768

Try and aim for the shins or lower, ankles is preferred.

769

I would say your problem probably lies in the context of when you are divekicking. Generally when playing rufus, ESPECIALLY while playing the bison matchup, you want to play as lame as possible until you score a knockdown and go in from there. This being said you still want to be aggressive with space control by walking forward as much as you can (do the classic sf walk back and forth dance) so that you push him as close to the corner as you can. Rufus does much better against characters once they’ve been knocked down, all he needs is 1 clean hit to turn an entire game around.

If you are divekicking straight into bison’s face as your main avenue of attack then chances are you are going to end up eating a lot of st.hk, j.fr, and as in your case, st.lk. The way to combat this would be to alter your approach. Try going for some sweeps to knock him down and then cross him up or some rolls to get in his face before you divekick. This being said some immediate solutions to the problem would be switching between grabs and divekicks. Seeing how they react to a blocked divekick is key, if they are hitting s.lk a lot and they block a divekick go for a st.lk take a step and throw (since divekick is +7 on block your lk should connect or be blocked if your divekick hit at a low enough point on their hitbox). If you find that after a blocked divekick they throw try opting directly into another divekick, an option that will stuff their throw and lead to a combo + knockdown for you. Also if they’re bison and they hit st.lk after you divekick as bisons often do another divekick will beat it super clean. If they are mashing reversals such as dp wait a second. If they reversal jab xx ex galactic tornado or some other punish and if they just do nothing either go for a throw or divekick it up again. Against a bison reversal like ex psycho crusha an answer would be jump back fierce or to block to ex move and punish with cr.hp.

What ive said is obviously stuff you probably already know but sometimes it helps to see rufus’s options clearly stated out. One of the most essential parts of rufus’s game is figuring out how they will respond to divekicks and reading into these responses to destroy your opponent (obviously much easier said than done…) . This is much harder if you are simply going for straight to the face divekicks, which can be answered with things like st.lk. Just remember that Rufus can take his time getting momentum started, and that if you get a knockdown before you start getting in their face really hard then you will be in better shape. The people you want to divekick straight up are the ones who are whiffing normals at a range where you will hit them as they are recovering (such as ryu’s who accidentally sweep or cr.mk as you are just out of range). Lastly, if you are using divekicking them as a direct avenue of attack remember that delaying divekicks even slightly can work wonders.

770

where does Rufus get most of his damage from? I mean i’m not really tht good landing divekick 2 s.lk’s into hp into hp gt so i was wondering wht’s the heart of winning with him consistently off mix-up’s off of pressure off of wht how does he win his matches?

771

Rufus’ main game is to:

  1. Find a way to be standing right next to his opponent so that he’s in a position to mix up between divekick and throw (maybe also frame traps against certain three-button crouch techs).
  2. Find a way to land a knockdown and mix up the opponent with ambiguous divekicks.

If he connects a hit from either situation, he uses it to lead into damage from two main things:

  1. That combo you can’t do yet, which you need to learn if you’re going to win games as Rufus
  2. Landing his ultra in as many rounds as possible

He occasionally gets big damage by landing air-to-air j.HK into EX snake strike, or by FADCing a reversal messiah kick into ultra, etc, but those aren’t things you want to rely on for your damage. It’s not what you want to hear, but I think if you want to play Rufus and you can’t do that BnB then you need to either resign yourself to losing or just sit down and grind out that combo in training mode for a couple of days until you can do it 9 times out of 10.

772

So I am wondering if anyone else on here has had Rufus’ u1 drop after a few hits on an a2a jHK. It doesn’t happen often but it never happened to me before ultra and in the 2 weeks its been out it has happened 3 times

773

is there a fb group or this forum is dead and no one really plays rufus?

774

I think it’s a combination of very few people playing Rufus and the character having a fairly straightforward game plan. There are a few people who post here when someone asks a question and they know the answer, though. Then of course there are also plenty of people who post once to say that the forum is dead :wink:

ledtallica, I’ve seen that happen before USF4 if you mistime the ultra so the first couple of hits whiff before they fall into it.

775

haha fair enough. ive posted here before couple of years ago but I forgot my pass. anyway, when you say Rufus should frame trap certain 3 button crouch techs which ones you think? I assume against guy and makoto I can delay the dive dive kick but against Guile crouch fierce I have to frame trap?

776

Abel is a good example (not that Rufus has a hard time against Abel anyway) - his three button tech with cr.HP stays out a long time but is 8 frame startup, so you can frame trap it fairly well and not have to deal with its good hitbox. Juri is another one you don’t really want to double-divekick against too much because her st.HP thing (I think? the one that looks like a somersault) is amazing against double divekicks. Against Guile I don’t have a lot of experience of doing much more than either get in and wreak havoc or get completely shut down, so I don’t really know if frame traps are particularly good against him compared to instant dives. I think you have to read what buttons he’s pressing because he has a few reasonable anti-divekick buttons. It might just be that I’m not as good as the Guiles I fight, though, or that they don’t know how to defend against Rufus!

777

for guile u can focus if u notice hes teching with crouch sthp, it have a lot of recovery.

778

Ok guys. after playing long sets with him the past week im wondering a couple of things. How do you deal with constant focus in neutral and during my pressure? Also how do I deal with constant up backs during pressure? I assume there has to be something better than making the read with j.HK

779

what are rufus’ 3 most frequently used frame traps?

what’s his go-to punish after blocking ryu’s sweep and dudley’s EX MGB?

780

His frametrap game is not incredibly strong but it exists. I’d say st.lk to st.hp is his truest frametrap and its pretty good. Far st.hk to cr.jab may be a frametrap? Probably would safer to just call it a counterhit setup, same with his other setup which is st.mp to cr.jab (which is good for stuffing option selects).

I usually punish ex mgb with cr.jab into ex tornado, and for blocking ryu sweep range im not sure, im not sure that its punishable by rufus really. Id usually follow up after it by just blocking or going for a dive kick, maybe try jab ex tornado, dont think you have the range though. Hope this helps!

781

Due to the new buffs to rufus, I think his counter hit game have gotten significantly stronger.
In the past after landing a counter hit mp, the most you could get was usually cr.mk -> ex tornado which required meter.
Against some characters however you were able to connect close st.hp after a counterhit mp (such as juri & dhalsim) with just st.hp -> HP tornado.
This was often character specific and situational as the st.hp would sometime cause enough push back during hit to make st.hp whiff. In some cases some characters would get pushed back enough that when you press st.hp, far hp would come out instead.

The new buffs rufus got;

  • Close St.hp hitbox got expanded
  • Far st.mp becoming special cancellable

Addresses the problems above almost completely.
Due to the buffed expanded hitbox of st.hp, rufus will now be able to counterhit close st.mp -> close st.hp on more than half the cast. Most of the time you cancel that st.hp into regular heavy tornado. Some of the cast will however require ex tornado (eg. ryu & ken)

On characters where counter hit close.mp pushes back too far and thus far st.hp comes out instead of close st.hp -
In this situation you use rufus new st.mp x EX tornado instead.

One of the coolest thing about st.mp is that it does 90 damage for a medium attack… That’s only 10 less damage than close st.hp!
Regardless of whether you use st.hp/far.mp, Rufus counterhit game does at least ~300 damage.
On top of my head…

298 for st.mp -> far.mp xx Ex tornado
305 for st.mp -> close.hp xx HP tornado
310 for st.mp -> close.hp xx EX tornado

I actually have a spreadsheet on which combo works on what characters, but it’s on my phone.
Ill transfer and share later.

782

For me my top 3 are,

  1. St.lk ~ walk/delay st.mp (to counter hit 3 button tech)
  2. Far.hk on block -> cr.jab (far.hk is +3 on block)
  3. St.mp ~ Delay -> st.hp
    Bonus) Against characters with only 4f normals: DF mk roll -> cr.lk/dive kick mixup

After blocking Ryu sweep -
If from max range, the best meterless thing you can do is cr.hp
If from close range, sweep or cr.jab/mk -> ex tornado
If from mid range, Sweep
if you got 3 meters -> ex tornado fadc the vacuum -> Target combo ultra / close hp ->tornado

After blocking dudley’s ex mgb
if you’re confident enough in your punishing abilities, go for cr.mk/st.mp xx ex tornado
Otherwise stick to cr.jab -> ex tornado.

783

Hey zgnoud do you have any answers for my questions about back dashing, focus back dashing and up backing opponents that try to escape Rufus? Ive been trying to use HK to catch the up backs but it seems to slow for that

784

For people that hold up back-
What I would do is a deep dive kick, then go into delayed strings with delayed st.jab, this not also baits out reversals but also reset people out of jump back start up frames.
Even better you should prob use a deep dive kick into low attack chains (cr.lk x3) so that it becomes a true blockstring, that way if it they stand up, hold up back or try to backdash they’ll get tag low. If you confirm the low attack hitting after about 2~3 hits go into stjab into st.mp -> ex tornado. Once people get tag a few times by the low true blockstring, they’ll become conditioned to stay grounded more often.

The key is mixing up your offense angle of attack.
Back, front, high, low, empty jump low, empty jump throw, empty jump into instant dive kick to blow up standing + regular crouch teching.

But let’s say you want something a little more beefy as a punish. J.hk is ideal, but if your reaction is too slow, implement anticipation into your game instead of raw reaction.
Now my raw reaction is actually pretty slow compared to my peers, so to compensate i anticipate my opponent’s movement based on their meter & spacing. If you’ve cornered & kept somebody in the corner for example, most people eventually try to escape instinctively by doing a reversal or jumping back/forward. When you realize this you start to actively look for that jump/movement. You need to have your counter ready at all times while maintaining the zone you established (whether it be an anti air or normals buffered). Since your finger is already on the trigger, you’re able to execute your counter a lot faster than your normally would be able to. For me it’s 70% anticipation 30% reaction.

So back to my j.hk example. What i would do if i notice an opponent is holding back during my strings while in neutral position is to go into a deep dive kick into into 2~3 cr.lk chains… then i stop. I see what they want to do. Since i’m expecting a jump back/reversal from their previous defense patterns, my mind & fingers are already waiting. As soon as you see them jump, Hold up + j.hk immediately. If they’re don’t jump and still grounded, go for another short dive kick to continue your momentum. Obviously you cant autopilot and keep doing this, there’s usually always a counter for everything.
Sometimes some players use jump back jab/mp due to it’s faster startup to beat j.hk. In this situation, if their jump back move doesn’t have much active frames just delay your j.hk by abit. But if there’s too much active frames it’s prob best to just wait and go straight into ex snake strike rather than j.hk. Now this takes quite a bit of concentration so if you can’t do it, then it’s cool. Just let them corner them self with the jump back. If you cant react, just keep walking forward.

Against people that like to hold focus backdash on neutral position there’s a few things you need to consider.

Are they holding focus to lev 1~2 on your dive kick and then letting it go before they backdash?
If they are, you have to control your dive kick release better so that it hits deeper (at their knees). This will then allow you to ex messiah through the focus. If you got no meter, either empty jump into throw if you see the focus, if you’re already committed to the dive kick in the air, aim low to their knees then as soon as you land you’ll be able to backdash to make the focus whiff. Once it whiffs just punish with sweep.

**Is your opponent holding focus just to absorb the dive kick then backdashing? **
I have a old chunli sparing buddy that did this to me quite alot back then. I eventually figured out the counter by dive kicking a bit higher (to the chest). As soon as they absorb the dive kick and backdash, my dive kick (since at mid height) will land right next to their character where you can then use st.lk into a confirm. Most of the time you’ll be too far away for st.hp to connect off st.lk, but if you have meter you can always go into st.lk -> cr.lp -> ex tornado or a st.mp -> ex tornado variation. At worst, your st.lk will either reset them (due to fast backdashers like chun/rose) and at best a hitconfirm on their dash recovery.

Remember no matter how high you place the divekick, rufus is always safe. At the highest point on block (aimed at the top of the head), his dive kick is -2. So only press buttons if you see that mid/high dive kick is being focused, if it’s blocked, dont do anything you’ll get jabbed out.

Alternatively you can do a short divekick to the knee, this will make you recover quick enough to tack a st.mp to hit the recovery of most backdashes. It will def hit if you do the divekick - j.hp meaty.
I did this against Luffy when he was at shadowloo last year to alot of success. That was before rufus could combo st.mp -> ex tornado… now that you can, things just got alot more interesting.

785

thanks for the tips man! Ill practice all of this.

786

Divekick question - is it possible to combo divekick into st.lk when the divekick lands above the waist? I can only seem to go into st.lk when the DK hits low. I am a Rufus beginner.

787

I’m not a new player but I am somewhat new to Rufus and there’s something that’s been annoying me.

I don’t normally have problems on one side of the screen vs the other, but I am having pretty severe problems doing Rufus’ EX Messiah Kick on 1p side. I often get the overhead or just a MP or HP (using DP -> mp+hp as the input). Is the input more strict on one side or the other? I play Gouken and I just did like 50 2P EX parries in a row and never once did I get an MP or HP, but with rufus I really struggle to get the EX Messiah on 1P side. It seems I have more luck when I make sure to release the stick to neutral before the inputs, but i still often just get normal buttons. Very strange!