Can be said for any Akuma match where you’re somewhat dependant on landing 20 fireballs without getting more than 2 of them successsfully read and punished.
This match annoys me because it’s usually plain sailing until he inevitabley lands his Ultra, then however well you’ve been doing up to that point becomes academic because you’re immediately in the danger zone and Rufus will only need any small follow-up to finish you. However that’s something all characters have to put up with in the Rufus match.
The main goal in the ground game is of course to stop this fight getting inside footsie range. Without Rufus Ultra this is dangerous, with Rufus Ultra ready it’s just stupid. Using fireballs at range to set up what you can as usual but being careful with them not to allow him to get Ultra meter for free.
Once he gets inside a 2/3 screen distance I drop the ground fireballs almost entirely because many options for getting around them are available to him. Even a simple triangle jump with that Dive Kick over a fireball safely thrown puts him at a distance he wants to be. Then there’s jump-ins, cut short at all sorts of trajectories by Dive Kicks for SRK baits, safety and successful fireball punishes. Hadoken nulling Galatic Tornado puts him in a good position at practically even frames on block. He can also EX Messiah Kick through them here and hit shallow but still get the follow-up.
I try to concentrate on Akuma’s max range footsies here with lots of movement and use of things like far HP, sweep at the tips and far roundhouse to stop him walking in after me, trying any anticipatory Galatic Tornado etc. Neutral jump for a falling air fireball here is effective in helping to keep this range under control because Rufus doesn’t have a good way through this and using the frame advantage is handy for keeping everything in check.
Rufus should only be getting seldom use out of his cr.HP outside of punishes, just occassional ranged harrassment. In most of his matches it’s otherwise used to stop the opponent walking in on him, which he won’t be concerned with in thsi match. His cr.HP bears the same vulnerability as Seth’s stretchy ground HP, in that you can jump-in and punish it like a fireball and mid-screen focus fishing will see Akuma’s focus attack catch and stun it at range for a dash-in sweep or whichever ranged follow-up. So unless he’s using it very well you should try to see that he avoids it.
It gets really dumb when Rufus starts to get into sweep and cr.MK range and starts abusing those instant Dive Kicks over and over. Impossible to properly react to and if you stick out one ****ing poke in some effort to push him back you’ve lost near 60% life just like that. He will Dive Kick to go for throws frequently aswell, though trying to tech these is a bad idea that can and likely will result in a Symphony of Rufus BS.
Do not use any lows when Rufus starts doing this, the best normals I found for trading with/stuffing those rapid Dive Kicks are cr.LP, and cr.MP and far standing HP as earlier/pre-emptive trades. Far standing HP is quite good when he’s still looking to start this up around sweep range as the hitbox properties are good and catch Rufus high with a chunky 120 damage which is good on a trade.
That said, I would not recommend sticking to hold the ground with any of these, they are just your best normal options and will still result in eating the Ultra if the timing on them happened to be wrong. Just do what you can to escape or to SRK your way out of it.
Capitalising on the knockdown jump-in game is important for Akuma. You want to be cautious with the timing on these though so that EX Snake Strike isn’t available on reversal a bit early to fly up and knock Akuma out of the cross tatsu effort. The risk is cut when Rufus doesn’t have meter for those two EX options.
Try to train them with cross-tasus first and be conscious of Akuma’s meter so that when you go for a deep j.HK on his front side you can use the combo extensions.
Use either
j.HK - HP - LK Tatsu - LP Shoryu - FADC - EX Red
j.HK - HP - Fireball - FADC - HP - LK Tatsu - HP Shoryu
whichever is more comfortable. This gives an immediate stun on Rufus when followed from a sweep or likewise knockdown. Large post-stun scaling applies of course.
I wouldn’t say there’s any room for 0.5 margins in a match-up score where it’s a life/damage advantage vs high consistency. Either one side will find a clear advantage or they’ll level each other out to a satisfactory degree.
In my opinion both characters can stand an equal chance in this match when the players have a very close ability.
