Ex Seismo has 13 invincible frames, is safe on block, can be cancelled off a zoning tool and gets to juggle into an Ultra for free. Yeah sure, there are a good 6 frames between the invincibility and the actual hit, but its still a damn good move that nets you an Ultra for a low risk guess.
Ex Messiah is also a really good move, but it also has obvious weaknesses. Like Ex Seismo, it can be baited and blocked with safe set ups/option selects. Unlike Ex Seimo, it can actually be punished… badly, if the opponent guesses right and requires an extra 2 bars if you want it to be guaranteed safe. Unlike Ex Seismo, Ex Messiah can whiff its latter hits ON HIT and be punished with a combo ON HIT.
Ex Messiah is a really good move, but please don’t act like other characters, including Viper, don’t have moves that are also really good. In fact, if you had to compile a list of the top 5 Ex moves in the game, Ex Messiah would be up there, but I can name a bunch of other Ex moves that are as good, or better than it.
If you think he’s going to Flip Kick follow up. Block. Double fierce> Seismo combo for the dizzy and potential win.
If you think he’s going to do an overhead follow up, mash HP Thunder Knuckle. Free Ultra juggle if it hits. Alternatively, do a delayed Ex Seismo. Free Ultra juggle if it hits.
If you think he’s going to do the sweep, Ex Seismo. Free Ultra juggle if it hits.
If you think he’s going to do anything BUT a slightly delayed Flip Kick follow up, jump upwards vertically and come down with a vertical jump HK. He’ll be forced to block.
Yeah there’s no 100% payoff, but if you guess right, the reward is VERY high.
EX seismo is pretty easily punishable if you have any idea how to fight the character. Basically just get in her face and she can’t use it as long as you see the yellow flash of her starting it up. Reaction uppercut beats it, waiting and then jabbing beats it, some characters like rog can litearlly just mash jab and beat it. Any footsie will beat it basically. It’s only unpunishable from long range and from long range it’s very difficult for her to land an Ultra or anything really damaging. If you’re long range against Viper u should just be blocking low or charging focus to dash through the seismos any ways. Plus if you have a character that can fly over seismo like Honda or Dictator u basically charge and force her to have to waste meter for no reason if she decides to use one while u are charging.
It doesn’t really matter too much if EX seismo is safe on block if the start up frames on it are incredible and there’s vulnerable frames before it even hits u. That like defeats the purpose of it being safe on block. Option select all day against that shit close range. From farther distances EX seismo is a pretty solid zoning tool and against certain characters can net her a half screen ultra but honestly there are extremely basic things u can do like neutral jumping, simply low blocking or focus dashing to kill even those opportunities to land the ultra. Close range EX seismo is almost a non issue. Press buttons at it in order to beat it. Literally.
I understand that there’s options for the Messiah game after block but the fact that it has to resolve to games against a lot of the cast is just ugh. I mean I’m not going to complain too much more about it other than that cuz he still can be punished and most good Rufus’ are just going to not use EX messiah unless they have meter to back them up or a lot of health to spare. EX messiah is basically more dangerous when u aren’t using it then when u are.
Agree with that. The opponent has to anticipate the fact that he can eat big damage if he’s not attacking carefully. In fact, like Sagat and ryu with two bars…
@Sharin: Didn’t see you were one of the people trying SSF4. And thought you were italian too. I’ve heard nothing but good stuff about your Rufus so I’ll trust your word about the changes in Super(even though I still think Rufus is B tier). My apologies, chorizo eater(love that spanish food)!:razz:
I would much rather EX Messiah get nerfed rather than Falcon Kick. Falcon Kick is practically the equivalent to Ryu’s fireballs in terms of importance. One helps to zone while the other is a rush down tool. Toning down EX Messiah would make a lot more sense than taking nerfing Rufus’ main staple technique as a character.
Cuz I just don’t really like fishy moves like EX messiah. It’s moves like EX messiah and well as much as I hate to admit even EX seismo that really hurt the offensive pressure in this game. Along with the other poor choices they decided to make with the internal mechanics of the game.
I mean the entire character of Rufus is basically going out and fishing for damage. He’d be a pro bass fisher for sure. It’s really good against a lot of the cast and only really loses to a select few. I just don’t like the way EX messiah just kinda sucks up anything ground based. I’d rather they just gave him better ground based tools than turn him into this character that’s fishing against footsies with a 13 frame invincible move. At least with EX seismo u know that shit is free damage if she whiffs and at close range she basically can’t use it at all unless you are sleeping. Charge based characters like Blanka, Honda and Dictator are just praying she whiffs an EX seismo cuz as long as they are holding charge she’s getting hit.
I agree with Omni. Instead of looking to make Rufus less defensive oriented they were looking to kill his offense. It was the threat of sitting on 3 damned meters to fish for EX messiah while pressuring that made Rufus gdlk up close. Simply nerfing the damage on dive kick does nothing to alleviate the issue of almost not really knowing what to do against Rufus once he has 3 meters and is in your face. I would have rather they buffed his offense but weakened his defensive options.
Thing is, it’s really easy to build meter against some characters, but very difficult against some others. Against Sagat for instance, you’ll probably lose half a life bar before you get an EX…
Sorry, I deleted my post because I didn’t want to dragged into pointless argument number 4363372136 on why Rufus needs rebalancing. Since you responded, I’ll re-post it.
If nothing else, I agree with this. Again, why are you complaining about a move that requires discretion?
Nothing much to say to this. You don’t like the way the character was designed. Don’t play him. Don’t like fighting him cause he’s a bad match up? [media=youtube]_xuKm9ces-c"[/media] or pick another character.
DevilJin, you cant really buff rufus offensive in any way because then he will be broken. Imo the rufus nerfs are pretty accurate, ex messiah deals less damage, ultras also do. So the threat of ex messiah into ultra is still there but its no so damaging (and lets not forget rufus needs 3 bars for it) , ex snake still deals HIGH damage but a bit less than vanilla (lets face it, it was too much)
Shotos and zangief are nerfed, his worst matchups. His bnb deal a bit less damage but imo thats fine. Imo ssfiv rufus its perfectly balanced, still monster offensive but with less retarded damage, nice reversal to get out of trouble but not so damaging so you need to get in more times and a bunch of setups into ultra that will still be excellent but not just win the match.
He will need to work harder to attain wins, but without loosing the stuff that made him scary and with his worst matchups being more bearable.
I would’ve liked for them to have toned down some of the invincibility on EX jesus kick. Some of the things Rufus can do with that move is just too unlikely.
At Final Round Justin did EX messiah kick, PR Balrog went for the ultra punish and balrog’s ultra STILL lost to ex messiah. Shit is insane sometimes.
Yeah it’s not anything to really respond to or make a big deal about. It’s just the way the character is. Of course I don’t play Rufus he’s just doesn’t have enough options for my tastes. I’m already picking up Ibuki in IV since she has way better footsies than C.Viper and Sagat was already a full counter to the character that I was using. Either way I just don’t like the concept of the character and that’s my opinion. Nothing to get hurt over.
There’s plenty of ways to buff Rufus offensively without making him broken. It could just be slight tweaks in normals or just giving him a couple extra options in situations where he’s lacking. I’m not saying to give him projectiles and command grabs or anything. Just make his defensive options worse and there’s less to complain about. He can pressure u but there’s less reason to fear pressuring him.
Sharin, you haven’t talked much about Rufus’s new Ultra. Would like to you hear you opinion on it, cause I managed to play 2 games with Rufus in SSFIV and from what I saw Ultra 2 seemed really good- destroys fireballs AND sucks the opponent to you AND beats cross ups. Didn’t get to test it though, so I can’t tell how fast it’s start up is, which is the most important thing.
Would appreciate you comments on if you still have you hands on the game:
Does Ultra II work against Akuma’s vortex options?
Does Ultra II punish fireballs from say 1/2 screen away?
If the answer to the above 2 is yes, I can see Ultra II being the better choice for quite a few of his match ups (especially- Sagat, Akuma, Viper, Fuerte)
I’ll agree with that. I don’t even understand why they nerfed the damage on falcon kick cuz falcon kick didn’t even do damage to begin with. I guess it was just a quick way to nerf the damage on his BnB’s but it won’t really change much if it didn’t really do damage in the first place. EX messiah doing less damage and/or having less invince would be awesome. That pretty much takes care of most of the crap people had issues with him about before. Especially if combos into ultra dont do the huge damage they used to.
@acidicenema I didnt play rufus a lot because was trying new chars, but the startup on U2 is horrible, really really slow. If I get to play again, ill try it against akuma vortex, but i highly doubt you can punish fireballs 1/2 screen away. You can combo it off of far st.HK but all the rest of setups will miss. Imo SOS is too good to pass it, but as I said I didnt try it extensively so I maybe wrong and we end having and amazing ultra, who knows!
Why are you so sure? It has vacuum properties, meaning it’s probably going to work a lot like Necro’s magnetic storm. and the only thing it didn’t beat were full air parries.
I like when people bring up 3rd Strike. Best game ever. :lol:
About magnetic strike…it was hardly a fool proof move. Like Ibuki could purposely jump forward at Necro and throw EX kunai. If he tries to perform magnetic storm the kunais will cancel him out of the super and she will take minimal to no damage. If you knocked him down u could purposely try to cross him up at angles so that if he tried to activate magnetic storm u would fall out of it and take minimal damage. There were other ways to beat it that I’m not thinking of but basically if u had anything that could create real tight block strings or had a big hit box that could trade with it u could take him out of it or minimize the damage u take from him. It definitely did beat out a ton of ground based normals and specials that’s for sure.
From what I’m seeing Rufus’ Ultra 2 could probably be even stronger for AA than Magnetic Storm was. If it travels fast enough across the screen and absorbs projectiles like I heard it might not even be a bad projectile punisher. Though that mostly depends on how fast it goes across the screen or the strength of the vacuum.