Battle Moveset

A Good Moveset for Charizard would have to be this:

Attacks:

Hidden Power [Flying]
Earthquake
Belly Drum
Substitute / Flamethrower

Items Attached:

Salac Berry

Preferred Nature:

Adamant or Naughty.

Strategy Using Charizard

The standard physical Charizard set, dubbed 'Bellyzard'. After Belly Drum only a handful of Pokémon can stand up to it and if it can activate the Salac Berry very few can outrun it. The main choice you have here is between Substitute and Flamethrower. With Substitute you can guarantee yourself that you can activate the Salac Berry by using Substitute and then Belly Drum, the downside however is that the common Skarmory will completely wall you making your effort futile. Obviously this means your team will have to prepare itself to handle Skarmory on Charizard's behalf. With Flamethrower you have Skarmory coverage but will need to take a hit or two to bring your HP into the right area to activate the Salac Berry after using Belly Drum. The usual strategy to lose the right amount of HP is to switch into a weak attack, either something you can resist or an attack from a tank usually works well.

When using Belly Drum you have to keep in mind your risking it all, you can either get a straight sweep or lose your Charizard easily. In a few cases a well set-up 'bulky water' Pokémon will be able to take a Charizard's Belly Drummed attack and take Charizard out of the battle. You'll need to plan when you use Belly Drum since it'll be a one off event (barring the use of Wish-passing), once you use Belly Drum you won't get another shot so you need to do everything right the first time around. You'll need to know everything on your opponent's team and make sure they're weakened sufficiently that Charizard will be able to take them out in one hit. You'll also need to watch out for Pokémon with Endure-Salac, Ninjask, Electrode and Deoxys (in Ubers) and priority moves (Quick Attack, Extreme Speed, possibly Mach Punch if you're sufficiently weakened). Tyranitar's Sandstorm will also pick away at your health slowly so it's best to avoid using one on your team and avoid being Paralysed or hit with Poison at all costs.

EV Corner:

EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 116 Spd / 124 SAtk
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) / Naughty Nature (+Atk, -SDef)

Max Attack is obvious. 116 Spd with the standard HP Flying Speed IV (30) will give Charizard 264 Speed, which with Salac Berry will outrun Jolteon, Aerodactyl and co. With 136 Speed EVs Charizard can also outrun Adamant Heracross, which can be of use in a fair few situations since Heracross is common and it also allows you to outrun Pokémon at 264 Speed. 16 HP EVs gives Charizard 301 HP, it rarely matters but once in a while it may come into effect. If you choose to not use Flamethrower using Adamant and placing all the SAtk EVs into a defence or HP is obvious. Keep in mind that if you use Substitute that you'll need to use two Subs and a Belly Drum to get below ¼ HP if you use an odd numbered HP stat, it may be worth throwing an extra few HP EVs to make up the difference and save the use of a Sub.

Other Optional Sets

Charizard @ Choice Band
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Flamethrower / Focus Punch / Rock Slide
- Flamethrower / Focus Punch / Rock Slide

Choice Band Charizard. Has some surprise potential and is more of a 'team-player' than Belly-Zard. Charizard works as a counter to a fair few Pokémon so being able to use one as a hit-and-run can be beneficial to your team. Make sure to use a 31 Speed IV on this set since max speed will matter with this set at times.

Charizard @ Leftovers / Salac Berry
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Swords Dance
- Flamethrower

Sword Dance sweep, similar to Belly-Zard but doesn't rely on 'one shot' at getting a sweep, giving it a bit more versatility. Provided you can remove any 'bulky water' opponents this set has the potential to get a clean sweep similarly to the Belly Drummer.

Charizard @ Leftovers / Petaya Berry
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Claw
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Substitute / Focus Punch

Special sweeper Charizard. Not particularly effective due to having such a small special move-pool but still usable. Focus Punch can catch a Blissey or Snorlax switching in, although most people don't expect a special sweeper anyway so they'd need to realise before you can catch them by surprise with it anyway. Substitute could be used to activate the Petaya Berry but would leave you defenceless against most Special Walls.

Charizard @ Leftovers
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 104 Atk / 252 Spd / 152 SAtk
Mild Nature (+SAtk, -Def) / Rash Nature (+SAtk, -SDef)
- Flamethrower
- Focus Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass] / Dragon Claw
- Substitute

Sub-Puncher set-up. You'll need some attack to make Focus Punch do suitable damage to Special Walls, aside from that you'll probably use this set in the same way you'd use the Special Sweeper.

Other Optional Moves

Fire Blast, Brick Break, Counter, Roar, Sunny Day. These are the main ones. Some people like Fire Blast over Flamethrower for the extra power, when adding in STAB and Blaze the difference in power could make it worth the accuracy loss when compared to Flamethrower. Brick Break and HP Flying aren't resisted by any Pokémon so it could be used over EQ, power loss against coverage, although in most cases EQ is a better choice. Counter and Roar are generally good moves that are hard to use on Charizard. Sunny Day could be used on the special set to boost Fire power as well as to give some defence against water attacks.

Strategy Against Charizard

Most Charizards use the 'Belly-Zard' set, meaning that if you can knock a Charizard to 49% or less that it won't be able to use it's core attack. Also inflicting it with Poison, Paralysis or having a Sandstorm in effect can also make it difficult for Charizard to use it effectively. Well timed use of Rock attacks (when Zard moves in to wall your Fighting, Ground or Bug attacks) can OHKO Charizard on the switch as well as using Electric or Water attacks at the right time. It's defence and HP is passable but not brilliant so it can take a few hits from a weak attacker but it won't be able to stand up to most Sweepers. Aerodactyl resists the majority of Charizard's attacks (EQ, HP Flying and Flamethrower) so it fairs reasonably against Charizard, as do a handful of other Pokémon with a good type combination. 'Bulky' water types are the bane of almost all Charizard sets, a handful of them can even take on a Belly Drum boosted Charizard with the right EV set-up and 100% health. Most Electric types can take a HP Flying on the switch and OHKO Zard with Thunderbolt, so long as you can out-predict Earthquake they make suitable counters as well.

Contest Moveset

A good Contest Moveset for Charizard would have to be this for the Cool Contest best with Lonely, Adament, Naughty or Brave Nature:

Attacks:

Rock Slide
Sunny Day
Flamethrower
Outrage

Items Attached:

Red Scarf

Strategy Using Charizard

If you do the attacks in this following order you should have very few problems; 1st - Rock slide, 2nd - Sunny day, 3rd - Flamethrower, 4th - Rock slide, 5th - Outrage

Locations in Games

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Trade from FR/LG Colosseum & XD Trade from FR/LG Fire Red/Leaf Green Evolve Charmeleon

Animé Appearences

Charizard has had quite few Animé Appearences although most are under the control of Ash. First it was a Robot in the Giant Pokémon Island Amusement Park. Most Appearences after this is of Ash's Charizard when it evolved from Charmeleon in order to battle Aerodactyl. It disobeyed Ash from then on. James used one in his Pokémon League Entrance Battle Test, which he then tried steal. Ash's one also ended up getting Cloned by Mewtwo and lived with all the Pokémon Clones later in Johto. Ash's faced a tough battle and got frozen. Ash thawed it out and Charizard learnt to respect Ash. There was a valley full of them too where the strongest Charizard lived. Ash left his here to train. Team Rocket used one in the Battle Park in a battle against Ash's Totodile in an elaborate plan to get Pikachu. Ash's returned twice, first for the Blackthorn Gym where it also helped stop a rampage of a Dragonite and the Silver Conference in Ash's battles against Gary and Harrison. One was also a participant in a contest . Ash also used it against the Frontier Brains Noland & Brandon Episode 017: Island Of The Giant Pokémon! Episode 046: Attack Of The Prehistoric Pokémon! Episode 056: The Ultimate Test! Episode 058: Riddle Me This! Episode 059: Volcanic Panic! Movie 1: Mewtwo Strikes Back! Short 1: Pikachu's Summer Vacation! Episode 064: It's Mr. Mime Time! Episode 076: All Fired Up! Episode 081: Friend And Foe Alike! Episode 082: Friends To The End! Episode 083: Pallet Party Panic! Episode 093: Navel Maneuvers! Episode 100: A Way Off, Day Off! Episode 101: The Mandarin Island Missmatch! Episode 105: Misty Meets Her Match! Episode 107: Charizard Chills! Movie 2: The Power Of One! Episode 109: Pokémon Food Fight! Episode 110: Pokémon Double Trouble! Episode 114: Enter The Dragonite! Episode 119: Don't Touch That 'Dile! Episode 120: The Double Trouble Header! Episode 125: Spinarak Attack! Episode 128: The Chikorita Rescue! Episode 133: Fighting Flyer With Fire! Episode 135: Tanks Alot! Episode 136: Charizard's Burning Ambitions! Movie 3: Spell Of The Unown! Episode 162: Air Time! Episode 166: Carrying On! Special 2: Mewtwo Returns! Episode 250: One Trick Phoney! Episode 254: Fangs For Nothin! Episode 255: Great Bowls Of Fire! Episode 256: Better Eight Than Never! Episode 257: Why? Wynaut! Episode 271: The Ties That Bind! Episode 272: Can't Beat The Heat! Episode 273: Playing With Fire! Episode 274: Johto Photo Finish! Episode 279: There's No Place Like Hoenn! Episode 338: Disguise Da Limit! Episode 412: Numero Uno Articuno Episode 413: The Symbol Life Episode 453: Grating Spaces Episode 465: First Pokémon! Final Battle! Episode 466: Deciding Match! VS Regice!