Meta The Charizard Metagame Discussion Topic

[Davregis]

So what?
No dis respect to the king or any other top players, but assuming someone is right because they have more authority on a certain subject is a fallacy. If we always listen to the higher ups Charizard will remain low tier forever

I agree-- it's easy to look at Charizard and say "Heavy. Less damage than other heavies. Garbage airspeed." and dismiss him just like that. Coupled with his high Smashladder rankings in at least one continent, I'd love to think the lack of dedicated players(?) changes things up.

 

[Real Smooth-Like]

I agree-- it's easy to look at Charizard and say "Heavy. Less damage than other heavies. Garbage airspeed." and dismiss him just like that. Coupled with his high Smashladder rankings in at least one continent, I'd love to think the lack of dedicated players(?) changes things up.

Does he really do that much less damage then other heavies? Like Ganon and bowser for sure but idk about d3 or dk. They really screwed up on his airspeed though. Like, c'mon sakurai. He's a freakin flying type. Can you do anything right?

 

[ZephyrZ]

We have a habit of only talking only about Charizard's strengths. Rock Smash, Flame Thrower, Jab, Dash speed. And he does have some pretty awesome strengths. But strengths alone don't determine your spot on a tier list. We're forgetting one crucial detail here; match ups. As long as speedsters and zoners are favored, Charizard is always going to be at a disadvantage. He's just far too easy to combo, and far too easy to keep at a safe distance.

Let's look at the guys in apex; Sonic combos, Sheik Combos, Diddy combos, Rosaluma zones, Olimar zones, ect.
Now one tournament isn't going to tell us which characters are truly the best, but it does give us an idea of what works best in this game. And what does work doesn't look all that pretty for Zard.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Charizard is insanely awesome and capable of completely destroying even the greatest Sonic and Sheik and Rosaluma if played correctly. But I don't think we should be so confident that he will be.

 

[Knee Smasher]

The only thing that determines a character's spot on the tier list is how good their matchups against the rest of the cast are.

Assuming you know all of your matchups, Charizard does well or more or less even against pretty much the entire cast save for King Dedede and Mega Man.

He has a few more negative matchups than that but all of those are completely manageable, while he has loads of definitely positive matchups, especially against Jigglypuff, Greninja, Ike, Marth, Lucina and Shulk to name a few.

 

[Charey]

How does Charizard have a positive matchup against Shulk? So far it seems like one of his worst matchups to me.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Me VS. one of the best Shulks I know:

See what to do in that matchup there. Shieldgrabbing is your friend. I have personally never lost to this Shulk when I am Charizard, while many others have huge trouble against him.

Also, note that Battlefield is probably the best stage for Shulk in his matchup with Charizard, too.

 

[Charey]

Thanks, I think I see what I was doing wrong, hopefully I will do better the next time I face him.

 

[RAzul]

Me VS. one of the best Shulks I know:

See what to do in that matchup there. Shieldgrabbing is your friend. I have personally never lost to this Shulk when I am Charizard, while many others have huge trouble against him.

Also, note that Battlefield is probably the best stage for Shulk in his matchup with Charizard, too.

Excellent example. Thank you.

 

[C3CC]

To make clear that I'm not biased in the following post, I must declare that I DO think that Palutena deserves to be bottom tier because she really does suck with that ending land of her attacks.

Now, that being said...

Charizard being low tier is BULL****. He should be B+ or AT LEAST B. He's way too viable and I hope people start discovering him soon because he's actually really useful.

 

[Melonfrog]

I am not sure if this is the place to post this, but I have new found love for Up Throw.
At 0% Middle weight characters it combos into Fair 80% of the time, for a nice amount of damage.
Then at about 45-60% it can be followed by a Flare Blitz, this works about 60% of the time. It is also safe as you still can make it back on stage if you miss.

 

[RadianB]

I am not sure if this is the place to post this, but I have new found love for Up Throw.
At 0% Middle weight characters it combos into Fair 80% of the time, for a nice amount of damage.
Then at about 45-60% it can be followed by a Flare Blitz, this works about 60% of the time. It is also safe as you still can make it back on stage if you miss.

Back throwing into F-Air at 0% is a better option since it does more damage and it's a true combo on every character.
Also decent players are always going to dodge the after 60% Flare Blitz follow up.
Tbh Up Throw is a bad move, it only has use in 2v2. I wish it did the same damage as his Brawl Up Throw, at least then there would be some incentive to use the move.

 

[Rashid]

Back throw combos better into fair. It's easy to DI out of up throw, and because of your positioning, you won't be able to autocancel fair.

 

[Melonfrog]

But... Up Throw is just so sexy...

 

[ripa9]

Me VS. one of the best Shulks I know:

See what to do in that matchup there. Shieldgrabbing is your friend. I have personally never lost to this Shulk when I am Charizard, while many others have huge trouble against him.

Also, note that Battlefield is probably the best stage for Shulk in his matchup with Charizard, too.

That is definitely not an excellent example. If Shulk spaces properly, you simply can't shield grab him. Shield grabbing is not a solution, ever, it's just an option to use now and then.
I didn't even see you use Char's weak *** spacing tools, like short hop backwards Fair and Ftilt/Dtilt/Utilt. Char needs them, but they still suck... except maybe for Utilt, but your opponent will rarely be on the right spot for it.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Why would you promote the use of options that you yourself claim to be subpar?

 

[ripa9]

Why would you promote the use of options that you yourself claim to be subpar?

Because Charizard needs them for spacing they give him more options, but they still suck, Charizard simply isn't good.

 

[Grizzlpaw]

You can stop your dash by flicking the pad downards which will put Zard in a short sliding animation. During this animation you can cancel it by performing any move you want including forward tilt, jab, and forward smash.

This is an extremely important tool for a lot of characters so I'd suggest hitting up Training Mode until you get it down.

Stoopid Smashboards wont let me like this more than once >:L

 

[ZephyrZ]

^You don't even need to hit down. Zard's skidding animation is so short you can effectively use almost any attack out of a dash.
You just need to learn the timing. After that, it's incredibly easy.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Because Charizard needs them for spacing they give him more options, but they still suck, Charizard simply isn't good.

How can a character not be good when they have positive or neutral matchups against the majority of the cast, and of their negative matchups, only two of them can be called really bad?

 

[RadianB]

Is Flare Blitz safe on block against Luigi since it makes him slide so far back that he can't get to Charizard in time to punish?

 

[ZephyrZ]

How can a character not be good when they have positive or neutral matchups against the majority of the cast, and of their negative matchups, only two of them can be called really bad?

I still feel like he struggles against bascially anyone who combos or zones.

Is Flare Blitz safe on block against Luigi since it makes him slide so far back that he can't get to Charizard in time to punish?

I haven't tested it, but I'd say don't risk it. You get 9% damage anyway. Besides, I'd think he could get you with his fire ball or something.

 

[Steeler]

Nah FB armor should go right through fireballs.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Nah FB armor should go right through fireballs.

I mean, right after the Luigi shields.

Between the start up lag, recoil, and end lag, the only time Flare Blitzs is ever a "safe" option is when recovering.

 

[Steeler]

Guys, Dragon Rush is just too good... it's just so good. It's the only custom Zard needs. It carries people into blastzones... it helps your recovery... it gets you out of potential juggles... it's a super easy way to punish one little mistake in neutral and instantly be at advantage... Flare Blitz is much more limited. And you take damage for using it, which, after using DR for a good bit now, seems so idiotic. DR can kill way better than FB in certain spots...

 

[Jaxler]

Been in the workshop with Zard lately, so I thought I would post just a few thoughts I've had over the past few weeks. By the way, I apologize in advance if I repeat anything already mentioned; didn't think it was smart to read through 300+ posts in one day. Not healthy. Anyway, I've noticed playing online that many characters have difficulty offstage against Zard. Thanks to his three jumps, he can really nail people while edgeguarding, particularly below stage with a falling nair and bair (I often pivot into bair to quickly set up, you can even jump after the pivot and just close the gap to the other guy until you can nail him with a bair). Up special out of shield is an incredibly effective kill tool in the neutral game. Fly has a VERY short start-up (only a couple frames, if I'm correct) and bringing up shield after an attack puts you in just the right position to carry the opponent into the launching hitbox. Another small little tech that may be useful in recovery is that when charizard hits a wall with flare blitz, he gains a small amount of trajectory. You can up special a little bit below the peak to use this height. Also really useful if you're like me and tend to flare blitz offstage. This tends to work best in Omega stages with flat walls like PacWorld and others.

tl;dr, great edgeguard/offstage game, up special out of shield, flareblitz is awesome

 

[Smog Frog]

yo ledge trump dragon rush is the future(just learn how to recover after it, and ur golden)

 

[Croi]

The Lucario boards just started talking about their match up with Charizard, if any of you fire-type Pokemon masters could pitch in that'd be swell.

Despite our horrendous type disadvantage, imo Lucario wins the MU 55-45 at least, but feel free to try to change my mind.

 

[Galactic Knight]

^You don't even need to hit down. Zard's skidding animation is so short you can effectively use almost any attack out of a dash.
You just need to learn the timing. After that, it's incredibly easy.

I love the stage dash to short hop and forward air. It's such a soul tingling feeling of awesome when you knock your opponent off the stage this way.

 

[Rashid]

So... this is a thing, apparently?

 

[Steeler]

Knew about ftilt, definitely not jab tho. Fyi fsmash and dsmash also work... For some reason I only get ftilt to work consistently. Input from fellow Lizardons? Let's figure out wha grounded attack we should use to stuff ledgegrabs. I think jab is too weak and short ranged to be a good option... Ftilt is safest on whiff and fsmash/dsmash have similar reward and cooldown.

 

[RadianB]

On Wuhu Island omega I hit a Samus with Dowm Smash when she was directly underneath the stage whilst I was on top. That move goes so deep, big downwards vertical hit box.

 

[Bloodcross]

I'm wondering when a project of some sort will get done on Charizard's hitboxes.

 

[Rashid]

There's a frame data thread... best to ask the-guy-who-keeps-changing-his-name there. Has any other board done it? I imagine it would be a bit difficult for Sm4sh.

 

[Dre89]

How can a character not be good when they have positive or neutral matchups against the majority of the cast, and of their negative matchups, only two of them can be called really bad?

He doesn't. He loses to any zoner/camper and any fast zonebreaker. That's most of the cast.

 

[Knee Smasher]

The following are all of Charizard's negative matchups:

• King Dedede (80:20 in King Dedede's favor)
• Mega Man (65:35 in Mega Man's favor)
• Rosalina & Luma (60:40 in Rosalina & Luma's favor, however this becomes 60:40 in Charizard's favor as soon as he uses Dragon Rush)
• Zero Suit Samus (60:40 in Zero Suit Samus's favor)
• Palutena (55:45 in Palutena's favor)
• Kirby (55:45 in Kirby's favor)
• Sheik (55:45 in Sheik's favor)
• Robin (55:45 in Robin's favor)

With the exception of what I mentioned about the Rosalina matchup, I am assuming no custom moves are used, since I don't actually know much about the customs metagame.

 

[Dre89]

Why is D3 2:8 when he's one of the few characters that is less mobile than Zard and cannot combo him

And there is no way Zard goes even with Diddy, or that Sheik is that close. Zonebreakers who can also camp Zard with projectiles absolutely wreck Zard. You pretty much need a hard read every time land a hit in neutral.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Do you have extensive experience using Charizard against the rest of the cast to know what his matchup against each and every other character looks like, or are you just making educated guesses based on the characters' archetypes and your general experience with Smash games/the fighting genre? Because whenever I say anything about the competitive aspect of this game, I don't rely on iffy things like tier lists, the general consensus or my experience with similar things in past Smash games/the fighting genre, but rely only on the most fundamental first-hand principle possible: The innumerable hours I spent playing the game, observing patterns in it, and drawing conclusions from such. With the exception of the Miis, I have fought absolutely every single character in this game countless times as Charizard, and I have noticed general patterns in difficulty based on which character I fight. That is how I determine Charizard's matchup ratios with almost every other character in the game.

 

[meleebrawler]

Don't care if you say you've played hundreds of hours or matches with Charizard.

One does not simply declare a 20:80 matchup.

 

[Davregis]

Don't care if you say you've played hundreds of hours or matches with Charizard.

One does not simply declare a 20:80 matchup.

until someone proves otherwise, Knee Smasher is the best Charizard on the boards right now based off his Smashladder ranking.

As it is, Dedede has the range and weight Charizard doesn't and given how range dependent Charizard is, it seems to be a negative matchup. 8-2 seems a bit much though.

Video?

 

[C3CC]

So all of a sudden I started sucking at using Charizard -__- I can't win any battles with him now. I wonder why.