Whats the command to do his spazzy punches in mid-air or is that his DP+P move?
I haven’t even played the game and i can already see all sorts of things wrong with his character design.
First off since when is it okay to combo off dive kicks? Much less with a close standing fierce into a special or super. Also what exactly is this guy’s weakness? He has long range normals, really good damage, can juggle off of damn near anything, and he doesn’t exactly have a weak chin or exceptionally slow movement either. So I guess his only weakness is that he’s a big target? Still seems full of shit to me. It’ll be a real sad fucking day if it turns out he really is the best character in the game and all the tournaments are nothing but rufus vs. rufus mirror matches. I don’t know about you, but when I envisioned SF4 in my head I sure as hell didn’t envision two fat guys dive kick whomping on each other all day. In fact that’s the last thing I would’ve fucking guessed.
rufus is the new yun.
he has no genei jin but everything he does is better than a meterless yun.
i haven’t played haitani or any of the top rufuses - in fact, i’m the only rufus player i’ve seen around here (Nagoya, JP) but i’m willing to bet the game comes down to more than “two fat guys dive kick whomping on each other all day”.
for one, rufus needs to work to get in against fireball characters. with the exception of the c.fp, his pokes aren’t really that good, so most of the time i’m going to throw out the offensive crouch mk (the roll) which, as far as i can tell, gets beat by a lot of shit and probably leaves him at a frame disadvantage, or i’m trying to jump over a fireball and hit that gap where i can get in and do stuff without risk eating a dp.
once rufus is in, he has a pretty good chance of landing a b&b, a throw, and if he has meter, an ultra. he also has a pretty good chance of getting smacked back out of range, though. a lot of jump normals will completely stuff his j.rh, which is what he needs to land to juggle with the ex DP or the ultra. almost anything in the air will stuff his dive kick. and, since he’s jumping around so much, he risks getting DPed - and in this game, eating a DP against ryu or sagat is probably also going to mean getting an ultra combo to the face. once he gets knocked down, he’s a big, fat target. all of his anti-airs suck except the EX dp, which only works if they jump in late and don’t cross you up. if rufus is lucky, he techs a throw or blocks a few fireballs and gets pushed out of range, but if he’s not, he has to deal with the focus attack dash cancel pressure stuff, which is no fun.
don’t get me wrong, he’s a solid character, and he’s easy to play because he has easy, consistently damaging combos, easy combos into ultra, and a good dive kick that helps with spacing. but he doesn’t have stuff that a lot of the rest of the cast has; ex moves that consistently go through fireballs, or (at least so far) good ways to use a focus attack or focus attack dash cancel. i’m betting that the top players are going to mostly be using the dp characters, because two meters for a potential dp-> ultra combo at best and a get-out-of-pressure-free card at worse is not a bad deal by any means.
So who here is one of the lucky ones thats actually playing the game rite now? any info would be awesome.
Higher-Jin:
> First off since when is it okay to combo off dive kicks? Much less with a close standing fierce into a special or super.
Every single character who has ever had a dive kick has been able to do that. Even Dhalsim in SF2 could do it. How good/broken it is, is determined by how fast the dive is and how easy it is to combo afterwards. For example, 2I Akuma’s dive kick was stupidly broken (too fast, too high priority, unpunishable on parry or block), while 3S Akuma’s is much more fair.
I’m not even going to bother with “close standing fierce into a special or super”.
From what I’ve seen the dive kick is pretty well balanced. While it does have what seems to be ridiculously long hit stun for a dive kick, its priority is horrible. I’ve seen so many ground normals that beat it, hell even dic’s crouching jab beats it. And dude, it can be blocked low. I haven’t seen any good fireball/uppercut chars that have played against rufus in match vids (the game is so new), but once they come out, you will see his huge weakness. Rufus has an awesome rushdown game, once he is in. But if he is not in, that makes his game a whole lot tougher. C.Hp wont last you forever. The only way i’ve seen haitoni get in against a fireballer is to do an early dive kick fake and sweep, setting up a knockdown. But what are you going to do against a heavier turtler, or a fireball/srk whore. It seems pretty balanced to me. Just wait, people will find a way around it.
i used to think rufus was crazy good… but after reading what people are saying as i’ve heard it from different people… AND playing against a good rufus… he does have problems getting in. but like everyone is saying… once he’s in… you’re most likely going to get hurt…a lot.
and as stated above… his dive kick is garbage in terms of priority.
i don’t believe he’s going to be top tier… but he’s damn well up there… maybe just one tier below.
I swear, just call the move Nachos. Shame we can’t credit Booda in the move’s naming, though.
So, some questions about Fatneto, and Nachos in specific. Is Nachos frame advantage or disadvantage on block? So, if they would be forced to block it, would you use it? I’m wondering how one should follow it up, and if it’s frame advantage, when to use it. If it’s frame disadvantage, I wonder when it’s better to use it and when it’s better to try something else. If the opponent jumps over it, can you usually block in time? If the opponent jumps away, is that good or bad for you? I assume it would depend on if the opponent has a projectile. Speaking of projectiles, which ones does Nachos go under?
i think the move puts him at a frame disadvantage, but it pushes them pretty far back and since the move just extends him really far and doesn’t move his actual body forwards, if you hit him with something at the tip of the punch, you probably won’t be able to combo anything because he’ll be in hitstun practically on the other side of the screen. this was a while ago so i might not remember it accurately but i think i’ve traded with ryu’s ultra fireball once, got hit by the first hit and recovered in time to block the rest.
if the opponent jumps over it, you’re in for a world of pain.
i think it might go under the high tiger shot, but that’s about it.
I’m in japan now, and will be for another week (tougeki was surreal) and I play Rufus as my main.
Let me tell you, against cross ups, he is total ass. Not having a great anti-air option (his j.HK does get stuffed, esp. by Sagat, his dp is unreliable and st.hp is too laggy to trust) he eats up cross-ups like nobodies business, but this is also partly due to the game being kind of ‘stupid’ when it comes to jumping, you can’t really tell if someone crosses you up until you see them land, which by that time you’ve already eaten the cross up and they are putting on the pressure. I’m training myself to move back just a bit on a jump in, look for an empty jump in, move back again then forward for a free throw, or ex qcf p.
However, if he hits his j. HK, his ex dp is so good. The damage is stupid, in his favor, and the j.HK can stuff some/most of chun’s stuff (just played with justin a bit). His ultra links are easy, and I just use cr.lk qcf p xx super as my main link, i find it much easier, but im sure the damage reduction is ridiculous.
I’ve seen ino play with rufus, he makes rufus look good. dp p avoids fireballs, and is relatively safe if they hado then jump in. His cr. fp does give you frame disadvantage which makes me a sad bear, but it does catch people that like to mess around a bit. don’t use it as your first option against projectilers tho, obviously.
also, ask away about links. Could we get the first post edited so we can actually make an official rufus thread rather than sifting through 48 posts to find 1 combo 
Sometimes one of your best options when the enemy Jumps in is just to roll (down-forward plus MK) to get out of the way, and then start zoning once they land. Like you can roll and go up for a dive kick as they land from the jump in.
OK whilst I’m still up, lets talk Strats.
SF IV is very match-up dependent, so strats change greatly from character to character. However, generally speaking, I play Rufus aggressively, FA’ing through attacks at long range (e.g. projectiles) to build up my revenge meter. I also find that by trying to get in early on in a round, even if you are fended off, your Ultra meter will have risen. Rufus is so good at connecting his Ultra that as long as you do not find yourself near the corner, having lost some life but gained Revenge meter is not necessarily a bad thing.
To get in, you need to use your roll and triangle jumps (dive kick really close to the ground) to get up closer to the opponent. You are looking for that one knock-down or free dive kick in opportunity to start your mixup game.
Once you are in, you start your mixups. Cross-up dive kicks, whiff dive kick to throw or just going into BnB combos that are safe are your tools of the trade.
i saw a pretty good rufus player today. here’s some of the things he was doing:
i’m used to jumping right back up after a blocked dive kick, c.lk, tornado combo, but i’ll get hit by a lot of normals on the way up. this guy was doing c.lk. c.lp, c.lk, c.lp xx EX tornado if it hit, and either s.mk, mk overhead, or jump back up and start the divekick madness again. sounds like another good addition to me.
also, i saw the EX kick special, lk follow up FADC -> ultra hit today. it looks really cool, does legit damage, and that EX kick special is actually pretty easy to land (the rufus player was using it on wakeup/after one of my blocked divekicks). hmmmm.
Another good Dive Kick strat is to jump straight up and time the Dive Kick so you land the other side.
Another pimp combo is if the opponent is in the corner, FA (lv 3), Dash-cancel, LK Messiah Kick with flip kick follow-up, FADC the flip kick, LP Snake Strike, Ultra.
15 hits, 60% damage!
alright, after talking some more with ino, he feels like rufus is top of middle, which puts him in decent footing.
he showed me some cool links, most of which was seen in this thread, but just the way he spaced with dp was amazing.
rufus has 3 options when a hado comes to him. if he wants to close the gap he can
qcf mp/hp and move the stick closer to the opponent (watch for sweep distance)
dive kick over
or if he wants to play it safe
dp mp. this allows him to clear the fireball as well as cover any jump ins (no opponent in their right mind will jump in though)
Ino basically told me that the super bar rufus has isnt for his super, its for his ex qcf k, lk follow up.
Ino also said, dont really need to save cancel other than ex qcf k, lk, FADC, ultra combo.
the rest is all spacing.
on cross ups, dp
on jump ins, df mk or dp
ino also said his throw is one of the most damaging in the game, abuse that
dive in, cr. lk lk walk up throw
another cool combo is, when your opponent has its back to the corner
st lk, lk, hk, f. hp, dp lp.
^ Great stuff!
Any more to share?
as I keep learning things, I want to keep posting them…the Japanese share information so much faster than us, their game is undoubtedly on another tier right now.
Rufus against dhalsim
I got very frustrated at this match up. dhalsims pokes destroy rufus’ jump in attempts and I wasn’t very good at sim’s cross ups.
this is what a lock down sim player will do
yoga fireball, watch your reaction, jump in, he’ll anti air kick you, qcf hp to negate the fireball and he’ll poke low. your best option is to gauge what hes doing, he kind of needs to guess before you actually commit to a move. jump straight up at times, he’ll keep fire balling, then when you feel right, dive kick in and immediately ex messiah kick. that move stuffs almost everything dhalsim has to offer. close the gap, he’ll probably wake up teleport to start all over, thats okay, build meter and get ready again.
sims love the fireball, teleport behind you hit you with their overhead or tick throw you with their kick, your best option when you see this is parry high, wait for the fb to clear then start raping as your close game is far superior to his.
against sim
BE PATIENT, I’ve lost countless of dollars because I just want to go in there and link my ultra. watch what he does, stuff him with messiah kick and close the gap.
parry high?
hahah sorry, i meant block high 