Charizard

Fire/Flying · Blaze · B tier · base 78/84/78/109/85/100 · the format’s best Skarmory-and-Forretress incinerator and a Sub-Punch wallbreaker — and the single biggest beneficiary of Gen 3 having no Stealth Rock. A Fire/Flying body that walks over the Steels offense wants gone, then punishes the special walls that try to switch in.

Format role

Charizard is the wallbreaker-into-sweeper that the absence of Stealth Rock makes legal. In every later generation a 4× Rock weakness plus Stealth Rock means Charizard loses half its HP just by switching in, and the mon is a liability. In ADV OU there are no entry hazards except Spikes — and Charizard is immune to Spikes because it is a Flying-type (Spikes only damage grounded Pokemon). So it pivots in and out freely, takes zero chip from the most common hazard in the tier, and gets to use its 100 Speed and 109 Special Attack without paying an entry tax. That one mechanical fact is the entire reason Charizard sits in B rather than the gutter where it lives in modern formats. See the viability tiers for where that places it.

What it actually does for you is delete the Steel walls that stop everything else. Fire Blast off a base-109 SpA roasts Skarmory (2×) and obliterates Forretress (4×), the two physical walls + Spikes-setters that the SkarmBliss backbone leans on, and it is 2× on Metagross and Jirachi on the switch. A Fire-type that pressures Skarmory and ignores Skarmory’s Spikes is a genuine wallbreaking tool, not a gimmick. On top of the breaking, Charizard carries a Substitute + Focus Punch punish layer behind the special STAB — drop a Sub on the switch it forces, then Focus Punch the Blissey/Snorlax/Tyranitar that tries to absorb the Fire — so the walls that should answer it get blown open instead.

The site embeds a TypeProfile widget above this section showing the full Fire/Flying resist/weakness spread.

Sets

Charizard runs one canonical aggressive job off its base: a mixed Sub-Punch wallbreaker that splits SkarmBliss — Fire Blast pries the Steels off while Substitute + Focus Punch punishes the special walls that switch in to absorb it. Blaze is the only ability it has.

Mixed Attacker — the SkarmBliss splitter

Charizard @ Leftovers
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Hasty
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SpD
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power Grass
- Substitute
- Focus Punch

The breaker set, and the most important — in fact the only standard — Charizard build for aggressive offense. Fire Blast off 109 SpA is the Skarmory/Forretress remover — 2× on Skarmory (Steel/Flying) and a brutal 4× on Forretress (Bug/Steel) — and it threatens Metagross and Jirachi (both 2×) on the switch. Hidden Power Grass is the clever coverage: it hits Swampert for 4× (Grass vs Water/Ground), the one bulky Ground that otherwise laughs at Fire-type spam, and dents the other bulky Waters (Suicune 2×); the IV line is the standard HP Grass spread. Substitute is the pivot tool — drop a Sub on the forced switch (Charizard forces a lot of switches) so the wall coming in to absorb the Fire eats a free Focus Punch instead. Focus Punch is the Blissey and Snorlax punish — Fighting is 2× on Normal — and a 4× nuke on Tyranitar (Rock/Dark), the exact special-wall/Rock answers that try to switch into Fire Blast. Leftovers pays the Substitute rent; Hasty keeps full Speed, and the SpA tilt is correct because Fire Blast + HP Grass do the breaking while Focus Punch is the punish button (the alternative Mild nature trades that Speed for bulk, which an offense build does not want). This is the Sub-Punch breaker the trapper + breaker plan wants.

What it does for aggressive offense

Charizard’s job is removing the Steel backbone for free. The mixed set is the canonical Skarmory/Forretress remover that does not care about Spikes: Fire Blast 2HKOs or OHKOs Skarmory and outright deletes Forretress (4×), and because Charizard is Flying it ignores the Spikes those mons are trying to lay. Pry Skarmory and Forretress off the field and the rest of your offense — your Tyranitar, your Salamence, your Metagross — suddenly has no physical wall and no hazard pressure to deal with. That is the overload aggressive offense is built to create, delivered by a mon that takes no entry chip getting there.

The reason it breaks so cleanly is Spikes-immunity. Charizard ignores Spikes (Flying), so on a Spikes-stacking offense it is the one breaker that comes in clean every single time while the opponent’s switch-ins are bleeding 1/8 to 3/8 per entry. That hazard chip is exactly what converts Charizard’s 2HKOs into OHKOs and what makes the Sub-Punch line lethal — the wall that should survive Fire Blast is already chipped, so the follow-up Focus Punch finishes it. Pair it behind your own Spikes layers and Charizard pries open a chipped team that has no fast Rock left.

The honest caveat — and it is the load-bearing one — is sand. The instinct that Charizard “ignores Sand chip” because it is Flying is wrong: in Gen 3 only Rock, Ground, and Steel types are immune to sandstorm, so Charizard (Fire/Flying) takes the 1/16 sand chip every turn under Tyranitar. That chip stacks with the HP you spend on each Substitute, so under sand the Sub-Punch line bleeds out fast and can deny you the Substitute you were counting on. Charizard ignores Spikes, not sand — keep the two straight, because against the Tyranitar offense it most wants to break, the weather is quietly working against it.

When you build around it, Charizard wants its Rock answers dead before it commits. Tyranitar and Aerodactyl are 4× Rock Slide OHKOs and they are everywhere, so the cleanest enabler is a trapper: Dugtrio traps and removes a weakened Tyranitar (Arena Trap catches grounded mons; Charizard itself flies over it), and Magneton deletes the Skarmory that is the only Steel Fire Blast doesn’t instantly delete. With the Steels trapped and the Rocks chipped or trapped, the Sub-Punch Charizard has no safe switch-in left. See building aggressive offense.

Load-bearing type matchups

Charizard’s whole value is the column of super-effective hits below. The top half is why it breaks; the bottom half is why it dies.

Two things to burn in. Fire Blast is the Charizard move that pries open the Steels — Focus Punch is for the Normal-type special walls (and a 4× nuke on Tyranitar), so the special STAB carries the Skarmory/Forretress matchup while Focus Punch carries the Blissey/Snorlax matchup; that is why the breaker set always runs Fire Blast. And Charizard is helpless into bulky Water — Fire Blast is 0.5× on Suicune and friends, so only HP Grass (2×) dents them, which means a healthy Suicune or Swampert that survives the Grass hit walls the special side. Plan to overload the Waters, don’t expect Charizard to break them alone.

What threatens Charizard

The flip side of Fire/Flying offense is one of the worst defensive weaknesses in the game on the axis that matters most.

• Tyranitar — the hard stop. Rock Slide is 4× (Rock vs Fire/Flying) and OHKOs Charizard outright; Tyranitar’s sand also chips Charizard 1/16 every turn it is on the field (Fire/Flying is not sand-immune). It pivots into the Fire Blast that everything else fears (Fire is 0.5× on Rock/Dark) and clicks Rock Slide. This is the single biggest reason Charizard is B and not higher — the best Pokemon in the tier walls it and revenge-kills it for free. You must remove or trap Tyranitar (Dugtrio) before Charizard can do its job.
• Aerodactyl — base 130 Speed (394) outruns Charizard, and Rock Slide is 4× for a clean revenge. The premier fast Rock answer; Charizard cannot stay in against Aerodactyl and, since the breaker set runs no speed boost, the race always goes to Aerodactyl. Keep Aerodactyl honest with your own faster threats or revenge it before it gets a free turn on the Charizard.
• Bulky Waters — Suicune, Swampert, Milotic — Surf/Hydro Pump is 2× (Water vs Fire/Flying) and they resist Fire Blast (0.5×). Only HP Grass (Suicune 2×, Swampert 4×) dents them back, so a healthy bulky Water that survives the Grass walls the special set and Surfs Charizard down. Swampert in particular is a clean check unless HP Grass is up and the Pert is already chipped.
• Snorlax — eats Fire Blast and HP Grass off its enormous special bulk, Body Slams Charizard into its frail 78 HP or Self-Destructs, and only fears the Focus Punch read. A reliable special sponge that doesn’t fold to the mixed set.
• Electric coverage and fast revenge in general — Charizard is 2× to Electric (Electric vs Flying), so a Zapdos or Jolteon Thunderbolt revenges it, as does any priority or faster attacker into its frail 78/78/85 bulk. Once chipped (sand, its own Substitute cost, prior damage), almost anything outspeeds and kills it.
• What it shrugs off — note Charizard is immune to Ground (Earthquake does nothing; Ground vs Flying = 0×), so Dugtrio cannot trap it and EQ-spam offense can’t touch it, and it takes Ice neutrally (Ice is 0.5× on Fire but 2× on Flying = 1× net), unlike the 4× Ice-weak Dragons. The answer to Charizard is always Rock, raw Speed, or a bulky Water — not Ground, not Ice.

The throughline for aggressive play: Charizard is a glass cannon whose glass is specifically Rock. You cannot win the long game with it against a Tyranitar/Aerodactyl team — you trap or chip the Rocks first, abuse its Spikes-immunity to come in clean, and break Skarmory/Forretress before the sand and the fast Rocks catch up to it.

See also

• Tyranitar — the hard stop you must trap or remove before Charizard does anything.
• Dugtrio — traps the weakened Tyranitar so the Sub-Punch Charizard has no Rock answer left.
• Magneton — deletes the Skarmory that Fire Blast can’t one-shot, opening the breaker.
• Skarmory · Forretress — the Steel walls Charizard exists to incinerate.
• Suicune / Swampert — the bulky Waters you must overload, not solo.
• Building aggressive offense · Common cores · Sample teams · Mechanics & calc reference