How badly does Charizard's 4x Stealth Rock weakness hold it back from being viable in competitive play?

Question

Charizard seems like it could be viable, but Stealth Rock majorly holds it back. Would it significantly improve if nothing changed except for Stealth Rock now dealing neutral damage (1/8 instead of 1/2) to Charizard alone? Is there any generation between Gens 4-9 in which it would perform especially well? Or are there other flaws or threats which prevent Charizard from being a strong contender in the competitive scene?

Comments

I don't think we allow speculation questions anymore.

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I'm gonna allow it for a bit to see what sort of answer it gets, but yeah I don't think you can answer these questions intelligently.
The issue is it's not just a question about Charizard. Removing rocks has massive implications for the meta generally. It's hard to predict how that will affect a single tier let alone "Gen 4 - Gen 9".

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I tried rephrasing the question to cut out the bigger implications and make it more straightforward to theorize about. I don't think OP is wanting an entire reimagining of competitive Pokemon anyway, the point of the question seems to be about wondering whether a 4x weakness to Stealth Rock is the only obstacle stopping Charizard from being good. Someone who's familiar with at least one generation's metagame could give a meaningful assessment of its strengths and remaining weaknesses in the normal competitive context.

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Would still say the part in bold is no good but that's a lot better.

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Base form Charizard has a ton of problems in competitive besides the 4x weakness to stealth rock, it would not have been viable in Gens 4-8 OU even if it was neutral to Stealth Rock. In gen 8 base form Charizard saw a bit of use in OU in some sun teams, but it was never more than a gimmick and its unlikely that being neutral to stealth rock would have changed that. It'd be better for sure, but its impossible to say by how much because neutral stealth rock would cause a radical change to the meta.
The Megas are all OU viable in gen 6-7 even with Stealth Rock weakness and they would be even better if it wasnt there. It's hard to say how much better they would be with neutral damage Stealth Rock because that would change the meta radically and it's near impossible to predict how different it would be.

Answer 1

From Gen 4 onwards, base form Charizard would most likely not have been competitively viable in OU even if it was neutral to Stealth Rock for the following reasons. There are many Pokemon with similar stat lines and movepools to Charizard that are also bad in OU such as Porygon-Z and Kingdra despite being neutral to stealth rock, who suffer from the same issues listed below.
1. General power creep: The overall power level from Gen 4 onwards is much higher and Charizard doesn't really have the stats to keep up in this environment. This gets worse as the generations increase.
2. Competition from other fire type offensive Pokemon: Notable examples in OU are Infernape, Heatran, and Volcarona, Victini and Volcanion. These Pokemon all have some combination of better offensive or defensive typings, better movepools or abilities and better matchups against common Pokemon. Even in lower tiers like UU, it suffers stiff competition from Moltres, Arcanine, Rotom-Heat and others.
3. Bad matchups against common defensive Pokemon: If you take a look at Gen 4 OU's list of commonly used Pokemon, there are a lot of Pokemon like Latias, Clefable, Tyranitar etc, that completely stonewall Charizard. It doenst really have the needed offensive stats to break through the kind of defensive mons you run into in OU. Gen 5 onwards is a similar story. It also doesnt really have a very good defensive typing, being weak to rock ,water and electric, very commonly used coverage types for most offensive Pokemon.

The Mega forms of Charizard are viable in Gens 6-7 OU even with their stealth rock weakness, and they would of course be much better without it. They are held back quite a bit by their weakness becuase any team that uses them has to either be very fast paced or have good hazard removal methods.
There were a few gimmicky Sun teams in Gen 8 OU that used Choice Specs Charizard as an absurdly strong wallbreaker in the Sun. Those teams had a ton of issues besides Charizard being bad, so I dont think they would have been any less gimmicky with a stealth rock neutral Charizard.

Note: This answer is for 6v6 Smogon singles for Gens 4-9 of OU, since no format was specified and that's what I'm most familiar with. Most of what I've said here does still apply to VGC and doubles though.

Comments

I think it's also worth mentioning that several Pokemon with similar stats have been viable, but all of them have more things that Charizard doesn't have. For example, Flygon has better offensive typing, Porygon Z has download and better moves, and Hisuinian Lilligant has hustle and victory dance.

Answer 2

In competitive Pokemon, Charizard isn’t really used anyway. But for other Pokemon like Volcarona, they don’t really suffer too much because of the item Heavy-Duty Boots, which denies entry hazards. So it does take up the item slot, but it doesn’t really hold you back too much. For Charizard, either put Heavy-Duty Boots on it or have a Rapid Spinner. Personally, I don’t think it’s held back too much.

For Charizard, no item slot is a huge loss though, because its stats can’t really deal too much damage compared to other meta Pokemon. I’d say for Charizard, the weakness does make it a bit worse, but it’s already not the best to begin with.

Comments

- Please use punctuation, added it for you this time
- How about about the megas? Those are definitely used in major formats like OU.

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Sorry I’m new and just wanted to answer a question that I thought I new also they didn’t specify the regulations so I thought it
 Was sv