The Rufus Thread

Oh, whoops. My bad. Lolol.

At least now I can understand why Zangief contacted Rufus. Their intro is so awesome that I guess I have to learn to play him now…

So when Rufus says he’s the best in America he isn’t lying. Ken or not, it’s still impressive to be the winner of the NA championships. Zangief contacts him for a reason and Ken considers Rufus a friend. That should say a lot about his strength and that he is not to be underestimated. Probably one of the stronger fighters in the SF cast.

Rufus is so sexy… at least capcom giving him more backstory means we can see him in more games.

Back to sf x tek I feel like Rufus/ Ken shoulda been paired, and Ryu/Sakura instead, Zangief shoulda paired with Honda ( if hes in )

But yeah expect to see me all over rufus sf x tek thread when the game drops… Im a sf4 rufus main so I know a lot about his style. He will be perfect in this engine. His main weakness is gone which is vortexes, focus attacks, and safe srks.

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According to some recent footage by Iplaywinner, Rufus has a restriction on his dive kick on this build:(

Oh yeah, saw that stream. Really disappointing how that’s the case here but maybe they had a good reason? Oh well. On the bright side, that same stream showed us how Rufus can combo EX snake strike off a EX Galactic tornado wall bounce on at least big characters. More importantly it showed that Messiah kick recovers fast enough for followups if you hit the opponent mid air.

The combo possibilities… If Rufus can combo into his standing heavy kick, he may be able to hit his opponent with Messiah kick and then follow up with snake strike or at the very least some normals. A lot is riding on Rufus being able to combo into standing heavy kick since it broadens his combo possibilities significantly and makes him capable of so much more than many other characters.

Holy crap where do I even begin! So much new info, all of it awesome!!!

After viewing the numerous Rufus matches, here are some of my many observations:

*CAN combo into standing heavy kick (the solo launcher) from close standing mk at the very least so that opens up a ton of new and damaging combo options.
*Very easy to combo into super art as well as retaining it’s previous advantage. Decent damage too.
*Can combo far mk into cr hp into launcher. This is a significant boon to Rufus’s footsies
*Dive kicks have a ton of hit stun and can be used fairly low to the ground but not instantly anymore. According to Seth Rufus has the game’s best dive kick.
*Ex messiah kick can hit opponents in the air multiple times as opposed to just once or twice in ssf4. Apparently, it doesn’t go over crouchers anymore either.
*Very damaging combos off tags with close heavy punch comboing into snake strike.
*Ex snake strike easy to combo into off launcher but only some players discovered how. To get the opponent high enough to connect, rufus must chain cl mp and cl hp to elevate the character high enough to land it.

  • Galactic tornado is perfect for locking opponents down for tag canceling. Not quite Ken level but definitely more than what most characters can do.
    *Can combo j.hk into any form of snake strike just by hitting the opponent with close medium and heavy punches first as you land.
    *Cannot combo off his overhead, maybe during a counter hit but definitely not regularly. Very fast now though.

What Rufus can do:

From what I’ve seen, he can really take advantage of his partner’s tag cancel with his dive kick pressure that seems even more ambiguous than before. Perhaps the biggest thing that was missed out on here but must be focused on is Rufus’s ability to charge ex galactic tornado without meter. Since it hits from full screen and is safe on block this can open up a huge amount of footsies and mind game options for Rufus. I noticed Jwong had some trouble against grapplers who have always been a natural enemy to Rufus. With a cancelable full screen attack maybe they won’t be as much as an issue this time around. Only time will tell but as of now Rufus is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

EDIT:

Noticed that his target combo is gone since the opponent no longer launches. Also noticed that his crouching heavy causes crumple on counter hit and that it is mostly safe on block.

So this is a triple post but one made after a week of no one posting… but for good reason! There’s a lot of Rufus tech being explored in cross art with NJ and Sherry and this is the topic where we should post and record that stuff. I haven’t been too into the stream tbh but I am catching some stuff. I’m sort of counting on you guys to point them out but I feel like the only one here who cares. Oh well, here we go:

Cross assault observations:

*Can link cr.lp off a light snake strike
*Crouching medium kick can lead into regular GT although I feel this addition is far less relevant in this game than I originally thought but GT in general is great for tag cancelling.
*Alpha counter is a light GT that knocks the opponent almost full screen. Great as a get off me.

Things to look out for:

  1. Combos involving standing heavy kick. Rufus is possible the only SF character with his own launcher and the combo opportunities around it are relatively untapped.
  2. Will landing his overhead on an airborne opponent cause groundbounce?
  3. How much can you combo out of Messiah kick hitting an aerial opponent? I know you can at least land his crouching moves but more is likely. What will this mean for his sololauncher combos?

Some input would be much appreciated.

I guess I am not the only one who have noticed Rufus super high damage output.
I usually do not say this, but he is overpowered. Except nerf in next version. Hope it wont delay to long.

hopefully not that would suck. I hope they leave the dk hitstun as is so dk st.h gt can be one of his bnbs.

No thanks pal. Just wait 'till the game’s out before saying crap like that. In terms of damage other characters will catch up, count on it. Marduck already does more.

It seems that people here have all seen a ton of Rufus gameplay as of late. The only thing I’d wish they would do is combo into light messiah kick more and maybe charge his full screen Galactic tornado to zone. Oh well, 1 week left.

Capcom sucks at nerfing majority of the time. Rufus will always will be high/top/high-mid tier in every sf4 game. Even though this game is different, And even of they managed to make him suck hed still be better than half of the cast anyways. He’s just a solid fighting character design. Great normals, great damage, and great everything. Kind of like Sagat never really sucked at any game. Look at his track record…

Capcom are kinda dumb… one of the major drawbacks for Rufus in SFIV is that he was stunned so easily, in a game with no stun… fireballs was another weakness and in this game they’re weaker than IV by a large degree not to mention you can always go Kaz/Rufus and mist step your way in and tag in Rufus safely and than he’s in on your ass. This game also has horrible anti air and Rufus’ divekick while now equipped with a height restriction has a large amount of hitstun added to it.

Well, throw range is much smaller then it was in SF4 so that kind of limits his options after a dive kick, in theory. Crouch throw tech with cr.mp/cr.hp is hopefully still there.

The stun isn’t actually a big weakness for Rufus. Rufus’s actual 2 major draw backs are his wake up options and size. From what I’ve seen Rufus’s wake up is still ass but his size seems to present a smaller problem in this game with it’s hit box system being the way it is. As for fireball characters they were given a lot of tools to rush down as well so Rufus’s crappy wake up will be an even bigger issue.

Trust me, people are going to figure out how to deal with Rufus in this game and he’ll be a much less prevalent force. Even if he does end up being super good it’s not like you’ll face him much online anyway. Top tier Rufus in vanilla was one of the bottom 5 characters used. Nothing to worry about guys.

Just 2 demos here:

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[media=youtube]2Trv2Ds8cRc[/media]

2 Bars With a powergem activated I did 600 damage in the corner today on a friend. Character is stupid.

what combo did you do?

Divekick -> HP -> Ex Tornado -> HP Snake Strikes -> Tag Cancel to Asuka -> Falling Rain -> Cr. HK

So… you didn’t only use Rufus, you used the other member on your team. So it’s a team combo. 600 damage is still pretty sick though.

On another note, someone’s got to upload the Rufus trials. Fuckin’ stuck on the 15, finished everything else though.

-Tha Hindu

oh ok i thought it was him only…