Deceptive Reptile got a pretty good buff to his Invisibility with this patch. He got some frame traps and new combos and in general it's easier to get your Invisibility up for offensive set ups, but they also gave him this:
That is Deceptive Reptile's Invisibility Parry. It is a ridiculously useful parry.
It works because Invisibility(dd3+block) has a hit of armor. Since the entire move is only 16 frames you can activate it and use that armor to absorb a hit and then go into a normal to punish the opponents recovery. Generally you can go into a full combo with f412 which does 34% midscreen with no bar beyond what you already spent on the parry.
You can use it for footsies:
If you guess wrong or time it too early it's ok because you can just block. Even if you get hit somehow the Invisibility eats the damage from the first hit and the opponent will probably screw up the juggle because you're invisible. If you really misread and the opponent backed off instead that's ok too because you're completely safe and were actually spending the bar on an offensive setup - now you're playing invisible footsies
You can use it to punish projectiles:
On second thought it might be better to just use ex-slide. I dunno, take it to the lab maybe? I bet this is good
You can use it to interrupt gaps in strings for a full combo:
If the opponent tries something tricky in anticipation of you armoring through the gaps it's ok - you might still be able to punish and even if you can't you're probably safe and maybe even still invisible.
You can use it to escape set ups:
If you guess wrong, that's ok. You were probably going to guess wrong anyway. Quan Chi got buffed more than Reptile so that one's on NRS
You can use it to punish attempts at pressure while you're negative:
Cassie's ex-flipkick hasn't got shit on this. If they were too scared and blocked they just gave you a free invisible mix up
You can use it to ignore mixups while you get up:
Even if they block to bait a wake up you're safe. And invisible.
Sometimes you can even punish their meaty attacks:
No need to make a read here. You just wake up with it and blow up whatever they did.
Oh, this works the other way around too. Blowing up wake up attacks:
Armor? Two hits? Safe on block? Who cares?
Some characters can't really do anything about it:
I'm not making reads here, I'm pressing the same thing every time.
Even if they have a move that hits twice fast enough to break the parry, you can usually block it and punish:
Did you notice I'm setting that up off pounce? I end half my combos with that move anyway. If they delay their wake up they have to block an invisible mix up. I guess they can back dash and deal with invisible zoning
So, yeah, this move is pretty good. It's armor that's safe(not just on block, it's almost impossible to punish) and leads to good damage. Plus it gives him a defense buff(activating invisibility makes it so the next hit he takes doesn't deal damage*) and doubles as an offensive set up. When you add in the the frame traps he gets off it now(did you f21~invis is like plus 6 on block and combo's on hit? That's a gdlk footsie) plus the increased combo potential this is probably the single best move in the game.
The only thing better than an Invisibility parry is an invisible Invisibility parry
@THTB
@G4S J360
@huh
@MastererBetty (I'm tagging you even though I'm still salty about that match at Evo two years ago)
@Fraud Blank
(sorry all you other Reptile guys, I don't know all of you yet!)
@Eminent
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@ando1184
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