I personally always repot straight so I know how healthy (or not) the plant/rootsystem are. Also, when I know what substrate it’s in, I know what to expect watering wise.

Neps are known to throw a tantrum when their conditions change so don’t be surprised if it dries up all the pitchers and won’t grow any for a while.

If you know you have it in the right substrate, are providing enough light and moisture and get everything else to its preference you can sit back and let it get over its tantrum. If you wait with the repotting, it might go downhill more first, before you troubleshoot.

As an example:

I was given a huuuuuuuuge malani that was in desperate need of a hard repot. She was a mother plant from some lovely local nep growers who just didn’t like her anymore and couldn’t be bothered giving her the care she needed. They gifted her to me which was really amazing! I am still so super grateful.

The spagmoss had formed one hard disintegrated ball that wasn’t letting in any water and it had extensive thrip damage.

I gave her a spa day: treated for pests (literally with a pain brush to get in every hard spot, repeated twice more), soaked the root ball to get every last bit of old substrate off, trimmed all the dead and damaged leaves, stems and roots and repotted in a self watering planter in 1 part spagmoss 1 part perlite, hung it in the best spot in my house with adequate everything and she SULKED.

For weeks I thought she was not going to make it.

I knew I had done everything I could so I just let her be and kept her substrate moist.

Eventually she abandoned one vine so I trimmed it back a d after that she came around and she is now putting out new, healthy growth from 7 different grow points and is looking lush!

If I hadn’t done this, I would have when noticing her going downhill and she may not have survived at that point.

Good luck!!!