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Meta How to Train Your Dragon: Meta game guide for Charizard 3.0.2

Heroofhatz

Smash Journeyman
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Oct 13, 2013
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How to Train your Dragon:

An in depth guide into the metagame of Charizard in P:M 3.0.2



Enter the Dragon


A Little Background Info

Charizard originally hails from the Pokémon franchise and is one of the most iconic Pokémon of all time. He is listed as #6 in the Pokédex as the Flame Pokémon, a Fire/Flying type and the final evolution of Charmander. In the Pokémon games he is praised for his amazing attack power and he is also one of the few Pokémon who has the ability to Mega Evolve. Overall he is a very beloved character from the franchise.

Charizard in P:M 3.02

However in Smash, he operates very differently.

Charizard has been changed very drastically from his Brawl incarnation. He’s gotten a heck of a lot faster and is the king of skies. In general, Zard can be played as a passive aggressive or a bait and punish character. You can either apply safe pressure to your opponent from afar to get good stage positioning and force an error, or use your crazy fast speed to outrun then and punish any of their mistakes.

He has pretty amazing spacing tools that are pretty safe, as well as enough anti air moves to make a battleship jealous. In addition, he has one of the best aerial chase games of any character in the game. In addition he has amazing gimping potential on almost the entire cast.

He’s amazingly well balanced as far as MU’s, there isn’t a ton that he doesn’t have at least some answer to.

Why Choose Charizard?

Well the first reason you should pick him up is because he’s a dragon, nuff said.

But besides that, there are actually good reasons to choose him as a main. He plays radically different from the rest of the cast, and thus makes it hard for other people to figure out what he’s doing. There’s also nothing about him that makes some MU’s unwinnable for him, he’s generally very balanced. In addition, the technical stuff behind him isn’t very difficult, all you really need to learn are the applications of your very diverse moveset.

Pros & Cons

Even in Project M Zard isn’t perfect, there are some things that he does amazingly, but then there are some things that aren’t so nice about him.

Pros:

-Really Fast

-Excellent spacing potential

-Has several very good launchers

-Really solid crouch cancel (CC) options

-Amazing recovery options

-Nair can nullify sweet spots from recovering characters

-Great aerial priority and aerial chasing potential with super jumps

-A lot of his best moves are hugely disjointed

-Has a bunch of really solid out of shield (OOS) options

-Really solid throw and tech chasing game

-Heavy, so he can take quite a few hits before he goes down

-He’s also floaty, which gives him a chance to jump out of a lot of combos

Cons:

-He’s fat, large hurtboxes suck

-He can get juggled really hard by some characters

-Doesn’t have a projectile

-Has a tough time against projectile heavy characters

-Tech animations are longer than usual


Move Analysis

This section is net dedicated to the frame data for Zard, since that is already in another forum. Instead this is a rough analysis of what each move is used for.

Jab
Combo Starter, Anti Air, Disjointed
Jab is your primary defensive move for anyone in front of you, especially characters that like to SHFFL Nair at you. It’s also a pretty good combo starter.

Ftilt
Kill Move, Spacing Move
This move is primary used when your opponent is trying to play more of a footsie game with you, but don’t be fooled, this move has a ton of kill power

Dtilt
Combo Starter, Disjointed, Gimping Move
Primary used for Crouch Canceling, it’s a fabulous combo starter and defensive move in general. However, the flame at the end of the tail can also be used to gimp people

Utilt
Combo Starter
This move is almost exclusively used when as opponent is above you to set up for combos. The horizontal range makes it more tricky to use in most other circumstances.

Fsmash
Kill Move
This move has amazing kill potential, almost as much as DK’s fully charged giant punch. Though it is tricky to hit with the sweet spot so it’s more often used off of a hard read.

Dsmash
Tech Chase, Combo Starter
This is one of your primary tech chasing moves. The range of the move means you can cover multiple teching options, and it sets up very nicely for some of Zard’s more potent combos.

Usmash
Combo Starter, Disjointed, Kill Move, Anti Air
If your opponent is above you, this should be one of your go to moves. Fast and pretty disjointed, it’s amazing for hitting anyone above you. It is also a decent kill move on floatier characters.

Nair
Combo Starter, Disjointed, Gimping Move, Spacing Move, Anti Air

This is probably Zard’s most potent moves, useful for all the above things and much else besides which are discussed in great detail in this guide.

Fair
Kill Move, Combo Starter
This move has two main functions. Sweetspotted it’s a pretty potent kill move, but if you can hit with the sour spot (on the shoulder), it’s a very good combo move.

Dair
Combo Starter, Gimping Move, Tech Chase
As with all meteor smashes, it can be used to gimp people offstage. However the main function of this move is very similar to Falcon’s Dair, to set up for kill combos, more often than not off of tech chase reads.

Uair
Combo Starter

Fthrow
Kill Move

Bthrow
Combo Starter

Dthrow
Tech Chase

Uthrow
Kill Move

Neutral B
Gimping Move, Spacing Move

Up B
Kill Move, GTFO Move

Side B
Kill Move

Down B



Neutral Game

This is the place where everything starts in a match; so learning the neutral game is essential to any Zard player to learn. Knowing how to get stage positioning and how to safely pressure your opponent in crucial to getting mileage.

Speed

As mentioned before, Zard is pretty crazy fast; he’s actually the 5th fastest character speed when it comes to dashes. This being said, he can very easily keep pace with characters like Falcon and Fox. Dash dancing and wavedashing at a medium distance from your opponent is a great way to play a bait and punish sort of game because unlike Fox or Falcon, Zard doesn’t have a ton of great safe on shield options for rush down.

If you want a good example of how Zard can be played very grounded and very fast, be sure to check out some of Metroid’s videos up on the forums.

Spacing

This, this is where Zard is very very good with respect to the rest of the cast. He has a few moves at his disposal to make spacing the neutral game very advantageous for him.

First of all there’s Nair (you’ll learn to love this move), more specifically there’s Reverse Aerial Rush (RAR) Nair. RAR Nair is very safe on an opponents shield, and even if it is completely whiffed. However, this is only true UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.

First of all, DON’T TRY AND HIT WITH THE STARTUP HITBOX IF THEY ARE ON THE GROUND. Because Nair isn’t a multi-hit move, as soon as it touches your opponent it can’t hit them again. It’s the same principle as Link’s grounded Up B. If you block it, then you can just stand in it even though it still has an active hitbox. Thus if you hit with the startup, you are missing out on the incredibly useful coverage that the backswing gives you with respect to grounded opponents. The ONLY time that this can be safe is if you start your Nair the moment you touch the ground, the shield stun will give you enough time to L cancel and reset yourself.

The one omission to the rule stated above is if your opponent is in the air, because obviously they can’t block in the air and with the exception of Link Zair or Ivy’s Bair, there really isn’t any air moves that can outspace it effectively. However, keep in mind that characters with high air mobility like Wario and Peach generally have an easier time punishing Nair, since they mostly approach from the air at a diagonal to your body. Thus if you whiff the startup of Nair, they can just fly in and hit you because the backswing only covers the ground behind you. But one way to counter this is to full hop RAR Nair, because it is a pretty amazing anti air when used with good spacing (it wrecks Puff and Peach pretty badly). But in addition to that it can also be used on grounded opponents and sort of covers two options. If you space it so the start up starts above your opponent, then they have two options. If they jumped, then they’ll get hit and more than likely comboed afterwards. If they stayed grounded in shield, they don’t have enough jump acceleration to jump out of shield and hit you before the backswing comes back and covers you, then you should have enough time and space to fall back away and hit another Nair on their shield just as you land, making it decently safe.

A more preferred way to spacing RAR Nair is to try and aim with the backswing of the tail. This way, you’re covering the ground and it’s late enough in your jump you should have plenty of time to L cancel and reset yourself

Another thing to consider is jumping straight up or away from your opponent out of the RAR. A true RAR requires that you maintain your forward momentum by backwards jumping out of the turn animation. If you keep the stick steady though and just neutral jump, or reverse it and jump the opposite way, essentially you get an instant turn around Nair but a little more safe. This is nicer in some aspects because unless they are moving forward there’s no way for them to pressure you with WD OOS.

Your other main spacing tool is Jab. It’s an incredibly fast, decently disjointed anti air that shuts down a lot of SHFFL approaches. Most notable things that it is good against is stuff like Falcon’s and Fox’s Nair. It’s also one of your key combo starters, so any hits by it usually means big damage afterwards. Keep in mind that this move is not safe on shield and should be used with discretion to avoid punishes. Also keep in mind that this move can also be crouch canceled out of a dash for an instant standing jab, which is a good mixup if your opponent is expecting you to approach.

Another less commonly used spacing tool is Ftilt. Although it isn’t super safe on shield and seems pretty laggy, it’s actually quite fast on start up, has IASA frames about 10 frames before the move ends, the head is invincible for a couple of frames, and has really good KB. If your opponent is trying to force you to play a more footsies game with them, don’t feel afraid to throw this move out.

Stage Control

Now that you have the basics of the neutral, let’s apply that to forcing your opponent into mistakes with stage positioning. Stage positioning is an incredibly important part of any smash game, heck any fighting game in general.

Dash Dancing:

This is one of the most common forms of stage control in the game. By dashing back and forth, you are keeping your movements ambiguous to your opponent so they may try and throw out a move and then retreat to a worse stage position upon whiffing. When backed into a corner, a lot of players will try and throw out something to keep themselves safe, which you can then bait and punish accordingly

Applying Pressure:

As discussed earlier, Nair is a great way to apply pressure to your opponent from a distance. But a step up from that is something called Nair walling. Essentially it’s really simple, stand with your back to your opponent and start SHFFL Nair-ing. Keep in mind that this isn’t safe in and of itself, so try and mix it up with some dash dance RAR Nairs but try your best to keep them pinned to a side of the stage where they have nowhere to run.

Anti-Projectile Game

Some of Zard’s most troublesome MU’s are the ones where his opponent has a solid projectile at his disposal. Most well known of these are Link, Falco, Ivysaur, and Mario. Since Zard is so huge, it can be very hard to dodge around their projectiles…

But who ever said anything about dodging them? You’ve got moves that got you covered! Most common of these are RAR Nair (what isn’t it good for) and Jab.

If you can turn yourself around and hit the projectile with Nair, you’ll destroy it and take no damage in the process. This option is also preferred because if you can get the startup close enough to your opponent as they start throwing the projectile, you will more than likely hit them with the backswing and push them back into a worse stage positioning. The only problem with Nair is that it takes a bit of prediction on the part of the Zard playeer to actually make it work effectively, too late and you get hit, too early and you just got baited into jumping. Nairing projectiles is more commonly preferred when your back is already turned to your opponent and you can advancing Nair towards them and gain some stage control while you at it.

If you are facing your opponent however, your best option is Jab. Fast and disjointed, it will clank with almost any projectile, and can sometimes even hit your opponent at the same time. Best example of this is against Mario. A lot of Mario’s like to use fireballs to approach and then hit confirm off of them, but if you can time it so that you hit the fireball at just the right time, you can clank with the fireball while still hitting your opponent and setting them up for follow ups.

Another key part of Zard’s anti projectile game is power shielding. All this takes is a ton of practice learning to shield the frame a projectile is going to hit you. But one thing to make this a bit easier is to run and then cancel the dash by shielding, since your hurtboxes are changing right when you transition from the dash to the shield it's a little bit easier.

If you don’t feel like Jabbing, there’s always Ftilt, but it isn’t recommended as much cause the hitbox doesn't get to far before it clanks, but it looks like he’s eating whatever projectile you clank with so at least it looks funny.



Offensive Maneuvers

Once you get the hang of winning the neutral game it’s time to style all over your opponent with combos. Just keep in mind that Zard is the king of the skies, so the majority of your main combos are going to be air combos starting with launchers.

Launchers


Jab:

As previously mentioned, this move is amazing. Super fast, clanks with projectiles, disjointed, and it’s even a combo starter! On pretty much any character you can link jab in to dash Usmash. You can also possibly get an Fair in depending on DI and character, which can set up for the Zard Ken Combo. However, if you’re playing a fast faller you can knock them down and force a tech for a tech chase opportunity. Also if you’re playing a fast faller and they’re stupid enough to DI into the jab (common when you jab them offstage) then you can Fsmash right after it as well.

Dtilt:

This move functions almost exactly the same as jab in regards to combos, usually Usmash/possible tech chases on fast fallers. But what makes this a little more useful is how good it is when you crouch cancel an incoming attack and respond with this move.

Usmash:

Usmash will soon become one of your favorite moves. With how disgustingly disjointed the hitboxes are, you’ll be able to anti air almost anything above you. But as far as the combos are concerned, well it depends on percent and the character you’re fighting. On most heavy fast fallers, Usmash will lead Sky Attack or Pseudo Sky Attack since they can usually jump out of any follow ups you try with super jump. One of the best ways to use this move to try and force your opponent to burn their double jump and then hit them with Usmash. Without a jump, Usmash chains into super jump Uair a almost all the time since your opponent can’t jump.

Dsmash:

This move is most commonly used out of a tech chase because it can cover multiple tech options, but it also one of your best moves for setting up into Uair strings. It has a pretty incredible amount of hitstun, and the launch trajectory is straight up, which is perfect for Sky Attack. On fast fallers, it is a combo into side B (you may have to super jump or normal jump to get the spacing right) at almost percent above 65%.

Fun fact, Dair acts almost the same as Dsmash as far as combos are concerned, just with more hitstun to make some things easier.

Utilt:

Although this move may seem to be overshadowed by Usmash’s range and sheer disjointedness, it is actually incredibly useful. Unlike Usmash, Utilt almost always combos into Sky Attack, making it very useful if you have your opponent above you and you want to start comboing them but don’t want to risk Usmash not having enough hitstun to do so. However, due to the worse range on it, it’s more often used when somebody is above you on a platform or off of a Dair/Dsmash that didn’t quite send your opponent high enough to get Sky Attack.

Combos


Sky Attack:

The first and most iconic Zard combo is called Sky Attack (well I mean it’s a better name than Uair Uair up B). This combo is usually performed after a Usmash, Dsmash, Utilt, Dair, or Uair which launches your opponent right above you. You then Super Jump and Uair as you rise to launch them above you again, then jump and Uair again, and even one more time if they aren’t high enough. Once you’ve put them high up in the air right above your head, Up B and watch the salt flow as they die at pretty early percents.



Pseudo Sky Attack:


The set up for this combo is the same as for normal Sky Attack; launch them above you and super jump and then Uair. However, in this combo, your opponent is wise enough to DI the Uair to the side, thus not letting you jump Uair again. In this case they think they’re safe…but don’t forget that you have Glair. After hitting them with a Uair, look at the DI and then Glide to line up the angle if it’s a little off (don't’ worry, they’ll be in hitstun long enough for you to slightly angle) then BAM, hit em with a Glair. This combo has about the same killing potential as the regular Sky Attack; so don’t feel afraid to use it.



The Zard Ken Combo:


The setups into this combo vary, but the most common is a Bthrow that your opponent DI’s into you. This combo involves hitting with the shoulder (weak) hitbox of Fair and then double jump to Dair. If you get this combo offstage, you can follow it up with another Dair or event a footstool depending on the character. If you get this onstage you can punish a missed tech with a falling Uair back into Dair for a pillar-esque combo.



Footstool combo:

While this combo isn’t the most useful in terms of raw killing ability, it is an amazing mixup when your opponent is blocking your aerial approaches. Because of the way footstooling works on shields, it will act kind of like a grab as in it will temporarily stun them out of their shield. There is a pretty precise window in which if you Nair you will hit them during this stun. The timing is pretty much as soon as you jump off of their head. While this isn’t super useful, it can get you some free damage and set up for a tech chase.


Throws and Tech Chasing


Because of Zard’s fast speed and excellent grab range, tech chasing is incredibly important to learn. There are two main moves that Zard uses to set up tech chase opportunities, Dthrow and Bthrow.


Dthrow:

This throw functions a lot like Fox’s Dthrow, it adds damage and will immediately ground your opponent after the throw is completed. There are two different ways that this tech chase goes, depending on whether your opponent techs or does not tech the throw. As you read this section, keep in mind that tech chasing requires a bit of prediction of what you expect your opponent to do, always be watching for teching patterns and habits to abuse.


Off of a no tech, Zard gets a couple frames of advantage after the throw to hit the opponent, enough time for a jab, which sets up into it’s own combos. However, it is totally possible with Zard’s speed to dash dance just out of range of a wake up attack and regrab almost any option. However, considering how great the jab sets up for combos, it’s almost always preferred to jab a no tech.


If you opponent does know how to tech this throw, then it actually sort of makes your life easier. Because of the frame advantage that Zard gets off of a Dthrow, a regrab is almost guaranteed on any character (except those with very long/ambiguous tech rolls like G&W and Mewtwo). But besides just regrab, you also have Dsmash, which because of how the move functions can set up an inescapable tech chase. For example, if you throw your opponent when you’re right next to the edge, Dsmash hits in a wide enough radius to punish almost any tech option besides no tech or neutral tech (cause some chars can react fast enough). However, Dsmash is for the most part a read on your opponents tech patterns, but it is also an almost guaranteed set up into a death combo on any character, so don’t be afraid to use it.


It is worth mentioning at this point that Dthrow has one situation where it pretty much sets up into an infinite tech chase. If you can knock you opponent onto a platform and waveland onto the platform, you can grab them and Dthrow them. Here’s the cool part though, Dsmash covers the entire platform, so any tech options they have will always get beaten if they try and roll away, and neutral tech can just be regrabbed into the same situation. If they don’t tech, don’t jab them unless you know you can kill them, because they are most likely going to try and get behind you where you have less options, but if you short hop Dair, it functions just as good as a Dsmash and you can still get combos off of it. Be very inclined to abuse platform tech chases though, they put you in a super advantageous position and can lead to death combos for the most part.


Bthrow:

Bthrow in itself does not always set up for tech chasing opportunities unless a character is at low percent or a fast faller. However it is in some sense a DI trap. If your opponent DI’s into you to avoid getting grounded, Fair is pretty guaranteed or even Usmash. However if you do get them grounded and they are forced to tech, sort of treat it like the Dthrow tech chases, regrabs and eventually try and hit a Dsmash for kills, or try and set it up so that you can throw your opponent off stage since Zard has such strong options against recovering characters.


It is worth it to mention that Bthrow is a very efficient option to getting your opponent to land grounded on a platform, which sets up for Dthrow platform tech chases.


Platforms


Knocking someone onto a platform sets up an extremely advantageous position for yourself, and you have a plethora of options.


Usmash:

Probably the safest and easiest is just to Usmash under your opponent when you read their tech roll. Sets up nicely for some stuff. Be wary though if you opponent gets time to block it, then can very easily shield drop and punish you.


Waveland grab:

This is the option that can easily get you a lot of mileage. When you knock your opponent onto a platform jump up and waveland onto that platform. Grab them and Dthrow them.


Footstool:

This is pretty uncommon but still useful. This is more used for when your opponent has already gotten up and has enough time to shield an incoming attack. If you just jump up right above them and footstool, you can get a Nair and hopefully force them into a bad situation again.


Dair:

This is more of a hard read off of their tech, but if you can jump above the platform and Dair them, they’ll be perfectly set up for a Sky Attack Combo.


Kill Moves


Luckily, when your opponent gets to higher percent, Zard has a lot of solid kill moves so you don’t get stuck at the awkward Marth percent. These will be listed in their order of most useful.


Bair:

This move hurts, especially when sweetspotted. It’s also really freaking fast and is amazing when you drop through a platform.


Fair:

Despite the bad range, this move has weirdly strong knockback on sweetspot.


Ftilt:

Also another very potent move for killing, though a bit risky at times cause it’s a little laggy on the end. However, since this move can be CC very quickly out of a dash, it is still incredibly useful for getting a solid hit in on your opponent.


Usmash:

On lower ceiling stages this kills relatively early, especially on floaty characters (which are generally the hardest to get a good hit on). Just be careful about high ceiling stages like Dreamland.


Heat Wave:

This move has a ton of knockback on the sweetspot, though because of the laggy startup, it is harder to actually connect with this move.


Nair:

While it is rare for this move to kill fast fallers, it works wonders against a lot of floaty characters, but then again, only on lower ceiling stages probably when they are already in the air will this kill reliably.


Fsmash:

While uncommon to hit with, this move has crazy knockback. Sweetspotted this move has about the same knock back as DK’s fully charged Giant Punch. But it is only really done off of a hard read.


Edgeguarding


This is one aspect of Zard’s game that is especially strong. Whether offstage or onstage, he has an option for almost any recovery.


Nair:

Funny how we always seem to get back to this move, must be really useful or something… It turns out that Nair is also a semi spike that can hit well below the ledge (fun fact it can actually hit under smashville), thereby nullifying sweet spots by characters. If you face away from the ledge and short hop SHFFL Nair, you should end up with the backswing of the tail hitting well below and away from the ledge. Also without amazing DI, it acts virtually as a semi spike, giving you the opportunity to ledgehog and gimp them.


If you are having a tough time reading your opponents recovery patterns with reverse Nair, then there is another solution. If you grab the ledge, then ledghop onto the stage and Nair, you’ll get the semi spike hitbox right on the ledge, gimping anyone that didn’t sweet spot.




Dtilt:

Dtilt is another great onstage edgeguard. Try and space it so that you’ll be hitting your opponent with the flame hitbox at the end of the tail. Done correctly, anything that isn’t a sweet spot will get hit back at a very low trajectory, effectively killing pretty much anyone.


Heat Wave:

Heat Wave is a little bit more risky edgeguard since the startup takes a while, but like a lot of his moves, it will beat out sweet spots and will kill pretty much any character if it connects. It’s also pretty effective offstage if your opponent starts to get predictable with their recoveries.


Flamethrower:

This one is a little more character specific. This technique is only guaranteed on fast fallers, especially the spacies. Since Flamethrower is classified as a projectile, it some weird properties when clashing with moves. For the most part it will hit any of the spacies out of their recoveries, and since they fall so fast they can’t SDI out of the Flamethrower. If you then end the FT, they’ll fall and be forced to up B at a bad angle, a spaced Dtilt, reverse Nair or even Heat Wave should finish them off. Note that this is especially good because it works at any percent and is essentially a gimp, try to throw them offstage then hit them with this move.


Defensive Maneuvers

Out of shield options


Luckily for Zard, he has an out of shield (OOS) option for nearly any situation so let’s cover the basics.


If your opponent is in front of you applying pressure, shield grab is one of your best options because of it’s speed and range.


If your opponent crosses you up in shield, jump and Nair and you should connect with a hit (however, used against some shorter characters it won’t connect as reliably). Bair works very good as well, but is a little slower than Nair. However it should also be mentioned that you should be wary of getting into OOS wars with your opponent. Say for example your opponent crosses you up, and you Nair OOS, but they block. If you’re quick, you’ll land in shield before they can Bair OOS. If you ever get in this situation, a good mixup is just to empty jump, waveland, grab. Most people won’t see it coming.


If your opponent is pressuring you from above, you can jump cancel an Usmash OOS. However be aware of characters with disjoints falling on you, because Usmash will generally trade at best with them


If your opponent is just putting on a lot of safe pressure really close to your shield (shine pressure from spacies for example), you can use up B OOS. This is a pretty classic GTFO move. The reason it’s such a good option is because Zard is invincible during the first 4 frames of the move and the first active hitbox comes out on frame 4. This being said, if you time it right you will always beat shine because you are invincible. This is also super effective against Falco since if he is trying to pillar you and full hops, you can Up B OOS and you will hit him and generally come out on top. The one piece of advice with this move is that if whiffed or blocked it is very unsafe, so try and aim to land on a top platform to reduce the end lag. Also be aware that it can be crouch cancel teched, which can turn into a problem if you aren’t careful, so try and use it at higher percents where crouch cancel teching it is much harder.


Evasion tactics


This section is about what sorts of tactics you can use when your opponent is coming back with spawn invincibility.


Probably the most common of these is just to super jump way up, most of the cast won’t be able to chase you up that high, and then use a glide mixup as you fall back down or Nair as you fall onto a platform to hit below that platform. You can also use Heat Wave as you land if your opponent likes to hit you right as you land, or you can use it in the air to boost yourself to the other side of the stage.


You can also use glide camping to keep yourself invincible on the ledge, but beware because it isn’t fully invincible and if you get hit out of it, you are without a glide and in a bad situation for the most part.


Crouch Canceling


Because of Zard’s weight, he can crouch cancel even at very high percents. This is very useful against a lot of the cast that like to jump in with softer hitting moves to set up for combos. Dtilt really shines here because it acts as a launcher and a combo starter so your opponent will get hit up into the air for a combo. Dtilt is more commonly used if your opponent lands in front of you, seeing as it only hits in front of you. Dsmash is your other option, and is very good if your opponent crosses you up. However, it is slower so be careful of who you are fighting because they might be able to stay safe regardless.


Besides trying to counter your opponent with crouch canceling, it can also be used in a special way to make you live for a long time. This is a technique that originally started with G&W in Brawl called bucket breaking, but transfers to Zard just as well. Essentially when you get hit with a strong move at high percent and you are crouch canceling, you sort of just get hit into the floor and slide along the ground off the edge at very high speed. However as soon as you are off stage, your character goes into a neutral state in the air, which means you can glide. Because glide stops all of your momentum, you can live for a lot of percent because you can immediately stop your momentum the moment you get hit offstage.


Ledge Tech


Despite what a lot of people think, being on the ledge of a stage isn’t the worst thing for you. The invincibility granted from grabbing the ledge is an incredibly useful tool. Zard has a plethora of on the ledge options to help get him back onstage in an advantageous position.


Glide Camping:

While this isn’t necessarily a way to get back onstage, it’s a mind game of some sort. How this is performed is when you are handing on the ledge, press down and then B to drop from the ledge and immediately start gliding. You should hover right next to the ledge then regrab it. Performed quickly enough, it is almost fully invincible, but there are a couple of frames where you are vulnerable even if done frame perfect. By doing this, you can set up a mind game with the next two ledge options.


Glair:

Glide attacking from the ledge is one of your fastest options, it has a few invincibility frames near the start and it has a fast start up. It also has some amazing priority and range, rather deceptive in all honesty. This is great against characters that like to stand a bit back from the ledge and punish your ledge options. This is fast enough that it will catch them off guard. And in addition to being able to attack people with it, there is also a specific angle where you can actually waveland the Glair and get a combo off of some of the hitboxes or just get onstage with minimal lag. These two techniques combined with glide camping make it a very scary mixup.


Zero lag glide canceling:

Another very useful technique is a glide cancel that can put on onstage with no landing animation of added lag, so you can act immediately upon touching the ground. This involves grabbing the ledge, immediately gliding, tilting slighty up and instantly canceling the glide. If done correctly, you will land onstage in a neutral state with no landing lag. When combined with glide camping and Glair, it creates a very nice mixup..


Reverse Jump Nair:

This is a pretty decently safe option out of all of your ledge options. What it involves is jumping away from the ledge so that your back is facing the ledge. Immediately Nair when you change directions. This should hit people onstage and keep you generally pretty safe offstage. You can do it again but aim for the back swing to try and force your opponent to back off and let you onstage, or you can just neutral jump and Nair again just to put some shield pressure on, then glide back to the ledge and reset yourself.




Heat Wave:

Although it may be a little laggy on start up, you can ledgehop heat wave in such a way that you fall right back to the ledge perfectly safe. This is a really good option if you’re opponent is at a medium distance from the ledge trying to bait you to doing a Glair. If you use this and they miss the punish on the startup, you’ll be perfectly safe.


Flamethrower:

If you’ve really scared your opponent away from the ledge, but they are still fast enough to jump in and hit you, try ledge hop flamethrower. It may seem like a bad idea, but if it hits your opponent, they can only DI out and away, meaning you’ve reset the game back to neutral.


Platforms


While Zard likes having his opponents on platforms, he himself isn’t too adverse to being caught above his opponent on a platform. There are a couple of different options you can use to counter your opponent below you.


Nair:

The neat thing about Nair is that the lower part of it can hit people well below you, including under platforms. You can time it so that the tail swings under the platform right as you land so that your opponent will have a hard time punishing you.


Shield Dropping:

This is a much more general smash mechanic. By pressing down at a very specific angle on the control stick while shielding on a platform you will drop through without dropping your shield. This is most commonly used when somebody hit’s your shield from below you with a laggy move. Since you can buffer shield inputs slightly in PM, input it when the shield stun is almost over so you’ll fall through, then immediately fast fall Uair and try and set up for a combo.


You Must Recover!
COMING SOON!

Past the Basics: Advanced Techniques for Zard

The "Metroid Method"


The Metroid Method is a phrase coined by a couple of Zard mains when Metroid made an introduction video about playing Charizard. This isn't necessarily a technique, but rather a control scheme which helps a lot with Charizard.

If you go into the controls screen for Brawl, you know that you can change all sorts of buttons like the Y or X button to footstool or special. But something that he discovered (this is actually a remnant from Brawl reworked in PM) is that you can change the Cstick controls. If you set it to "Attack" instead of "Smash" you get a couple of funny things happening.

First of all, you lose Fsmash with the Cstick, however, you still maintain Usmash and Dsmash. Instead, Fsmash is replied by two new inputs, Ftilt is Forward on the Cstick, and Jab is Backwards on the Cstick. You also lose the ability to Usmash OOS unfortunately, but it still can be performed using the up A method.

What this gives you access to is being able to hold down on the analog stick so you crouch cancel, then you can press back on the Cstick to jab without having to stand up. This allows for a true CC Jab and CC Ftilt, which is good for being defensive with CC-ing, but also for CC out of a Dash and instantly Ftilt-ing or Jabbing.

It should also be known that you can Nair with any of the corners of the Cstick while airborne, as if we needed another reason to use that move.


Stage Choices
COMING SOON!

MINDGAMES!
COMING SOON!


Frequently Asked Questions


Q: Why do you Nair so much?

A: Because Charizard is secretly a Nairplane.



Glossary


Reverse Aerial Rushing (RAR): A technique used to instantly turn around out of a dash by jump canceling the pivot animation.


Directional Influence (DI): A technique used to influence the direction you are sent when hit by a move.




Credits

Idea and planning: Hatz!

Text: Hatz! and Blunted Mask

Editing: The Charizard Skype Chat

Gifs: Lava Latte COMING SOON!

Frame Data : JOE!


Version History

1.0.1 Text color added and "Metroid Method" added
1.0.2 Gifs of SA, PSA, and ledge R Nair added

 
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leekslap

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It's definitely a nice guide but VERY rough. I gonna try to help you make this guide as awesome as a half unicorn, half blender!

Charizard is solid but NOT well balanced. His MU spread is polarized: good projectile/zoning character like Link or Falco are very tough but simple melee( no pun intended ) characters like Falcon or DK are outranged and easily gimpable.

I know it's the crap draft but the only way to survive here in the boards is to give good reasons. Trust me. I learned the hard way.

Make everything clear and important. Don't repeat things. When you make a book cover you don't have a picture of a tangerine and a label that says "tangerine". Remove all unneccasary sentences( unless it's funny ) and quality check every single one.

Other than that keep adding content and you have a half blender guide on your hands!

EDIT: RAR Nair isn't as good against projectiles as you make it out to be but it is his best option. Some characters have transcendent projectiles( as in unclankable ) like Falco, ZSS, and I think Ivysaur.
 
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LavaLatte

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This guide's been an ongoing effort by a lot of Zard mains here in the boards, so it'll definitely survive, especially because it's our first real attempt at a comprehensive guide. Sure it's rough around the edges, but we'll fix that. =]
 

leekslap

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Warning Received
-removed-

please keep spam out of threads -moderator
 
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Heroofhatz

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I was suggesting pictures to spice up the guide a bit. I am just trying to contrbute.
I appreciate the offer, however, try to be more clear in the future of what you're trying to do. Just dropping those photos in the middle of a thread with no preface or explanation is not very good etiquette. I doubt I'll be looking for photos for a while now.

In the future if you want to suggest edits or changes be sure that they are prefaced correctly.
 

SHIP

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Some minor edit suggestions:
Perhaps you could add a bit of information about Fthrow and U throw in the grabs or kill moves section (although I don't really agree with F throw being classified as a kill move unless an opponent has horrendous DI).

F throw is excellent at putting opponents off stage. This is particularly useful against opponents with recoveries that are easily gimped by flamethrower or nair and opponents with a lack of vertical recovery as you can attempt to dair them offstage.

U throw while less useful than other throws with an opponent at low percent is an excellent kill option. At 140% it can KO almost any character and on many such as jigglypuff it can kill far earlier. The natural trajectory sends the opponent into the top corner and if it does not kill them you have the option of waiting below or super jumping up there to harrass them as they descend.

Something like the above would work nicely.
Also a little something about dthrow meteoring people if you catch them at the edge of a stage or platform (although it may be a little too obscure to warrant going in the meta guide), B throw to forward air and the use of super jump against opponents recovering high would be pretty nice.

*shameless self promotion*
A combo that I myself use a lot (to the extent that in the UK it is actually named after me) is down air super jump upB. It seems to work on every character as long as you can judge whether or not they are capable of escaping hitstun and using some kind of downward move to stuff it. Some characters can DI out of it at higher percents but it is still very useful and very cool. 100% is usually a golden zone for killing with this move on a lot of characters. Just beware of Yoshi's down B when attempting this at home :p.
*end shameless self promotion*

Anyways great work on the guide. I'm gonna have to start mixing RAR nair and backwards nair from the ledge into my game. Also had no idea Zard could ken combo.

If you do decide to add some of my suggestions in (especially the SHIP combo) I would be very pleased. Many :love: s to all the:006: brothers.
 

Chesstiger2612

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Great guide. I would love to see something like a "Big Target" section though, where you explain how to deal with being a bigger target (for example if you should do something different in the neutral game, if you should DI different because otherwise you are too vulnerable to combos etc...).
About the down-throw techchase, I might try to estimate ratios mathematically on how often you should jab and how often you should try to react on a tech / roll (implying one can't do it completely on reaction). I would need values on how much you get from the single options though.
Just from estimation I disagree with jabbing that often, because even if he no-techs and you don't do an attack during his animation, you still have some kind of techchase.
 

Heroofhatz

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Great guide. I would love to see something like a "Big Target" section though, where you explain how to deal with being a bigger target (for example if you should do something different in the neutral game, if you should DI different because otherwise you are too vulnerable to combos etc...).
About the down-throw techchase, I might try to estimate ratios mathematically on how often you should jab and how often you should try to react on a tech / roll (implying one can't do it completely on reaction). I would need values on how much you get from the single options though.
Just from estimation I disagree with jabbing that often, because even if he no-techs and you don't do an attack during his animation, you still have some kind of techchase.
About the tech chasing, the thing is that it isn't like Falcon or some other types of throws because you don't get a tech after you throw them, it's right as you throw them. It's almost the same as Fox's Dthrow, and Fox doesn't tech chase a lot with that move. If you let them no tech and don't jab, then they have a plethora of options against you, including wake up attack which they normally don't have if they tech the throw. Even just the one option gives them the ability to mix up rolling and trying to hit you. Because normally you'll want to shield to block the wake up attack, but then they can roll behind you with no punish because you can't easily pivot grab out of a shield on reaction. Jab is very easily a reaction to a no tech, and jab to Usmash, Jab to SHFFL'd Uair works on pretty much every single character in the game. Yeah you loose a little bit of damage you could possibly get from the tech chase, but you still get some damage and most importantly, you get them above you, where not a lot of characters have options falling back down.

Also about the mathematics of when to jab/regrab. A main component of fighting games is never letting your opponent figure out what you're doing. So mixing up jabbing and tech chasing should a be a decision that should be made within the moment, because different opponents learn your patterns in different ways. Keeping your strategies varied and random will get you much more milage than following a formula.

Also one more thing, while a lot of this is based on reactions and that varies per person, there is a simple technique to make tech chasing and reacting to no techs much easier. If you listen to the sound of the L or R button clicking for the tech, you can predict whether they will tech or whether they will no tech. Since the trigger is such a loud sound, it's actually not that hard to hear, just be wary people might try and mix you up by missing the timing but still clicking the button, but if you're used to the window for teching, it isn't that bad.


Also, the Big Target section is a good idea, I'll consider adding it as I'm writing more of the guide :D
 
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Chesstiger2612

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About the tech chasing, the thing is that it isn't like Falcon or some other types of throws because you don't get a tech after you throw them, it's right as you throw them. It's almost the same as Fox's Dthrow, and Fox doesn't tech chase a lot with that move. If you let them no tech and don't jab, then they have a plethora of options against you, including wake up attack which they normally don't have if they tech the throw. Even just the one option gives them the ability to mix up rolling and trying to hit you. Because normally you'll want to shield to block the wake up attack, but then they can roll behind you with no punish because you can't easily pivot grab out of a shield on reaction. Jab is very easily a reaction to a no tech, and jab to Usmash, Jab to SHFFL'd Uair works on pretty much every single character in the game. Yeah you loose a little bit of damage you could possibly get from the tech chase, but you still get some damage and most importantly, you get them above you, where not a lot of characters have options falling back down.

Also about the mathematics of when to jab/regrab. A main component of fighting games is never letting your opponent figure out what you're doing. So mixing up jabbing and tech chasing should a be a decision that should be made within the moment, because different opponents learn your patterns in different ways. Keeping your strategies varied and random will get you much more milage than following a formula.

Also one more thing, while a lot of this is based on reactions and that varies per person, there is a simple technique to make tech chasing and reacting to no techs much easier. If you listen to the sound of the L or R button clicking for the tech, you can predict whether they will tech or whether they will no tech. Since the trigger is such a loud sound, it's actually not that hard to hear, just be wary people might try and mix you up by missing the timing but still clicking the button, but if you're used to the window for teching, it isn't that bad.


Also, the Big Target section is a good idea, I'll consider adding it as I'm writing more of the guide :D
The difference between Fox' down-throw and Zard's down-throw is obviously that the Zard jab (and the resulting combo potential) normally hurts more than Fox' anti no-tech options (except at kill %) and that Zard has more range and better crouch-cancelling options. Obviously the option being better will change the ratio of the opponent trying to counter it (techroll/tech) so that means you also should adjust your ratio of countering tech and non-tech options.
About your options on no tech (compared to getup attack, stand, roll forward, roll backwards, wait), obviously a bit simplified and again implying there are no on-reaction counters to jab, getup attack:
Jab (bad, neutral, neutral, neutral, good)
Wait (bad, good, good, good, neutral)
Shield (good, good, bad, bad, neutral)
and a few others but it seems that a mixup of those three will still have good chances of beating their options. Obviously you still have another joker which is crouchcancelling (tilt the stick down only so you are not actually in the crouching, but you would crouchcancel a getup attack, so you can dash out immediately), which makes it
CC (good, good, good, good, neutral).
Obviously you need patience with the waiting now. You can sometimes mix it up by choosing options with less option coverage but with more reward, like with mixing in non-reactable attacks when you forced them to wait it out. I would even recommend doing so because the probability of them doing something out of their wait declines somehow after the first few frames, and you need the extra reward to compensate for the damage you could potentially take from getup attacks when CCing.

Anyway, this leads to the conclusions that your options if you waited out the non-tech guaranteed-if-read punish window are after all pretty good, so that means you should wait and CC more often than jab immediately.
About math in fighting games, it modelates and can't do all of it, but by working in probabilities it is somehow unpredictable and avoiding predictable patterns in it and reacting to the opponent's ones is the players job. You also would be surprised how well top players actually follow these probabilities just by intuition. Using it in metagame theory is somehow unusual but it can lead to good results, especially in those tech-situations because there are limited options.
 

Heroofhatz

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The difference between Fox' down-throw and Zard's down-throw is obviously that the Zard jab (and the resulting combo potential) normally hurts more than Fox' anti no-tech options (except at kill %) and that Zard has more range and better crouch-cancelling options. Obviously the option being better will change the ratio of the opponent trying to counter it (techroll/tech) so that means you also should adjust your ratio of countering tech and non-tech options.
About your options on no tech (compared to getup attack, stand, roll forward, roll backwards, wait), obviously a bit simplified and again implying there are no on-reaction counters to jab, getup attack:
Jab (bad, neutral, neutral, neutral, good)
Wait (bad, good, good, good, neutral)
Shield (good, good, bad, bad, neutral)
and a few others but it seems that a mixup of those three will still have good chances of beating their options. Obviously you still have another joker which is crouchcancelling (tilt the stick down only so you are not actually in the crouching, but you would crouchcancel a getup attack, so you can dash out immediately), which makes it
CC (good, good, good, good, neutral).
Obviously you need patience with the waiting now. You can sometimes mix it up by choosing options with less option coverage but with more reward, like with mixing in non-reactable attacks when you forced them to wait it out. I would even recommend doing so because the probability of them doing something out of their wait declines somehow after the first few frames, and you need the extra reward to compensate for the damage you could potentially take from getup attacks when CCing.

Anyway, this leads to the conclusions that your options if you waited out the non-tech guaranteed-if-read punish window are after all pretty good, so that means you should wait and CC more often than jab immediately.
About math in fighting games, it modelates and can't do all of it, but by working in probabilities it is somehow unpredictable and avoiding predictable patterns in it and reacting to the opponent's ones is the players job. You also would be surprised how well top players actually follow these probabilities just by intuition. Using it in metagame theory is somehow unusual but it can lead to good results, especially in those tech-situations because there are limited options.

You make a pretty good point about the CC, I'll try and work it into the guide. The only stipulation I see is CC-ing at high percents, but that's more situational than not. It partially depends on what you said, whether a player wants a high risk high reward read, or just something that will get consistent damage. And that sort of thing is sort of deponent a lot on the situation as well as the player. In addition we have to consider characters like M2 and G&W, who are very hard to tech chase because of M2's stupidly long roll, or G&W's really ambiguous tech animations. In those cases Bthrow is much more preferred.

However against most "normal" characters, CC isn't a bad option at all if they no tech. Especially if you have Cstick mapped to "Attack", CC jab is an amazing option. Thanks for your advice!
 

KingChaos

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Wow this guide is super helpful. As I was reading this I was like these Zard tactics sound vaguely familiar...oh it Hatz that's why (we had a tourney set together) lol. Been wanting to work on my charizard and after reading this plus a few hours in the lab I've gained a vastly better grip on the character and am much more proficient with em. Thanks for this guys.
 

DoctorFS

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Apr 15, 2014
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Is this guide still being worked on? I'm especially interested in seeing the recovery section filled in, since Zard has powerful and versatile recovery options, but also needs to be very careful to not e.g. get hit out of glide and wind up having up B edgehogged. There are also some cool techniques to mention, like using heatwave for momentum or gliding under stages like battlefield to glide cancel b reverse sweetspot the opposite edge. Anyway, I look forward to any future developments of this guide (and I especially appreciate LavaLatte's excellent gifs)!
 

Heroofhatz

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Is this guide still being worked on? I'm especially interested in seeing the recovery section filled in, since Zard has powerful and versatile recovery options, but also needs to be very careful to not e.g. get hit out of glide and wind up having up B edgehogged. There are also some cool techniques to mention, like using heatwave for momentum or gliding under stages like battlefield to glide cancel b reverse sweetspot the opposite edge. Anyway, I look forward to any future developments of this guide (and I especially appreciate LavaLatte's excellent gifs)!

Unfortunately there has been a lot going on recently with everyone writing the guide, one of the writers never quite got my the sections he wrote and I haven't been able to contact him to get the parts from him. I'm pretty busy with school atm, but I'll add in a couple of things here and there.

If I'm honest, if you're really interested in learning more about Zard, I'd highly recommend joining the Zard Skype chat, since that's where the majority of the information for that guide came from, and people are on there all the time. PM me your Skype info if you want to join.

Again, I apologize for not finishing the guide, I'll try and get some of the sections written soon :/
 

GeZ

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So after a long haitus from Project M I got in about 5 hours of gameplay with my main training buddy today, and went mostly Charizard for it.

Definitely got a good understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, and while I never really got him or saw him as an interesting character before, I'm now really enjoying him. Maybe considering maining him, at least for a little while.

Who are some top Charizards, and what's some cool ****? Sorry if this isn't the right place to post but you don't have a social thread soooooooo yeah?

:charizard:
 

Heroofhatz

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So after a long haitus from Project M I got in about 5 hours of gameplay with my main training buddy today, and went mostly Charizard for it.

Definitely got a good understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, and while I never really got him or saw him as an interesting character before, I'm now really enjoying him. Maybe considering maining him, at least for a little while.

Who are some top Charizards, and what's some cool ****? Sorry if this isn't the right place to post but you don't have a social thread soooooooo yeah?

:charizard:
General discussion thread might be a better place for this post. As for top Zard mains, check the video thread! There's all sorts of them!
Cool stuff? Well I've outlined some of the AT's in this guide, unfortunately there isn't a compilation of stuff yet...imo most of this stuff is talked about in the Zard Skype chat. If you're really wanting to learn the Zard, I'd recommend joining that since most of the top players frequent there often.
 

Heroofhatz

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So for anyone about to read this guide. I can honestly say that 3.5 has drastically changed much about Zard, to the point I'm considering rewriting major sections of this guide to compensate. Take what you can from it, but a lot of the AT's and pretty much anything revolving around Glide and Gliar doesn't really work anymore. In a couple of months more than likely we'll have a whole new batch of glide AT's to use, but for now just be patient as we all try to figure out this character again :p.
 

Heroofhatz

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This thread makes me cry now
The fact that he's different is just something we'll have to deal with. As Chesstiger said, a lot of the fundamentals are still there, but the AT's are all gone for the most part. Give it time, it took almost a year to develop a lot of those and we've had the game exactly a week.
 

JOE!

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I figure we should keep meta-game stuff to this post, so here is an info dump I recently gathered about our lovely Up B:

SKY ATTACK
We all love our Rocket Up B (I know it's fire spin but I'mma call it the rocket) and how you can send people to their dooms near the ceilings of every stage with a dependable Up Air -> Up B. But, what about when you are closer to the ground? I set out to figure out exactly when the rocket will KO both close to the ground and from a full hop, which is essentially simply "mid air", as well as look into the power of grounded Rocket. You see, Aerial Rocket has a stronger sweetspot for 12% but it only lasts from frame 8-12. Grounded UpB has a 10% sweetspot that lasts from frame 9-30! Surely we could work with that given the sweetspot extends until the hit boxes end (max height). Conveniently, Battlefield happens to emulate the max height of a grounded UpB for us!

THE TEST
I broke this down into 4 parts using Battlefield for two reasons. One, it has two tiers of platforms that happen to be just above Zard's head and just in reach of our full hop / grounded UpB for the purposes of these tests. Second, it is a medium sized stage and thus representative of most legal stages that aren't a blatant CP or extreme (such as Yoshi's and DL which I may get into later...), so this should give data that roughly matches the KO threshold on many other stages.

To start things off, I simply went to training mode and positioned each character on top of a Low Platform and set them to control to ensure no DI. Then I fiddled with their % until grounded Up B's sweetspot would simply kill them outright. The results were as follows:


:falcon:C.Falcon = 170
:wolf:Wolf = 165
:falco:Falco = 158
:dk2:DK = 158
:dedede:DDD = 151
:bowser2:Bowser = 149
:fox:Fox = 148
:ganondorf:Ganon = 145
:link2:Link = 144
:snake:Snake = 143
:diddy:Diddy = 142
:ike:Ike = 141
:yoshi2:Yoshi = 141
:lucario:Lucario = 138
:warioc:Wario = 138
:roypm:Roy = 137
:charizard:Zard = 135
:sheik:Sheik = 134
:lucas:Lucas = 132
:rob:ROB = 130
:marth:Marth = 129
:toonlink:Tink = 129
:zerosuitsamus:ZSS = 129
:mario2:Mario = 128
:metaknight:MK = 126
:ness2:Ness = 126
:olimar:Olimar = 125
:samus2:Samus = 124
:luigi2:Luigi = 122
:sonic:Sonic = 121
:pikachu2:Pikachu = 120
:mewtwopm:Mewtwo = 120
:pit:Pit = 118
:popo:ICs = 117
:squirtle:Squirtle = 117
:ivysaur:Ivysaur = 115
:peach:Peach = 115
:zelda:Zelda = 112
:gw:GW = 111
:kirby2:Kirby = 107
:jigglypuff:Jiggs = 90


I did the same thing, only with the characters positioned on the top platform this time. Then twice more with a short hopped UpB below a low platform, and a full hop UpB beneath the top one and a pattern began to emerge among groups of characters to make my life much easier.

For the survival DI tests to come with Debug mode, I was not going to slog through another 164 rockets on battlefield. Looking at the results, it seems certain characters all die within the same 5-10%ish range of one another. If the results across the board show that 4 characters are only separated by 4% from most durable to least within a range, I may as well lump them together and use the hardiest of the group to conduct further testing. After all, if it would kill the most durable of the group, the ones who would die 2% sooner would also be KOed just as well!


Read these left to right, the character on the left is the "main" of sorts in that their % will be used.

Grounded Up B: Low Platform, No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 170 === 180
:falco::dk2: ========================== 158 === 168
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 151 === 161
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 145 === 154
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 141 === 150
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 135 === 143
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 130 === 138
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 124 === 132
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 120 === 127
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 112 === 120
:jigglypuff: ================================ 90 === 96

What we can gather from here is that Up B right above your head probably wont be killing any time soon if they DI correctly. However, on a good portion of the cast it can net sort of "emergency" KOs if they are high up in damage, and the invulnerability and start up hitboxes make the grounded version all around simply nice to toss out in a pinch. Often, foes wont be directly on top of you in such a way for the grounded Rocket to sweetspot, but from below a platform, certain match ups could make it worth our while.

Grounded Up B: High Platform, No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 153 === 163
:falco::dk2: ========================== 144=== 153
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 135 === 144
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 129 === 138
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 125 === 134
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 119 === 127
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 115 === 122
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 109 === 116
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 105 === 112
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 98 === 105
:jigglypuff: ================================ 79 === 85

This is more likely to be the KO blow from the ground. At the max height, grounded Rocket can fairly reliably KO a majority of the cast until you get to semi FFer's/meaty folk at Ganon's range. Even then, depending on the % you can easily get surprise kills based on the speed you shoot up as well as the actually high angle-ability of UpB.


Aerial Up B: Low Platform (SH), No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 139 === 148
:falco::dk2: ========================== 129 === 138
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 123 === 131
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 118 === 125
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 114 === 122
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 109 === 116
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 105 === 112
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 99 === 106
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 96 === 102
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 90 === 96
:jigglypuff: ================================ 72 === 77

Aerial Rocket of course proves to be the more worthwhile option for kills as I thought due to more damage and slightly more base knockback (though they both have the same KB growth!), able to KO all but 4 characters at 131% of lower from a platform's height with optimal, frame 1 DI. Something like a Dthrow, drop through then UpB could net some surprise KOs if utilized correctly, or simply things like a launcher at around ~12% lower than the green value should be able to get them to said green value, and combo into UpB nicely off the ground where they wouldn't be expecting it!


Aerial Up B: High Platform (FH), No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 125 === 133
:falco::dk2: ========================== 117 === 125
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 109 === 116
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 104 === 112
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 100 === 108
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 95 === 103
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 92 === 98
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 86 === 93
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 84 === 90
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 78 === 84
:jigglypuff: ================================ 62 === 67

Obviously, the higher up you go the easier the KO's get. At a FH's distance from the floor, everyone will be KOed at 133% or more, no questions asked. Essentially once they get past 130% they should be dead for all intents and purposes on medium stages like BF. However, this also obviously applies to stages without a top platform / when you are away from a top platform as well. Any time you got an opponent at around jump height, an aerial Rocket should net easy KOs that don't require you to go for a high Sky Attack!


For a visual guide to these ranges, I have a pic that also shows off BF's blast zones because reasons:




CONCLUSION
I feel that we could use UpB much closer to the ground for much earlier kills, at least in terms of "chasing" people. Going to the ceiling is always hype, but at lower %'s your launchers wont be sending foes super far. Knowing when and where UpB can kill can be a great boost to our meta as we now gain another handful of finishing options that folks will have to look out for in these areas, which can lead to great DI mixups given that Up B is a frame 8 attack that you want to DI left or right for, and our Bair/Fair/or even Heatwave are all KO moves we often use at these heights that you'd want to DI Up, making for a deadly DI trap of sorts!

Grounded Up B also surprised me. In some MU's it could be a legitimate finisher right above you, given it hits frame 8-9 after having an invincible "GTFO" hitbox for safety. In most cases the fact that the sweetspot lingers all the way to the top can net surprising kills as well, but the aerial version would still be superior. Hey, if somebody wants to attack my shield then jump up as I UpBOoS, they can pay the price for it.

As a disclaimer, these tests were only conducted on Battlefield. Other stages will have higher or lower values needed for the KO, but are a bit trickier to test out in some cases / I haven't gotten around to doing it. However, BF should represent a solid average.
 
Last edited:

_Chrome

Smash Ace
Joined
Sep 23, 2014
Messages
549
Location
Ottawa, Ontario
I figure we should keep meta-game stuff to this post, so here is an info dump I recently gathered about our lovely Up B:

SKY ATTACK
We all love our Rocket Up B (I know it's fire spin but I'mma call it the rocket) and how you can send people to their dooms near the ceilings of every stage with a dependable Up Air -> Up B. But, what about when you are closer to the ground? I set out to figure out exactly when the rocket will KO both close to the ground and from a full hop, which is essentially simply "mid air", as well as look into the power of grounded Rocket. You see, Aerial Rocket has a stronger sweetspot for 12% but it only lasts from frame 8-12. Grounded UpB has a 10% sweetspot that lasts from frame 9-30! Surely we could work with that given the sweetspot extends until the hit boxes end (max height). Conveniently, Battlefield happens to emulate the max height of a grounded UpB for us!

THE TEST
I broke this down into 4 parts using Battlefield for two reasons. One, it has two tiers of platforms that happen to be just above Zard's head and just in reach of our full hop / grounded UpB for the purposes of these tests. Second, it is a medium sized stage and thus representative of most legal stages that aren't a blatant CP or extreme (such as Yoshi's and DL which I may get into later...), so this should give data that roughly matches the KO threshold on many other stages.

To start things off, I simply went to training mode and positioned each character on top of a Low Platform and set them to control to ensure no DI. Then I fiddled with their % until grounded Up B's sweetspot would simply kill them outright. The results were as follows:


:falcon:C.Falcon = 170
:wolf:Wolf = 165
:falco:Falco = 158
:dk2:DK = 158
:dedede:DDD = 151
:bowser2:Bowser = 149
:fox:Fox = 148
:ganondorf:Ganon = 145
:link2:Link = 144
:snake:Snake = 143
:diddy:Diddy = 142
:ike:Ike = 141
:yoshi2:Yoshi = 141
:lucario:Lucario = 138
:warioc:Wario = 138
:roypm:Roy = 137
:charizard:Zard = 135
:sheik:Sheik = 134
:lucas:Lucas = 132
:rob:ROB = 130
:marth:Marth = 129
:toonlink:Tink = 129
:zerosuitsamus:ZSS = 129
:mario2:Mario = 128
:metaknight:MK = 126
:ness2:Ness = 126
:olimar:Olimar = 125
:samus2:Samus = 124
:luigi2:Luigi = 122
:sonic:Sonic = 121
:pikachu2:Pikachu = 120
:mewtwopm:Mewtwo = 120
:pit:Pit = 118
:popo:ICs = 117
:squirtle:Squirtle = 117
:ivysaur:Ivysaur = 115
:peach:Peach = 115
:zelda:Zelda = 112
:gw:GW = 111
:kirby2:Kirby = 107
:jigglypuff:Jiggs = 90


I did the same thing, only with the characters positioned on the top platform this time. Then twice more with a short hopped UpB below a low platform, and a full hop UpB beneath the top one and a pattern began to emerge among groups of characters to make my life much easier.

For the survival DI tests to come with Debug mode, I was not going to slog through another 164 rockets on battlefield. Looking at the results, it seems certain characters all die within the same 5-10%ish range of one another. If the results across the board show that 4 characters are only separated by 4% from most durable to least within a range, I may as well lump them together and use the hardiest of the group to conduct further testing. After all, if it would kill the most durable of the group, the ones who would die 2% sooner would also be KOed just as well!


Read these left to right, the character on the left is the "main" of sorts in that their % will be used.

Grounded Up B: Low Platform, No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 170 === 180
:falco::dk2: ========================== 158 === 168
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 151 === 161
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 145 === 154
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 141 === 150
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 135 === 143
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 130 === 138
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 124 === 132
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 120 === 127
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 112 === 120
:jigglypuff: ================================ 90 === 96

What we can gather from here is that Up B right above your head probably wont be killing any time soon if they DI correctly. However, on a good portion of the cast it can net sort of "emergency" KOs if they are high up in damage, and the invulnerability and start up hitboxes make the grounded version all around simply nice to toss out in a pinch. Often, foes wont be directly on top of you in such a way for the grounded Rocket to sweetspot, but from below a platform, certain match ups could make it worth our while.

Grounded Up B: High Platform, No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 153 === 163
:falco::dk2: ========================== 144=== 153
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 135 === 144
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 129 === 138
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 125 === 134
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 119 === 127
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 115 === 122
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 109 === 116
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 105 === 112
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 98 === 105
:jigglypuff: ================================ 79 === 85

This is more likely to be the KO blow from the ground. At the max height, grounded Rocket can fairly reliably KO a majority of the cast until you get to semi FFer's/meaty folk at Ganon's range. Even then, depending on the % you can easily get surprise kills based on the speed you shoot up as well as the actually high angle-ability of UpB.


Aerial Up B: Low Platform (SH), No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 139 === 148
:falco::dk2: ========================== 129 === 138
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 123 === 131
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 118 === 125
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 114 === 122
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 109 === 116
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 105 === 112
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 99 === 106
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 96 === 102
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 90 === 96
:jigglypuff: ================================ 72 === 77

Aerial Rocket of course proves to be the more worthwhile option for kills as I thought due to more damage and slightly more base knockback (though they both have the same KB growth!), able to KO all but 4 characters at 131% of lower from a platform's height with optimal, frame 1 DI. Something like a Dthrow, drop through then UpB could net some surprise KOs if utilized correctly, or simply things like a launcher at around ~12% lower than the green value should be able to get them to said green value, and combo into UpB nicely off the ground where they wouldn't be expecting it!


Aerial Up B: High Platform (FH), No DI --- Max DI
:falcon::wolf: ========================== 125 === 133
:falco::dk2: ========================== 117 === 125
:dedede::bowser2::fox: ====================== 109 === 116
:ganondorf::link2::snake::diddy::ike:============== 104 === 112
:yoshi2::lucario::warioc::roypm: ================== 100 === 108
:charizard::sheik::lucas: ====================== 95 === 103
:rob::marth::toonlink::zerosuitsamus::mario2::metaknight::ness2::olimar: = 92 === 98
:samus2::luigi2::sonic::pikachu2: ================== 86 === 93
:mewtwopm::pit::popo::squirtle::ivysaur::peach: ========== 84 === 90
:zelda::gw::kirby2: ======================= 78 === 84
:jigglypuff: ================================ 62 === 67

Obviously, the higher up you go the easier the KO's get. At a FH's distance from the floor, everyone will be KOed at 133% or more, no questions asked. Essentially once they get past 130% they should be dead for all intents and purposes on medium stages like BF. However, this also obviously applies to stages without a top platform / when you are away from a top platform as well. Any time you got an opponent at around jump height, an aerial Rocket should net easy KOs that don't require you to go for a high Sky Attack!


For a visual guide to these ranges, I have a pic that also shows off BF's blast zones because reasons:




CONCLUSION
I feel that we could use UpB much closer to the ground for much earlier kills, at least in terms of "chasing" people. Going to the ceiling is always hype, but at lower %'s your launchers wont be sending foes super far. Knowing when and where UpB can kill can be a great boost to our meta as we now gain another handful of finishing options that folks will have to look out for in these areas, which can lead to great DI mixups given that Up B is a frame 8 attack that you want to DI left or right for, and our Bair/Fair/or even Heatwave are all KO moves we often use at these heights that you'd want to DI Up, making for a deadly DI trap of sorts!

Grounded Up B also surprised me. In some MU's it could be a legitimate finisher right above you, given it hits frame 8-9 after having an invincible "GTFO" hitbox for safety. In most cases the fact that the sweetspot lingers all the way to the top can net surprising kills as well, but the aerial version would still be superior. Hey, if somebody wants to attack my shield then jump up as I UpBOoS, they can pay the price for it.

As a disclaimer, these tests were only conducted on Battlefield. Other stages will have higher or lower values needed for the KO, but are a bit trickier to test out in some cases / I haven't gotten around to doing it. However, BF should represent a solid average.
This is brilliant. Congratulations, that must have taken a lot of work!
 

Chesstiger2612

Smash Lord
Joined
Jun 1, 2013
Messages
1,753
Location
Bonn, Germany
I rethought @ Heroofhatz Heroofhatz 's and my own thoughts about optimal d-throw techchases and here are some of my conclusions (applies to 3.02 as well as 3.5):
With enough practice (looking at character's tech option animations also helps), the Charizard should always be able to cover the roll to the side where he is standing on reaction, even if it is not your initial expectation
Having a correct initial expectation (without needing a read) lowers the reaction time. If you expect the correct choice, you will always be able to cover the option. People with great reaction times might be able to cover almost everything, but they're probably a minority.
Attacking in a way that it hits between frame 20 and 26 covers both non-tech and tech-in-place. You should use this less than waiting and reacting, but it is a strong mixup.
One other tricky option is to dash past the character doing the tech option, because now you could theoretically cover both the roll that will now go towards and behind you and one other option on reaction. This is helpful if the opponent is discouraged from rolling towards you and now only chooses rolling away, teching in place and not teching at all.
If you chose to wait and the opponent did not tech, you shouldn't be fast enough to punish the non-tech, but here there are multiple tricks you can use.
You can dash past or stay (similar to the aforementioned technique) so you are on the side where the opponent's get-up attack hits last.
If you are at crouch-cancelling percents try to dash past or stay depending on stage position (the roll that can't be punished on reaction should be the one still having a stage position disadvantage for the opponent) and hold slightly down (so that pressing attack would make you d-tilt, but you don't crouch yet). The ASDI covering in the case of a getup-attack guarantees you a big punish for that, and not crouching can sometimes help in getting that extra few frames that are sometimes needed to punish an other option. I wouldn't necessarily attack an non-teching opponent that is free to do roll, get-up attack or normal get-up, but if he has a habit of waiting very long, that's fine.
Looking at how promising this techchase is, I would normally prefer covering multiple options over hard reading one.

If you see the opponent rolls in a way that you can barely not punish, that is still an advantegous position. Try baiting him (dash-in -> WD back is solid here) and you might get a regrab for punishing his panic option. If you do not go for hard reads and follow the wait->react strategy you always get at least a frame advantage that puts the opponent in an uncomfortable position.
 

Filosafer

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
129
Love the guide. You don't talk about bair though. Other than that, I have one thing to add.

While setting c-stick to attack is very useful, as you can nair while moving with it, you can jab and tilt out of crouch without it. Any character without a crawl can. If you tilt the analog backwards and down, you'll jab, and if it's forwards and down, you'll tilt. It's about which way you're facing, not which way your opponent is.
I hope everyone benefits from this, as it's very simple, yet incredibly useful for a lot of the cast.
 

JOE!

Smash Hero
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
8,075
Location
Dedham, MA
random factoid
[12:46:31 AM] Joseph : looked up Dtilt vs Ftilt specs since somebody has been PMing me for Zard advice
[12:47:22 AM] Joseph : Ftilt has the sakurai angle, but will always hit at a 44-45* angle (ground vs air) since it will always do at least 35 knockback (sakurai angle swaps at >32 kb)
[12:47:41 AM] Joseph : it has 35 bkb and 100 kbg while doing 12%
[12:48:02 AM] Joseph : Dtilt's fire deals 12%, 30 bkb and 90 kbg but hits at a 35* angle
[12:48:17 AM] Joseph : Dtilt's fire hitbox is at max range for 6 frames duration, Ftilt is 3 frames duration
[12:48:38 AM] Joseph : Ftilt has a bit more range, but is not disjointed
 
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