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Reptile General Discussion

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Dolphin-Dive

Observer
I have played scorpion, Stryker, cyrax, subzero, kung lao, and motaro kameos extensively and I can assure you that is not his best kameo. You could have maaaaybe made an argument for it prepatch but certainly not now.

His normal invisibility set ups are sub par. His back throw combo is extremely inconsistent. His ambush pressure is now too expensive. He actually gets lower damage than Stryker, scorpion and sub zero for the sake resources.

Sonic fox I can confidently say is talking out of their ass at this point when it comes to reptile.

There is not a single thing that cyrax does for reptile that Stryker doesn’t do better at this point. The only thing maybe is the b2 hold slide combo on the corner that’s it
It started out in early November with them responding to Dragon on Twitter regarding Reptile's tier placement, stating "I’m literally studying Reptile all day today when I get home because I think he’s so stupid". Nearly a month later, most of the character-related discussion they've been in depth about is conveniently about Sindel, or even Shao.

Anytime someone asks about Reptile, the response from them is more or less just "Soon" or "Stay tuned".
Much like the Reptile's ability to go invisible, Sonic's evidence for the character's strength is pretty nonexistent so far. I hope they actually managed to find something groundbreaking but I'm not holding my breath.
 
Pretty sure Stryker is his best kameo. Here are some more sets using Stryker (some tournament sees ) vs players like: sonic, mightyunjust, honeybee, darkthegoatz, etc





Stryker allows reptile to loop b31 pressure and build some serious meter and chip damage. He can do b31 and if it doesn’t hit, he can cancel into b313 normal elbow dash into Stryker kameo. If they block the whole sequence you get 6% chip and almost half a bar of meter and be left at plus ten.

He also gets:
semi safe wake up option
Corner pressure with f11 into Stryker bombs
43% midscreen one bar one kameo combos
Corner invisibility combos
Keeps his mb elbow dash safe and plusbframes after
 
Been starting to use Motaro with Reptile recently. But I noticed in training mode that the reflect skill sometimes works on Lao low hat and sometimes it doesn't. Same with Sindel's low hair shot. Am I missing something?
 
Yep I definitely don't agree with Cyrax being Reptile's best Kameo. Stryker, Scorpion and Goro are my picks

New Honeybee video reacting to new "Reptile Tech Video" by Sonic:
 
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Paradoxxx

You smell of desperation...
I have played scorpion, Stryker, cyrax, subzero, kung lao, and motaro kameos extensively and I can assure you that is not his best kameo. You could have maaaaybe made an argument for it prepatch but certainly not now.

His normal invisibility set ups are sub par. His back throw combo is extremely inconsistent. His ambush pressure is now too expensive. He actually gets lower damage than Stryker, scorpion and sub zero for the sake resources.

Sonic fox I can confidently say is talking out of their ass at this point when it comes to reptile.

There is not a single thing that cyrax does for reptile that Stryker doesn’t do better at this point. The only thing maybe is the b2 hold slide combo on the corner that’s it
i tried many kameos,but sektor is still my favorite.so many set ups and pure pressure, i just love it.
 
When going for Scropion Invisibility setups, what's the trick for hitting the force ball after the invisibility move (+Scorpion fireball)? Are there any visual cues?
 

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
When going for Scropion Invisibility setups, what's the trick for hitting the force ball after the invisibility move (+Scorpion fireball)? Are there any visual cues?
After Reptile sticks his hand in the enemy, and before he removes it, you call scorpion with DOWN+KAMEO (this is important, normal kameo and far kameo WILL NOT WORK!). But it takes muscle memory to confortably pull it out consistently. I fortunately got it now, but I had many, MANY botched matches with Reptile before that.
 

ticklebandit!

Apprentice
After Reptile sticks his hand in the enemy, and before he removes it, you call scorpion with DOWN+KAMEO (this is important, normal kameo and far kameo WILL NOT WORK!). But it takes muscle memory to confortably pull it out consistently. I fortunately got it now, but I had many, MANY botched matches with Reptile before that.
Do you input down kameo or up down invis first?? Still haven't used Scorpion all that much, have had trouble with this kombo as well.
 
After Reptile sticks his hand in the enemy, and before he removes it, you call scorpion with DOWN+KAMEO (this is important, normal kameo and far kameo WILL NOT WORK!). But it takes muscle memory to confortably pull it out consistently. I fortunately got it now, but I had many, MANY botched matches with Reptile before that.
Thank you man, the visual cue will help a lot! It's funny because we see people using characters and assume moves and combos are simple in execution but when you try for yourself there's always some crucial specific detail.
 

Paradoxxx

You smell of desperation...
So what are those setups? Can you describe it more?
well now that sektor is buffed,the flame thrower comes faster & it's plus on bolck, so you can end all your combos in a restand,especially in the corner so a sequence would be combo starter to force ball , 23, s4 ffb, f32 invis rocket, if you open them up combo starter to force ball , 23, s4 ffb, f2 flame thrower. Also mid screen ending combos in j223 dash and uprocket, creates a perfect scenario for pressure on wake up with 114,if you hit them the uprocket hits them and you can combo them , if they block it it's still your turn. there are many more due to the vesratility of the up rocket, but i can show you more if we play , too much writing...
 

ticklebandit!

Apprentice
well now that sektor is buffed,the flame thrower comes faster & it's plus on bolck, so you can end all your combos in a restand,especially in the corner so a sequence would be combo starter to force ball , 23, s4 ffb, f32 invis rocket, if you open them up combo starter to force ball , 23, s4 ffb, f2 flame thrower. Also mid screen ending combos in j223 dash and uprocket, creates a perfect scenario for pressure on wake up with 114,if you hit them the uprocket hits them and you can combo them , if they block it it's still your turn. there are many more due to the vesratility of the up rocket, but i can show you more if we play , too much writing...
maybe I’m understanding this set up wrong, but for your corner set up can’t they just poke you out of invis and still have time to block up rocket?? Or like what’s the timing on up rocket? I really want this pairing to work
 

Dolphin-Dive

Observer
maybe I’m understanding this set up wrong, but for your corner set up can’t they just poke you out of invis and still have time to block up rocket?? Or like what’s the timing on up rocket? I really want this pairing to work
Sektor is an interesting assist in general, I definitely think the versatility of Missile ambush can pair well with Reptile's overall versatility.

There are numerous timings you could employ with F32 and Rocket ambush, in fact, I would encourage you to mess around with different call timings both midscreen and in the corner to get a feel for how the assist works. Here's a simple example off of F32xinvis, you can call missile right as Reptile's claw makes contact with their stomach, this will make the missile hit them just as they're waking up, allowing for a simple armor break paired with something such as B3.

Another interesting setup would be calling missile right as you visually see Reptile begin the invisibility animation, where he "Vomits" over himself, and then meaty with B31. This timing will cause the missile to hit right after the 1 of the B31 lands, if they D1 or input a string, the missile will grant you a full punish off the hit stun. That being said, the weakness of this assist is in the lack of frame advantage it provides, it very much relies on your opponent's impatience and willingness to mash on wake-up rather than to simply block.

Further, you do not have enough frame advantage to do anything more than D1 if they block the missile. I'm not sure if anyone has actually calculated the frame advantage up missile has, but the opponent recovers so quickly I have a difficult time believing it is anything more than one frame of advantage. However, now that you have them conditioned to block after B31 you may begin trying other things, such as simply doing B3 into a micro backdash to gauge their reaction. Are they respectful of this change? Do they still D1 at a similar timing? Do they forward dash? Do they reversal? Maybe you slightly alter your call timing so that now the missile hit slightly before the 1 of B31 to armor break, or even later than the initial setup I told you.

This is a very lab-heavy assist, do not look at it as a simple frame advantage hog, you can't necessarily call it on the fly like you can with Kano's knives, Stryker's grenades', Goro's Up Punch, or even Cyrax's horizontal chopper, there's too much startup and too little advantage for that. But you CAN use it to surprise your opponent given that this is an assist that comes from a vertical, aerial approach, rather than the horizontal one the other assists do. It can be difficult for the opponent to understand WHEN the missile will actually hit during knockdown situations because of this, which is why you should play around with different timings and strings, in order to throw them off. You may call it midscreen after ending a combo with fang drop, forcing the opponent to block on wake-up fullscreen, and allowing you touse MB slow Forceball to enforce your zoning game.

Or, you can call it during the invisibility animation in the corner, which allows you to get a full combo off forward throw, and results in invisibility setplay on F32 knockdown given you'll be fully invisible by the time you end in that string. Look at his other assists, the quick teleport punch may not give you a full combo fullscreen on hit but it DOES allow Reptile to elbow dash in and meaty them. The buffs to flamethrower also compliment you from a neutral and pressure perspective, opponents will have other layers of space control to worry about in addition to your forceballs. Experiment with him, he may not be as immediately effective as Stryker in terms of ambush offense, but he can definitely throw people off online.
 
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vegeta

Saiyan Prince
Sektor is an interesting assist in general, I definitely think the versatility of Missile ambush can pair well with Reptile's overall versatility.

There are numerous timings you could employ with F32 and Rocket ambush, in fact, I would encourage you to mess around with different call timings both midscreen and in the corner to get a feel for how the assist works. Here's a simple example off of F32xinvis, you can call missile right as Reptile's claw makes contact with their stomach, this will make the missile hit them just as they're waking up, allowing for a simple armor break paired with something such as B3.

Another interesting setup would be calling missile right as you visually see Reptile begin the invisibility animation, where he "Vomits" over himself, and then meaty with B31. This timing will cause the missile to hit right after the 1 of the B31 lands, if they D1 or input a string, the missile will grant you a full punish off the hit stun. That being said, the weakness of this assist is in the lack of frame advantage it provides, it very much relies on your opponent's impatience and willingness to mash on wake-up rather than to simply block.

Further, you do not have enough frame advantage to do anything more than D1 if they block the missile. I'm not sure if anyone has actually calculated the frame advantage up missile has, but the opponent recovers so quickly I have a difficult time believing it is anything more than one frame of advantage. However, now that you have them conditioned to block after B31 you may begin trying other things, such as simply doing B3 into a micro backdash to gauge their reaction. Are they respectful of this change? Do they still D1 at a similar timing? Do they forward dash? Do they reversal? Maybe you slightly alter your call timing so that now the missile hit slightly before the 1 of B31 to armor break, or even later than the initial setup I told you.

This is a very lab-heavy assist, do not look at it as a simple frame advantage hog, you can't necessarily call it on the fly like you can with Kano's knives, Stryker's grenades', Goro's Up Punch, or even Cyrax's horizontal chopper, there's too much startup and too little advantage for that. But you CAN use it to surprise your opponent given that this is an assist that comes from a vertical, aerial approach, rather than the horizontal one the other assists do. It can be difficult for the opponent to understand WHEN the missile will actually hit during knockdown situations because of this, which is why you should play around with different timings and strings, in order to throw them off. You may call it midscreen after ending a combo with fang drop, forcing the opponent to block on wake-up fullscreen, and allowing you use MB slow Forceball to encourage your zoning game.

Or, you can call it during the invisibility animation in the corner, which allows you to get a full combo off forward throw, and results in invisibility setplay on F32 knockdown given you'll be fully invisible by the time you end in that string. Look at his other assists, the quick teleport punch may not give you a full combo fullscreen on hit but it DOES allow Reptile to elbow dash in and meaty them. The buffs to flamethrower also compliment you from a neutral and pressure perspective, opponents will have other layers of space control to worry about in addition to your forceballs. Experiment with him, he may not be as immediately effective as Stryker in terms of ambush offense, but he can definitely throw people off online.
I use Sektor as my Go to assist for any character I try to use since he's my favorite and I agree he's very versatile but lab heavy. You can give chars a lot of scummy stuff but I feel a lot of people don't use him because he's very lab-timing heavy (not just pull the trigger for plus). I fought a Reptile-Sektor Last week and I did win mostly because I kinda "get" what Sektor wants to do but he definitely caught me off guard with some weird stuff. I blocked a lot which much like you said is what he preys on people not doing but because of that natural "hesitation" he uses that to keep pressure. Was def an interesting team comp
 

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
So what’s the go to strategy against a running Omni-man/Lao team? How do you do anything?
I have trouble against this team if the player is experienced as well. One thing I saw Honeybee do is, while using Reptile/Scorpion, is to call Scorpion as a meat shield against Lao's hat when Omni-man is setting up that full screen overhead. That way, you just block standing, always, and the omni-man player loses the (IMO) scariest thing he has, which is the full screen hard to blockable. Otherwise, guess when he will go for staggers and try hitting him with combos lol.
 

SnowboardRX

^ You have no idea who this guy is ^
So, how we liking the Peacemaker matchup so far? Personally, the retreating ones seem like a problem for Reptile tbh but could just be me not used to the matchup yet.