Pokemon: 7 Great Movesets For Charizard
Charizard is a fan favorite and a pretty strong starter Pokemon even to this day. It not only survived Pokemon Sword & Shield’s severance from the National Dex but downright thrived, becoming Champion Leon’s signature pal. This Pokemon is near and dear to millions.
We’ve assembled a team of great movesets to take with you not just to the main game, but to the competitive scene as well. You won’t be guaranteed to win competitively, but you’ll have a good start. And as for playing through the main story (or “campaign” as it’s often referred to), these are more than enough.
Updated May 8, 2023 by Quinton O’Connor: How hot is Charizard, right? Hot enough for us to update our list to reflect the present meta and better inform bold new Charmander trainers on what to invest in for their buddy’s bolder future in Scarlet & Violet and beyond.
8 (Flamethrower, Air Slash, Flare Blitz, Dragon Breath)
This dual-fire moveset is great if you’re looking to take advantage of both STAB (“Same Type Attack Bonus,” a common term you’ll see elsewhere in our guide) and Charizard’s high Special Attack stat to boost damage.
All moves utilize the special attack status and have okay coverage. Flamethrower gets the job done as your go-to Fire move, whilst Flare Blitz is best when you need more, well, firepower. Air Slash and Dragon Breath over pretty solid coverage.
7 (Ancient Power, Sunny Day, Flamethrower, Solar Beam)
This might be one of the most useful move sets for Charizard with great strategy and type spread coverage. Sunny Day enhances Charizard’s Flamethrower (properly this time!) and allows it to use Solar Beam with no charge time putting any Water- or Water/Ground-type in severe danger.
Ancient Power taps into Charizard’s excellent Special Attack stat for a Rock-type move your rivals may never have seen coming. It’s a simple premise with minimal setup; nothing blows minds here, but sometimes in life, the easy stuff is worth fighting with.
6 (Flamethrower, Dragon Pulse, Fly, Rock Slide)
This is also known as the full type-coverage move set. While Fly uses physical damage as opposed to Special Attack, it is a good defensive move to get away from potentially devastating damage from threats such as Hyper Beam.
Dragon Pulse is simply a fair-degree stronger replacement than Dragon Fang. All this while Flamethrower works as a standard high-damage Fire-type move and Rock Slide eschews Ancient Power’s precision in favor of a slightly stronger, slightly less accurate, move that might just make your opponent flinch.
5 (Blast Burn, Substitute, Fly, Solar Beam)
Substitute is the main strategic basis of this move set. It costs you about half your health but if you’re stuck in a bad way (such as a major type disadvantage) you can have it soak the hit as you charge a Solar Beam.
You can also use this with Fly, granting two turns of safety if your Substitute goes down in one. This is a re-counter moveset with the idea that you are hitting your opponent with your strongest moves without worrying about damage coming back onto you.
4 (Fire Blast, Focus Blast, Toxic, Roost)
We’d call this one Blastizard, but perhaps that’s pushing it. Still, you can tell a Charizard with a nicely high Special Attack stat is pivotal to this moveset. Both Fire Blast and Focus Blast can do tremendous damage with the right IVs and EVs, and while you should never need to worry about those during the single-player campaigns, you’ll need to be thinking strategically online.
Toxic is designed to do heavy damage over time, and Roost keeps Charizard in flying shape; neither technique is especially common in the meta these days, so you can keep your foes on their toes and play the long con while you’re at it.
3 (Flare Blitz, Earthquake, Dragon Dance, Thunder Punch)
This one’s our favorite. Perhaps it’s not ideal for every conceivable situation – that’s where some others step in – but all things being equal, this is a great one to keep coming back to for years. Flare Blitz hits for massive STAB damage with recoil, so if you feel like you’re overly reliant upon it fight after fight, consider replacing Dragon Dance with Roost.
But keeping Dragon Dance is ideal; after all, it boosts Charizard’s Attack stat in two stages, turning Flare Blitz into something akin to a Flame Apocalypse. Earthquake and Thunder Punch are obviously here for coverage, but why these two in particular?
Earthquake is one of the strongest physical attacks the games have to offer, and it’s super-effective against several types prominent in the metagame. Thunder Punch, meanwhile, is Charizard’s answer to someone like Blastoise coming along and assuming optimal conditions. Prove it wrong.
2 Dynamax Charizard (Blast Burn, Solar Beam, Dragon Pulse, Hurricane)
We should touch bases with Sword & Shield’s literally and figuratively biggest deal — Dynamax and Gigantamax. If your Charizard is capable of the former but not the latter, this moveset works wonders. If it’s also capable of Gigantamaxing, well, this moveset will still work wonders; it’s just going to get morphed somewhat to suit the G-Max variations, of course.
The complete success of this Dynamax set relies upon having a Charizard with the Hidden Ability entitled Solar Power. In harsh sunlight, Charizard’s Special Attack stat will rise at the expense of some of its HP. At Dynamax level, and especially at Gigantamax level, that slight reduction in HP shouldn’t make or break your plan. Just get some sunlight action going on, whip out Charizard, and behold a mighty special sweeper with terrific coverage.
1 Dragon Tera Charizard (Flamethrower, Dragon Pulse, Hurricane, Solar Beam)
And if we’re still thinking about the Gen 8 mainline games, we should probably have something on Tera Types, Gen 9’s big game-shaker for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. It’s long been a dream of some fans to envision a Charizard of the Dragon-type persuasion, so Game Freak went and did the thing.
This Charizard, like any good Charizard, is all about causing a great deal of damage in a neatly specific manner. Dragon Pulse is here to feed into the newfound Tera-based typing. We’ve loaded Charizard up here with all Special-based attacks, so if you’re EV training, fuel its already-significant Special Attack accordingly.
Source: www.thegamer.com
