I’ve read through the matchup thread but this is something I’m constantly having trouble with. What are good options against a blocked messiah kick?
Headbutt kind of just goes through the low and overhead, whiffing both and leaving you open to a punsh.
I’ve lp dash punched the overhead a few times but it whiffs often for some reason.
EX dash punch can hit rufus doing the low attack but I whiff often on the overhead. And strangely enough I’ve been armor broken but I thought the lk follow up was a block string.
What do you guys do and what’s your reasoning?
It’s a guess from both players. Rufus has a few options. Delayed light kick followup which will trade mostly, overhead, the sweep, and…doing nothing. the light kick follow up breaks armor.
These are the options that I remember…
reversal jab dash straight- if he does the overhead, dash punch will whiff and you get a standing punish(ex upper loop). if he does the low he will get counterhit by the dash straight on the ground. if he does the delay light kick followup, you’ll either trade or get beaten
neutral jump…counters a few of rufus’s options but not completely reliable
block, the only thing you can’t punish is overhead…you should be able to react to it though and maybe jab headbutt or something
So…a smart rufus player will change it up and turn it into RPS iirc sorry i haven’t played this game in a long time
ex/lp.ds or standing jab are probably your best options. If he doesn’t have three meters stocked, expect him to go for overhead or low since they’re safer on block, it’s also a possibility that he won’t do anything, but it’s still -6 on block give or take. Generally if he has meter, let him burn it, don’t worry too much about getting hit by it unless he has three stocks and Ultra, it does pitiful damage (in the grand scheme of things).
ex/lp.ds will at worst trade, it can be beaten out by his flip kick, but his flip kick has a lot of startup in comparison to lp.ds, so even though its invincible, it will almost always trade as Balrog will be well into his active frames. If he does OH, lp.ds recovers first, and you get free back-charge and a cl.hk, cr.mp punish into ex.ru. ex.ds will also beat the low, but he’s considered crouching so no ex.ru. You could also do a delayed ex.ru against OH but it has a lot of startup so it’s only viable if you read it early enough to just wait and delay the ex.ru so you don’t pass under him.
standing jab is an OK punish since it’ll punish him if he just does ex.mk and blocks, but also it may recover in time for you to block all the follow-ups.
Also keep in mind that you can punish his ex.mk, flip kick, FADC fwd with jab (1f punish) or U2. You can punish the FADC back with U1/Super (it’s -10). You can also punish the OH follow up with U2 at certain distances as well.
Thanks for the great replies guys. I’ll have to take this into training mode and see what options I like.