Charizard's biggest strengths, his super good OoS game. Because of their slow aerials, super heavies tend to be crippled by their poor OoS game amongst all their other weaknesses - Zard and Bowser are the only exceptions due to having frame 6 grounded options. Nerf it to frame 9 and Zard's OoS game is now only about as good as Ivysaur's in term of frame data. I guess it'd still be a good move OoS but if they really had to nerf Charizard I'd want them to do it somewhere else.

...Jeeze, how did we go from Zard being the laughing stock of PT to people asking for nerfs?
 

Murder Space Dragon

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 4, 2019
Messages
35
Zard Up Smash is very good but it's hardly the most busted move in the game, or even PT's kit I'd say. It's fast and disjointed but it doesn't hit far in front of Zard, and it's pretty weak for a super heavy smash attack. And it's still unsafe on shield or on wiff, so it's not that spammable.

Nerfing it to frame 9 would remove one of Charizard's biggest strengths, his super good OoS game. Because of their slow aerials, super heavies tend to be crippled by their poor OoS game amongst all their other weaknesses - Zard and Bowser are the only exceptions due to having frame 6 grounded options. Nerf it to frame 9 and Zard's OoS game is now only about as good as Ivysaur's in term of frame data. I guess it'd still be a good move OoS but if they really had to nerf Charizard I'd want them to do it somewhere else.

...Jeeze, how did we go from Zard being the laughing stock of PT to people asking for nerfs?
I don't think making it frame 9 would remove his strong OoS game, Up-B is still a frame 9 move with super armor and f-air is fast and pretty powerful. it would hurt his OoS game a bit, but it would still be more than good enough. Bowser's Whirling Fortress is his only real good OoS option, but it doesn't have a big disjoint and doesn't kill until super high percents.

Not hitting far in front of Zard isn't really a weakness either, it may not be able to cover everywhere around you like a lot of head swing/flip kick up smashes, but it makes up for it by being a fast and disjointed anti-air. It may be the weakest smash attack in Zard's kit but it's still well above average. As for being unsafe on shield or whiff... missing a smash attack should get you punished, that's not a weakness.

Also, I generally think Charizard is well balanced, maybe even needing buffs in a few other ways (less start-up on Flare Blitz maybe?), but his up smash stands out to me as absurdly fast for a move with its range and power.
 

Steeler

Smash Hero
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It's a really really good up smash but has issues hitting behind him, especially against smaller characters. It's also literally been exactly this fast since Brawl. It's great but not broken, if you struggle against it then you should space away from Zard's shield more or try to avoid being directly above him.
 
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