Use really short dive kicks from about 3/4->1/2 screens distance away to keep the sagat on his toes. He won’t know whether you’re actually going to jump in or not, and will make him hesitant about throwing fireballs. Then just walk forward. Do not jump because you will get tiger knees, s.hk or tiger uppercut all day. Also, pay attention to the player’s fireball patterns. If he seems to be throwing out fireballs when you’re at a close distance, you have to take a risk and jump in. That’s why the match-up is so terrible because rufus has to take risks in order to win the match.
also when comboing you might as well use the target combo on standing or crouching opps (as long as its not against a char that TC misses on crouching) this way they stay close to you rather than tornado them and putting them too far away. Mix them up a bit then use tornado, youll be surprised how your mixup game will improve with thism theres so much you can do after TC midscreen
Some real basic advice for the Ryu and Sagat spacing question. If you’re constantly trying to jump over fireballs you’re absolutely going to lose. Especially in the Ryu match up I’m okay with them throwing fireballs all day. Building an early ultra by FADCing them has been a deciding factor for a lot of my tough Ryu match ups. Neutral jumping over fireballs are a good idea as well. A lot of players tend to get impatient and stop playing the zoning game if it goes on long enough.
This works most of the time, but what about players who don’t fall for that? What is the distance where the mindgames begin and what are your options? Against good players I often get the idea they can counter everything I do on reaction. I know that’s not the case, I’m either being read like a book or my approach to the match-up is off.
When I’m watching pro Rufus players it seems like dive kick -> mix-ups is all you need but that’s obviously not how you should deal with Ryu … I think.
Sorry if I’m being too '09 btw :lol:
You can plink it for sure. Why would you opt not to combo? It’s just gonna be a bit more damage at the cost of giving them a chance to srk out of it or block it? Nobody is going to be mashing jab in the middle of a combo like that, except maybe a balrog, and I think his jab would trade with the hp if timed right, so it’s really a better move to just hit the combo.
On another note, what do you guys use to punish a max range blocked lp shoryuken? All I can connect with is a standing mp, which isn’t good damage. Any suggestions?
It depends on the situation. It’s not often that the other player is going to be right on top of you for it to work but just like ex messiah im always looking for the opening to throw it out. you surprise people with it if they’re alwasy looking for for the target combo after a divekick/ divekick cross up so keep them on their toes.
Is there any reason to lk>hp>hp GT other than damage? Is the exra damage significant? Also sometimes for dive kick>hp>hp GT, the dive kick hits the opponent but they can grab me right after if I go for the hp. Does the lk link constantly? Also which dive kicks link properly if that’s not the case (far, close, tiger knee’d…).
Adding the lk means you can hit your opponent higher, that also makes it safer and you have more time to hit-confirm. It actually does a bit less damage than omitting the lk but it’s worth it.
Are you sure it does less damage? Cause sometimes I do the combo is does like 316, other times it does around 290. IIRC dive kick s.HP HP GT does like 312 or something, so sometimes i think the lk does give the combo more damage, but not significantly.
Another reason the lk is added into the combo is for the throw mixups u can do after the lk or throw before the lk. Also, if u delay hitting the s.Hp (on block) after the s.lk and your opponent tries to jump out, throw, or hit u (other than shoryuken or another move with invuln. frames), u get a counter hit which makes timing the s.hp much easier, and possibly does more damage.
Divekick, lk, hp, hp gt does indeed do less damage than just divekick, hp, hp gt, but it’s safer like Keine said, LK comes out 2 frames faster than hp so your divekick can be less deep and still combo. You don’t need to delay the HP at all, either - on block there’s a 3 frame window in between the lk and hp that will counterhit throw attempts or throw OS. That 3 frame window is assuming your inputs are timed so that it would combo if they weren’t blocking, of course.
Anyone have a list of which character you can hit with Rufus’ regular j. mk cross up?
I normally do lk after a dive cause it gives me more time to hitconfirm. If I see it comboing I go into a hp, GT. If I see them blocking I throw or do another dive.
Thanks guys, good to know 
as far as i know only abel, sagat, zangief, boxer, and rufus
Really? I thought it worked on a lot more ppl than just the ‘big guys’.
This is from Mechanica in a thread on here. This is for cross-up j.mk.
"Tested after forward throw, two dashes. Then if I couldn’t get it, I kept trying from other distances and couldn’t seem to get it.
Works on:
Blanka
Chun
honda
Gief
Seth
Bison
Sagat
Balrog
and sort of abel… it was really strangely inconsistent on Abel so I wouldn’t try it in an important match?
so no dhalsim, shotos (think I forgot to test akuma, but meh), no guile, vega, viper, fuerte… I also didn’t test the console characters other than seth but they’re mostly tiny… so it probably works on gouken but not the others
also forgot to test crouching… I assume you’d use this after training them to block high for the crossup dive kick."
Yeah, I think one of the things that is underused in Rufus’ gameplan is cross up j. mk because they’re ALWAYS looking for that dive kick, which you can cross up as well but your positioning has to be way closer.
And from j.mk you can land a huge combo, start using this more you Rufus’ out there…I’m done with Rufus though (back to my first main, Abel ftw). I’ll only use him for fun from now on.
[media=youtube]njfq1KaXb9c[/media]
In this video the guy is linking cr.mp>st.hp. Anyone know how he’s doing it, i cant get it to link.
:u:
I’ve never tried it but frame data says that you have a 4 frame advantage after the cr. mp connects, so on counterhit it’d be +7, close fierce is 6 frame startup, so you have a 2 frame window to do it, shouldn’t be THAT hard.
Yea, that sounds possible. I know for sure that if you get counter hit on a c.mp, u can link a c.mk after into an EX GT