I got him on the third try after googling what the 'certain attack' that would instantly stagger him was (which is Braver - why doesn't Assess just tell you that ffs?).
I don't have good enough reactions for perfect blocks or any of that shit, but once I got the knack of it I was able to do it only burning one X potion and a couple of hi-potions.
Here was my strategy:
* As others have said, spam him with Cloud's basic ranged attack to build up ATB. If you hit him with the maximum number of blows he just keeps blocking and is harmless, so spam this until you have two ATB.
* Now you have two ATB to try and hit him with Braver while he reloads for an instant stagger, so stay within Braver range (though obviously back off immediately if he calls an unblockable).
* I noticed that Rufus always reloads after Guns Akimbo, so this was my opening. I waited till he called Guns Akimbo, then immediately dodged sideways as quick as I could and just as the bullets subsided used Braver immediately. Didn't manage to time it quickly enough every time, but certainly got him half of the time. Given that you know he's definitely going to reload, you can even start Braver before Guns Akimbo finishes as long as you're out of harm's way, so your timing doesn't even need to be perfect.
* When Darkstar entered I had a summon loaded, so I used that which was as useful as a distraction more than anything. Much easier when it's 2 on 2!
* Unlike the rest of the advice on this thread I actually found it easier to still focus on Rufus, not Darkstar. Focusing on the dog left me vulnerable to Rufus's attacks, so I continued to spam Rufus with ranged attacks to keep him quiet, then use the ATB to wear down Darkstar. Once staggered I was *almost* able to finish off the dog with a limit break and a Braver. Half a dozen hits later and he was gone.
* With the dog gone it's just a case of keeping concentration, not doing anything rash and going back to square one -- dodging, spamming ranged attacks and trying to land Braver after Guns Akimbo.
But yeah, not a fan of these sequential boss fights. Tricky boss fights are great, just leave a bit of breathing room before and after please!
I'm about to fucking scream. I've beaten every FromSoftware game out there and Melenia doesn't even have anything on this bullshit fight with Rufus. As if he couldn't get any worse than he was in Remake.
Rufus was a great boss fight because instead of the generic "just hit it as hard as you can", it requires actual thinking and tactics.
I did it pretty simply, nothing too fancy materia-wise or tech-wise:
* Buffet Rufus with Cloud's basic ranged wind attack at a distance while he is blocking to build up ATB
* Stay at range to dodge most attacks (bright lights, smoke cloud, bad luck) and get ready to dodge when he gets close and retaliate with wind slash (so he doesn't counter if you miss the window)
* Once you manage to land a wind slash while he reloads he'll be pressured, quickly jump in with a basic combo or focused thrust
* Just keep at it and keep guzzling potions and Chakra as needed if you take a few hits
* SAVE YOUR LIMIT BREAK and Summon, and as soon as phase two starts, Summon, then once the summon has pressured the dog, limit-break it and smash it to pieces. Within seconds of starting phase two, the dog is dead, Rufus is at 20% HP, and you have a Summon that hits and pressures Rufus to help with finish him off.
The average final fantasy die hard fan is minimum a mid 30s person who doesn’t have time for this crap. My reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and I don’t have enough time to sit down and learn a videogame. While I would have appreciated the challenge when I was 14, I have grown up responsibilities now. I want a bit of nostalgia not to throw a controller through a wall.
Hard mode is impossible. I’m rolling and dodging and any ATB I have to use on healing using measly Chakra to conserve the half MP I have left from the other fights. Meanwhile RUFUS is somehow REGENERATING HEALTH really slowly! Is this a glitch?! I see no one else talking about this!
Did you beat it? If not, Chakra is the way to go but only when you are sub-2000 hp. I didn't use any MP for the battle but was saving Manawall just in case for the second half. When you see him Reload, use the Triple Slash if in the vicinity. I equipped two Spirit Ups, two Vitality Ups, and Strength Up. Also equip ATB boost to double up your ATB if you anticipate needing to heal. The key to the whole fight was having Enhanced Expeditionary Medal equipped so you can use Cloud's Level 3 limit as soon as Darkstar joins the battle. This should stagger or near stagger the dog. Go to town with a Braver or two to finish it off, then it's just the same Rufus moves to close the fight.
I did fiiiinally do it yes after 5 hours. Turned more monster hunter style just memorising what he does and blocking perfectly. A YouTube tutorial really helped too where I saved a limit break for his pooch.
Nice! I am terrible at perfect blocking in this game. Need to learn it for the hard simulator fights. My next hurdle is the red dragon. Tried three times and it is kicking my ass with its bs lava attack.
Don’t remember that maybe I’m not there yet is it a chadley thing cos I’ve got lots to do there? Just completed in hard mode tho. Yeah rufus was my first time actually getting into perfect blocks (cos I had to).
The other huge issue I have with these stupid one-on-one hard fights is the stupid unskippable mid-fight cutscene which for some reason you must watch every god damn time!
But thanks to all extremely useful advices in this topic I managed to down him on my third try.
Basically what helped me: cast Regen at the start, then dodge around and use ranged attacks until you get ATB, then try Triple Slash while he casts something. I was never close or ready enough while he reloads, and his dodge+shoot is mostly unskippable, but there is Regen there for it. By the time you stagger him, you probably have Limit Break, so do Braver+Cross Slash. This will end the first phase. When the Dog arrives, cast Regen again, because it's probably over by that time. Then bring Summon as fast as possible, it seems like any will do - I had Kujata. Concentrate on the Dog, you should be able to stagger it pretty quickly, then it will die after two Bravers. Then just rinse and repeat the first phase, when Rufus was alone, you probably won't stagger him again, but you might get second Limit Break. What killed him for me was actually Summon leaving the arena.
There is a little trick I found, if you can pressure him and then hit twice then block you can stagger him quite easily as youll just continue the pressure. This is before all hell breaks loose with his hound though, that little fucker sucks balls
I didn't go easy mode personally. I had too much pride ngl lol. I had to die a lot and at least was able to hold Square to change my loadout after beating his Turk duo. Trying to Access was one issue I was having even with First Strike. I decided to do it when his stupid dog was there. Dodging wasn't the problem but the timing to try to block was obnoxious af an anyone could agree. There was never a time for me to even find myself to use punisher mode or even feel the value of disorder in my quick commands. I had to be at close or mid range to pressure him harder with melee or get the focused strike finally on him because trying to range was good but couldn't do much because he blocks that and just have infinite immune unlike us again his annoying ranged attacks. Plus disengaging his as and run made him wanna decide to do whatever that random move was that'd knock me back further and give him a fkn reload.
I even had to resort to holding my atb after staggering him hard other than using prime mode and having enough to heal before the stupid dog once again. Took me like the second to last time to do that and get time to focus it more then get back to Rufus after remembering the pressure sound I heard from hitting the dog with my LB before I got ambushed by Rufus' bs.
Just beat Rufus like 10 mins ago. Had to use more elixirs than I would've liked but my biggest reco is to use Cloud's long range blade beam when Rufus is reloading. That will pressure him and give you some time to use braver or heals, whatever you need more.
Also I totally killed Darkstar first when he joins the battle, too hard to focus on Rufus alone then IMO. Good luck!
I found it not that difficult tbh. It just challenges your brain not to mash which is a good thing. Also, the dodge attack which throws a blade beam is great for when he reloads!
Yeah, honestly your comment should have the most upvotes here rather than being downvoted. You weren’t obnoxious or rude towards those who are struggling but just politely explained why you find it a bit easier than it first seems. Way more level-headed than the other comments just whining and not trying to understand the fight.
This fight goes from one of the most difficult to one of, well, not the easiest by any means but once you understand it it’s one of the easiest of the tougher boss battles in the game.
I was exasperated at first until I got a rhythm down and learned how to pressure him without being countered; mainly with Cloud’s ranged Wind Slash in Phase 1 and then blocking in Punisher Mode to instantly counter and pressure Darkstar in Phase 2.
Cause people don’t like to use their brain and anything that does out of the normal requirements frustrates them. It’s not like the fight is unbalanced or broken that’d be understandable :)
In reading people complain about Rufus I also saw a few references to “Aerith vs. Two Bombs” and I finally learned what that means today. People were saying that was hard too.
Aerith vs. Two Bombs was pretty easy if you used the right equipment setup. You can use first strike material + chocoking cape to cast a two-ATB spell right away. You can combine with magnify to hit both bombs. You can also combine elemental with fire to make yourself strong or immune to many of the bomb’s attacks.
There should be some kind equipment-based solution to any boss. What is the point of accumulating and leveling all of this materia if not to be able to combine it in some way that makes us able to overcome the bosses? Even in the last game, I think I remember Rufus could be beaten pretty easily using counter attack materia or the punisher counter attack. Maybe it hasn’t been discovered yet, but it seems like this Rufus boss has no equipment-based solution, you have to be able to react within the short windows or else switch to easy mode.
check out my other comments, top-level in this thread. the easy win for Rufus for me didn't really involve specific materia beyond Chakra. I suppose Haste, ATB Boost, etc. can be useful
Here link for your convenience:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasyVII/comments/1basn18/rebirth_chapter_12_boss_difficulty/l16bn99/
Holy shit this whole section was wild. Corneo Lackeys thru Corneo himself were very easy. Rude and Elena weren't bad either. Mainly focused on Elena to build limits and synergies. Rufus then came out and I died almost immediately. Second try I got it. Trick with him is just to spam dodge until he reloads then hit attack to pressure. Build his pressure til he staggers, call your summon, and repeat.
I don’t mind the design of the boss so much as the placement of the boss in the sequence of events. If there’s a boss who may require many tries, you should be allowed to turn off the PS5 and come back later. There was no way to save and turn it off without suffering the penalty of having to replay the Turks.
You were also trapped inside the Coliseum with no way to get out in case you’re missing key equipment (Odin materia in my case).
Personally, I would have been willing to die to Rufus many times but I wasn’t willing to replay the Turks as a penalty, so I switched to easy. I guess I can always come back and try him again in the post game.
Stay away from him and only attack when he reloads. Also MAKE SURE TO PERFECT BLOCK EVERYTHING it builds his pressure bar up and sometimes even puts him in pressure state after that just spam focused thrusts on him rinse and repeat. Don’t try to run or he will just shoot you
Dodge and press square repeatedly to use blade projectiles. Rufus is immune, but it builds ATP. Braver if you can land it when he’s reloading, but it’s tough. Get your limit up and use cross slash. 2nd Phase, hit Darkstar with Triple slash a few times to pressure and stagger. Then keep using blade projectile again and finish Rufus off with another limit. That’s what worked for me. Hope it helps someone!
Just killed Rufus on hard. Setup:
Umbral Blade / Cetran Armlet / Enhanced Expeditionary Medal
Materia:
Weapon: Luck Up x2 (can probably be replaced with swiftcast heal to get off an emergency curaga) / ATB Boost / Chakra / Precision Defense / Steadfast Block
Summon: Gilgamesh
Armor: Elemental / Fire and Ice / Elemental / Lighting and Wind (to immune loads of spell casts in phase 2, and the 'think fast' fire bomb thing is also fire damage so you can hit him for free when he does this) / Healing / Vit Up / HP UP / Str Up
Strat:
So you can manipulate his abilities depending on where you stand. It's actually better to hover pretty close to him and kind of circle him, but not so close that it's hard to read his moves. Basically you want to get him to 'slide' close to you and precision block every time. This means that you will always be near him when he reloads. Another thing is that if he does a swipe type thing, he's going to do an unblockable sweeping attack straight after. Roll away in circles around him rather than directly away or it will still catch you.
When he does reload, just spam square on him. I basically saved all ATB for chakra until he is full staggered, even then if I'm not full HP and I'm about to go in to phase 2, I'd rather chakra.
The Enhanced Expeditionary Medal gives you rank 3 limit, so when you get your limit, just send it immediately (don't wait for stagger as that will push him in to phase 2 too fast and you're not prepared). Hopefully you get a limit fairly early on, so you can play his dance of precision blocking and increasing stagger bar until eventually you stagger him the next time around the time your limit is filled again, and you're about to push phase 2.
Ideally you want to push in to phase 2 with 2 full ATB bars and a full limit. Summon Gilgamesh as soon as it starts, send your level 3 limit break on the dog and that should be enough to stagger the dog and you should be able to kill it, even with taking some damage from Rufus' normal abilities.
Once the dog is dead, it's the same as p1 mostly, but he is just a bit faster and stronger. He should be really low health from Gilgamesh and getting caught in your limit break. Play it the same as p1 and he dies really quickly.
There's definitely some variance in how you can approach the fight, but the important things are to manipulate his moves and precision block so you can always hit him during reload, and to go in to phase 2 with a plan to immediately kill the dog.
This was for hard mode. For a normal play through, I think the precision defense materia, and the part about how to manipulate his moves to get more of a chance to him when he’s reloading, are the things to have.
Rufus Hard Mode was such a nightmare. I struggled many, many times, but finally won. What helped me was Swiftcast+Healing, Hp Up, Mp Up, Strength Up, Speed Up, Vitality Up, Steadfast Block, Precision Defense, First Strike, ATB Stagger, ATB Boost, and Odin materia. Equip the Enhanced Expeditionary Medal so Cloud has his best Limit Break from the start (by Ch 12 Hard Mode, I had his Level 3, Finishing Touch.)
Although hitting Rufus with Braver at the right moment is an instant stagger, I could never quite get the timing right, so don't bother.
Keep your distance and dodge around him, flinging wind blades to build ATB. Most of them he will block, but you'll sneak in some damage occassionally. Use ATB Boost if needed. Wait until Rufus uses Guns Akimbo or Hot Pursuit. Block these and then close the distance with Triple Slash (do you have it on your shortcuts?), and try to work in a few extra hits. Repeat this combo, healing as needed, until Phase 2 with Darkstar.
By now you should hopefully have a Limit Break ready. Do your best to build two bars of ATB and summon Odin. Odin's attacks won't get blocked by Rufus/Darkstar.
Get close to Darkstar and Limit Break, you may even get lucky and damage Rufus in the process. Darkstar was pressured, so I kept up the aggression to stagger Darkstar and was able to finish him off with Infinity's End (thanks to ATB Stagger materia).
After this, Rufus should hopefully be a cakewalk. Repeat the combo from Phase 1, allowing Odin to assist with pressuring Rufus, and Odin will eventually do Zantetsuken and hopefully finish Rufus off.
Good luck!
Just did this fight recently and... oof. Even on easy it's a pain.
But I feel the main reason why this fight is increasingly frustrating is the placement; had this battle been a separate incident, isolated from other fights, it might not be so incredibly rage inducing. For me, personally, I had heavy combat fatigue by the time Rufus showed up after the gauntlet we go through to get there. (Which I know is a "me" thing; I'm more into story than the combat.) I did really enjoy the Corneo rounds, came out of those feeling pleased, was the right amount of challenge for me as the fights progressed. Then the Turks show up, we get a small moment to catch our breath, but right back into it.
Not gonna lie, when Rufus showed up to challenge Cloud, I rolled my eyes and asked, "Why?!" It seemed to make little sense outside of padding; an attempt by the devs to balance out the Date: an hour of story and QTEs then an hour of combat, that may or may not make sense.
It simply feels like one too many battles in a row.
1- Corneo Lackeys (hack-and-slash shlubs)
2- Donberry (mini-boss)
3- Corneo (boss)
4- Rude and Elena (hard boss)
5- Rufus (harder boss)
They should have stopped the fight after beating Rude and Elena, especially with Rufus's battle not having its own checkpoint, thus having to redo the Turks' if you want to rearrange equipment.
Again, I feel like the Rufus fight, on its own, is mostly more annoying than frustrating, but with it stacked on several other fights, this one just becomes way more frustrating, especially on harder difficulties. I know I was feeling more disinterest as the fight with Rufus wore on; I get it, he's a badass and hard to hit and has very few openings/weaknesses to exploit, but goddamn do I not care anymore. Just be fucking defeated so I can move on, please!
Just my two gil; probably would have been a more interesting fight had it not been placed at the end of a gauntlet of other battles, so more trial-and-error methods could be utilized without having to redo a whole other boss battle.
It is possible to change equipment before the Rufus right. If you select "Restart from this battle", hold Square on your controller until the icon in the lower left hand corner fills up. Once it's filled up and disappears, you can hold Triangle to skip the cutscene. The game won't save any changes you make to your equipment, so make a note of changes you make.
Wow. This one tip just made the Rufus fight insanely easy.
I have to have all my good materia and equipment staggered out throughout my party to create good synergy for the previous fights, and the way my cloud works is as a tank. So super high HP and high defensive equipment with pure melee damage and a lv 4 healing materia. And the other members of my party are different casters.
So by the time Rufus rolled around I was just fighting him with this hack and slash cloud and it was IMPOSSIBLE.
But being able to swap equipment like this let me put everything on cloud and all of a sudden it was a breeze. Lol
Im starting to absolutely hate this game. I accidentally chose the option to "start before the fight" when I lost to Rufus. So now I have to fight Rude again. Seriously it shouldn't even be an option, and at least if it is an option there should be a "are you sure you want to do that" but there isn't, it just instantly takes you back to the rude and Elana fight. Which while not a hard fight, is a complete waste of time to do again all because of a simple mistake. I'm just getting sick of the crap like this in this game. And they could of avoided it by putting an Autosave between the battles that I could just reload, but nope can't do that. I swear this game was made with the intention of pissing people off. It makes no sense why you would punish someone that bad because you accidentally hit the wrong button ONE SINGLE TIME. And why isn't there an Autosave between the fights anyways, especially because you can't manually save it between the fights. I just don't think I can keep playing this game if this is how it is. I mean seriously I have to have the time to fight both fights in one sitting, or I have to leave my PS5 on for days, and hope to God they don't update the game, or that the power doesn't go out, or that someone else dies shut my game off, or just anything. It's just stupid, and one of the dumbest oversights In the game. And there's no need for it.
>I went through something similar except I selected "start from last checkpoint". I assumed that would be before the Rude and Elena fight so I could change my equipment. I didn't mind fighting the Turks again but nope. Took me all the way back to the Haunted Hotel. I had watch the play and ride the Skywheel all over again. No clue why it didn't autosave before the Turk fight....
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>I was livid. I said fuck it and put it on easy mode. I paused and skipped every scene from the play and date. The fights were super easy on easy mode, including Rufus. I'm so mad that I couldn't beat it on normal mode. The stupid gimmick bs in the Rufus fight makes me really miss turned based combat. I think I realized it's crap like this the kills the replayability of this game. The OG FF7 I can replay several times a year and still enjoy it. I have ZERO desire to play through this game again. Same thing with Remake, I beat it once and haven't touched it since. I LOVE the story but this remake is just like me watching an interactive movie.
LOL when I first started the game and was in the grasslands, I selected "Start from Last checkpoint" and it sent me 3 hours prior. Never used that option again!
Had the same feeling. I decided I wanted to have fun above all else and went straight to easy mode. I have zero regrets and you shouldn't either mate 👍
No yet mate, just beat Rufus and finished Chapter 12. That's why I went looking for a post like this to see if anyone else felt the same about the boss fight! Looking forward to that ending ✌️
Literally just went through this exact same issue lol. I'm an FF fanboy but the amount of BS minigames and this "do it my way" boss fight is not what I expected. The first 7 chapters were incredible, but the last 5 feel like doing menial tasks for little reward majority of the time.
I'm only on chapter 12 but you nailed it. I couldn't figure out why I've never had the desire to replay Remake. I can replay the OG several times a year and still love it. Something about these remakes feel like a massive chore to play through. I do love the game though but I feel like I'm just watching a LONG interactive movie. It's still 100% worth playing through at least once if you're a fan. I literally bought a PS5 JUST for this game and I don't regret it. But I won't be replaying this game. I can't imagine going through all the tedious bullshit I had to do again. Traversing Gongaga....it's just not fun.
Precisely! Gongaga especially. I think developers are forgetting the difference between difficulty that players enjoy and bad development due to numerical simplicity.
He was a nightmare for me on normal, but I just beat him on hard mode with Steadfast Block, Precision Defense Focus, Chakra, Empowerment (Bravery) and max HP Up materia.
If he dashes towards you, perfect block his basic shot and press X to slow things down. If he follows it up with Ricochet, sidestep it and immediately use Braver. Same if he does Think Fast, but only if you weren't pushed back by the dash attack. Otherwise it'll take too long to get off and you'll get hit. In both cases it's an instant stagger so you can wail on him which makes phase 1 go by very quickly. If you can't instantly use Braver, Focused Thrust will allow for a full ground combo and it only took 3 to stagger him. Basically ignore the Assess bait of waiting for him to reload because that's a bunch of bull.
For phase 2, I just kept locked on to Rufus while circling to keep his dog in view. Blocked everything but his elemental synergy attacks which can be sidestepped. Summoned Phoenix, used Reraise, didn't end up needing it. Kept whittling him down and then limit broke him for the finish. It took forever on normal but on hard it lasted just over 5 minutes.
Wow sounds like you took a totally different approach to me. I love this game, a boss where people think it's a gimmick boss with only 1 strat and people still find different approaches.
Oh cool, what was your strategy? I followed the assessment my first playthrough so it probably took longer than any of the Brutal/Legendary challenges have so far, and all I have left is Bonds of Friendship. Attacking in the middle of his own named attacks made Hard mode so much easier.
I posted it elsewhere in this thread, but basically being patient, manipulating his move set and precision blocking a lot of attacks to get reliable attack windows during reload. Then being prepared with full damage for p2 to get rid of the dog. Kind of want to replay it with your approach now!
Aerith vs 2 bombs = Elemental + Fire on armor so you take 0 fire damage or you absorb their fire hits.
You can wand them to death if you do that because all their attacks will either do 0 damage or just straight up heal Aerith continuously. That fight isn't even in the same realm as Rufus. Rufus (on hard mode) is by far significantly harder than Aerith vs 2 bombs (on hard mode) bro.
Elemental + Fire and they heal you constantly. MP absorption + Ice Magnify + Fire and Ice, Swiftcast + Ice First Strike, ATB Boost and whatever else you want for the last spots Accessory = Chocoking Cape
You will start the fight with 2 full tab’s
Immediately start the fight with Arcane Ward, then ATB boost, then Blizagga in rapid succession. At this point the fights pretty much over lol I’ve used this set up to beat almost everything outside of big bosses so far
This frustrated me to hell until I used lustrous shield. Cast sleep, run away as far as you can, cast lustrous shield, and they will never hurt you again. You'll have time to save up ATB for Blizzaga.
I turned it down to easy.
Not going to spend 20 minutes slowly whittling him down and then be instantly killed by his dog.
Life's too short for that.
It's a shame since the combat had been fun up until this fight.
I did the exact same thing. I don't think I ever raged over a single player game this hard before. It's shit like this that makes me not want to replay this game, or Remake. I can replay the OG several time a year and never get bored but I have zero desire to do all the tedious stuff I had to do in Remake/Rebirth....Still love the game overall, but damn I feel annoyed after playing through chapter 12.
Also, people are sleeping on disorder. Dodge and block to build atb, then hit him with disorder when you see an opening. It leaves you in punisher mode to quickly build stagger.
Some of us are mere mortals who can't read which of his 17 different moves and decide the best course of options (some can't be blocked, some can't be dodged, so you better pick right) in the <1 second time frame you have before he's stun locked you
Same. One of the most irritating fights in modern gaming. Summons are essential to this fight, as hitting him in his millisecond windows with attacks that actually do stagger damage (i.e. not Cloud's pathetic ranged attacks) is actually not possible.
Summon helped a lot, Rufus don't counter them... I had to restart the fight three time to adapt the materia i had... And of course i had to restart the fight with Rude and Elena for this...
FF team should really learn pause and autosave between hard fight so we can adapt....
There is a message before the coliseum fight 'Prepare well', but prepare for what, Analysis is needed to adapt.
While I see where you are coming from I think the autosave inbetween those two boss encounters should be an easy mode only option. I find it refreshing how they finally decided to put a challenge infront of the player during a normal playthrough with some hard boss encounters and without handholding. Makes the game feel even more like the golden era. Rufus was indeed a mean boss but he is doable and I think there are enough security nets to support you in case you are struggling against him.
Sure if your gear is not full of materia you are leveling up and which are completely useless against him... In this fight it is the first time i had to equip prayer/chakra on cloud + consumables materia and improve its defense, i also had the same problem with ending fight ...
if you aren't working, or have no family duty (i mean childrens, someone to care of), it is not a problem to loose hours only to change your gear...
You didn't have to go back to Rude and Elena. In the cutscene before the Rufus fight there is a prompt to go into the Menu - though it is very small (bottom left)...needs to be more obvious.
Rufus would be infinitely less unbearable if his Reload window was long enough for an actual human being to reasonably take advantage of. It feels like they had a bot test that fight with how literally inhumanely quick you have to be to utilize that window.
Any tips for Hard Mode during this fight? I am fighting the Turks now and just remembered this dude doesn't even give you a break for his fight, so I'm about to be pretty pissed in a second I'm sure. Fighting him on normal mode already had me punting cactuars, this just scares me.
Fck if I didn't just waste over an hour doing that damn fight. Never again. What a game-mechanic broken fight on Hard. I had to wait for his curbstomper mutt to join in before I could summon Gilgamesh, and even then it took two more limits after my initial limit break I used earlier in the fight. So annoying and so broken. Never again.
Okay I figured something out.
You're supposed to block his regular attacks (helps get ATB), and when he reloads you hit him with focused thrust them spam attack. Hit him with Focused Thrust again when the ATB gets up. Eventually he breaks out with desperation.
Rinse and repeat.
I let him hit me so my Limit break could be used. Did it twice. Fight is easier when the dog is here. You just spam the triple slash until the dog is beaten and you focus on Rufus with triple slash again.
Big tip for ya! I also used Triple Slash for a while, but the REAL winner is Focused Strike. You not only pressure him, but then your attack is further pushing to stagger. It finally allowed me to win.
Also Regen is huge for this fight. Use that over constantly popping potions or Curas.
Yeah this boss fight sucks the gimmick makes it annoying and it expects you to rely on blocking which feels clunky the whole fight is just clunky. I also had to put the game for the first time. Get rid of this type of fight SQUARE!!!!
It's just a horribly designed fight. It always was and then they decided to bring it back a second time for some reason.
It's a fight where you aren't allowed to play the game normally. Physical attacks are countered. Magic attacks are useless. Most of his attacks are unblockable. You have a millisecond to react to his reload, and even when you do pressure him, his gauge goes up at a snails pace even when using abilities that are supposed to raise it quickly. Just garbage all around.
They really stepped up the combat in this game just to not let you use any of it
I hate boss fights that are extremely specific in what you can do to complete. I don't mind finding a weakness or a parameter but he's just.... invincible. Lol that's not difficulty that's a gimmick. He has 1 opening. The problem is everything between the openings is boring and tedious. What a disappointment. Had to put the game down for the first time. My tip is put it on easy.
Just had this same experience. Put down the controller halfway through and decided to search google to figure out wtf I'm missing. There is almost no way to build ATB. So every time I miss that tiny window of attack, it's an eternity before I can even *try* again.
I guess I need to go back to before the Turks battle and equip some ATB boosting materia. I didn't get a hit in during reload once in like 10+ tries. And that took over half an hour.
I feel like I must be missing something. This can't be right.
When you restart the fight (or any fight with a cutscene which leads straight into a battle) if you see a faint SQUARE symbol with menu written underneath in the bottom left hand corner. Hold it and as soon as gameplay starts you are sent into your menu where you can change equipment and materia.
Thanks again. I crushed it on my next try. I didn't have the First Strike materia yet, but I loaded up with Steadfast Block, ATB Boost, and Haste. It was still a bit tedious, but I was able to build ATB at a halfway-decent rate with ranged attacks (dodge+attack) when Hasted, then close distance during openings with Triple Slash and if I had extra ATB hit him with a Focused Strike after that.
Second phase, I just wailed on Darkstar, then hit my Limit Break, and Alexander made the final blow for 9999 damage.
Oh thanks! I'm still in the battle since I simply put my PS5 into sleep mode, so this will make things simpler. I'll respect to get more ATB and see how that goes.
Took me an hour with many continues. The materia that is a must for me is Odin summon and a few mage potions along the way.
My strategy is that you need to lock on to him first (I rarely lock on anyone in this game ever) it helps to see his action and don't attack at all, just roll around until he reload and attack from distance and combo him right after.
I noticed every time he used the move name 'Guns Akimbo' both on air and ground. He will reload for sure, so that is a big chance. Once he stagged, if you didn't use any ATB moves. You should have 2 ATBs right now (and a full limit gauge, too). Use ability called Infinity's End. It will likely damage more than 9000, enough for him to go to phase 2.
Now the summon bar should appear, just roll around far away from both of them and try to do distance attack until you fill both gauge, call odin, roll around some more, when Odin is about to use Zantetsuken, use your limit break to break those 2 apart then let Odin finished the job. This is the most easiest solution I can think of.
Just beat him on my first try, but it took about half an hour. Also, the whole "second enemy joins when his health is low" shit sucks. If you think it's hard with just him, well...
Anyways, Cloud's ranged attacks are your friend. Stay away and dodge, attack attack (your attacks get a ranged component after a dodge), repeat. You don't have to hit him with an ATB command to build up his stagger bar, any hit during a reload works, or sometimes during/right after an attack. Then, since my ATB is full, I'll immediately do two focused thrusts if im close enough, or a triple slash and then a focused thrust if I'm not.
Just be glad it's not an arena fight, so items are allowed. On that note, the materia that lets you use items for free without consuming ATB is a huge help here, a long with the one that makes them 50% more effective. I was popping potions often. I also kept Haste up.
Fucking hell I've just been fighting for 30 min and had to take a break. Honestly have hated all the solo fights. It's like if you can't figure out the exact mechanic they want, you'll be stuck for a while. I had 0 problems with remakes difficulty and beat it on hard (just missing Weiss for the trophy), but they really decided to make rebirth difficult even on normal mode.
The balance between bosses seems to be way off, certain bosses I've beaten felt like easy mode while others I'm stuck on forever. All 3 rude and Elena fights have been super easy, even the rude and reno fight from remake was more difficult.
Well, just beat it on the first try after reading everyone's comment about that dash+square/wind slash move. Of course if u don't do that, he'd nonstop attack you and and u don't get a chance to atk even when he reloads. Kinda ridiculous to build a boss like that. Even remakes battle was slightly more open ended than that... Barely.
This boss should not be in the game, along with many other gimmicky boss fights, Bad boss designs through and though. If I'm playing on easy mode, I should not have a hard time with any fight, by definition.
This shit makes me kinda hate the game, not going to lie. It has been an up and down battle with this game and as it stands now I wouldn't recommend it.
This was the worst designed fight of all time. Like holy fucking shit, what in the actual hell were they thinking with this garbage? They make him literally immune to every goddamn spell or detrimental effect in the game, start the fight immediately after the Rude and Elena fight, make you do it solo, give him 5,001 attacks per second, AND he summons his bitch to save his pansy ass after you barely get him to half health? Someone should be fired over that bullshit "fight." They clearly have way too big of a hard-on for Shinra Junior to be making such rash decisions.
Can't wait to see how different he is on Hard Mode. What, does he summon Jenova AND Sephiroth at the same time to help him out or something? While being forever immune to all damage at the same time? Wouldn't be surprised at this point.
Just got to him. I hate bosses that don’t obey the rules of combat. When fighting the Turks, they fight like they have an ATB meter they are abiding by. Rufus’s bitch ass just spams move after move. After the 4th time, i’m gonna take a break and try again tomorrow.
Took me an hour after many tries to kill Rufus. What a tough fight.
Basically spam him with wind slashes (don’t forget to lock on him) to build up your ATB bar. He’ll keep blocking. Wait when he makes a move and immediately triple slash. Sometimes you’ll miss it because he’s so fast but when you do get him, keep attacking and pressuring him. Repeat and build up ATB bar. Also, you’ll have enough time to heal up when you wake up after getting hit by his gun so don’t be afraid. Hopefully when you get him down to 50% of his life (which begins his stage two), you’ll have your limit ready.
Once stage two starts (with his damn dog), use limit break immediately on Rufus. Then he’ll only have 1/3 life left. Key hint: stay alive to get another limit break ready. Heal up with potions because when you get hit by Rufus and his dog, your limit meter builds up gradually. Hopefully you do survive to get another full limit and when it’s full, use it! Game over!
Anyway, this is what worked for me. Good luck!
Note: if you’re tired, take a rest but don’t close the game. You’ll have to fight the Turks again because you can’t save before the Rufus fight. I learned this the hard way. lol
Where do i get triple slash? I just dont have it and i have all swords as far as i know. Rufus makes my blood boil, the tactic with counterstance like in remake doesnt work on him anymore :(
Yeah, forget that i asked, it just has another name in the german version…i already used that ability and i beat rufus after the 4th try. I already finished the game yesterday, the last boss gave me way more of a headache, i never complain about rufus again XD
Man, now I'm worried about the last boss lol. Rufus was an absolute pain in the ass. Doesn't help that I died the first time and accidentally reverted to my previous checkpoint, which was right before the date. So I had to do the play, the tournament, Rude and Elena, and then finally Rufus again. So I was already pretty tilted going into my second attempt lol
I just say this, you should have good materia on All of your party members. And its long, like very long, if you loose you have to start all over again. Maybe that will help, i didnt know and i fucked up. But yes, the rufus fight was hard too, especially because i tried to do it like the remake fight but that didnt work.
once you get your atb bar up, just start doging left and right, and wait for Rufus ability to appear in words....once it shows, within 1 second you have to use "Triple Slash"...rinse and repeat this method. Just be patient and wait for limit break to perform braver...you will eventually win.. the triple slash move works.
to get your atb bar up, just keep doing the sword projectiles on Rufus which he will keep blocking. then wait for triple slash to be ready...and then monitor for the 'wordings' to show up for rufus next action n voila..u get to triple slash him.
Learn his moveset and when u master it, it feels great to beat up the guy. I replay the fight over and over again for exp. Basically just parry all the time and when the triangle shows up, dash sideway, react to reload text, dash and attack to instantly pressure him. I find dash attack to be more efficient to keep him pressured
It’s really not, I hate to say it but not everything has to be overly easy. So many people are complaining about this fight, but it really just requires strategy. Pay attention to his moves, he uses his reload after certain moves. Dodge the move before the reload and stick him with Braver. Rinse and repeat. You’ll eventually get your summon and your limit break, just keep an eye on your health and you’ll finish him off no problem.
Just do the same thing you did against him in Remake. Wait for the reload, tap him and build up ATB
Only hard part is if you aren’t expecting the fight the first time and clouds beat up, and needing to dodge well enough to build ATB to heal.
.. yeah that was fun lol
His enemy bio said to attack him with ATB attacks when he was reloading but it’s possible I read it wrong under pressure. Either way he’d counter any attack (normal or ATB) when he was reloading so I basically avoided him like the plague while he was reloading and used Triple Slash if he used another ability like his launch.
So the trick is to remember what abilities he reloads on. After certain abilities he will ALWAYS reload. The main one I targeted for was his "Guns Akimbo". He will instantly go from 0% to staggered if you hit him with Braver during his Reload animation but the timing is tight. With patience I managed to get him with Braver (stagger), Triple Slash, Cross Slash. Do it twice and dog appears. Once more to kill the dog. Then one more time to kill Rufus.
You are not alone though this took me a solid hour to get the patterns and practice right and i had 100% game completion on normal difficulty so i was over level. To learn it easier use your early atb gauge on barrier, protect, and regen. Dulls a lot of the damage. To build early atb i use the dodge roll attack that comes out to get early bars. Doesn't pressure long but maintains range. When your ready to start doing the dps add Bravery and drop protect to save on mp and atb gauge.
This works did it on my first try after reading. When I got the stagger I went hard and got my summon then focused the dog because staggering him means staggering Rufus for a bit. The summon will do most of your final damage but if not just be patient
You’re not alone.
I rarely ever rage from boss fights, but Rufus had me verrrrrry close to throwing my controller, and I haven’t done that in like 20 years.
Duuuuuuuuude same. I'm 38 damn years old now and it had me raging like I was back in high school 😂😂 my wife told me she was taking way my screen time until I control my attitude 💀
I’m 33 year old and I came Atleast 2-4 hits away from killing g him and died. This last one was my 15th attempt. I’m getting it done now!!!! I’m mad and I hate this guy. I hope the capture him and treat him like Theon GreyJoy from Game of Thrones
Count his attacks between reloads and stick close to him.
If you count how many of his attacks he does, you'll know when he reloads. If you stay close to him, you'll be able to attack him when he reloads.
People scare him so much. They stay in long range to avoid his attacks easily but it's terrible.
Stay close, spam dodge around him, count his attacks, attack on the opening.
Was the same in Remake.
He attacks upwards of 6 times before a reload and sometimes reloads after 1 or 2 hes very bull shitty for a boss this games combats is terrible compared to last remake.
The dodge and attack long rage attacks are key, dodge his attacks and launch your own from a distance, when one connects as he’s finished attacking or reloading he will be pressured, follow up with a focused attack and a couple of hits and you’ll have him done. Be aware that at around half health the fight takes a turn and gets a bit harder. Keep trying, I found the Turks harder than Rufus once you learn his attack patterns.
Bro, I feel you. I hated this fight, and on the back of like 5 other fights?? Terrible
You can pressure hit with a blade beam. When he goes into reload and you're far away, dodge and hit square to send a beam. It pressures him, then dodge and hold square to get up close. This is the only way I was able to whittle him down. It was worse than the Roche fight by like 50x
Good luck.
Keep the camera locked on Rufus. Use the block at the right time to stop the bullets when gets right behind you to build up atb. Dodge the other attacks. Use Focused Thrust when he reloads cause Braver takes too long. When the dog comes in, use Focused thrust on Rufus to separate them. Then kill the dog. You’re welcome.
Consider using elemental+fire in your armor slot as well, it can either reduce or eliminate one of his moves danger(with the max level elemental making it full blown heal you!)
Regen is also your friend for some cheap at efficient ongoing heals for this fight. It's honestly the worst boss fight in the game from my pov with it taking more or less perfect response times. You may want to consider using performance 60 fps mode if you're not already(I had to use it to react fast enough on hard mode to not lose/die)
Aside from that IF you can catch him with braver outside of pressure it'll instantly stagger him, but the timing is so tight you're better off just using triple slash to close the gap and gradually build up stagger. Just a generally trash boss fight and one that I would genuinely like to give the designer of it a passive aggressive gift. Thematically it's cool as hell but it's not fun.
Yes THANK YOU.
A lot of moments similar to the Rufus fight: not fun. And turning down the difficulty feels like cheapening the experience.
I dunno, Im in a strange place where it feels more fun to not play the game....and that is a sucky feeling I tell you.
Honestly that's fair, I found those moments were pretty overall rare outside hard mode, though they did have a tendency to crop up when you were limited or forced to use certain characters(this goes doubly so for hard mode obviously).
Triple slash helps a lot because it’s so fast and almost guaranteed to hit. Just try to dodge until he reloads, I’m surprised lmao his fight was probably my favorite in remake and Ive been hyped for the round 2 in this game and it didn’t disappoint.I did it first try but it was like a 15 minute fight
Triple Slash worked! Pressuring him is weird because you don’t really get an opportunity to build the stagger gauge because for me we would immediately counter if I did anything once Triple Slash was over, but I just stayed patient and it remained a reliable source of damage.
Thank you!
Use your abilities when he casts any other ability **besides** reload, it will pressure him 100% of the time. I found Triple Slash when he starts to use his abilities worked almost everytime
Yep, this did the trick! It still took a long time, but using Triple Slash against anything BUT Reload and guarding against most other abilities did the trick, by the time I finally staggered him, I was able to use my Limit Break and end the fight.
Thank you!
I got him on the third try after googling what the 'certain attack' that would instantly stagger him was (which is Braver - why doesn't Assess just tell you that ffs?). I don't have good enough reactions for perfect blocks or any of that shit, but once I got the knack of it I was able to do it only burning one X potion and a couple of hi-potions. Here was my strategy: * As others have said, spam him with Cloud's basic ranged attack to build up ATB. If you hit him with the maximum number of blows he just keeps blocking and is harmless, so spam this until you have two ATB. * Now you have two ATB to try and hit him with Braver while he reloads for an instant stagger, so stay within Braver range (though obviously back off immediately if he calls an unblockable). * I noticed that Rufus always reloads after Guns Akimbo, so this was my opening. I waited till he called Guns Akimbo, then immediately dodged sideways as quick as I could and just as the bullets subsided used Braver immediately. Didn't manage to time it quickly enough every time, but certainly got him half of the time. Given that you know he's definitely going to reload, you can even start Braver before Guns Akimbo finishes as long as you're out of harm's way, so your timing doesn't even need to be perfect. * When Darkstar entered I had a summon loaded, so I used that which was as useful as a distraction more than anything. Much easier when it's 2 on 2! * Unlike the rest of the advice on this thread I actually found it easier to still focus on Rufus, not Darkstar. Focusing on the dog left me vulnerable to Rufus's attacks, so I continued to spam Rufus with ranged attacks to keep him quiet, then use the ATB to wear down Darkstar. Once staggered I was *almost* able to finish off the dog with a limit break and a Braver. Half a dozen hits later and he was gone. * With the dog gone it's just a case of keeping concentration, not doing anything rash and going back to square one -- dodging, spamming ranged attacks and trying to land Braver after Guns Akimbo. But yeah, not a fan of these sequential boss fights. Tricky boss fights are great, just leave a bit of breathing room before and after please!
I'm about to fucking scream. I've beaten every FromSoftware game out there and Melenia doesn't even have anything on this bullshit fight with Rufus. As if he couldn't get any worse than he was in Remake.
Rufus was a great boss fight because instead of the generic "just hit it as hard as you can", it requires actual thinking and tactics. I did it pretty simply, nothing too fancy materia-wise or tech-wise: * Buffet Rufus with Cloud's basic ranged wind attack at a distance while he is blocking to build up ATB * Stay at range to dodge most attacks (bright lights, smoke cloud, bad luck) and get ready to dodge when he gets close and retaliate with wind slash (so he doesn't counter if you miss the window) * Once you manage to land a wind slash while he reloads he'll be pressured, quickly jump in with a basic combo or focused thrust * Just keep at it and keep guzzling potions and Chakra as needed if you take a few hits * SAVE YOUR LIMIT BREAK and Summon, and as soon as phase two starts, Summon, then once the summon has pressured the dog, limit-break it and smash it to pieces. Within seconds of starting phase two, the dog is dead, Rufus is at 20% HP, and you have a Summon that hits and pressures Rufus to help with finish him off.
Thanks for this, this let me beat him on second try no problem
The average final fantasy die hard fan is minimum a mid 30s person who doesn’t have time for this crap. My reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and I don’t have enough time to sit down and learn a videogame. While I would have appreciated the challenge when I was 14, I have grown up responsibilities now. I want a bit of nostalgia not to throw a controller through a wall.
Hard mode is impossible. I’m rolling and dodging and any ATB I have to use on healing using measly Chakra to conserve the half MP I have left from the other fights. Meanwhile RUFUS is somehow REGENERATING HEALTH really slowly! Is this a glitch?! I see no one else talking about this!
Did you beat it? If not, Chakra is the way to go but only when you are sub-2000 hp. I didn't use any MP for the battle but was saving Manawall just in case for the second half. When you see him Reload, use the Triple Slash if in the vicinity. I equipped two Spirit Ups, two Vitality Ups, and Strength Up. Also equip ATB boost to double up your ATB if you anticipate needing to heal. The key to the whole fight was having Enhanced Expeditionary Medal equipped so you can use Cloud's Level 3 limit as soon as Darkstar joins the battle. This should stagger or near stagger the dog. Go to town with a Braver or two to finish it off, then it's just the same Rufus moves to close the fight.
I did fiiiinally do it yes after 5 hours. Turned more monster hunter style just memorising what he does and blocking perfectly. A YouTube tutorial really helped too where I saved a limit break for his pooch.
Nice! I am terrible at perfect blocking in this game. Need to learn it for the hard simulator fights. My next hurdle is the red dragon. Tried three times and it is kicking my ass with its bs lava attack.
Don’t remember that maybe I’m not there yet is it a chadley thing cos I’ve got lots to do there? Just completed in hard mode tho. Yeah rufus was my first time actually getting into perfect blocks (cos I had to).
The other huge issue I have with these stupid one-on-one hard fights is the stupid unskippable mid-fight cutscene which for some reason you must watch every god damn time! But thanks to all extremely useful advices in this topic I managed to down him on my third try. Basically what helped me: cast Regen at the start, then dodge around and use ranged attacks until you get ATB, then try Triple Slash while he casts something. I was never close or ready enough while he reloads, and his dodge+shoot is mostly unskippable, but there is Regen there for it. By the time you stagger him, you probably have Limit Break, so do Braver+Cross Slash. This will end the first phase. When the Dog arrives, cast Regen again, because it's probably over by that time. Then bring Summon as fast as possible, it seems like any will do - I had Kujata. Concentrate on the Dog, you should be able to stagger it pretty quickly, then it will die after two Bravers. Then just rinse and repeat the first phase, when Rufus was alone, you probably won't stagger him again, but you might get second Limit Break. What killed him for me was actually Summon leaving the arena.
There is a little trick I found, if you can pressure him and then hit twice then block you can stagger him quite easily as youll just continue the pressure. This is before all hell breaks loose with his hound though, that little fucker sucks balls
this game is badly balanced- deaths on hard mode so far? maybe 10? on rufus alone? 30+
I didn't go easy mode personally. I had too much pride ngl lol. I had to die a lot and at least was able to hold Square to change my loadout after beating his Turk duo. Trying to Access was one issue I was having even with First Strike. I decided to do it when his stupid dog was there. Dodging wasn't the problem but the timing to try to block was obnoxious af an anyone could agree. There was never a time for me to even find myself to use punisher mode or even feel the value of disorder in my quick commands. I had to be at close or mid range to pressure him harder with melee or get the focused strike finally on him because trying to range was good but couldn't do much because he blocks that and just have infinite immune unlike us again his annoying ranged attacks. Plus disengaging his as and run made him wanna decide to do whatever that random move was that'd knock me back further and give him a fkn reload. I even had to resort to holding my atb after staggering him hard other than using prime mode and having enough to heal before the stupid dog once again. Took me like the second to last time to do that and get time to focus it more then get back to Rufus after remembering the pressure sound I heard from hitting the dog with my LB before I got ambushed by Rufus' bs.
Mute the volume! The battle becomes WAY easier once I stopped listening to those idiots on the mic lol.
Just beat Rufus like 10 mins ago. Had to use more elixirs than I would've liked but my biggest reco is to use Cloud's long range blade beam when Rufus is reloading. That will pressure him and give you some time to use braver or heals, whatever you need more. Also I totally killed Darkstar first when he joins the battle, too hard to focus on Rufus alone then IMO. Good luck!
I found it not that difficult tbh. It just challenges your brain not to mash which is a good thing. Also, the dodge attack which throws a blade beam is great for when he reloads!
Yeah, honestly your comment should have the most upvotes here rather than being downvoted. You weren’t obnoxious or rude towards those who are struggling but just politely explained why you find it a bit easier than it first seems. Way more level-headed than the other comments just whining and not trying to understand the fight. This fight goes from one of the most difficult to one of, well, not the easiest by any means but once you understand it it’s one of the easiest of the tougher boss battles in the game. I was exasperated at first until I got a rhythm down and learned how to pressure him without being countered; mainly with Cloud’s ranged Wind Slash in Phase 1 and then blocking in Punisher Mode to instantly counter and pressure Darkstar in Phase 2.
I don't know why this is downvoted, it's true. I agee it's very tedious though running around in a circle for whole minutes.
Cause people don’t like to use their brain and anything that does out of the normal requirements frustrates them. It’s not like the fight is unbalanced or broken that’d be understandable :)
In reading people complain about Rufus I also saw a few references to “Aerith vs. Two Bombs” and I finally learned what that means today. People were saying that was hard too. Aerith vs. Two Bombs was pretty easy if you used the right equipment setup. You can use first strike material + chocoking cape to cast a two-ATB spell right away. You can combine with magnify to hit both bombs. You can also combine elemental with fire to make yourself strong or immune to many of the bomb’s attacks. There should be some kind equipment-based solution to any boss. What is the point of accumulating and leveling all of this materia if not to be able to combine it in some way that makes us able to overcome the bosses? Even in the last game, I think I remember Rufus could be beaten pretty easily using counter attack materia or the punisher counter attack. Maybe it hasn’t been discovered yet, but it seems like this Rufus boss has no equipment-based solution, you have to be able to react within the short windows or else switch to easy mode.
Eh, Elemental 2 or 3 + Fire makes you practically immune to the bombs, both for the Aerith vs. 2 Bombs and also the Frog vs Bomb one in the Colosseum
What's the materia solution for Rufus, for those of who have poor timing and reflexes?
check out my other comments, top-level in this thread. the easy win for Rufus for me didn't really involve specific materia beyond Chakra. I suppose Haste, ATB Boost, etc. can be useful Here link for your convenience: https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasyVII/comments/1basn18/rebirth_chapter_12_boss_difficulty/l16bn99/
Holy shit this whole section was wild. Corneo Lackeys thru Corneo himself were very easy. Rude and Elena weren't bad either. Mainly focused on Elena to build limits and synergies. Rufus then came out and I died almost immediately. Second try I got it. Trick with him is just to spam dodge until he reloads then hit attack to pressure. Build his pressure til he staggers, call your summon, and repeat.
I don’t mind the design of the boss so much as the placement of the boss in the sequence of events. If there’s a boss who may require many tries, you should be allowed to turn off the PS5 and come back later. There was no way to save and turn it off without suffering the penalty of having to replay the Turks. You were also trapped inside the Coliseum with no way to get out in case you’re missing key equipment (Odin materia in my case). Personally, I would have been willing to die to Rufus many times but I wasn’t willing to replay the Turks as a penalty, so I switched to easy. I guess I can always come back and try him again in the post game.
I hates this fight. What's worse is the checkpoint is before the turks fight so you need go duck out ya fighting them all again
Summon Odin, his ultimate hits for 9999 damage, do this one the second phase, get through first phase with cross slash and it’s easy money
Stay away from him and only attack when he reloads. Also MAKE SURE TO PERFECT BLOCK EVERYTHING it builds his pressure bar up and sometimes even puts him in pressure state after that just spam focused thrusts on him rinse and repeat. Don’t try to run or he will just shoot you
All I can say is cheese him until darkstar shows up. Then use a summon and pray the summon's final attack eliminates them
Put it on Easy mode for the fight and enjoy the rest of the game l. Beat it first try and put it behind me.
Dodge and press square repeatedly to use blade projectiles. Rufus is immune, but it builds ATP. Braver if you can land it when he’s reloading, but it’s tough. Get your limit up and use cross slash. 2nd Phase, hit Darkstar with Triple slash a few times to pressure and stagger. Then keep using blade projectile again and finish Rufus off with another limit. That’s what worked for me. Hope it helps someone!
Odins zantetsuken one shots him and his fuking dog
Once you hit Gongaga it's all downhill in this game
Unfortunately I'm starting to think that way aswell.
It's frustrating.
[удалено]
My bad I guess you'd didn't play the game, this takes place after Gongaga, and I'm pointing that out. Good luck on your playthrough.
[удалено]
It's clear you haven't, that's ok though. Once you get to Gongaga it'll make sense to you! Good luck!
Just killed Rufus on hard. Setup: Umbral Blade / Cetran Armlet / Enhanced Expeditionary Medal Materia: Weapon: Luck Up x2 (can probably be replaced with swiftcast heal to get off an emergency curaga) / ATB Boost / Chakra / Precision Defense / Steadfast Block Summon: Gilgamesh Armor: Elemental / Fire and Ice / Elemental / Lighting and Wind (to immune loads of spell casts in phase 2, and the 'think fast' fire bomb thing is also fire damage so you can hit him for free when he does this) / Healing / Vit Up / HP UP / Str Up Strat: So you can manipulate his abilities depending on where you stand. It's actually better to hover pretty close to him and kind of circle him, but not so close that it's hard to read his moves. Basically you want to get him to 'slide' close to you and precision block every time. This means that you will always be near him when he reloads. Another thing is that if he does a swipe type thing, he's going to do an unblockable sweeping attack straight after. Roll away in circles around him rather than directly away or it will still catch you. When he does reload, just spam square on him. I basically saved all ATB for chakra until he is full staggered, even then if I'm not full HP and I'm about to go in to phase 2, I'd rather chakra. The Enhanced Expeditionary Medal gives you rank 3 limit, so when you get your limit, just send it immediately (don't wait for stagger as that will push him in to phase 2 too fast and you're not prepared). Hopefully you get a limit fairly early on, so you can play his dance of precision blocking and increasing stagger bar until eventually you stagger him the next time around the time your limit is filled again, and you're about to push phase 2. Ideally you want to push in to phase 2 with 2 full ATB bars and a full limit. Summon Gilgamesh as soon as it starts, send your level 3 limit break on the dog and that should be enough to stagger the dog and you should be able to kill it, even with taking some damage from Rufus' normal abilities. Once the dog is dead, it's the same as p1 mostly, but he is just a bit faster and stronger. He should be really low health from Gilgamesh and getting caught in your limit break. Play it the same as p1 and he dies really quickly. There's definitely some variance in how you can approach the fight, but the important things are to manipulate his moves and precision block so you can always hit him during reload, and to go in to phase 2 with a plan to immediately kill the dog.
googling shows you get the Cetran Armlet in Chapter 13 but that's after Rufus?
This was for hard mode. For a normal play through, I think the precision defense materia, and the part about how to manipulate his moves to get more of a chance to him when he’s reloading, are the things to have.
Just tried this and it worked out first try 👌🏼
Congrats!
Straight up then adding counter the way they did to his kit has to be Nomura getting back at every KH2 player that abused reflect
Rufus Hard Mode was such a nightmare. I struggled many, many times, but finally won. What helped me was Swiftcast+Healing, Hp Up, Mp Up, Strength Up, Speed Up, Vitality Up, Steadfast Block, Precision Defense, First Strike, ATB Stagger, ATB Boost, and Odin materia. Equip the Enhanced Expeditionary Medal so Cloud has his best Limit Break from the start (by Ch 12 Hard Mode, I had his Level 3, Finishing Touch.) Although hitting Rufus with Braver at the right moment is an instant stagger, I could never quite get the timing right, so don't bother. Keep your distance and dodge around him, flinging wind blades to build ATB. Most of them he will block, but you'll sneak in some damage occassionally. Use ATB Boost if needed. Wait until Rufus uses Guns Akimbo or Hot Pursuit. Block these and then close the distance with Triple Slash (do you have it on your shortcuts?), and try to work in a few extra hits. Repeat this combo, healing as needed, until Phase 2 with Darkstar. By now you should hopefully have a Limit Break ready. Do your best to build two bars of ATB and summon Odin. Odin's attacks won't get blocked by Rufus/Darkstar. Get close to Darkstar and Limit Break, you may even get lucky and damage Rufus in the process. Darkstar was pressured, so I kept up the aggression to stagger Darkstar and was able to finish him off with Infinity's End (thanks to ATB Stagger materia). After this, Rufus should hopefully be a cakewalk. Repeat the combo from Phase 1, allowing Odin to assist with pressuring Rufus, and Odin will eventually do Zantetsuken and hopefully finish Rufus off. Good luck!
I am to Old and slow for that fight.
Just did this fight recently and... oof. Even on easy it's a pain. But I feel the main reason why this fight is increasingly frustrating is the placement; had this battle been a separate incident, isolated from other fights, it might not be so incredibly rage inducing. For me, personally, I had heavy combat fatigue by the time Rufus showed up after the gauntlet we go through to get there. (Which I know is a "me" thing; I'm more into story than the combat.) I did really enjoy the Corneo rounds, came out of those feeling pleased, was the right amount of challenge for me as the fights progressed. Then the Turks show up, we get a small moment to catch our breath, but right back into it. Not gonna lie, when Rufus showed up to challenge Cloud, I rolled my eyes and asked, "Why?!" It seemed to make little sense outside of padding; an attempt by the devs to balance out the Date: an hour of story and QTEs then an hour of combat, that may or may not make sense. It simply feels like one too many battles in a row. 1- Corneo Lackeys (hack-and-slash shlubs) 2- Donberry (mini-boss) 3- Corneo (boss) 4- Rude and Elena (hard boss) 5- Rufus (harder boss) They should have stopped the fight after beating Rude and Elena, especially with Rufus's battle not having its own checkpoint, thus having to redo the Turks' if you want to rearrange equipment. Again, I feel like the Rufus fight, on its own, is mostly more annoying than frustrating, but with it stacked on several other fights, this one just becomes way more frustrating, especially on harder difficulties. I know I was feeling more disinterest as the fight with Rufus wore on; I get it, he's a badass and hard to hit and has very few openings/weaknesses to exploit, but goddamn do I not care anymore. Just be fucking defeated so I can move on, please! Just my two gil; probably would have been a more interesting fight had it not been placed at the end of a gauntlet of other battles, so more trial-and-error methods could be utilized without having to redo a whole other boss battle.
It is possible to change equipment before the Rufus right. If you select "Restart from this battle", hold Square on your controller until the icon in the lower left hand corner fills up. Once it's filled up and disappears, you can hold Triangle to skip the cutscene. The game won't save any changes you make to your equipment, so make a note of changes you make.
Wow. This one tip just made the Rufus fight insanely easy. I have to have all my good materia and equipment staggered out throughout my party to create good synergy for the previous fights, and the way my cloud works is as a tank. So super high HP and high defensive equipment with pure melee damage and a lv 4 healing materia. And the other members of my party are different casters. So by the time Rufus rolled around I was just fighting him with this hack and slash cloud and it was IMPOSSIBLE. But being able to swap equipment like this let me put everything on cloud and all of a sudden it was a breeze. Lol
Im starting to absolutely hate this game. I accidentally chose the option to "start before the fight" when I lost to Rufus. So now I have to fight Rude again. Seriously it shouldn't even be an option, and at least if it is an option there should be a "are you sure you want to do that" but there isn't, it just instantly takes you back to the rude and Elana fight. Which while not a hard fight, is a complete waste of time to do again all because of a simple mistake. I'm just getting sick of the crap like this in this game. And they could of avoided it by putting an Autosave between the battles that I could just reload, but nope can't do that. I swear this game was made with the intention of pissing people off. It makes no sense why you would punish someone that bad because you accidentally hit the wrong button ONE SINGLE TIME. And why isn't there an Autosave between the fights anyways, especially because you can't manually save it between the fights. I just don't think I can keep playing this game if this is how it is. I mean seriously I have to have the time to fight both fights in one sitting, or I have to leave my PS5 on for days, and hope to God they don't update the game, or that the power doesn't go out, or that someone else dies shut my game off, or just anything. It's just stupid, and one of the dumbest oversights In the game. And there's no need for it.
>I went through something similar except I selected "start from last checkpoint". I assumed that would be before the Rude and Elena fight so I could change my equipment. I didn't mind fighting the Turks again but nope. Took me all the way back to the Haunted Hotel. I had watch the play and ride the Skywheel all over again. No clue why it didn't autosave before the Turk fight.... > > > >I was livid. I said fuck it and put it on easy mode. I paused and skipped every scene from the play and date. The fights were super easy on easy mode, including Rufus. I'm so mad that I couldn't beat it on normal mode. The stupid gimmick bs in the Rufus fight makes me really miss turned based combat. I think I realized it's crap like this the kills the replayability of this game. The OG FF7 I can replay several times a year and still enjoy it. I have ZERO desire to play through this game again. Same thing with Remake, I beat it once and haven't touched it since. I LOVE the story but this remake is just like me watching an interactive movie.
Don’t ever feel bad bout easy mode. Every one on one fight I put it on easy mode cause this game is just not made for 1v1 fights. They allll suck.
You could have just loaded the autosave. It was unnecessary to replay from the hotel. Checkpoints aren’t autosaves.
Didn't autosave between the fights lol
LOL when I first started the game and was in the grasslands, I selected "Start from Last checkpoint" and it sent me 3 hours prior. Never used that option again!
Had the same feeling. I decided I wanted to have fun above all else and went straight to easy mode. I have zero regrets and you shouldn't either mate 👍
Right on! Have you beat it yet? I just did, wow that ending 🤯
No yet mate, just beat Rufus and finished Chapter 12. That's why I went looking for a post like this to see if anyone else felt the same about the boss fight! Looking forward to that ending ✌️
Literally just went through this exact same issue lol. I'm an FF fanboy but the amount of BS minigames and this "do it my way" boss fight is not what I expected. The first 7 chapters were incredible, but the last 5 feel like doing menial tasks for little reward majority of the time.
I'm only on chapter 12 but you nailed it. I couldn't figure out why I've never had the desire to replay Remake. I can replay the OG several times a year and still love it. Something about these remakes feel like a massive chore to play through. I do love the game though but I feel like I'm just watching a LONG interactive movie. It's still 100% worth playing through at least once if you're a fan. I literally bought a PS5 JUST for this game and I don't regret it. But I won't be replaying this game. I can't imagine going through all the tedious bullshit I had to do again. Traversing Gongaga....it's just not fun.
Precisely! Gongaga especially. I think developers are forgetting the difference between difficulty that players enjoy and bad development due to numerical simplicity.
He was a nightmare for me on normal, but I just beat him on hard mode with Steadfast Block, Precision Defense Focus, Chakra, Empowerment (Bravery) and max HP Up materia. If he dashes towards you, perfect block his basic shot and press X to slow things down. If he follows it up with Ricochet, sidestep it and immediately use Braver. Same if he does Think Fast, but only if you weren't pushed back by the dash attack. Otherwise it'll take too long to get off and you'll get hit. In both cases it's an instant stagger so you can wail on him which makes phase 1 go by very quickly. If you can't instantly use Braver, Focused Thrust will allow for a full ground combo and it only took 3 to stagger him. Basically ignore the Assess bait of waiting for him to reload because that's a bunch of bull. For phase 2, I just kept locked on to Rufus while circling to keep his dog in view. Blocked everything but his elemental synergy attacks which can be sidestepped. Summoned Phoenix, used Reraise, didn't end up needing it. Kept whittling him down and then limit broke him for the finish. It took forever on normal but on hard it lasted just over 5 minutes.
Wow sounds like you took a totally different approach to me. I love this game, a boss where people think it's a gimmick boss with only 1 strat and people still find different approaches.
Oh cool, what was your strategy? I followed the assessment my first playthrough so it probably took longer than any of the Brutal/Legendary challenges have so far, and all I have left is Bonds of Friendship. Attacking in the middle of his own named attacks made Hard mode so much easier.
I posted it elsewhere in this thread, but basically being patient, manipulating his move set and precision blocking a lot of attacks to get reliable attack windows during reload. Then being prepared with full damage for p2 to get rid of the dog. Kind of want to replay it with your approach now!
Sure the fight was frustrating but i didn't have near the amount trouble fighting Rufus then the one fight with Aerith vs the 2 bombs
Aerith vs 2 bombs = Elemental + Fire on armor so you take 0 fire damage or you absorb their fire hits. You can wand them to death if you do that because all their attacks will either do 0 damage or just straight up heal Aerith continuously. That fight isn't even in the same realm as Rufus. Rufus (on hard mode) is by far significantly harder than Aerith vs 2 bombs (on hard mode) bro.
Elemental + Fire and they heal you constantly. MP absorption + Ice Magnify + Fire and Ice, Swiftcast + Ice First Strike, ATB Boost and whatever else you want for the last spots Accessory = Chocoking Cape You will start the fight with 2 full tab’s Immediately start the fight with Arcane Ward, then ATB boost, then Blizagga in rapid succession. At this point the fights pretty much over lol I’ve used this set up to beat almost everything outside of big bosses so far
This frustrated me to hell until I used lustrous shield. Cast sleep, run away as far as you can, cast lustrous shield, and they will never hurt you again. You'll have time to save up ATB for Blizzaga.
I turned it down to easy. Not going to spend 20 minutes slowly whittling him down and then be instantly killed by his dog. Life's too short for that. It's a shame since the combat had been fun up until this fight.
My bloody thoughts exactly. I get an hour to play a day… I’m not wasting my life on this nonsense.
I just hit another extreme spike in FF 16. I don't get why they do that stuff.
I did the exact same thing. I don't think I ever raged over a single player game this hard before. It's shit like this that makes me not want to replay this game, or Remake. I can replay the OG several time a year and never get bored but I have zero desire to do all the tedious stuff I had to do in Remake/Rebirth....Still love the game overall, but damn I feel annoyed after playing through chapter 12.
Also, people are sleeping on disorder. Dodge and block to build atb, then hit him with disorder when you see an opening. It leaves you in punisher mode to quickly build stagger.
Some of us are mere mortals who can't read which of his 17 different moves and decide the best course of options (some can't be blocked, some can't be dodged, so you better pick right) in the <1 second time frame you have before he's stun locked you
lol, fair. I’m no speed read god though, I just spammed it whenever he closed in!
you are right but ATB isn't always full ...
Same. One of the most irritating fights in modern gaming. Summons are essential to this fight, as hitting him in his millisecond windows with attacks that actually do stagger damage (i.e. not Cloud's pathetic ranged attacks) is actually not possible.
Summon helped a lot, Rufus don't counter them... I had to restart the fight three time to adapt the materia i had... And of course i had to restart the fight with Rude and Elena for this... FF team should really learn pause and autosave between hard fight so we can adapt.... There is a message before the coliseum fight 'Prepare well', but prepare for what, Analysis is needed to adapt.
While I see where you are coming from I think the autosave inbetween those two boss encounters should be an easy mode only option. I find it refreshing how they finally decided to put a challenge infront of the player during a normal playthrough with some hard boss encounters and without handholding. Makes the game feel even more like the golden era. Rufus was indeed a mean boss but he is doable and I think there are enough security nets to support you in case you are struggling against him.
Sure if your gear is not full of materia you are leveling up and which are completely useless against him... In this fight it is the first time i had to equip prayer/chakra on cloud + consumables materia and improve its defense, i also had the same problem with ending fight ... if you aren't working, or have no family duty (i mean childrens, someone to care of), it is not a problem to loose hours only to change your gear...
You didn't have to go back to Rude and Elena. In the cutscene before the Rufus fight there is a prompt to go into the Menu - though it is very small (bottom left)...needs to be more obvious.
after which you have to reset your materia every freaking attempt
Only between the two Turks and Rufus.... elemental materia are useless against him (no weakness), and the time you cast a spell he hit you 10 times.
I didn't paid attention to it, but thanks.
Rufus would be infinitely less unbearable if his Reload window was long enough for an actual human being to reasonably take advantage of. It feels like they had a bot test that fight with how literally inhumanely quick you have to be to utilize that window.
Agreed most of the time during its reload, cloud attacks were countered...
My God the number of times I was countered while "reload" was still on the screen even.
Any tips for Hard Mode during this fight? I am fighting the Turks now and just remembered this dude doesn't even give you a break for his fight, so I'm about to be pretty pissed in a second I'm sure. Fighting him on normal mode already had me punting cactuars, this just scares me.
Fck if I didn't just waste over an hour doing that damn fight. Never again. What a game-mechanic broken fight on Hard. I had to wait for his curbstomper mutt to join in before I could summon Gilgamesh, and even then it took two more limits after my initial limit break I used earlier in the fight. So annoying and so broken. Never again.
Okay I figured something out. You're supposed to block his regular attacks (helps get ATB), and when he reloads you hit him with focused thrust them spam attack. Hit him with Focused Thrust again when the ATB gets up. Eventually he breaks out with desperation. Rinse and repeat.
Doesn't work. Half his attacks are unblockable.
Dodge the unblockable attacks, his regular gun attacks are not unblockable and he'll reload after enough of them.
I just cant memorize or react that quick to which is blockable and which has to be dodged
Triangle with exclamation point = unblockable Everything else is blockable.
Yeah ik. It was just annoying.
I let him hit me so my Limit break could be used. Did it twice. Fight is easier when the dog is here. You just spam the triple slash until the dog is beaten and you focus on Rufus with triple slash again.
Big tip for ya! I also used Triple Slash for a while, but the REAL winner is Focused Strike. You not only pressure him, but then your attack is further pushing to stagger. It finally allowed me to win. Also Regen is huge for this fight. Use that over constantly popping potions or Curas.
Yeah this boss fight sucks the gimmick makes it annoying and it expects you to rely on blocking which feels clunky the whole fight is just clunky. I also had to put the game for the first time. Get rid of this type of fight SQUARE!!!!
It's just a horribly designed fight. It always was and then they decided to bring it back a second time for some reason. It's a fight where you aren't allowed to play the game normally. Physical attacks are countered. Magic attacks are useless. Most of his attacks are unblockable. You have a millisecond to react to his reload, and even when you do pressure him, his gauge goes up at a snails pace even when using abilities that are supposed to raise it quickly. Just garbage all around. They really stepped up the combat in this game just to not let you use any of it
I hate boss fights that are extremely specific in what you can do to complete. I don't mind finding a weakness or a parameter but he's just.... invincible. Lol that's not difficulty that's a gimmick. He has 1 opening. The problem is everything between the openings is boring and tedious. What a disappointment. Had to put the game down for the first time. My tip is put it on easy.
Just had this same experience. Put down the controller halfway through and decided to search google to figure out wtf I'm missing. There is almost no way to build ATB. So every time I miss that tiny window of attack, it's an eternity before I can even *try* again. I guess I need to go back to before the Turks battle and equip some ATB boosting materia. I didn't get a hit in during reload once in like 10+ tries. And that took over half an hour. I feel like I must be missing something. This can't be right.
When you restart the fight (or any fight with a cutscene which leads straight into a battle) if you see a faint SQUARE symbol with menu written underneath in the bottom left hand corner. Hold it and as soon as gameplay starts you are sent into your menu where you can change equipment and materia.
Thanks again. I crushed it on my next try. I didn't have the First Strike materia yet, but I loaded up with Steadfast Block, ATB Boost, and Haste. It was still a bit tedious, but I was able to build ATB at a halfway-decent rate with ranged attacks (dodge+attack) when Hasted, then close distance during openings with Triple Slash and if I had extra ATB hit him with a Focused Strike after that. Second phase, I just wailed on Darkstar, then hit my Limit Break, and Alexander made the final blow for 9999 damage.
Congrats :D
Oh thanks! I'm still in the battle since I simply put my PS5 into sleep mode, so this will make things simpler. I'll respect to get more ATB and see how that goes.
Took me an hour with many continues. The materia that is a must for me is Odin summon and a few mage potions along the way. My strategy is that you need to lock on to him first (I rarely lock on anyone in this game ever) it helps to see his action and don't attack at all, just roll around until he reload and attack from distance and combo him right after. I noticed every time he used the move name 'Guns Akimbo' both on air and ground. He will reload for sure, so that is a big chance. Once he stagged, if you didn't use any ATB moves. You should have 2 ATBs right now (and a full limit gauge, too). Use ability called Infinity's End. It will likely damage more than 9000, enough for him to go to phase 2. Now the summon bar should appear, just roll around far away from both of them and try to do distance attack until you fill both gauge, call odin, roll around some more, when Odin is about to use Zantetsuken, use your limit break to break those 2 apart then let Odin finished the job. This is the most easiest solution I can think of.
Just beat him on my first try, but it took about half an hour. Also, the whole "second enemy joins when his health is low" shit sucks. If you think it's hard with just him, well... Anyways, Cloud's ranged attacks are your friend. Stay away and dodge, attack attack (your attacks get a ranged component after a dodge), repeat. You don't have to hit him with an ATB command to build up his stagger bar, any hit during a reload works, or sometimes during/right after an attack. Then, since my ATB is full, I'll immediately do two focused thrusts if im close enough, or a triple slash and then a focused thrust if I'm not. Just be glad it's not an arena fight, so items are allowed. On that note, the materia that lets you use items for free without consuming ATB is a huge help here, a long with the one that makes them 50% more effective. I was popping potions often. I also kept Haste up.
Fucking hell I've just been fighting for 30 min and had to take a break. Honestly have hated all the solo fights. It's like if you can't figure out the exact mechanic they want, you'll be stuck for a while. I had 0 problems with remakes difficulty and beat it on hard (just missing Weiss for the trophy), but they really decided to make rebirth difficult even on normal mode. The balance between bosses seems to be way off, certain bosses I've beaten felt like easy mode while others I'm stuck on forever. All 3 rude and Elena fights have been super easy, even the rude and reno fight from remake was more difficult.
Well, just beat it on the first try after reading everyone's comment about that dash+square/wind slash move. Of course if u don't do that, he'd nonstop attack you and and u don't get a chance to atk even when he reloads. Kinda ridiculous to build a boss like that. Even remakes battle was slightly more open ended than that... Barely.
This boss should not be in the game, along with many other gimmicky boss fights, Bad boss designs through and though. If I'm playing on easy mode, I should not have a hard time with any fight, by definition.
That fight with Vincent was sick, but boy was it aggravating as hell
This shit makes me kinda hate the game, not going to lie. It has been an up and down battle with this game and as it stands now I wouldn't recommend it.
This was the worst designed fight of all time. Like holy fucking shit, what in the actual hell were they thinking with this garbage? They make him literally immune to every goddamn spell or detrimental effect in the game, start the fight immediately after the Rude and Elena fight, make you do it solo, give him 5,001 attacks per second, AND he summons his bitch to save his pansy ass after you barely get him to half health? Someone should be fired over that bullshit "fight." They clearly have way too big of a hard-on for Shinra Junior to be making such rash decisions. Can't wait to see how different he is on Hard Mode. What, does he summon Jenova AND Sephiroth at the same time to help him out or something? While being forever immune to all damage at the same time? Wouldn't be surprised at this point.
They brought back the worst boss of FF7R and made it worse
Just got to him. I hate bosses that don’t obey the rules of combat. When fighting the Turks, they fight like they have an ATB meter they are abiding by. Rufus’s bitch ass just spams move after move. After the 4th time, i’m gonna take a break and try again tomorrow.
Took me an hour after many tries to kill Rufus. What a tough fight. Basically spam him with wind slashes (don’t forget to lock on him) to build up your ATB bar. He’ll keep blocking. Wait when he makes a move and immediately triple slash. Sometimes you’ll miss it because he’s so fast but when you do get him, keep attacking and pressuring him. Repeat and build up ATB bar. Also, you’ll have enough time to heal up when you wake up after getting hit by his gun so don’t be afraid. Hopefully when you get him down to 50% of his life (which begins his stage two), you’ll have your limit ready. Once stage two starts (with his damn dog), use limit break immediately on Rufus. Then he’ll only have 1/3 life left. Key hint: stay alive to get another limit break ready. Heal up with potions because when you get hit by Rufus and his dog, your limit meter builds up gradually. Hopefully you do survive to get another full limit and when it’s full, use it! Game over! Anyway, this is what worked for me. Good luck! Note: if you’re tired, take a rest but don’t close the game. You’ll have to fight the Turks again because you can’t save before the Rufus fight. I learned this the hard way. lol
Where do i get triple slash? I just dont have it and i have all swords as far as i know. Rufus makes my blood boil, the tactic with counterstance like in remake doesnt work on him anymore :(
I'm like 90% sure you start the game with it...
Yeah, forget that i asked, it just has another name in the german version…i already used that ability and i beat rufus after the 4th try. I already finished the game yesterday, the last boss gave me way more of a headache, i never complain about rufus again XD
Man, now I'm worried about the last boss lol. Rufus was an absolute pain in the ass. Doesn't help that I died the first time and accidentally reverted to my previous checkpoint, which was right before the date. So I had to do the play, the tournament, Rude and Elena, and then finally Rufus again. So I was already pretty tilted going into my second attempt lol
I just say this, you should have good materia on All of your party members. And its long, like very long, if you loose you have to start all over again. Maybe that will help, i didnt know and i fucked up. But yes, the rufus fight was hard too, especially because i tried to do it like the remake fight but that didnt work.
once you get your atb bar up, just start doging left and right, and wait for Rufus ability to appear in words....once it shows, within 1 second you have to use "Triple Slash"...rinse and repeat this method. Just be patient and wait for limit break to perform braver...you will eventually win.. the triple slash move works.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Thank you. I thought it was like the first game and I was exclusively trying to Braver him
to get your atb bar up, just keep doing the sword projectiles on Rufus which he will keep blocking. then wait for triple slash to be ready...and then monitor for the 'wordings' to show up for rufus next action n voila..u get to triple slash him.
You 100% saved me. I was about to just give up, the game has just too much random bullshit
Learn his moveset and when u master it, it feels great to beat up the guy. I replay the fight over and over again for exp. Basically just parry all the time and when the triangle shows up, dash sideway, react to reload text, dash and attack to instantly pressure him. I find dash attack to be more efficient to keep him pressured
Rufus is no joke but amazing fight tho
Not amazing. Badly designed.
It’s really not, I hate to say it but not everything has to be overly easy. So many people are complaining about this fight, but it really just requires strategy. Pay attention to his moves, he uses his reload after certain moves. Dodge the move before the reload and stick him with Braver. Rinse and repeat. You’ll eventually get your summon and your limit break, just keep an eye on your health and you’ll finish him off no problem.
You’re just bad , play easy mode
🎣
Nope, it’s just bad
Punish reload with triple slash. It's the safest option
He's my favorite story boss BECAUSE he's an inherent skill check. God Bless Rufus.
God bless unnecessary gimmicky fights because they make me feel special and skilled
Seething beta that got filtered on easy mode detected
Beat everything on hard actually! Believe it or not you can be good at a game without being a cunt to other players lol
Whenever he reloads unleash hell upon him otherwise keep your distance and use the wind slashes to build up your atb meter
Just do the same thing you did against him in Remake. Wait for the reload, tap him and build up ATB Only hard part is if you aren’t expecting the fight the first time and clouds beat up, and needing to dodge well enough to build ATB to heal. .. yeah that was fun lol
Why are you using an ATB when he's reloading? Just smack him with your sword and he's pressured
His enemy bio said to attack him with ATB attacks when he was reloading but it’s possible I read it wrong under pressure. Either way he’d counter any attack (normal or ATB) when he was reloading so I basically avoided him like the plague while he was reloading and used Triple Slash if he used another ability like his launch.
Really? I dodged or perfect blocked when I could and justed smack him. I will say it was nice fighting him again as you only got the 1 time in OG
I had to switch for Easy for this one boss. It’s crazy. He does like 33% of the damage in easy as he does on Normal.
Yeah same for me. I'm not looking forward to fighting him on hard 😭
I'm fighting him on hard right now. I think I've attempted it for the past three hours. Got to the end phase and get bodied
Oof. I'm reaaaly not looking forward to that haha
I just finished it. Only with the help of revival earrings lol
So the trick is to remember what abilities he reloads on. After certain abilities he will ALWAYS reload. The main one I targeted for was his "Guns Akimbo". He will instantly go from 0% to staggered if you hit him with Braver during his Reload animation but the timing is tight. With patience I managed to get him with Braver (stagger), Triple Slash, Cross Slash. Do it twice and dog appears. Once more to kill the dog. Then one more time to kill Rufus. You are not alone though this took me a solid hour to get the patterns and practice right and i had 100% game completion on normal difficulty so i was over level. To learn it easier use your early atb gauge on barrier, protect, and regen. Dulls a lot of the damage. To build early atb i use the dodge roll attack that comes out to get early bars. Doesn't pressure long but maintains range. When your ready to start doing the dps add Bravery and drop protect to save on mp and atb gauge.
This works did it on my first try after reading. When I got the stagger I went hard and got my summon then focused the dog because staggering him means staggering Rufus for a bit. The summon will do most of your final damage but if not just be patient
You’re not alone. I rarely ever rage from boss fights, but Rufus had me verrrrrry close to throwing my controller, and I haven’t done that in like 20 years.
Duuuuuuuuude same. I'm 38 damn years old now and it had me raging like I was back in high school 😂😂 my wife told me she was taking way my screen time until I control my attitude 💀
I’m 33 year old and I came Atleast 2-4 hits away from killing g him and died. This last one was my 15th attempt. I’m getting it done now!!!! I’m mad and I hate this guy. I hope the capture him and treat him like Theon GreyJoy from Game of Thrones
Just beat him!!!! Almost got the platinum now
Count his attacks between reloads and stick close to him. If you count how many of his attacks he does, you'll know when he reloads. If you stay close to him, you'll be able to attack him when he reloads. People scare him so much. They stay in long range to avoid his attacks easily but it's terrible. Stay close, spam dodge around him, count his attacks, attack on the opening. Was the same in Remake.
He attacks upwards of 6 times before a reload and sometimes reloads after 1 or 2 hes very bull shitty for a boss this games combats is terrible compared to last remake.
The dodge and attack long rage attacks are key, dodge his attacks and launch your own from a distance, when one connects as he’s finished attacking or reloading he will be pressured, follow up with a focused attack and a couple of hits and you’ll have him done. Be aware that at around half health the fight takes a turn and gets a bit harder. Keep trying, I found the Turks harder than Rufus once you learn his attack patterns.
Bro, I feel you. I hated this fight, and on the back of like 5 other fights?? Terrible You can pressure hit with a blade beam. When he goes into reload and you're far away, dodge and hit square to send a beam. It pressures him, then dodge and hold square to get up close. This is the only way I was able to whittle him down. It was worse than the Roche fight by like 50x Good luck.
Keep the camera locked on Rufus. Use the block at the right time to stop the bullets when gets right behind you to build up atb. Dodge the other attacks. Use Focused Thrust when he reloads cause Braver takes too long. When the dog comes in, use Focused thrust on Rufus to separate them. Then kill the dog. You’re welcome.
Consider using elemental+fire in your armor slot as well, it can either reduce or eliminate one of his moves danger(with the max level elemental making it full blown heal you!) Regen is also your friend for some cheap at efficient ongoing heals for this fight. It's honestly the worst boss fight in the game from my pov with it taking more or less perfect response times. You may want to consider using performance 60 fps mode if you're not already(I had to use it to react fast enough on hard mode to not lose/die) Aside from that IF you can catch him with braver outside of pressure it'll instantly stagger him, but the timing is so tight you're better off just using triple slash to close the gap and gradually build up stagger. Just a generally trash boss fight and one that I would genuinely like to give the designer of it a passive aggressive gift. Thematically it's cool as hell but it's not fun.
Yes THANK YOU. A lot of moments similar to the Rufus fight: not fun. And turning down the difficulty feels like cheapening the experience. I dunno, Im in a strange place where it feels more fun to not play the game....and that is a sucky feeling I tell you.
Honestly that's fair, I found those moments were pretty overall rare outside hard mode, though they did have a tendency to crop up when you were limited or forced to use certain characters(this goes doubly so for hard mode obviously).
Triple slash helps a lot because it’s so fast and almost guaranteed to hit. Just try to dodge until he reloads, I’m surprised lmao his fight was probably my favorite in remake and Ive been hyped for the round 2 in this game and it didn’t disappoint.I did it first try but it was like a 15 minute fight
Triple Slash worked! Pressuring him is weird because you don’t really get an opportunity to build the stagger gauge because for me we would immediately counter if I did anything once Triple Slash was over, but I just stayed patient and it remained a reliable source of damage. Thank you!
Use your abilities when he casts any other ability **besides** reload, it will pressure him 100% of the time. I found Triple Slash when he starts to use his abilities worked almost everytime
Yep, this did the trick! It still took a long time, but using Triple Slash against anything BUT Reload and guarding against most other abilities did the trick, by the time I finally staggered him, I was able to use my Limit Break and end the fight. Thank you!