any d+mk is punishable on hit (unless it catches you in the air) with U2 (other stuff too, but as soon as you get U2 you start to neuter his offense really hard) the only issue can be timing with regards to auto correct or being in the corner etc
focus dash U2 through far fierce
Seth’s fireballs are some of the slowest in the game; he is up there with Sakura, Gouken, Ken, and Rose, so U2 shuts down his zoning aspect effectively
once you get U2, jumping forward, even if he changes his angle/hang time with divekick, becomes extremely unsafe. neutral jumping even can be punished within a certain range
Against Rose:
Her fireballs are very slow but she couples them with good forward jump normals and AAs, so she can zone decently against Rufus. With U2 she loses almost all ability to keep you out
She is easily safe-jumped, but OSing against her backdash can be hard since her invincible reversal is so slow. cr. hk doesn’t work, but U2 is golden
Against Vega:
Also easily safejumped, but mixing up 3P/3K backflip and backdash can make it difficult to consistently punish him for his escape. U2 makes this trivial.
You can punish Vega going to the wall on reaction with U2. Even if he just goes to the back wall at full screen and does nothing, holding back, the move has so much recovery you will grab him (full screen!)
EX Barcelona on block is a free U2. This is a very, very common element in mixups for Vega’s offense, both by itself (e.g. post EX Barcelona, izuna drop, Vega can do a 50/50 crossup EX Barcelona, or df+hk crossover meaty low short) and in combos, most of which are 1-frame links and therefore prone to error
RE: Blanka. Dunno, I’ve never seen that happen. Is this on hit or block? Crouching or standing? Reversal U2?
Au contraire. Dhalsim’s backdash is one of the slower ones in the game, and if he teleports out of a mixup, it’s punishable anyway. Reaction cr. fierce/hold forward cr. fierce/OS sweep punishes him pretty reliably. Sweep sets up another safejump or 50/50 divekick target combo U1, and cr. fierce puts you in really optimal position. You are a few steps away (depending on whether you punished a teleport or backdash) from the sweet spot where you can focus/focus dash far fierce, cr. mp his far mk or hk, triangle kick then jump forward fierce/hk his jump back, df+mk roll under far mk or hk to put him in a 50/50, jump fierce if you earn it through footsies, or divekick at the peak of your jump arc to beat the AA that would beat the jump fierce. U2 resets the screen and is pretty much impossible to apply okizeme after.
When Dhalsim has the lead, he has no need to take risks, which is what U2 can punish. Having U1 IMO means you’re more likely to do large amounts of damage when you get in, since it powers up your offense, but U2 generally banks on the other player doing something stupid, versus you doing something smart.
I’m currently flip flopping U1/U2 for a lot of matchups now. I just can’t seem to decide.
Ryu/Ken - U1 for now
Akuma - U2 then U1 if I feel U2 isn’t working
Sagat - I haven’t played too much of them so atm it’s U2
Honda - U2 For MP/HP Headbutt, Neutral jumps, Reversal Butt Slams
Ibuki - U2 for Anti-Vortex, punishing DP and jump back kunai
Seth - U2
Gouken - U2
Sakura - U1
Chun - U1
Dhalsim - I switch on this one a lot depending on my game. Currently on U1.
Viper - U1 because I get scared to U2ing burn kicks thinking they might just bait it with empty superjump.
Bison - U1. U2 can be useful here, but I feel I need guaranteed damage for this match
Deejay- U2
Cody - U1
Guy - U1
Guile - U1
Blanka - U2
Zangief - I currently use U2, but I’m thinking of going back to U1 now.
Rufus- tossup for me. U2 punishes all Messiah kick followup except for perfectly timed (1frame) lk followup.
El Fuerte- U2. God, I hate this char.
Vega - U1. But considering U2 after reading some of the previous posts.
Thawk - U2 for Condor dives and Jumps
Adon - U1. U2 can be useful for off the wall dive and Jaguar kick and air jaguar kick. But jaguar kicks can also be punished with U1
Rose - I flip flop here. The time I played Arturo’s Rose I chose U1.
Everyone else I didn’t mention I probably use U1 for them.
Hi Rufus players,
I’ve been trying to play the fat Kung Fu master a little but I’m having trouble with cl.HP xx Tornado. Is there an imput trick or am I just too slow ?
Akuma - I use U1 here exclusively. Akuma has too many safe jumps/vortex options that he can still use against u2, plus you can’t punish teles with it and can get counter ultra’d i think. I’ve never liked U2 in this match (but then again I don’t like it much at all)
Dhalsim - This one I actually use U2 to OS. I don’t play many good sims tho
Deejay - I use U1 if the Deejay is good enough to avoid just spamming the up dread kicks and can block my mixup game. any other deejay is U2.
Blanka - I use U1 here only because I don’t know exactly what U2 can punish. Any help here would be good.
Rufus - U1 all the way, it also beats 3/4 messiah options I believe
For Akuma, I actually prefer U1 now. After playing 50 matches against the best akuma I played so far, I went from U2 for the first 3 matches then U1 the rest of the way.
Blanka - it beats all blanka balls except spaced lp ball.
Thx.
BTW, I saw you were talking about Gosho earlier, you probably won’t see any new video of him since he’s a Kof player and now that Kof is back he’s likely to drop SF4. If I’m not mistaken, he finished 2nd at 2k2UM SBO this year while his former partner Kyabetsu finished 3rd at KofXIII.
I’m strongly considering picking up Rufus. Why? Well, data from Capcom says that nobody uses him and I want a unique main. I’ve also been having a hard time with Akuma, my gut is telling me to move on. Anyway, can anyone give me the basic game-plan using Rufus? One or two small blurbs would help, it is not my intention to be lazy and have everyone else do the work for me. Sometimes there is just too much information to sort and I like to get a condensed version. Thanks!
Your game plan in the majority of matches is to get within sweep distance of opponents so that you can apply dive kick pressure mixing in instant dive kicks, throws, and EX messiahs to catch throw techs. Of course you have to be weary of opponents trying to reversal you out of blockstrings and throw techs, so watch out for that.
p.s I think I saw u playing HDR the other day, i think u played vega. I suck at hdr and was messin around with honda til i just gave up after getting beat up for 15 minutes.
Yup, that was me. I use Vega and Cammy, HDR is what I play competitively. I’m trying REALLY hard to get into SSIV, am currently searching for a main to use. Thanks for the Rufus tips, friend!
How do you deal with people who use focus backdash on wakeup to counter okizeme jumpins?
It’s no big deal to counter people using normal backdashes on wakeup since you can use easy option selects to hit them while backdashing but when they use focus backdash you will hit them once so using option select becomes impossible.
Ok, played some extended Rufus sets tonight in vanilla IV and did pretty good for my first time. I’m enjoying the J.FK>U1 setup, and a few others. A few questions:
What kind of pokes can I use? Cr. FP is great but its slow, and his other pokes don’t have any reach.
Which normals work as an AA? I think I read Cr. MP but it has such horrible reach?
In doing a St. FP > F. GT combo, I noticed that your first spin can be punished or was I just too slow?
What are we doing on wake-up? I got trashed by throws and AA pressure, I’m not used to using characters who don’t have an SRK-ish move on wakeup.
Thanks!
EDIT: How different is Rufus in SSIV? Is he better or worse? I’m completely new to the character so I have no clue (in fact, I’m pretty new to SSIV as a whole).
s.mk and s.mp are pretty good pokes but like u said have limited range.
s.hp is a good anti air, but c.mp is typically the best cause it rarely trades. Just wait til the opponent is closer to landing to use it. I like to use s.hp as an anti air when opponents get jump happy trying to cross me up or if they do jump in air tatsu cross up the close s.hp will come out and beat them.
Yes on block a DP can be mashed out of the first spin and in between the s.hp and hp GT.
Rufus has a decent wake up reversal in EX messiah if your opponent is attacking on your wake up. However it can be baited and easily punished so sometimes your best option is to block. Also you can do wake up EX messiah on ryus and akumas and it will whiff the last part (the lk follow up) which leaves rufus vulnerable to attack.
Rufus does less damage in ssf4 but he’s still a beast. Plus U2 gives him a new tool to work with.
Is there a comprehensive list of Rufus Option selects anywhere?
I’m reading about the dive kick>U2 one and the dive>exGT one but there has to be quite a few. Theres none on Youtube and the basics thread doesnt touch on em(advanced thread maybe?).
No, nothing like that exists. Since option selects are rather character specific, and specific to the player in that you don’t want to use every option select every time, it’s rather pointless to compile a list. Work on finding your own option selects that you think are useful. However, if you look at matchup threads you should be able to find some that have been discussed in the past.
What’s wrong with using the MK follow up on a blocking opponent? It seems in all the high level match video’s I don’t see anyone using it, but it’s neutral on block versus the other two which are negatives.
Seems like it would be good when your start up is blocked.