General/Other - Reptile Reptile Bottom 5

[JDM]

After toying with him with @G4S J360 for like 2 hours in training mode last night here is what we discovered.

Pros
Forceball/NJP combos are back!
34>fb>sb>uppercut> run > f412 slide is the new meterless swag of 34%
b1d4 also combos into reg fb for around 30 or 31%
f412 > dash > NJP > f41 >f412 slide is 34% meterless although super strict.
New EX nimble combo mid screen is 34>fb> late NJP EX nimble > b34 > f41 > f412 > slide I believe was 39-40%? Can't remember. I'm sure this can be done in the corner for more damage.
b2 combos buffed especially in the corner is a welcomed addition.

Its not just about the meterless combos here its about that they actually leave your opponent open for 50/50 in nimble as well.

34 reg Nimble is actually a legit setup, its spacing on hit allows you to counter anything your opponent will do which is huge. 34 EX nimble run in is a free 50/50. This also buffs Noxious because he gets a free string / grab setup when activating Noxious after 34/b1d4 as well. 121 on hit has similar buffs too.

b1d4 Is a big buff IMO. Now he has a low string hit that combos meterless for solid damage. It also has the same properties where a b1d4 ex nimble grants a 50/50 mixup or b1d4 noxious the same. His b1 has very good range as well so this might end up being his best punisher for some specials/strings.

7frame d3 is great.

Cons
Forceball still suck for zoning and EX fb is still full combo punishable....
Spit still does only 5% damage is -16 and doesn't have enough advantage on hit outside of Nimble.
No safe specials or buffs to meter building, granted we just got 2 new meterless starters so this one is kind of a wash?
Damage nerf to Nimble in the corner was pretty severe, his 49% combo now only does 43%.
No variation buffs and most of the damage buffs are mute outside of b2 because they have no combo ability so his highest damaging combo actually got nerfed, not buffed.


Overall Thoughts
These buffs help Reptile but I'm not sure its much to move him up the chart. His 7F d3 now lets him deal with fake fbc pressure he originally couldn't deal with but more importantly forces opponents to have to poke him instead of check him with strings which is huge imo and I'm excited to see how that plays out. Still might be the only character in the game without a safe / + special in the game, he solely relies on option selects which is well boring imo. Nimble and Deceptive still rely too heavily on meter and with the big damage nerf to Nimble I think this without a doubt makes Noxious his #1 variation. Is he still bottom 5? Probably but I can say for certain hes at least fun to play with forceball combos again which matters a lot to me.

Nice. Thanks for putting in some effort to use the buffs cause I was so disgusted I shut the game off last night and didn't look back.

I have a few questions though, Why would you ever use 34 over F412 as a punisher? Why would you cut your punish short with 34 to use regular nimble instead of going for the guaranteed damage?

And yeah B1D4 comboing into forceball is good, but who's really going to get hit by a B1(D4) or B2 mixup consistently? Not only that, we are still reliant on option selects when other characters have LEGIT 50/50s that are safe for no OS. And who is going to try and use the new NJP combo in tournament for 4 extra percent damage? I know I'm not, that shit is way way too strict.

Let's no start on the other strings damage getting buffed as those are laughable.

Just how I see it, I'm asking questions so feel free to correct me.

 

[RapZiLLa54]

Nice. Thanks for putting in some effort to use the buffs cause I was so disgusted I shut the game off last night and didn't look back.

I have a few questions though, Why would you ever use 34 over F412 as a punisher? Why would you cut your punish short with 34 to use regular nimble instead of going for the guaranteed damage?

And yeah B1D4 comboing into forceball is good, but who's really going to get hit by a B1(D4) or B2 mixup consistently? Not only that, we are still reliant on option selects when other characters have LEGIT 50/50s that are safe for no OS. And who is going to try and use the new NJP combo in tournament for 4 extra percent damage? I know I'm not, that shit is way way too strict.

Let's no start on the other strings damage getting buffed as those are laughable.

Just how I see it, I'm asking questions so feel free to correct me.

34 as a punisher does more damage meterless, has more reach and corner carries.
Cutting short 34 ex nimble is to provide a mixup granting overall more damage for the occasional situation. I'm not saying its the new go-to just the fact that its something we didn't have previously. One of Reptiles issues was he doesn't really have setups without using meter and this definitely provides one.

B1D4 I think you're sleeping on. People are SO conditioned to block high vs Reptile because of f41 that B1D4 hits a lot. I've been doing B1D4 Ex Klaw with a ton of success so no way am I going to hate on this buff. Also factor in B1 is only like -2 on block so you can do B1 B2 in say the corner after some conditioning. Also his B1D4 is also used very well in open space as a footsie tool so you can even use it as a hit select where if they run in they are now getting comboed by forceball and if they don't it recovers fast enough to be safe.

B34 is still a super hard punish, its not like Reptile doesn't have a legit 50/50. b2 in the corner with 1 bar does 39%, thats nothing to sneeze at.

7frame d3 actually gives him frame traps with 1, 12, 21, 3, 4, so thats also a nice thing to have. Keep in mind most 6frame pokes are -8 + so now when counter poking we are actually punishing leading into a 50/50 situation.

They touched a lot of his issues. Bad meter building? They gave him 2 more meterless combo starters. Awful pokes? 7frame poke. Does that change the fact his zoning is absolute trash? No, but 2/4 areas he needed to be improved on upon is a descent start, his zoning and variations still need to be looked at though. Like I said, the character while he may not be top 10 tournament viable just yet, at least hes fun to play now and its a beacon of hope. The damage buff on the strings that can't combo was a major troll through lol @GGA 16 Bit @GGA Dizzy

 

[RapZiLLa54]

Going from 49% to 46% sucks but I don't think it's anywhere near enough to make Noxious better than Nimble personally.

Pretty sure it went from 49 to 43 or am I crazy? Noxious does 41% 1 bar in the corner..

 

[haketh]

Pretty sure it went from 49 to 43 or am I crazy? Noxious does 41% 1 bar in the corner..

My bad meant 43 not 46. After getting some sleep and thinking about it you may be right though about Noxious over Nimble.

 

[qspec]

Oh god..here we go...

I know d3 improvement seems like such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it actually helps reptile tremendously in matchups where he just got pressured for free

Dude, don't even try.

There are some legit Reptile players who I may disagree with but generally respect because they seem reasonable (Fraud comes to mind), but this community is venomous (see what I did there?), and many aren't going to be satisfied until Reptile is pushing broken tier. And it seems to be setting some kind of "act like a cunt" precedent.

On topic specifically:

Even assuming he's bottom 5 (which I don't think he is necessarily), these buffs brought him more in line with everyone else. So what's more important than who is bottom or top is what the relative difference between bottom and top is... and that just got closer than it was a few days ago. So that's a net win for the health of this game. Remember, that even if Reptile needs more (again, I doubt he does), NRS has been pretty light handed with nerfs and buffs (and rightfully so), so people need to quit yelling about how fucked Reptile still is. So in my view, these are good changes and they need to percolate a little.

 

[DubiousShenron]

You're reading my post but not understanding the message. I said they changed helped reptile.

Now continue your tangent if you must but keep me out of it since I instigated nothing

The "oh god" was in reference to the barrage of complaint that are incoming on this thread

 

[qspec]

You're reading my post but not understanding the message. I said they changed helped reptile.

Now continue your tangent if you must but keep me out of it since I instigated nothing

The "oh god" was in reference to the barrage of complaint that are incoming on this thread

I know. I wasn't saying you were at fault, and I understand the message. I'm saying "don't try to reason with these people". The handful of them that are willing to try out the changes are being reasonable, and the rest are talking about how Reptile is the worst character in any fighter forever ever.

 

[dribirut]

34 as a punisher does more damage meterless, has more reach and corner carries.
Cutting short 34 ex nimble is to provide a mixup granting overall more damage for the occasional situation. I'm not saying its the new go-to just the fact that its something we didn't have previously. One of Reptiles issues was he doesn't really have setups without using meter and this definitely provides one.

B1D4 I think you're sleeping on. People are SO conditioned to block high vs Reptile because of f41 that B1D4 hits a lot. I've been doing B1D4 Ex Klaw with a ton of success so no way am I going to hate on this buff. Also factor in B1 is only like -2 on block so you can do B1 B2 in say the corner after some conditioning. Also his B1D4 is also used very well in open space as a footsie tool so you can even use it as a hit select where if they run in they are now getting comboed by forceball and if they don't it recovers fast enough to be safe.

B34 is still a super hard punish, its not like Reptile doesn't have a legit 50/50. b2 in the corner with 1 bar does 39%, thats nothing to sneeze at.

7frame d3 actually gives him frame traps with 1, 12, 21, 3, 4, so thats also a nice thing to have. Keep in mind most 6frame pokes are -8 + so now when counter poking we are actually punishing leading into a 50/50 situation.

They touched a lot of his issues. Bad meter building? They gave him 2 more meterless combo starters. Awful pokes? 7frame poke. Does that change the fact his zoning is absolute trash? No, but 2/4 areas he needed to be improved on upon is a descent start, his zoning and variations still need to be looked at though. Like I said, the character while he may not be top 10 tournament viable just yet, at least hes fun to play now and its a beacon of hope. The damage buff on the strings that can't combo was a major troll through lol @GGA 16 Bit @GGA Dizzy

Damn kudos for staying positive but to me these buffs only serve to troll the crap out of us. To me the oooonly useful tool whatsoever is the d3 and everything else is completely useless. Why would I eeeeever use the high b1 string? Because of the low? You say people
Are used to blocking high vs reptile and that is why it is useful but in two weeks that will quickly change and the string will become useless. It is in absolutely no way a mixup.

Also 99% of punishes are quick and require fast normals so I will still keep using f3 over 3 as a punish 99% of the time. I think the other "buffs" are self explanatory as to why they are useless. And then they nerfed his damage on nimble.... Are you kidding me..

The only change as far as I know is the d3 and that only scratched the surface of what is wrong with reptile

 

[THTB]

Pretty sure it went from 49 to 43 or am I crazy? Noxious does 41% 1 bar in the corner..

The funny thing about his Nimble damage is he now gets the 49% off of his corner b2 combo with basilisk already active. It basically just flopped around, kinda.

 

[Phosferrax]

The funny thing about his Nimble damage is he now gets the 49% off of his corner b2 combo with basilisk already active. It basically just flopped around, kinda.

What combo is this?

 

[THTB]

What combo is this?

*Basilisk active* b2, 4, 4, 4, 4, f41 xx fast forceball, uppercut, f412 xx slide

 

[Gesture Required Ahead]

@STB Sgt Reed I labbed the F412 EX Spit thing for a bit. It's weird because it's similar to Demo Sonya where if the opponent knows the match-up you'll get blown up.

What I mean is that for some set-ups, ie (Corner) F412 xx AnyBall, walk back, D2, 21 xx EX Spit (28%) is blown up by tech-roll into wake-up but is safe if the opponent doesn't tech-roll. But another set-up ie (Midscreen) F412 xx Elbow Dash, NJP, 21, F412 xx EX Spit (29%) is the opposite where tech-rolling into wake-up makes the set-up safe but doing a straight-up wake-up blows it up.

So not only you're losing a bar and 7% of damage, but it's also unsafe. Not to mention if they delay wake-up they don't even get affected by the DoT but they no reason to anyways.

Of course, there's always your set-up of F412 xx Elbow Dash, F412 xx EX Spit and it's completely safe but it only does 23% and can only be done midscreen so IMO it doesn't justify the usage of a bar unless it starts off with 34 xx Poison Gas which ups the damage by a lot making it 30%

That's not to say that it's not an option you can use to throw your opponent off though if you need a final mix-up and raw damage won't kill.

EDIT: oops wrong thread.

 

[STB Sgt Reed]

@STB Sgt Reed I labbed the F412 EX Spit thing for a bit. It's weird because it's similar to Demo Sonya where if the opponent knows the match-up you'll get blown up.

What I mean is that for some set-ups, ie (Corner) F412 xx AnyBall, walk back, D2, 21 xx EX Spit (28%) is blown up by tech-roll into wake-up but is safe if the opponent doesn't tech-roll. But another set-up ie (Midscreen) F412 xx Elbow Dash, NJP, 21, F412 xx EX Spit (29%) is the opposite where tech-rolling into wake-up makes the set-up safe but doing a straight-up wake-up blows it up.

So not only you're losing a bar and 7% of damage, but it's also unsafe. Not to mention if they delay wake-up they don't even get affected by the DoT but they no reason to anyways.

Of course, there's always your set-up of F412 xx Elbow Dash, F412 xx EX Spit and it's completely safe but it only does 23% and can only be done midscreen so IMO it doesn't justify the usage of a bar unless it starts off with 34 xx Poison Gas which ups the damage by a lot making it 30%

That's not to say that it's not an option you can use to throw your opponent off though if you need a final mix-up and raw damage won't kill.

EDIT: oops wrong thread.

Soooo basically... it's that setup you throw out trying to kill b/c they've never seen it before. Sucks that it's not more viable, but I love setups like that.

Maybe I can find a way to get that same height after the second F412 but with more damage. B/c I believe the height and the fall time is what makes it safe.

Thanks for testing it out dude!

 

[dribirut]

These are the buffs he needs.
-More cancel advantage on f412 to where you can cancel into ballistic and still be able to back dash successfully at least
- 3 frame decrease on both recovery and startup on forceballs
- better hitbox on forceballs
- instance recovery on ex fballs
- 4 frame decrease on recovery on whiffed elbow dash

 

[Zaccel]

These are the buffs he needs.
-More cancel advantage on f412 to where you can cancel into ballistic and still be able to back dash successfully at least
- 3 frame decrease on both recovery and startup on forceballs
- better hitbox on forceballs
- instance recovery on ex fballs
- 4 frame decrease on recovery on whiffed elbow dash

Define "needs". It's not like he's unplayable without these.

-Basilisk is what could use improvement, not f412. f412 getting more advantage just for Nimble would be improving an already-good string. You also don't specify which Basilisk you intend to use in this situation. I assume f412 on block, EX Basilisk, backdash--but being able to "back dash successfully" is relative to the opponent and their attack range. I don't see what this would accomplish aside from letting Reptile spend a bar to get backdash punished. Meterless Basilisk would still be pretty pointless, too.

-Forceballs in general seem like a delicate move to strike the right balance with, but I think wanting all of those changes is going overboard. They'd be great, duh, but some moderation should be exercised in improving them. Improving frames across the board would be really good on its own. Faster startup could make new combos possible. Faster recovery would make them more useful for zoning (and meaties--by 'better hitbox' I presume you mean this, and yeah, it's annoying but not a deal-breaker). If frames alone were buffed, EX FBs would still have uses. Instant recovery would obviously be awesome, but I'd rather see FBs be more effective in general without adding a king's ransom of buffs all at once.

-I agree on ED whiff. The frames on block make it more beneficial for mobility than randumb attacking, but the whiff recovery feels just a hair too long for that. Just a few frames could make a difference (it could also make f412xxED njp combos easier, but that's neither here nor there). I don't think he needs it, but I don't think that'd be asking too much.

 

[Saviorself]

How did you guys like that nox reptile runner up at CEO

 

[Phosferrax]

Remember pre-release when everyone was saying when Noxious gets you in the corner you're dead from chip?

That was funny.

 

[Altsa]

No matter how low tier he is, Reptile still has 9-1 matchup against me. Probably because I have obsession blocking low all the time...

 

[ManBatHorse]

No matter how low tier he is, Reptile still has 9-1 matchup against me. Probably because I have obsession blocking low all the time...

You main Bone Shaper Shinnok?

 

[RapZiLLa54]

With the newest patch as they buffed all the characters with bad frame data but our Reptilian friend can we finally agree this character is bad? IMO hes now the worst character in the game.

No safe or + specials
8 frame full combo punishable dash (ex doesn't have armor even though it can still be blocked)
9 frame pokes
Uninspiring Variations that don't lend themselves to different MUs in most cases. (Noxious > Nimble vs fbc characters is the only one I can think of)
No frame traps
Bad meter building
Worst zoning in the game

Needed buffs:

1. 6 frame dash or 7 frame D1
2. Klaw -4 Safe OH that is also a hard knock down (yes this needs to be an overhead. EX should still be full combo punishable, although maybe it shouldn't since safe armored launchers aren't uncommon in this game) This will help his meter building.
3. Forceballs should mirror SubZeros Iceball start up and recovery on both Reg and EX
4. EX slide should be a hard knockdown
5. F21 & F41 0 on block. b34 -6.
6. 4% damage increase to Noxious and Deceptive.
7. Remove the moveset to choose short, medium or far Pounce. db4 should only perform far pounce as short and medium pounce are completely useless. It also is difficult to pull off the far pounce db4f because slide is df4. EX Pounce should have less recovery on Hit to allow for more combo potential.

Variation Buffs

1. EX noxious lasts its full duration regardless of being hit or not
2. Reg Nimble allows Reptile to Block, should also have better recovery, its unusable at this point.
3. Reg Invis has the same start up/recovery as EX Invis, EX Invis recovers faster allowing for frametraps and more combo potential. Startup of Invis absorbs projectiles and builds additional meter.

What do you guys think? @THTB @RM Cossner @G4S J360 @colt

Love how a lot of my suggestions ended up making it after the last 2 patches.
Faster poke with d3 7 frames
Klaw is now safe and Pounce is the safe OH allowing for some more mixup potential / meter building BOTH EX versions are full combo punishable.
EX invis leads to frametraps / more combo potential, Noxious / Deceptive got damage increases.
Forceballs are now scary thanks to better recovery, you can also stop slowball practically right in front of you. Acid spit does more damage for trades


We can now close this thread, thank you to all the haters who thought I was crazy, can't wait to see those people bitch and moan now because Reptile now feels like a complete character with viable variations now.

 

[Bobbyxton_]

We didn't make it.

Rapzilla made it. <3

 

[llabslb]

Well isn't this a bitch to read lmao

 

[Syzoth]

Well isn't this a bitch to read lmao

Keep in mind Reptile was a very different character then. Now no body would claim reptile is bottom 5 . . . I wouldn't think

 

[the.hamburglar]

I have been playing him for a week and while I may not know everything about him, I think he might need a damage buff because his damage barely maxes out at 30 and unless you can get really situational set ups, hes lacking. Forceballs recovery would be fine though. I dont think hes bottom 5 but hes on the lower end of mid tier
Edit: I have really only played Nox so I know that the Nimble gets damage and a better poke besides D3 could be really good

 

[Tweedy]

I have been playing him for a week and while I may not know everything about him, I think he might need a damage buff because his damage barely maxes out at 30 and unless you can get really situational set ups, hes lacking. Forceballs recovery would be fine though. I dont think hes bottom 5 but hes on the lower end of mid tier
Edit: I have really only played Nox so I know that the Nimble gets damage and a better poke besides D3 could be really good

You can get over 30% meterlessly off of F4 midscreen. His 50/50s don't do much midscreen but they're safe. He does more damage without meter than Alien.