The Rufus Match-up Thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
241

Wow, strange things i’m reading here…
Yang easy? Are you insane? He’s as hard as Yun(maybe worse, but Yang players I play with are stronger than yun players), which is, i think, 4-6. Once you are under pressure, it’s game over. Cross up is invisible, 2lk catches you full screen(ok, i’m a little bit salty about 2lk) as his 2mk, and he can take you off huge dmg with 2 EX bars if you don’t see the reset(and most of the time, you have to guess, cos’ you never know where it’s going to hit you. Cross up? dive kick? you never know). Not to mention you’re knocked down and still under awful pressure.
Oh, and you can’t EX messiah against Yang: It whiffes on hit and he catches you with either dragon or ultra 2. Same if he crosses you up. You can’t escape. On ly chance is to detroy him quick.
I play alioune’s yang sometimes, and if he manages to get in, i’m dead(and most of the time i’m sure he doesn’t play 100% of his capacities).

Concerning Yun, well, it’s about the same, except there’s no cross up. You wait for the command grab, and die. He prevents you to jump with his mp, tech throw with 2mp(which is hard to punish), can lunge punch all day if he knows the distance(most of the time, setups after thows). Infinite pressure.
And his AA are godlike: Neutral jump hp, or forward jump hp. Beats almost everything rufus has.

Anyway, Sagat is the worst, imo :slight_smile:

242

Oh yeah ex rush punch breaks armour for makoto some of its abit out of date doesn’t really matter when the match up is so easy for rufus tho LOL.

243

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WbZC0IEBM

Ricky vs. LPN

LPN starts off as Yun then switches because the matchup sucks.

244

Maybe he switched because he missed a lot of bnbs, too. :wink:

245

I remember hearing on the seasons beatings stream from Jwong that Rufus actually beats the twins. I’m pretty sure he knows a little more about the character and his match ups than anyone here. Also I’m pretty sad to see Ricky lose it against Cody. I always thought bad wake up game characters were free to Rufus.

246

I’m having Bison troubles. I faced Bison’s on Xbox Live yesterday and they kept throwing me off of my dive kicks and they keep spamming the standing and neutral roundhouse. I really need some help, is there any advice to give or things I should look out for.

247

Mixing up the timing of your divekick could help to beat st.HK, as to throw off his timing. Rufus’ sweep is an option - try spacing at max range. Bison’s st.MK will beat sweep but will lose to dive kicks. Using all these options should make it harder for Bison to read what you’re gonna do.

It’s good to have some space in this match-up so you can lure Bison out of his charge. If he insists on charging, focus and neutral jump at about past mid-screen will beat random scissors. Walking back will make headstomp whiff for a punish. Devil’s reverse is harder to deal with but probably best to just work around it. If he’s predictable with it then it’s possible to time a j.HK and beat him out out of the attack part of the move.

I miss Ultra 2 in this match-up; it could beat out almost everything. Maybe it’ll be worth using again in AE 2012.

248

Do you guys have any advice on the Honda matchup? he’s owning me all around -- I feel like I kinda have the wrong gameplan. If I try to play patient, he uses his headbutts and general turtle style to beat me, and if I play aggresive, i get smacked around by his defensive options. Then when he starts to get aggresive with jabxxhands pressure and ochio mix-up, I feel like he’s really difficult to get off of you @@; and i’m pretty hopeless in the guy matchup, i feel like that’s honestly one of rufus’ worst match ups once guy gets going 0_0; I feel like he has a lot of ways to approach rufus, and it can be really hard to get a solid read on what he will do, especially when he’s in the air. Help?

249

Are you punishing the headbutts? On block you can punish the HP headbutt with cr.HP and the MP and HP headbutts with EX tornado. On his wake-up cross-up dive kicks work well as it screws his charge and causes his buttslam to completely whiff as a reversal, leaving him open for punishment. Getting away from buttslam is something I’m unsure of, though. I just focus and backdash but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Be wary of when Honda is sitting on a charge and recognise when Honda isn’t charging so you can plan your approach.

In the Guy match-up st.HP is really good. If he’s doing elbow drops above you then cl.st.HP will beat it. If he’s further out and you get far HP it’ll probably still beat it. I think if Guy can’t jump at you and mix-up with elbow drops then he has a tough time getting in.

250

cr.mp stuffs Sumo Slam. Didn’t realise Headbutts could be punished with EX Tornado.

Guy is an easier matchup because a lot of his potential is in the air and Rufus can stuff him with most anti/air-air moves (nj.hk, st.hp, cr.mp, SS, nj.hp). That aside, play patiently and you’ll be fine.

251

Honda isnt hard at all, its the other way around actually, Rufus DESTROYS honda once he gets in. Probably you’re playing the matchup wrong. You do need to be patient vs honda, no reckless jumpins or divekicks unless he fucks up or does something unsafe. As people told you, Rufus can punish his headbutts, so its not free-chip for him. Vs jab xx hands/ochio mixup, i just tend to backdash really or EX messiah it, because I rather get resetd in the air than deal with those gimmicks, Rufus has a lot of life to spend so its worth once in a while, ex messiah is good since honda doesnt have an option to beat all followups except “maybe” U1. Once honda is down, his nightmare begins, for once, he cant escape with buttslam vs good divekicks, its a free sweep or at least a cr.HP. Cross him up all day on wakeup with divekicks, charge characters tend to hate being crossed-up.

Dont let him jump at you, cr.MP all day or if you’re reactions are good, j.HK xx EX SS or just EX SS. If he starts trying to keep you out with his neutral jump j.HP, you have to options depending on where are you standing. You can either cr.HK him if you’re very close, OR cr.HP if you’re a bit far, both options beat it clean or at least trade (if you are unsure about cr.HK, you can cr.MP him when close).

His far st.HK hits low, dont forget about it, try to not stand too much at that range unless he’s down, bait his moves, punish the punishable, its ok to eat a random headbutt or ochio throw or whatever once in a while, dont let it get to you and stick to your gameplan. Learn to identity how he reacts to divekick pressure and work from there.

This matchup is definitely in Rufus favor, even mike ross said it (…i know…), its probably 6-4 for Rufus. E.Honda has the tools to keep rufus out for a while, but rufus only needs 1 chance and its pretty much game over for honda. Dont be afraid to try new stuff vs him, go and lose a few matches trying to experiment with this stuff and to see any pattern that he might have, after that, learn, adapt and divekick to your victory my friend!!!

252

Any advice against Ryu in AE? Is this still a 6-4 in Ryu’s favor in AE?

253

mmm kinda. The loss of U2 hurts but you can still use it, I use U1 vs him in AE though.

What you need to understand vs ryu is that you cant play the same way you would vs lets say…abel or sakura, where you just wait the right chance and go bananas. Ryu is a weird matchup, he has the tools to keep you out and to get you off him with his DPs, rufus has a lot of life, so he can take some risks here and there, but dont go too crazy with that. What ive found it works vs ryu in general, is to make him think you want to actually just play footsies with him, that means no divekicks unless he’s down, using your normals far.MP, cr.HK and far.MK to poke him, if he jumps at you just AA him wtih cr.MP/j.HK.

The hard part comes when HE is the one pressuring you and you got no meter, thats kinda a shitty situation, since you got no way out of his strings other than a “guess divekick”, try to not be put in that situation without meter, even if you dont actually use EX messiah, it scares him and he has to play more careful instead of shitting all over you with his strings and throws.

When Ryu is down, you can aim your divekicks to the back of his head and it will beat every DP and EX will whiff, so no big deal about that.

Remember when I said you need to trick him into thinking you want to play footsies? ok, here is the interesting part: Ryu’s pokes are obviously better than yours, so he would want to try and use his best poke (cr.MK) or his cr.mp etc, vs you to prevent you from cr.HK him, but THATS what you really want, since if you read it, you can just divekick it into a free combo. Now, the ryu player might smart up, and start mixing it up with far.HK to also prevent you from divekicking, well, you can cr.HK that and he’s down. So basically its a matchup where you need to play smart and relatively safe, something I tend to do vs Ryu, is to divekick, so a little string and wait, because you know, most people mash when Rufus is in their faces (cant blame them, I do it too when I use Akuma) to analyse that player’s pattern. Sometimes I just do tons of pressure and dont care too much about reversal DP, since that gives me information as well.

So TL;DR version: Play smart, trick him, bait his DPs and punish hard.

Hope it helps : )

254

Yes getting meter early against Ryu is very important, bad players will just let you stay full screen whilst you SS over fireballs etc but good ones will rush you down at the start. I almost always neutral jump at the start of a match because there’s nothing he can do, j.mp gets beaten by hk,hp and if if he throws a fireball you can choose to divekick or just back off.

The most important thing in this match is to make sure your on point with your AA’s though, if you start letting him jump in for free then your done :frowning:

255

Any advice on the Blanka matchup? I don’t know if I’m just getting bodied for playing online or what but I cannot beat a Blanka player ever. I’ve been picking Ultra 2 for this one to punish balls, people who like to fullscreen chip out with Shout of Earth, and electricity meter building, also because TC Ultra whiffs when he crouches and the standard BnB whiffs. How should I even begin to approach this fight?

256

I manage to forget everytime I play a Blanka that the BnB doesn’t work it’s so annoying; in fact the whole matchup is annoying!

It’s hard to give advice because Blanka players online can vary a lot. I’ve gotten pretty good at beating the lame ones who throwout random balls and mash electricity, but the hoppy crossup ones (ie the better ones) I still have trouble with.

U2 is best for this match if you are sure you can react consistently to the things u listed, I guess the best advice I can give is to concentrate on your AA’s, punishes and generally stay patient :slight_smile:

257

Mashers and flowcharters don’t know how to cope with turtlers, so do that unless forced otherwise.
Better Blanka players stay on the ground, rarely use specials and have good AA. This means air approach is limited by divekick mixups; dash/walk in more often. Poking doesn’t work well so you have to be aggressive, stay close and crossup often to reset input charge or cause a panic special to whiff.

Substitute BnB with cr.lp, st.lp, st.mp. cr.mk xx EX Tornado is good for slide and electricity. Learn punishes for specials to capitalise on the times the Blanka player does use a special e.g.
Rainbow ball: nj.hk/nj.hp or aj.hk, SS/Ultra 1.
Ball: block standing, walk forwards a little then cr.hp (cr.hp can whiff when ball blocked crouching). Can punish on ball hit in corner.

Edit 1: changed recommended combos in response to below posts.

258

Eh? The best BnB against Blanka is st.lk, st.mp XX mp galatic tornado.

  • cr.lp xx ex GT beats point blank electricty spammers.
  • Focus attack non-reversal rainbow balls. Otherwise block and punish with j.RH.
  • Don’t fall for lp/mp Blanka balls into elec/grab mix-ups. Know the ranges.
  • On knockdown, always cross-up once so he loses back charge. Bait up ball; then punish.
259

Yes, although that only works if they’re crouching (which is a good bet against blanka) and I think hp galactic works doesn’t it?

260

It works if Blanka is standing, too.

st.mp xx mp GT works on ALL standing characters and a crouching Blanka.

st.HP will always whiff on a crouching Blanka.
HP Galatic does not combo from st.mp from what I’ve seen. At least not consistently from st.lk, st.mp from what I’ve seen.