Rufus Strategy/Combo Thread (because you can't poke forever...)

Thank you so much. Spacing the timing between the c.:lp: was the trick I was looking for.

Does anyone else abuse EX messiah on wake up? Dunno why but Juri players especially seem to fall for this trap every time (not to hate on Juri players, just sayin’).

^no because if that shit gets blocked and you dont have meter to fadc you’re fucked

^^ A point well made, I’m gonna remember that.

**latino kourck ** posted this in a thread of mine about Rufus’ plinking game, and I thought it would be a perfect addition to this thread:

*Things that can be plinked: any time you want to combo into something that isn’t a standing or crouching light punch, or standing light kick, you can plink it, and if your plinking is on point, increase the likelihood you’ll combo it. Examples: st. lk, st. hp~mp / st. lk, st. mp~lp / st. lk, cr. mk~lk / counterhit close mp, st. hp~mp / counterhit close mp, cr. mk~lk / counterhit cr.mp, st. hp~mp / divekick, st. hp~mp / close mp, st. mp~lp / jump fierce, cr. hk~mk.

You can also plink to increase your rate of success when it comes to punishing things that require reversal timing, such as Blanka’s cr. fierce on block, which is -10, and can be punished by far mk, which has 10 frames of startup, or some things that are -6 and optimally are punished by cr. mk xx EX GT (though cr. lp is an easier option since it starts in 4 frames versus 6, it does 40 less damage, but its range is equal). Against some things that are -4 (like Fei Long’s lp rekka if it isn’t correctly spaced), you can plink cr. lk~lp xx EX GT - this is especially useful because not only can missing the punish get you punished, but it also is the difference between spending meter to punish and only getting 33 damage from chip because you missed, versus 150 from a successful cr. lk xx EX GT, and a trivially easy safe jump setup afterwards.*

Say you mess up your plink and s.lk, s.mp comes out. This combos on certain characters, but not all. I haven’t checked this since super but back in vanilla, almost all the characters who could not be hit with that link could be hit with s.lk, s.mk. You can plink with mk instead of mp on these characters. Kinda cool tidbit.

But close lk can only combo to close mk on counterhit.

Question: lets say I find myself in a situation where I’m in close and connecting with light attacks (example: dive kick, sLK, cLP, cLP, etc, since we cant ALWAYS just sLK sHP xx GT on block). What are some good sequences, not including tick throw setups, that can keep the momentum? string into blocked HP GT? Good re-dive setups? focus (probably not)?

Against opponents who are looking for the tech throw or mashing jabs, I’m finding in these situations I’m losing my momentum and sometimes not picking the best spots to re-dive. Of course sometimes we just do our bnb blocked, but also sometimes we have to go into jab patterns instead of linking to sHP, and I feel like in those instances there’s gotta be better than just fizzling out and ending w/ a sMP or something. Hopefully I’m making sense here.

I’ve been experimenting with cr. short linking into chain combo. You can either hit cr. lk xx cr.lp - chain combo (1 frame link) or cr. lk xx cl. lp - chain combo (2 framer). The only problem is that this is very character specific and on the specific characters it only works extremely close. Does anybody know who this works on or am I the only one that doesn’t care about the scaling and impracticality? If anybody is interested I would be willing to test both combos on the cast.

This is not true. It depends on the character. Unless something changed in Super?

No, nothing changed, it doesn’t work in either game, since close lk is +6 on hit and close mk is 7 frames startup. Unless you get a counter hit, or you somehow get the close lk to hit on the second active frame, it cannot combo.

Interesting. I swear on my life I used to land this combo in vanilla. I had a set number of characters on whom I would plink with mk instead of mp for this reason. Strange. I’ll mess with it later.

snake strike in the air!!

I found out that if u get hit out of the air and Rufus is about to land safely, u can perform a snake strike JUST BEFORE HE HITS THE GROUND. it’s almost like a reversal. I’ve practiced the timing on it several times, and if timed right, it basically skips past his final landing frame and he will remain airborne to perform a snake strike. somebody please second me on this!!

Yeah, it’s the same mechanic as “air focus absorbs”.

kourck, could u please elaborate on air focus absorbs? sounds useful…

Can someone explain how much damage LK adds to the Divekick, s.LK, cl.hp, h.GT combo? Why not just go divekick, cl.hp ?

I can’t find the video because this is something that was discovered very early in Vanilla, but IIRC, if you empty jump you don’t have landing frames, so you can do things like snake strike or start a focus attack (allowing you to absorb) as soon as you’re technically grounded, before you visually appear to be so. It’s not really useful, just an explanation of what is going on.

Divekick, st. lk, st. hp xx hp gt: 70+30+(.8100)+(.7120) = 264
Divekick, st. hp xx hp gt: 70+100+(.8*120) = 266

The higher you hit with divekick, the less frame advantage you get, to the point where it’s impossible to combo into close hp since it has 6 frame startup. Close lk is only 4 frames, so using it gives you the opportunity to do a high damage combo off a divekick without meter in instances where you couldn’t otherwise. Furthermore, going straight to close fierce commits you to the fierce GT, and when your opponent blocks this it doesn’t really do as much for you as reacting to the block and throwing, or reacting to the block and beating your opponent’s attempt at beating your throw (e.g. doing a triangle jump divekick to hit their crouch tech or standing throw attempt into bread and butter combo, blocking their mashed reversal and punishing, blocking their unsafe anti-divekick throw tech OS such as Ryu/Boxer/Rose cr.hp+lp+lk and punishing). Divekick, st. hp xx hp gt is fine especially when blowing up crouch tech attempts, but adding one or two close lks allows you to hitconfirm your divekick combos; this is a skill which can be honed by using random block, and it really is a huge part of Rufus’ offense. It’s all about getting the most out of every instance when you get in on your opponent.

Ive been working on the ex tornado combo as well. I have the bad habit of mashing c. :lp: so naturally it would be very beneficial.

so my question is instead of

c.:lk: > c.:lp: LINK c.:lp: xx :d::df::r::2p: would
c.:lp: > c.:lp: LINK c.:lp: xx :d::df::r::2p: work?

I am having trouble with the combo because I need to practice but am not sure if it should even work.

i’ve seen Justin Wong do sLK sLK cLK EX Tornado

My fav EX GT combo I ripped from Justin is dive kick, sLK, cLK, cLP, sLP, cMK xx EX GT. It appears harder than it is. In fact its pretty damn easy, and looks stylish. Though vs some characters, the cMK doesn’t reach, I guess omit the cLP or something in those matchups.