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Blind speculation! Which variations look like poopoo??

JDM

Noob
Invisible Reptile looks useless. And now that theres pushblocks confirmed in, noxious looks pretty meh too.
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
It adds lightning shooting out of a guys hands. If you don't think that's awesome I advise you to reassess your priorities in life. It probably won't be as powerful as Displacer but that doesn't stop it looking amazing.
The badass hand lightning in Thunder God not only does multiple hits(which is great against characters with good armored movement attacks and especially armored wake-up options) which means extra damage, it lifts the opponent making juggles easier and longer.



The player finishes the combo with another special move, but you can clearly see there's ample time to throw in a lot of nasty damage with a good combo.

I'm sure it does some good chip as well.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
Invisibility completely removes the ability to see your opponent. You can't tell exactly where they are, so it's harder to space out your normals against theirs, and you cannot visually see what normal they may be throwing out. You don't know if they're ducking. If taken advantage of properly, invisibility is actually super fucked up. Even the camouflage that we've seen recently can make it hard to see exactly what is going on. That's why when you see players go invisible, their opponent will appear to panic and do something predictable such as a wakeup option as soon as they see invisibility. That loss of visibility is huge in fighting games.

It's a lot easier to deal with now, compared to the classic MKs, due to how much the camera pans depending on positioning. But back in UMK3, Reptile and Robot Smoke were top tier partially due to invisibility, and tbh, I'd imagine Reptile could have flourished more in MK9 if the players had really mastered using invisibility.
I strongly disagree with that.

There are dozen or more characters in which have some sort of tracking moves - teleports, projectiles etc... They will give no shits about Reptile invisibility. In fact not only they will give no shits about it but Reptile player gonna screw himself even more since he too won't see hes character after using inv.

Same goes for spectral Ermac, what good is levitate if half of the cast have teleport, tracking moves or some sort of aerial projectiles? Makes no sense.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
The badass hand lightning in Thunder God not only does multiple hits(which is great against characters with good armored movement attacks and especially armored wake-up options) which means extra damage, it lifts the opponent making juggles easier and longer.



The player finishes the combo with another special move, but you can clearly see there's ample time to throw in a lot of nasty damage with a good combo.

I'm sure it does some good chip as well.
Unless of course you got a character which have fast reflect move in which case he doesn't give two shits about Raiden Thunder God variation.

Althou gotta admit those traps look cool.
 

Charybdis

We are returned! Death to the False Emperor!
The badass hand lightning in Thunder God not only does multiple hits(which is great against characters with good armored movement attacks and especially armored wake-up options) which means extra damage, it lifts the opponent making juggles easier and longer.



The player finishes the combo with another special move, but you can clearly see there's ample time to throw in a lot of nasty damage with a good combo.

I'm sure it does some good chip as well.
Glorious. I feel like I'm one of the few people who's still got Raiden on their 'possible main' list. Admittedly, that list is half the game, but still he's probably only fourth behind Kotal, Kenshi and Takeda. I've never really been much for MMH-style orbs, Displacer looks pretty strong but Raiden looks so fucking cool with TG and those effects
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
They all look useful to me. Lol how is invisible reptile bad? How do you play footsies with what you can't see?
Especially on a character with an incredibly fast and far reaching dash attack, a fast low slide, and a jumping overhead strike.

Hell we don't even know how his strings look, if he has a few good high-low or overhead strings it'll be even more ridiculous.


Then you have the fact that he gets to put even more pressure on with slow and stopped forceballs.
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
Unless of course you got a character which have fast reflect move in which case he doesn't give two shits about Raiden Thunder God variation.

Althou gotta admit those traps look cool.
Thunder God isn't the trap variation, that projectile is universal(though he MB'd it in the gif), and you can't reflect the extended combos because they aren't projectiles.

What are you talking about?
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
I strongly disagree with that.

There are dozen or more characters in which have some sort of tracking moves - teleports, projectiles etc... They will give no shits about Reptile invisibility. In fact not only they will give no shits about it but Reptile player gonna screw himself even more since he too won't see hes character after using inv.

Same goes for spectral Ermac, what good is levitate if half of the cast have teleport, tracking moves or some sort of aerial projectiles? Makes no sense.
Going invisible doesn't remove Reptile's ability to block.

Let them teleport, you can just punish them and they literally won't see what's coming.

I mean, you're auto-baiting them because they can't even tell if you're blocking or not.

Are you really going to be throwing out incredibly unsafe teleports when you don't even know what your opponent is doing?

And projectiles can be dodged and blocked as well, or snuffed out because this game has projectile collision and reptile has two different projectiles.
 

Charybdis

We are returned! Death to the False Emperor!
Thunder God isn't the trap variation, that projectile is universal(though he MB'd it in the gif), and you can't reflect the extended combos because they aren't projectiles.

What are you talking about?
I'm pretty sure he's implying that Raiden uses that projectile to get in because zaps Kano and Kenshi has Blade Reflect so Kenshi can just body Raiden.
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
I'm pretty sure he's implying that Raiden uses that projectile to get in because zaps Kano and Kenshi has Blade Reflect so Kenshi can just body Raiden.
He said "about Raiden's Thunder God variation" but what he was referring to wasn't a Thunder God unique move, and he doesn't even need it to get in.
 

Phosferrax

Original Liu Kang cop.
I'm pretty sure he's implying that Raiden uses that projectile to get in because zaps Kano and Kenshi has Blade Reflect so Kenshi can just body Raiden.
Except that raiden can dash cancel the projectile to bait the parry and punish Kenshi.
 
Might be a dumb question but in the esl cup tourney, what exactly is "blind pick"? Like when you hide your character selection and variation?
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
He said "about Raiden's Thunder God variation" but what he was referring to wasn't a Thunder God unique move, and he doesn't even need it to get in.
Actually he was right, that's what i was thinking about. My mistake about saying "Thunder God variation".

Edit: About that Raiden cancel, sure he can but from what we seen reflect move is gonna be extremely fast, so i wouldn't get my hopes high with this "punish".

Going invisible doesn't remove Reptile's ability to block.

Let them teleport, you can just punish them and they literally won't see what's coming.

I mean, you're auto-baiting them because they can't even tell if you're blocking or not.

Are you really going to be throwing out incredibly unsafe teleports when you don't even know what your opponent is doing?

And projectiles can be dodged and blocked as well, or snuffed out because this game has projectile collision and reptile has two different projectiles.
I'm going on a limb here but im pretty sure that most EX Teleports gonna be safe. Not to mention that after Kenshi teleports you can use normal attack of your choosing which looks safe even without EX.

And you still are missing the point coz on top of all that, Reptile player has almost the same disadvantage as the opponent, he also don't see where exactly hes character is. So nope, i still think Reptile "invisibility" variation looks weak especially if you consider that the DOT one and the Flash trait style one looks strong.
 

JDM

Noob
You mean the thing that requires two bars and full stamina just to not take block damage? Right....
It all depends on the meter build but yeah, pretty much. Noxious you have to use 1-2 bars to upgrade your own chip too so you're burning meter as well. Being able to push Reptile off is pretty big.
 

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.
Actually he was right, that's what i was thinking about. My mistake about saying "Thunder God variation".



I'm going on a limb here but im pretty sure that most EX Teleports gonna be safe. Not to mention that after Kenshi teleports you can use normal attack of your choosing which looks safe even without EX.

And you still are missing the point coz on top of all that, Reptile player has almost the same disadvantage as the opponnent, he also don't see where exactly hes character is. So nope, i still think Reptile "invisibility" variations looks weak especially if you consider that the DOT one and the Flash trait style one looks strong.

It can be safe but it would still be blocked, they wasted a meter because they couldn't tell if I was attacking or not. Then they have to either hope that I don't throw out a fast normal, or that whatever attack I do(because they can't see it) coincides with how they plan to block.

I think most competent people can keep track of the character they are controlling. He's had invisibility before, and i've never had a problem keeping track of myself when using it.
 

Phosferrax

Original Liu Kang cop.
It all depends on the meter build but yeah, pretty much. Noxious you have to use 1-2 bars to upgrade your own chip too so you're burning meter as well. Being able to push Reptile off is pretty big.
No it's not because he does it meterlessly. If I was playing Reptile and the opponent used 2 bars to not even break a combo, or do any damage to me at all then I would be laughing. How can you think that is big? It's not like he can't do anything besides stand next you and chip you.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
It can be safe but it would still be blocked, they wasted a meter because they couldn't tell if I was attacking or not. Then they have to either hope that I don't throw out a fast normal, or that whatever attack I do(because they can't see it) coincides with how they plan to block.
Pretty sure that's not the case, if EX teleports can be advantages on block (like MK9 Scorpion for example). That would mean you have to guess after the teleport which will hit you their next move which puts you in a lose lose situation.

I think most competent people can keep track of the character they are controlling. He's had invisibility before, and i've never had a problem keeping track of myself when using it.
Reptile never was fully invisible before, atleast not in MK9, so hard to tell.
 

Shad

Magnificent ninja hairspray
I'm barely two steps above filthy casual, but even I've been questioning Spectral Ermac since it was revealed. Vs. Gunslinger Erron Black....eeesh