I picked him up a few months ago and I am having a blast. I was using adon previously, and I find the change refreshing. Unlike Adon, Rufus can combo into ultra extremely easily. st.lp.st.hk > ultra yes please. Plus many of his other normal lead straight into ultra. jp.hk etc. He does require knowledge and training to play him well, though. You need to know when to be offensive and when to bait against dp characters, which can be a problem if you are dive kicking like crazy.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: Why use Rufus when you can just use Yun? Better damage, super duper easy lag friendly combos, better setups, better super, better moves, better reversal, faster movement, smaller hitbox, better ultra, EX lunge, easy fireball counter, better mid-range. Better everything.
Rufus does have 150 more health though trololololol.
^ That’s exactly why I don’t use him…
Rufus has a better dive kick. And uhh… well he has a better dive kick.
There’s a lot to be said for the fact that Yun can angle his divekick.
Angling the dive kick isn’t nearly as useful as having instant divekicks. Rufus’ U1 is infinitely better than Yun’s Ultra’s as well.
I feel like Rufus should move up in tiers. He got a new footsie tool that plays to his Ultra game, a better Ultra 2, and better hit confirms into Ultra 1, while having his primary enemies get worse (the top tier). Grapplers still suck to fight but otherwise I think the matchup list will drastically change in Rufus’ favor. Yun will also stop being god tier so Rufus will start actually getting explored again as a real character.
Isn’t Rufus already good against the top tier with the exception of Fei?
Well Rufus can beat the twins and Viper if his offense gets started, and 2012 only helps his offense and reduces theirs which is great. Fei can still crush Rufus but I think it’s just a matchup game plan thing more than anything else. Slow it down vs. Fei and block smart. Also I saw an option select on Fei’s wakeup for CW: lp + lk + mp (crouching obv.) It can get uppercuted but whatever. With better ultras in 2012 and two new good footsie tools (MK messiah is actually at a good counter poke range and EX tornado FADC is insane IMHO), his bad matchups cause by imbalance go away and his typical bad matchups get better. Gief still can eat you alive but whatever. Also Rufus hasn’t really placed recently because Jwong didn’t play Rufus at Sin City Heat and Ricky just keeps dropping Ultra combos for whatever reason, even though he made Grand Finals. If he worked on his execution Rufus would be on the high level scene, at least in the US. Rufus is going to move up in the tier list for sure in 2012, and then people will actually develop his matchup technology again, as opposed to just jamming dive kicks and wondering why they get bodied.
rufus in my opinion is easily top 10 if not top 5 he has ton’s of ways of getting over fire ball’s,powerful combos,numerous ways of landing his ultra,great health 1050,dive kick is a great baiting tool.However he does have a hard time against characters whom can keep him out or stop his dive kick’s sim,sagat,gief,balrog,you can argue blanka,as well as bison.You need to have patience with him you can’t just dive kick for the hell of it they have to be timed correctly. He doesn’t have tons of damaging combos until he gets sum meter (at least 2 bars) needs to be air borne the majority of the fight soo he can keep up his pressure but it’s a gift & a curse in my book,if you dive kick too high you can get dp’d if you don’t dive kick at all you use all of your mix up’s. Not to mention he has sum pretty great normals he can combo most of his normals into his specials (who can’t lol) he’s a really fun character just have to be patient while playing him i just got back into today & i’m willing to help out other rufus player’s i’m out on the east coast & i play on xbl add me if you guys are trying to learn a thing or two about him xXx2 SliickxXx