landing the njp after 321 dash and being more aggressive with reptile

[Dannyboy]

Hi guys, i was hoping if anyone could give me some idea of how to play more aggressive with reptile since he is my main.( i'm too much of a zoner). because of this people get the better of me if they put me under pressure. i also need to be able time in a njp for that exta damage. if thats either with a normal fb or even better which i think is harder 321 elbow dash. atm my only bnb consist of ffb 32 sfb 321 slide. and because i'm not aggressive enough i can never land 122 ffb 32 sfb 321 slide. (i can land it 100% in the lab, but i keep getting punished when i try to get that close for some reason)

if anyone could give me any criticism/tips it would be much appreciated

much respect for anyone who can give a helping hand in any way

Dan

 

[foodlegs]

as for the njp, there's a few ways you can help train yourself to time it better, but ultimately it will come down to muscle memory. one thing that helped me personally was to press the punch button as soon as i see reptile's feet leave the ground. i've also seen other people say that actually trying to do it right as you leave the ground is a good idea, i never really went much for that, though. also, absolutely make sure you're not spamming the njp button too much or you'll never get it. press it once, twice at the most.

as for being more aggressive, i can't really think of a good way to tell you how to do this concisely. i think aggressiveness just comes along with confidence in your playstyle. in general, make sure you do a mix of slow or fast force balls on an opponent who's on the ground. you do this to force them to block instead of using one of their wake-up options and being punished. from there you can obviously just run immediately behind the forceball with an elbow dash and start your blockstring or crossups, whatever you want. of course, be careful about parrying characters like nightwolf and smoke. another ambiguous tip is to practice your mixups with your blockstrings -- if you have an opponent who's wising up to your 3, 2, xx slide for example you can do 3, 2, acid hand. if you're actually the one being pressured, all i can say is play it defensive and smart, predict their mix-ups as best you can, and the second that you see the opportunity, elbow dash. elbow dash is your most important reflex in this situation. it's fast enough to actually slip between blockstrings, so this is where reptile shines.
can't really think of much else that might help, and i might not've even told you anything you didn't know. i hope i did, though!

 

[MortySeinfeld]

My suggestion for landing the NJP would be to plink it. NJP is about the only thing in this game as far as I can tell where plinking is useful because you want to get it to come out as early as possible.

What I mean by plink is:

You can get a NJP to come out by jumping straight up and pressing either 1 or 2, it is the same normal. When using NJP, press 2 then 1 consecutively, kind of like you're piano'ing the two buttons very quickly. This increases your chances that the NJP will come out and you will find that you land it more reliably.

Your typical bnb that you want to get down is:

321, bf2, NJP, 32 fastball, slow ball 321 (slide, slow ball or ex slow-ball for wake up pressure).

Also, as far as pressuring; Make sure you come up with some block strings. A lot of people focus so much on landing combo's that they neglect to have answers for what they do when they can't land combos.

When your opponent is blocking, you are building meter and still doing some bit of damage.

If you aren't already, use slow force-balls as a means of command dashing in. You DO NOT want the command dash to actually hit the opponent, so make sure you know your spacing so that it stops in front of them.

Once in front of them, attempt to anticipate how your opponent is going to react or how they will be defending and remember that the slow ball is there to prevent them from turning offense on you in some capacity.

some things I like to do after the dash are:

- d4 xx db2
- 321 xx db2 (If hit confirm, see combo above)
- 3, throw (tick throw setup)
- 32, throw (tick throw setup)

etc.

You get the idea. You should be using the 321 string as a hit confirm, and if you recognize that they are defending, typically end that string in a db2 which creates space and is a safe overhead ender. If you are feeling risky, sometimes maybe end the 321 into a slide for a low ender, but I would not necessarily recommend over-using this because of how punishable it is.

 

[Dannyboy]

- Foodlegs

thankyou very much foodlegs for your help. your advice about the njp is VERY helpful also i agree what you are saying about being more confident and useing mixups if my opponent is becoming wise to my attacks. useing fb while there are grounded is also good tips thankyou

- MortySeinfeld

your advise is great also i was wondering if you could tell me what db2 and bf2 is on the controller lol sorry i am stil a beginner your advise/tips on mixups and command dash/ fbs and anticipating there moves is a great help for my pressure

 

[Dannyboy]

db2 = acid hand
bf2 = elbow dash

lol my bad ahha

 

[foodlegs]

no problem at all!
also, just so you know since it took me forever to figure out, the buttons in the shorthand notations you'll see all over fighting game websites go like this

1 = X or Square
2 = Y or Triangle
3 = A or Cross
4 = B or Circle

and stuff like "db" obviously means like down back
so for instance if you were on a ps3 controller b2 would be back + triangle

 

[JHCRANE 14]

Ya, there's different way to land the njp of the elbow dash. I tried the piano system and it does just not work for me. I am more of a muscle memory guy and I just have it timed down to where I got it almost every time. One tip as a reptile main myself. When ever you have spare meter end your combos with your EX acid stream, not for the damage, but for the ability to completly prevent the wake up attack and to get great spacing that puts your opponet right back in range for forceballs and acid spit.

 

[noobharvester]

Ya, there's different way to land the njp of the elbow dash. I tried the piano system and it does just not work for me. I am more of a muscle memory guy and I just have it timed down to where I got it almost every time. One tip as a reptile main myself. When ever you have spare meter end your combos with your EX acid stream, not for the damage, but for the ability to completly prevent the wake up attack and to get great spacing that puts your opponet right back in range for forceballs and acid spit.

Interesting.

I typically end combos with 321, ex slow ball. Dash up pressure. I'll try your ex spit to see how that goes. How do you normally follow that one up?

 

[shura30]

- d4 xx db2

i can pull this off in practice mode but can't in a vs match
is some sort of glitch?

I typically end combos with 321, ex slow ball.

won't this trigger the force ball glitch?

 

[open collector]

- d4 xx db2

i can pull this off in practice mode but can't in a vs match
is some sort of glitch?

and I'll second that......haven't been able to pull it off online....kind of sucks cause its so useful. I've gotten the 122, sfb, njp online a few times but never the 321, dash, njp thats a tough one online.

 

[nightblade420]

yeah hitting the 321, dash online is damn near impossible

 

[PND OmegaK]

I can pull it off very consistently online, probably cause online is all I have to play.

 

[JHCRANE 14]

Interesting.

I typically end combos with 321, ex slow ball. Dash up pressure. I'll try your ex spit to see how that goes. How do you normally follow that one up?

Dependes on how my opponets react. It is mainly a character specific combo ender for people you want to get away from you, like Johnny Cage and Liu Kang. I don't do it everytime however, I usally follow it up with fast forceball and then continue to zone them out.

 

[MattNasty]

wow, this thread has helped me a ton. i started playing with reptile 2 days ago and couldn't for the life of me, figure it out. THX people.

 

[sLeeK]

Yay more reptile bandwagoners -__- Do you people know there is already multiple threads on these two subjects................

FYI - The njp is not impossible to do online.. I do nearly every damn match.

 

[THTB]

Who cares who bandwagons? It's whatever...people play who they want to play. People gotta learn to respect it. Damn.

Anyway, to comment on Reptile aggressiveness...I'll be honest. Reptile doesn't really want to be in your face and aggressive unless he absolutely has to, and in such cases, it's usually to build meter a hair faster. Reptile is a midscreen zoner character at heart. Just about everything he does is designed to keep the opponent in a magical range. Once in that range, Reptile can do whatever the hell he wants. The way I see it, that's aggressive play with Reptile.

 

[MattNasty]

People call me band wagon no matter who I pick lol. Reptile is kinda fun to play with and this piano thing has even helped me with my cyrax.

 

[BAWLS MAHONEY]

Id rather do a combo that has 100% chance of landing then some fancy dash jump cancel combo that only works some of the time looks nice and all but is not really practical , i main reptile ..