@mtler: I am no expert on Rufus at all, but here is what I can say with confidence: AVOID being in the corner at all costs. In this matchup you have to knock him down first and rush the sh** out of him, don’t let him breath. His backdash is horrible, and his escape options are not great. You should be the one putting him in the corner, since he will be just as screwed as you in a corner.
Now that we have that out of the way, in case you get in the unfortunate situation of being in a corner, you can either EX run forward if he likes crossing you up with dive kicks, or just block and be patient untill you see an opening for an escape or a counter attack. There is no way of easily getting out, you just have to stay sharp and tech his throws when you can.
In general, I think the dropkick helps a lot in mixups as well as keeping him away (not sure about this, but if done at a certain range it can beat the dive kick and knock him down as well). It should help in avoiding the corner situation.
I am hoping more experienced players would be able to provide better tips!
i played a rufus a while back…i got the vicious beat down…so i went back to the drawing board and i came back to own…so far this is how i feel about fuertes basic matchup against him…
v.s Rufus:
*when you do slide…Always meaty slide(of course)
*Mostly stay away from the corner-if he tries to predict a jump(wall jump or whatever) Ex run under him one of the points when playing Fuerte is thinking outside of the box,right? He doesnt have to control if thats not what you want…make it very frustrating for him to get in.(Far standing RH,jabs,ect).
*Perfect shower timing and distances(it can make his Ex messiah fully whiff…it really works)…for more options after a knockdown you can also run right to mid screen and neutral jump and do a meaty airthrow (which if he does nothing,then your safe to keep some pressure or run away…if he Ex messiahs then you got an airthrow…if he attacks then you recover fast enough to block ect.) the list of options can go on…bait them from time to time though…make him want to use them less
*His fwd roll can be poked out by cr.jab (i think neutral too?..didnt check that one yet)
*His Fierce GT can be knocked out from mid-range distance (on reaction) by Far standing RH
*Far standing RH also beats out Ex messiah from mid screen range
*If he want to dive kick you to death to get in then you can also hit him with far standing RH (stay right at far standing RH range which would be about mid-screen)…You can also jab him out of it too
well thats all i got so far i will post more when i get the chance,so hit up training mode, learn the timing then hit up the battlefield…hope this helps peeps!
Rufus is actally a pretty rough match IF THE RUFUS PLAYER knows it. I thin ka lot of players are afraid of El Fuerte when they fight him for some reason or another. But Rufus’ high pressure game can really mess you up. Also, it’s bullshit that you can focus the first hit of Messiah and then if you let go it whiffs.
Don’t mean to interrupt the rufus rants (as he isn’t a hard fight for me, just bait his wasted meter and read when he jumps for a dive kick and air grab.)
but I need help with Cammy, her shit stops so much of fuertes game. especially with broken post forward or back grab nonsense.
i think rufus matchup is with honda the hardest matchup for el fuerte
you can outbrain him how often you want, but he is to strong and to fast and he has inf health
i recorded some matches vs an decent rufus, i will show you guys what piece of shit this matchup is
also here is an good video for showing how good this matchup is balanced:
[media=youtube]1rXjyH8HLVs[/media]
The fact that Rufus can easily avoid the anti-air ultra setup without even using meter, and his large health, coupled with his many ways of setting up his own ultra to do massive damage, should make it clear that he is by FAR one of the hardest matchups. The one weakness he has is lousy wakeup, so a smart Fuerte needs to capitalize on that and pressure the **** out of him, like THIS: [media=youtube]vEr6vf2yWFI"[/media]
Cammy can be very tricky, but once she is figured out she is not as hard as you might initially think (I would say even matchup). I try to bait her a lot into doing cannon spike as it has lousy recovery and can be punished very badly. You can use FA against Spiral Arrow to punish it as well. Her Hooligan can be countered on reaction with airthrow. The annoying part is that anti-air ultra can’t be used since she can do cannon strike in the air. I find it that being slightly more defensive against Cammy works better, as she will have to take some risks eventually to get to you, and thats when you punish.
I had a chat with a good Rufus after a match with him last month. He said the same thing as Akashwan. You gotta pressure him on wakeup because his options aren’t that great.
Also, it is actually harder for him to get in on Fuerte than you’d think. Once he’s in then we’re toast, but Fuerte can do a decent job of keeping him out since Fuerte has a lot of stuff that beats divekick at range. If he’s in range for his c. HP, means he’s in range for Tortilla. Just don’t be jump happy because it’s easy pickings for his snake strike or worse, j. HK into Ultra.
With Cammy, I think you have to shut down her spiral arrow so you can run freely. After that, just treat her like a shoto on wakeup and it becomes a very familiar matchup.
Back to turtling, I think I’ve gotten too chicken to turtle. Funny thing that after some vicious beatdowns from good players during turtle attempts, I’ve started to think that if I’m not constantly putting pressure on them, they’ll just run over me. Or maybe I just suck at turtling.
Of course, I can turtle very well against weaker players, but I’ve never been able to out turtle a good player.
I kind of agree… weaker players are easy to turtle… the stronger ones run me over. but that’s if you let them walk in. I think it’s feigned turtling we want to do.
Turtling while they are desperate is what we want. And to do that, we must gain a substatial life lead to induce that desperation.
well actually in that match kindevu wasted his ex-meter kinda carelessly imo.
also, i think at that point he didnt really got into the el fuerte MU vs rufus.
Maybe Kindevu didn’t play as well as he does in general, but that still doesn’t change the fact that TKD REALLY put a lot of pressure on him, and that is the only way of keeping him out with no chance of cornering you.
You have some options to keep him away as well (as mentioned by Munchi, El_Twelve and the original matchup info on the first page). Rufus is hard to deal with when he is close, even for characters with DPs and good reversals, so the key against him is to always use the given tools that each character has to keep him out. Sagat and Ryu have it easier as they can put a pressure from a good distance away. Fuerte needs to be a lot more careful and play it really smart to win. It IS a hard matchup (I would say around 6 or 6.5 advantage for Rufus), but not completely overwhleming.
On a side note: I think what I like about TKD the most is that even when he is in a very bad situation, he never shows any signs of giving up. He really tries to find any opening to escape pressure and does that well most of the time. Even top players make minor mistakes, and TKD is SO good at capitalizing on them. His baiting ability is really special.
Block messiah kick and punish with ultra.
Once Rufus gets meter/ultra you really can’t mix him up much anymore. It’s best to just turtle then.
Stay between full screen and the range where you can focus absorb his cr.HP to get Ultra. Throw out a lot of far.HK’s.
Use lvl3 quesadilla bomb on reaction to his jumps. At this distance you can confirm whether you need to FADC to safety.
I dont understand what everyones infatuation with qbomb is lol. Also my mayne wasting 2 bars on a blocked qbomb is never worth it especially against rufus where you always want meter. Far hk’s are very good in this match up and go over rufus cr hp. You can still mix him up after he gets meter and ultra just be VERY cautious of what your doing otherwise you’ll be eating jesus kick into ultra or any other number of easy ways rufus can get his ultra off your mess up. If your going to jump with rufus which I dont advise at all Elfs jump rh is actually pretty good and stuffs rufus’s I believe.
You can see in this video how TKD kept Kirisuto’s Rufus away for most of the time (and how he handled his pressure once cornered): [media=youtube]fJr3E6CVC3o"[/media]
I noticed that you can run, input 2xqcf (during run) then lp to stop, immediatley followed by 3xK. It looks like the Ultra stops the run as it comes out really quick. I’ve been using it ever since I noticed. It’s really good for closing distance and catching people who are neutral or backward jumping, especially if they’re deliberately avoiding a jump in because you have ultra.
Apologies if that’s common knowledge. I was originally doing RUN/STOP then 2xQCF. This way seems better at catching people out.
I noticed that you can run, input 2xqcf (during run) then lp to stop, immediatley followed by 3xK. It looks like the Ultra stops the run as it comes out really quick. I’ve been using it ever since I noticed. It’s really good for closing distance and catching people who are neutral or backward jumping, especially if they’re deliberately avoiding a jump in because you have ultra.
Apologies if that’s common knowledge. I was originally doing RUN/STOP then 2xQCF. This way seems better at catching people out.