Meta The Charizard Metagame Discussion Topic

[-LzR-]

Wow I had no idea about dodge canceling. This is cool stuff. Thanks a lot.

 

[YesISpeakChinese]

I wonder if I'm having second thoughts on my SHAD ideas, as a friend tells me short hop air dodging is just a worse roll.

I have faith though, since he hasn't played sm4sh yet, and I think it is a safish way to mix up your approach and tempo. Last night I did have it work well in baiting all sorts of things with Ike (SHAD into roll, counter, or dtilt), but my opponent wasn't great. I'll have to wait until a better player than me tries using it against someone at a similar level.

It definitely doesn't hurt to have it as another safe movement option but I saw dodge canceling mainly as being a useful way to land on the stage safely.

 

[CommanderVimes]

Lol, I never thought of it for something so basic as that. Good stuff.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Charizard has issues landing safely at times so this will be a big help if you can learn to do it consistently while landing from anywhere. I've been practicing this non stop since yesterday when I read about it. Doing it from a SH Airdodge is really easy. Doing this on the go when you might be pressured is going to be a bit more difficult. But this could be great for helping us land safely and bait people. Looking forward to seeing what I can do with this.

EDIT: My fingers are going to kill me. I've been practicing a lot of tech skill stuff with Pikachu and now I've added this to the agenda lol.

 

[Swoops]

So SH Nair is just ok, but:

Fullhop, Nair, autocancel is THE BEST

So the timing the autocancel window during a falling nair is pretty tricky to get used to (I still mess it up,) but it is very rewarding.

• Allows much better control of where the nair hitbox goes, which really elevates nair as his most dominating spacing tool.
• Since you have more control, it is much easier to avoid shield grabbing
  
• Best way to take advantage of nair's giant hitbox. With a SH, you really only functionally cover a short distance in front of you, as well as slightly behind. With a fullhop, you maximize the distance from your opponent while still harassing them with nair.
• Allows you a little leeway in timing. You can fullhop, see what they decide to do, then act accordingly: falling nair, delay then double jump falling nair, do nothing, flamethrower, or rock smash if they are feeling frisky.
• Best of all, if you have your timing down, you still land without lag. Combos with jab are still possible, grab follow ups, dash attack etc.
• - I would say the one negative is the same as SH nair, you have to be careful of people of rushing in guns-a-blazing. But that's what delays, flamethrower, and rock smash are for.

Thoughts? If I get a second I might be able to demonstrate somehow, I hope to get some match vids up soon but I keep forgetting to record.

Also, some extra bits of analysis:

• Zard hits like a truck...I mean I know we all know it but damn. Fair kills at the edge of the stage at like 90% (sweetspot, right next to zard) don't know who I tested this against but I can't replicate it lol, sweetspot bair kills very early, same with uair. In fact I generally don't use aerials other than nair which keeps all the others fresh and ready to kill.
• BThrow and uthrow are by far is best throws I feel. Bthrow recovers so fast, no combos as far as I can tell, but generally people don't have much time to react as charizard can be in their face immediately with a fair or flare blitz/dragon rush. Uthrow sets up nicely for a fair or falling nair at earlier percents.
• Fthrow can be used to toss off stage if you need to. Dthrow sucks , 6% with same positioning but more recovery than bthrow. I stand corrected on this. Many people have pointed out that dthrow has pretty decent kill potential at later percents.
• All of his tilts are decent, but I like dtilt the most. Recovers faster than ftilt, has similar range, and has a nasty knockback angle.
  
• Dsmash...is your standard roll chase, with decent knockback and angle...nothing really remarkable about it outside of that.
  
• I'm liking usmash more and more. Super quick.

 

[CommanderVimes]

Oh man, it's Swoops from ark!

You don't press any extra buttons for auto canceling, right? It's just timing the move whilst falling perfectly?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Oh man, it's Swoops from ark!

You don't press any extra buttons for auto canceling, right? It's just timing the move whilst falling perfectly?

That's it, I believe.

 

[Swoops]

Oh man, it's Swoops from ark!

You don't press any extra buttons for auto canceling, right? It's just timing the move whilst falling perfectly?

Hey Vimes! Good to see you. I'm trying to spend my time between smash and SFxT, but my forum presence will probably be mostly lurking lol. Unless I find something I just have to share of course :D.

...and yes, any move that can autocancel has an autocancel window. You just have to feel out when that is and land during that time.

 

[SkyboundTerror]

So I may have stumbled across a neat trick for Charizard involving his multiple jumps and back air, though I have yet to find a proper use for it. Basically, the idea is to instantaneously use his back air, on his second or third jump, while reversing your momentum. I've tested this with other characters that can change the direction they are facing after a second jump, and it works with them as well, but it's most notable with Charizard since his tail can cause heavy damage.

To pull it off, you need to jump, slightly move the circle pad in the opposite direction you were facing (or hard depending on how far you want to retreat), jump again and almost immediately press the button to attack. The timing is very hard to get down, but if you do it properly, you should get a back air coming out the direction you were facing without ever having to jolt the circle pad back to input your attack.

Is this already a known thing? I searched around the internet and nothing came up, but my searching skills are questionable. If it isn't a known thing, I'll get a short video up to show how it works.

You can also reverse your momentum for forward airs and back airs using the second and third jumps. I'm not the best at explaining things, but it's the same idea behind reversing your momentum with special attacks, but you have to jump to pull it off.

 

[ripa9]

• Allows you a little leeway in timing. You can fullhop, see what they decide to do, then act accordingly: falling nair, delay then double jump falling nair, do nothing, flamethrower, or rock smash if they are feeling frisky.

Your opponent can roll and punish you. Dodging a falling Nair with a roll is too easy. You don't have many options when you are above your opponent. Also every freaking move goes through Nair, so you can't even trade.

 

[Swoops]

Your opponent can roll and punish you. Dodging a falling Nair with a roll is too easy. You don't have many options when you are above your opponent. Also every freaking move goes through Nair, so you can't even trade.

So the opponent would roll under you? As the nair hitbox is coming down on top of them?

I guess I'm not following how a roll into the nair would work as I've seen the situation happen a dozen times. Either they roll into the nair hitbox coming down and get punished for their roll, or their roll finishes as I land from the nair with no lag and can dodge/shield whatever they try to punish with.

Not sure about your point about everything beating Nair. I'm assuming you're talking about how faster attacks can beat it before the hitbox comes around. That's very true, and that was the weakness I put down. It's a spacing move, so you probably shouldn't be using it in a position where the opponent is right in your face. The same concept applies with a move like Marth's fair, but to a different extent. You aren't going to be throwing it out when they are right up your butt or within shield grab range. You'll be retreating while using it, or hovering in and out of the range where they can use fast nairs to poke you out of it.

So yea, the tactic isn't perfect. Personally I feel like it's the best application of nair though.

 

[Shog]

I can't punish some rolls of characters, for example the same person used Lucina and Ganondorf, Lucina was a tough 1stock left for her and he spammed rolls, but the down-smashes and "back" f smash didn't catch. Next fight is against his Ganondorf with the SAME roll spam and I two stocked him... T_T

Maybe someone here can give me general tips for "huge" rolls from enemies?

 

[CommanderVimes]

I doubt I know anything you do not, but I'm starting to see roll tests as just mind games central, almost like a constant series of split-second okizemes. The big rollers I've been seeing seem to get us into similar "chains" or patterns, like dash forward throw (whiff), other guy dashes forward throw (whiff), back roll, repeat. Or a series of rolls in one direction. The winner of these common setups is the first person to realize it is happening and use a punish move like smash or flare blitz. As for people who are preemptively rolling, I guess the best thing could be to do nothing and see when they are rolling?

 

[yoyowoodchuckguy]

I can't punish some rolls of characters, for example the same person used Lucina and Ganondorf, Lucina was a tough 1stock left for her and he spammed rolls, but the down-smashes and "back" f smash didn't catch. Next fight is against his Ganondorf with the SAME roll spam and I two stocked him... T_T

Maybe someone here can give me general tips for "huge" rolls from enemies?

If they're spamming rolls to get away from you, Flare Blitz punishes hard.

 

[IReidYou]

Anyone can tell me how good they think zard is in this game? Imo he got heavily nerfed from brawl with a big reduction in overall speed/mobility for slightly more power. That and I can never get used to the grab range nerf lol. Wanted to hear your opinions cause maybe I'm missing some things

 

[Knee Smasher]

From my experience, Charizard only has three negative matchups in this game: King Dedede (near-unwinnable), Yoshi, and Mega Man.

Charizard, again from my experience, has a clear positive matchup against Ike, Greninja, Jigglypuff, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Ganondorf.

The rest are more or less 50/50 as far as I can tell.

 

[SkyboundTerror]

Anyone can tell me how good they think zard is in this game? Imo he got heavily nerfed from brawl with a big reduction in overall speed/mobility for slightly more power. That and I can never get used to the grab range nerf lol. Wanted to hear your opinions cause maybe I'm missing some things

He's good, though not anything amazing. He's amazing if you can read your opponent like a 3rd-grade textbook. You will experience many short matches when you map out your opponent's options and act accordingly.

I am disappointed by his new down tilt and back air. They were his best attacks in Brawl, but their removal can be overlooked thanks to the super armor in his specials and Flare Blitz. Thing is, you need to be a tad reckless with Charizard to get the most out of him. If you're a person who likes to be defensive and campy, Charizard is not for you.

 

[Funkermonster]

From my experience, Charizard only has three negative matchups in this game: King Dedede (near-unwinnable), Yoshi, and Mega Man.

Charizard, again from my experience, has a clear positive matchup against Ike, Greninja, Jigglypuff, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Ganondorf.

The rest are more or less 50/50 as far as I can tell.

Wait, what? What can Zard do to ?

 

[Knee Smasher]

Charizard just destroys Greninja with its jabs, shieldgrabs, Nairs, punishes it with dash grabs, punishes its rolls with Dsmash, jumps over its Water Shurikens before proceeding to Firebreath it, edgeguards it with Firebreath and punishes it with Flare Blitz if it tries to go over Charizard when recovering, smacks Greninja with Nair or Fair if it tries to ledgejump, and just makes life very hard for it in general (which is ironic considering Water beats Fire in the Pokémon games).

 

[lcampoy8]

How exactly is DDD unwinnable for charizard? I feel this match up is pretty even.

 

[Knee Smasher]

King Dedede outranges Charizard a lot, especially with his Ftilt, and pretty much punishes any of Charizard's approaches, including Firebreath, with his Gordo. All King Dedede has to do is play extremely defensively and Charizard stands almost no chance.

 

[Aliveidt]

I can see a the theoretical DDD superiority, but in practice he will lose often. from my experience, charizard has the upper hand through range.

Havent met many yoshis until now so i dont know about him, but megaman really is a pain to play against.

I agree with all positive matchups that kneesmasher listed, especially greninja. (Thats for abusing Protean)

 

[Banryu]

From my experience, Charizard only has three negative matchups in this game: King Dedede (near-unwinnable), Yoshi, and Mega Man.

Charizard, again from my experience, has a clear positive matchup against Ike, Greninja, Jigglypuff, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Ganondorf.

The rest are more or less 50/50 as far as I can tell.

Got any tips for Ike and Ganondorf? It's probably just because they were better players than me, but I've been utterly destroyed by one or two of each. Ganondorf I can see how I was just being read and whatnot, but Ike's sword feels like it gives him a lot of priority.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Charizard's Firebreath outranges everything those two can do, its jab hits before any move from either of those two characters, and shieldgrabbing (be careful of Ganondorf's Flame Choke though) as well as dash grabbing (during the ending lag of those two characters' many slow attacks) destroys them. Also, edgeguarding Ganondorf with Charizard's Firebreath is a very easy way to rack up damage on him, if not even making him fall down and die if he makes a mistake in recovering. Due to the fact that Charizard's Dsmash and Dthrow send the target flying far away at a very low trajectory, Charizard can kill Ganondorf at a surprisingly low % due to Ganondorf's poor recovery. Charizard's Nair also beats everything Ike can do in the air barring Counter.

 

[-LzR-]

I don't understand the hitbox of Fair. It always whiffs. Any tips?

 

[Lt Jesus00]

Is anyone else getting really frustrated fighting zard mains. I've fought more than a few who can use that flare blitz crap so well. The frames of invincibility after the more make it really hard to counter even if you block or dodge it!

 

[Shog]

Is anyone else getting really frustrated fighting zard mains. I've fought more than a few who can use that flare blitz crap so well. The frames of invincibility after the more make it really hard to counter even if you block or dodge it!

This what I like to hear. Go Charizards

 

[TheSMASHtyke]

I've been messing around with Charizard lately and I guess he's my third most played character behind Lucario and Captain Falcon. My initial impressions of him were disappointing given how slow he was, but I've been warming up a lot to him lately. Find myself having a ball edgeguarding with Zard. Something about his weight just clicks with me; I don't think I can hit any other dair spike in the game as consistently as Charizard's dair. I've had some really satisfying kills like knocking a Dark Pit out of his Power of Flight and Lucario out of his high percentage Extremespeed.

Reading Rolls with Charizards F smash is also hilariously satisfying. After respawning, I feel like a lot of people like to dodge roll behind your character. I've gotten several kills just predicting that and F-smashing into the roll.

Even though they don't seem to be anything special compared to the rest of the cast, forward throw and back throw are oddly satisfying. Never really use Dthrow since it does so little damage. I've used Uthrow very sparingly and I've done a few soft (aka, probably easy to counteract if you know it's coming) follow ups. On a few characters, I've managed to get off a flare blitz out of the throw. Double Jump to Rock Smash after Uthrow also seems like it works occasionally.

 

[Lew Paue]

Charizard just destroys Greninja with its jabs, shieldgrabs, Nairs, punishes it with dash grabs, punishes its rolls with Dsmash, jumps over its Water Shurikens before proceeding to Firebreath it, edgeguards it with Firebreath and punishes it with Flare Blitz if it tries to go over Charizard when recovering, smacks Greninja with Nair or Fair if it tries to ledgejump, and just makes life very hard for it in general (which is ironic considering Water beats Fire in the Pokémon games).

Chars fsmash kills around 80% on greninja id put a video up, but i cant get it off my 3ds, greninjas just scared which mega char will become

 

[IReidYou]

He's good, though not anything amazing. He's amazing if you can read your opponent like a 3rd-grade textbook. You will experience many short matches when you map out your opponent's options and act accordingly.

...Thing is, you need to be a tad reckless with Charizard to get the most out of him. If you're a person who likes to be defensive and campy, Charizard is not for you.

That explains a lot lol. I found Rob to be more akin to brawl zard but will still end up using the lizard every now and then. Thanks bud.

 

[JJBro1]

Any one have any tips for landing back down on the stage? Seems like all the opponent has to do is wait for charizard to float back down and they'll have enough time to run to you and punish your landing lag or if they're fast enough already be underneath you and hit you with an upsmash. I've tried to come back down with a rock smash but once they figure that out they shield and punish.

 

[Knee Smasher]

Try floating towards one side of the stage, and then, while still high up in the air, Flare Blitz to the other side of the stage. If the opponent dashes after you, which they likely will, you can Flare Blitz them in the face while they are dashing, possibly KOing them if they have high %.

 

[Lew Paue]

Or if you want to get on ledge try and get them to shield when they are near the ledge, your little bounce can get you onto the ledge fairly safely during blockstun. (Off FB that is, if they side step you can try and pull off what KneeSmasher suggested)

 

[Swoops]

Any one have any tips for landing back down on the stage? Seems like all the opponent has to do is wait for charizard to float back down and they'll have enough time to run to you and punish your landing lag or if they're fast enough already be underneath you and hit you with an upsmash. I've tried to come back down with a rock smash but once they figure that out they shield and punish.

You're problem can be solved like every other problem you might encounter.

Nair.

You have to get used to people's speed and what moves they juggle with, but generally you can learn to space a nair hitbox below you that covers your descent. It's not a "works-for-every-situation" wonder solution, but I find one of his best options while falling.

 

[Lew Paue]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vue2zT4UQik About the Greninja match up here is a video of a recent Japanese tournament while i admit the char didnt do perfect he still showed why he still dominates.

 

[Aliveidt]

About the Greninja match up here is a video of a recent Japanese tournament while i admit the char didnt do perfect he still showed why he still dominates.

could´ve landed a few more rock smashes.

the flamethrower edgeguard regularly kills greninja off, im surprised that it didnt in this match

 

[Lew Paue]

could´ve landed a few more rock smashes.

the flamethrower edgeguard regularly kills greninja off, im surprised that it didnt in this match

yeah I agree, but i think the greninja goal was to use up b soon enough to outlast flamethrower which was a good play also the char did pretty good at landing the ledge FB I find those pretty successful and fairly safe

 

[Aliveidt]

yeah I agree, but i think the greninja goal was to use up b soon enough to outlast flamethrower which was a good play also the char did pretty good at landing the ledge FB I find those pretty successful and fairly safe

Speaking about edgeguards, I just love hitting Ike, Little Mac or Fox with a Yolo charge in the face when they do a predictable recovery. in case i miss, a flare blitz back into the stage almost always makes a recovery possible.

 

[Lew Paue]

Speaking about edgeguards, I just love hitting Ike, Little Mac or Fox with a Yolo charge in the face when they do a predictable recovery. in case i miss, a flare blitz back into the stage almost always makes a recovery possible.

Off stage blitz are almost an instant kill every time , so its always great to land one

 

[JJBro1]

Has anyone else noticed how bad the nair hit box is? You can hit your opponent with the flame and they won't even flinch let alone take damage.