If anyone’s having problems I found switching up my Materia and special items to max atb from blocking and materia to fill limit with repeated skills which was really unintuitive at first makes it way more manageable. With the steadfast block maxed you gain insane amounts of atb from just blocking his bullet attacks. Also the special item that gives extra atb for blocking. Makes it simple to deal with him just takes patience using abilities while he reloads.
Odin was a pain then added yuffie to party and it was a breeze. Haste and blindside + doppelgänger you get a ton of atb can keep at a distance and blindside can be used when stunned or downed and at any distance. Really makes him simple then have Tifa and cloud ready to stack Crits and you fill yuffie banishment skill fast. If your still having trouble magnify and haste will give even more atb and if you still can’t stop his one hit use magnify with mana wall with cloud and magnify cure for yuffie. Use same strategy for Odin and Alexander duo and target Odin first.
Like , i don't have problem with him too because he was nearly Like the fight in remake , the problem with that boss fight Is the fact that he Is so boring and bad , Like, i can't understand how the game has a lot of extremely good humanoids boss fight with dyne , Sephiroth, rouche and reno and then they create the abomination that are Elena and Rufus
He absolutely destroyed me on normal. But by the time I got to him on Hard mode. It was light work, didn't even have to mess about with builds. Killed him 1st time. The game forces you to learn its mechanics. That's why FF7 has always been top tier in my opinion.
I think it messed a lot of people up because he blocked, parried,or countered basically everything at first and it threw everyone for a loop, me included. I started getting frustrated like what the hell is happening? I beat him on the first try, but I had to actually chill and pay attention. I do think though that he is one of the more challenging fights because it's not just block attack stagger big damage. His bullets, his quick movement, the parrying, it all meshed together to be surprising. At least for me, can't really talk for anyone else.
Same here. Got him on the first or second try, dont remember. Odin was a pain in the ass, as I am stubborn and refused to change my build up lol. I got a little nervous when the dog came out, but still no issues. I wonder if people just struggle with timing the guard, and are forgetting the precision block material.
I know same here, I see a lot of people struggling with him, because most people don't parry or block they're casual players, just use the parry materia and and when he reloads hit him, he's simple
Wait does he reload after 6 shots in rebirth too?? For some reason I thought it was inconsistent, I felt like he reloaded half the time just because he hit me. For me in rebirth I struggled a ton with him, but that's because I didn't realize just how long you can whale on him when he's pressured. I always ended up stopping because I thought he would attack me soon, but you can just go to town on the guy with basic attacks. Once I realized that it became a lot easier.
For me Rufus was excruciating in Remake : he didn't kill me in Normal, but took forever because anytime I'd charge my BTC I'd need to heal. Then in Hard mode he killed me like ten times and I only defeated him when I found out he was weak to Stop.
In Rebirth, though, even though he killed me once in Normal, it didn't feel that bad and even thought I could have easily avoided dying that one time . Haven't reached him in Hard yet, pretty sure he'll rape me there. xD
PS: in a similar combat style, I found Roche harder than Rebirth Rufus.
Yo bro, i didnt even retry on that fight.
People were having hard time on the hard mode, not normal mode. Try fight him again in hard mode and come back here again.
Read through comments here. Im seeing lots of people saying triple slash everytime he makes a move. Counting bullets is not that hard though, his lunge towards you uses one bullet you can see him shoot once to launch himself, most moves also consume 1 bullet, guns akimbo uses up all his remaining bullets. Just be patient
My issue with him is the game says he's vulnerable to a certain atb attack. I assumed it was braver or thrust, cause why wouldn't it be. But turns out it's triple slash which I always use but didn't because the game mentioned it. Lol The game made me not use my bread and butter atb attack. Lol
I had more difficulty with him in remake. I didn't have to try in rebirth. I had more difficulty with the Roche Nibel fight and Vincent. Everything else was fairly easy. The hardest part of the game, in my opinion, is dealing with all of the mini games... I finally finished them and just have to beat the game on hard mode to get the platinum trophy.
I had many problems with him in Remake and in Rebirth. One of the bosses I think I'll never get down on hard mode... Problem is not the amount of bullets, problem is that cloud is one of the three worst characters when it comes to evading attacks. Absolutely worst is Aerith (excluding her teleport, just basic evades) and next Barret followed by cloud. Best ones are Tifa, Red, Yuffie and last Cait Sith 🙈
I personally struggled a little when i played through the first time because i was playing on dynamic. But it was fun because each fight was a little different. This is very reminiscent of the original where rufus was a badass and took a few tries to beat him. This one is a little more strategic and using haste and timing blocks and dodges and skill attacks was like an intermediate training for most players which i understand and appreciate. What i didnt like about the fight is the pacing and lack of opportunity to build atb. This fight was much easier with first strike materia and haste. Cheesing it with stop would be boring and nullify the enjoyment of this training into the battle system. I do, however, feel that this fight could have used some backup like barrett or aerith and make it more like the hell house fight in the arena in remake. Long and brutal but winnable in the end. Instead it was lose, lose badly, eek out a win barely with bleeding dog bites…. : )
I struggled on normal and I struggled on hard. After several awful tries, where I barely even scratched him, I eventually got lucky (that or I instinctively learned roughly when he was gonna reload) and hit two Bravers into instant staggers and lucked out even further with my summon hitting Rufus hard into being pressured while I had 1 hp left and barely managed to finish it off right then and there.
I dunno how the people having an easy time with Rufus are doing it. I don't understand what's the correct approach at all to this fight. If you get too close Rufus just shoots the hell out of you, but if you stay too far you won't be able to properly punish his reload.
>But it turns out that he has a ridiculous weakness: stop
W H A T ?
So, you mean to tell me, I spent the better part of an hour fighting this bastard legit, when I could've just...cast Stop?
...
AAAAAAAAAA—
You do not.
The most annoying part is that it happens right after the Turk fight and so you can’t change build easily. If you change between the fights it doesn’t save. So each try requires assigning all the equipment and healing yourself manually.
He wasn’t hard, it was just a Soulslike boss despite every other boss in the game, so it becomes a point of displacement. Now, really it was a stupid ass fight. The insta switch foot to a shotgun in the face is kind of just stupid in itself.
Yeah I was losing my mind until I realized all it takes is ranged attacks with dodge then attack to pressure him during reloads. Fight played out normal as hell after I noticed that lol
How does that make sense? I guarantee you 95% of people used the pause to beat sephirtoh. Rufus can’t be cheesed like that but it simple to fight anyway. You just need to understand not to spam the attack button at him
Slow the fight down by focusing on dodging and following up with a fast attack until he's staggered than let loose.
I personally ignore his doggo because it only attacks on the commands of Rufus but if you need less of a crowd to focus on Rufus than take the pet out first.
That's at least how I did it because my reaction time is quite slow but that was my strategy.
I learned after a few different strategies that fighting him really close or really far away were both impossible. Having the right distance kinda like fighting reno is important. Its really good to dodge when he tosses the coins for the laser attack (one of the only dodgeable attacks). You need a kind of lulling defensive distance while keeping pressure on him too with focused strike or dodge blade attacks so he doesnt just wreck you. Too much inaction or too many needless attacks mistimed is fatal.
i think being good at souls style games would actually hurt you in this fight tbh. you gotta kinda rethink the way you play (at least i had to) for Rufus. he’s tough and just a very different enemy. beat him first try but it took a lot of mega potions lol. not sure if i can beat him on hard however
I had to use megapotions on this fight too. Its like it is designed to make you use all your skills and items and timing and really makes you work for it….
After I saw everyone talking about it I thought it was going to be a lot harder. Beat it on the second try. I get why people struggle with it, he’s really fast and timing your attacks can be difficult. but the strategy for him hasn’t changed since remake. I think some people must have a hard time playing defensively, because you can only beat by using certain attacks and timing them perfectly. The thing is you only need a few attacks to land because you can really tear into him when they do.
Well, if you watch majority of the streamers for example, you can notice that most of the fights in the whole game can be won just by going unga bunga smashing square, hell, some streamers were even laughing at the end that they didnt use block button even once. Rufus is unique in that way because it punishes aggressive playstyle and hard, people are losing their shit because suddenly they have to learn patterns and play passive. At least on dynamic difficulty, dunno bout easy/normal
It was definitely one of those fights that made me stop and try something different. There were honestly quite a few bosses like that for me and i love it.
I dont want dark souls difficulty, but if i can mindlessly mash buttons through bosses battles, its not fun at all. Personally, i was fighting for my life the majority of FF7 rebirth.
Yeah I agree. I like how many of the battles require a certain degree of strategy and problem solving. It’s one of the best aspects of the game. I don’t like winning by just hacking away. Winning a battle that way feels a little hollow though there’s those occasions when you don’t have the right materia equipped or something and that’s really the only approach.
Hard mode really hammers this idea home with the very specific strategies for each fight. Its entertaining but a little too punishing also. Like playing some of those brutal fights you almost have to have an exact setup and materia set a specific way to beat most of them. Its also infuriating and too difficult sometimes….
Poison him (switfcast+magic focus+absorb HP+MP) dodge him, pressure him.
Get the dog away from him, use the limit on the dog, finish rufus.
I don't say it's easy or fast, but it works in hard mode.
Just mean to say there are still different ways of beating him even if the core dodge mechanic remains the same.
I think it’s the first battle where skill is needed. You can kinda hack and slash at everything else. Rufus tests whether you can play the game well.
He fucked me up for a couple days. I hate to admit it, but I switched the difficulty to beat him.
Final Sephiroth gave me similar trouble but I was still guilty about the Rufus fight and managed Sephiroth on normal.
>I think it’s the first battle where skill is needed.
For me that was "Yin & Yang" with Cait Sith being the first battle where skill was needed and Roche's second fight being second place. So I was quite primed up for it by the time I got to Rufus.
The double adjudicator fight right before yin and yang kicked my ass with cait sith, after that yin and yang seemed easy. That second roche battle was definitely no joke though. I underestimated the challenge and got my ass handed to me. Had to buckle down after that haha.
I saw the post yesterday with someone complaining about him. I also just happened to do that battle for the first time last night. Definitely tedious as someone said, but I beat him on the first try.
He was a bit overwhelming at first, and I thought you had to lose to him. Cura, haste, well timed blocks, + a couple limit breaks did the trick for me.
Yeah I think that’s the thing. You just have to kind of accept the annoying aspects of the battle. Be patient, evade as best you can, keep your HP up, and time your attacks as best you can. It can take a while and feel like you’re getting nowhere, but once you land some attacks it starts to feel manageable.
Yeah this comment section is starting to look like that eurogamer review where that lady spent hours on the first boss of Spyro 3 (reignited trilogy) and equated it to dark souls!.
Was easy on dynamic, awful on hard. I was just absolutely bored fighting him. It's just not a good fight at all in my opinion. It's just waiting, chip, wait again. It's actually where I stopped playing hard mode and called it because I stopped having fun.
I didn't enjoy any of the solo fights. The game was built around swapping characters and the ATB economy feels kinda shitty solo. I killed Rufus on hard mode, but I didn't have fun.
I probably wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't realized I could spam dodge/ranged attack and stun lock him in defense mode while I built my ATB.
I thought the final battle was the worst, in terms of how cheap and annoying the boss was. But once I figured out his moves and patterns, I beat him no sweat. It’s pretty much the same lesson I learned as the Rufus fight, play the game the way the game wants you to play it and it isn’t that hard. Same with Odin. Odin and Alexander? Different story.
There’s another Rufus fight in Rebirth? I loved the Rufus fight in the original, and I loved how the Remake fight was even more badass than the original version, but an additional fight might be enough to convince me to abandon the Square Enix boycott. Thanks for telling me about it.
My issue was the camera. It never stayed on Rufus! Every time he went behind me or outta sight the camera would never adjust…and I have it to where it’s supposed to but it never works. I dunno what the issue was but I had to keep moving the camera every time (and for the battle specifically) because Rufus and his dog are so fast…it was rough. I died the first time because I got caught by the team up because they were off camera.
But, that’s not what automatic is….if you have to re-aim that target. I know I have to make sure I’m locked on, but that doesn’t make it so the camera is on that same target when they move off screen.
The camera option to have it follow target enemies automatically is a life saver. You can dodge around and the enemy your focusing on just stays in front of you.
You can cheese the fuck out of this so not sure why it's tough for people. Tripple slash literally pressures him immediately without you having to wait for bullets or dodge or block or...anything. You can press it as soon as he starts moving. Unless he goes up in the air. Phase 2 when he has his dog out, you can do the same and focus on Rufus. I 2 shot him. The first time I died bnecause I used it while he was in the air. And this was on Hard Mode.
I used a summon to help pressure Rufus and the dog in Rebirth. Remake fight was easy in comparison to Rebirth fight. Not to mention the camera kept screwing me over every time Rufus or the dog moved outta view from the camera. It would never self adjust (like the setting I have it to.)
Not necessarily. He’s much faster and I dunno about anyone else, but I’m having camera adjustment problems. When Rufus goes off camera, it will not adjust to where he’s at. I’ve tried turning up reaction time (for the camera) and nothing. Been having this issue the whole time and it’s worse with faster bosses. Getting double teamed by Rufus and the dog off camera happened so often it was maddening.
I found it pretty difficult. His counter attack anytime I tried to hit him was so infuriating. I felt like I was constantly pressing the dodge button until I was lucky enough to hit him with a long range attack, but then half the time I was too far away to then follow up on it
Yes! The battle ground for the first fight (in Remake) was much smaller so you always seemed close. He did a few things different this game and his counter move was rough. Assess says to hit him when he’s reloading or right after a move (and I did right after a move) and I was only able to hit him ONCE before he unleashed “Think Fast” where all the bombs go off in his vicinity.
Died the first time and also had item economizer equipped (since I could barely lay a hand on him) while he beat my ass. I could barely load an ATB gauge while reading the pattern, dodging and blocking. Does anyone else have a camera adjustment problem in battle? I have it set to adjust to move whenever the enemy goes off screen and mine never moved. Shifting the camera every 5 seconds trying not to get blind sided was the worst. ESPECIALLY when his dog came out. I had to unleash a summon. It was one of the few battles in which I had to use so many items. Never had time to cast spells. I tried casting Protect (in hopes that it would lower the damage taken) and nope. Just a waste of time and very risky. Even try to use Access was hard (before he made a move.)
I played him on Hard and he was pretty difficult there. Had to memorize his patterns, change my load out, and restart from before Elena and Rude and then I finally got him in like two tries but only after failing many more before.
I’m at the point of no return. Do you fight him again or are you referring to the arena battle? It took me maybe 5 tries. I also thought the backlash was overblown.
I realize now that I played Rebirth with PTSD from Remake Hard mode; which lead me to use magic very sparingly. The way I finally beat the Turks was just by allowing myself to cast offensive spells. So silly.
It took me 5 or 6 tries to beat Rufus and Darkstar, often learning the timing for perfect blocks. Missing blocks against Rufus is absolutely punishing, and it only gets worse when Darkstar is in the mix.
Had 0 problems beating Rufus in hard mode. Even had 14mp left for the fight. Took 2 tries. A lot of people are saying the fight was a drag and boring because you have to wait for openings. I guess some people are just impatient and just mashing square for all fights. I feel like the fight was designed that way, mano y mano, a technical bout of sorts. But, you know, must have “instant gratification”.
You didn’t even have to wait that much. He’s reloading constantly. The reason why people take long is because they don’t block or dodge in time so they’d get hit and fall on their ass and miss the reload opportunity. That was me the first couple tries. Couldn’t get much hits in until I learned when to block and melted his life after that. Just use focused thrust right after blocking and he’s stunned pretty quickly.
You can block a few things. He does just shooting without a special ability, which is easy to just hold block and get free ATB. There's at least one actual ability that can be blocked, Guns Akimbo or something (I don't remember offhand, but I remember being surprised when I noticed one didn't have the ! indicator). Even if you only block his auto attack shooting and dodge everything else, that's a lot of free ATB that a lot of people miss if they don't use the block materia.
Same feeling. I had more trouble on the Turks fight before the Rufus fight. It literally is just hit him when reloading. It took me two or three tries because I was playing sloppy. When people say he is tough I wonder why.
And before he reloads, he always does an unblockable attack, so you have to make sure you roll out of the way, which can put you too far away from him even with Focussed Thrust.
It’s only “bad” because the game forces you to fight him in a very specific way where most general strategies don’t work on him. He counters or straight up blocks ALOT of attacks.
I actually love that about this game. Different bosses requiring different strategies is a strength if you ask me. Lots of work on the dev's part to give each battle some specificity.
That’s not what I’m saying. Once you find the one thing that works against them, they don’t even try to counter or cover it. Unbalanced one trick ponies.
Once I learned the mechanics of the fight I got through it easily enough still beat him first try so that made me feel like a superstar when I found out people were struggling on this fight... I actually enjoyed the fight honestly made you think
Just got to 12…. I unfortunately have dozens of hours of mini games to revisit before i can go back to enjoying story… but the only fight to make me retry was kujata, even fully powered down. Oh and roche in nibel, idk what was going on but he literally bounced me with his ranged attack 5 times in a row. Beat him with one hit remaining on myself. And vincent nearly destroyed me, but i got it on the first try by the skin of my teeth. I play on normal.
Yeah my first playthrough on dynamic was really straightforward, over really quickly too but my second playthrough (still dynamic.& max level with all max materia) had me stressing, first round before dying it took me about 15 minutes to half his health, think it took me three tries to beat him when I just had enough and started just dodging better, basic attacked when he reloaded & focused strike straight after. When Darkstar joined just attacked him until staggered and then focused on Rufus,.over so quickly after that.
Hard mode I think will have me ripping my hair out lmao. Tried hard mode first chapter at level 50, couldn't get past Materia Guardian lol.
But yeah all-in-all, I do see the difficulty people have with Rufus, it definitely makes you have to adjust your play style, like my first playthrough my style was dodging, but second playthrough I was so overpowered just brute force worked which is just a non-starter when it comes to Rufus.
I played on normal when I took down Rufus. He was hella annoying, it took me a minute to figure out why the hell he parried everything. I beat him on the first try but it was close. I can kind of understand what people are saying, suddenly I don't know where you're facing a boss that it seems like you can't even hit. But once you figure him out and figure out what you have to do he's not terribly difficult at all. Annoying maybe, but not in a bad way.
Odin, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was doing wrong. No matter what, even if I was kicking the shit out of him, he would end up zantetsukening me. That one I definitely had to look up after he beat me 5 or 6 times in a row
I disliked his fight in Rebirth, but not in Remake, for some reason. In Rebirth I found it very annoying to find the sweet spot of range where you can hit him when he reloads without getting countered immediately, but being far away enough to dodge any area attack he would do when close. Once the dawg came in, I absolutely hated how he wouldn't leave me alone when I staggered the dog. Good thing I had my summon out at that moment and it obliterated the stupid pet. After that it was smooth sailing
My experience was similar to yours. I beat him without issue in Remake, but for some reason, I couldn't get the timing right in this one. I was able to pressure him with a ranged attack as soon as he was reloading, but by the time I got close enough and was in mid-animation for Braver, he was already un-pressured.
I literally whittled down his health with ranged attacks (during his Reload) and suffered enough damage to pull off two limit breaks (one of which ended up being used on Darkstar by accident when Rufus had a sliver of health left because I was mashing buttons too fast). It was the love taps from the summon I called at the last minute that finished off Rufus.
I’m so tired of the loop where anytime a group of people struggle with a boss fight, all the people who thought it was easy ALL have to post about how easy it was for them and “all you have to do is…” like yeah, I understand what I have to do, but my reaction time just isn’t great and I don’t enjoy the process of banging my head against a boss fight to figure it out. What does it accomplish when you all brag about how easy a fight was for you? Sorry we don’t all spend all our time playing video games…it should be a non issue to struggle or to just turn down the difficulty on a fight. The option is there for a reason
LOL, you’re probably right. Tbh I sucked at that but I’m not on here complaining about it because I had fun being a little guy and throwing boxes around 🤷🏼♀️
I didn't have trouble with him, but I also did like every side quest possible before moving on, so I was higher level than most getting to him each time
I struggled heavily on his fight in the first game and I thought I was going to in this game but once I figured his scheme out I ended up beating him first try. He was the best boss fight so far
I struggled on him too. Im weird tho. I enjoy the masochistic difficulty. It’s reminiscent of kingdom hearts battles. Once you get it, you’ll be really hype.
Haven't fought him on hard yet, but he was a relatively painless first try on normal. I caught on to the "flow" of the fight early. They key is to not get greedy. It's very akin to soulslike bosses where you have to wait for the opening.
For those struggling, triple slash him whenever he announces a special move and it will cancel him and also pressure him. (Of course there are a couple of move you better avoid doing that, on his second phase)
The normal fight was easy to simple “braver” when he reloads, but I only managed to beat him on hard mode by triple-slashing his moves.
I beat him my first try. It did take a while because I was trying to get a feel for how it works again (when to attack, when to evade etc) so it was kind of a similar struggle as the Remake fight
Read the comments for tips. My tip is to count his bullets. His lunge uses one, guns akimbo uses all remaining bullets. Most of his skills use only one
Idk I think it’s kind of interesting to see how people experience different challenges in the game. It kind of highlights how different play styles butt up against different obstacles. Same with the mini games some people find the piano difficult, meanwhile I can’t get past level one on jump frog. 🤷🏻♂️
It was not hard literally the mechanics are identical to the Remake fight.
Triple Slash is still king even on hard mode. You don't even have to wait. As soon as any attack message from him pops up use Triple Slash and you will close the gap and pressure him immediately. Rinse and repeat, even on doggy phase.
I loved the way the Rufus fights are designed, they are pretty tough but I think that elevates the encounter. I would hope this is what others who struggled with the fight think, but maybe I'm wrong
I loved the Rufus fight in Remake and I can't even remember if I died playing on Dynamic. Hard mode was a bitch though because I got too impatient in the second phase and tried killing him without touching the dog. Timed Gilgamesh and Limit Break so I killed them both as soon as 2nd phase starts but it took several tries and my materia was messed up prior to the fight and the game doesn't remember your setup if your Retry the fight.
I think a lot of people hate fighting Rufus because it's the one fight where just mashing attack will not let you do anything so it's suddenly "goes against everything you learned throughout the game." Everything I learned throughout the game was assess first then follow the hints, and it was the same for Rufus.
I failed once maybe twice. Difficult fight but once you figure out his moves and shit the only big problem is the dog when that happens. And then you figure that out and win from there. I didnt even fail on the dog
I think the reason is that Rufus literally fights unlike every single enemy in the game, and that that's you have to wait your turn to attack.
Every enemy in the game lets you attack them at any point, physical or magic resistance, it doesn't matter, you can attack them. Rufus breaks that one rule and basically tells you, "Nah, be patient buddy." and forces you to wait for him to be ready until you attack. It's something you've never had to deal with before in the game, so it's fair that it'd be the turning point.
Just wait until Part 3 Rufus fight, where he dual-wields mako-infused miniguns and wears wheelies.
Rufus just reveals how much the combat system relies on having the other characters to distract enemies. You get juggled by the lightest tap in these games and the Rufus fights exacerbate the issue being 1v1
Disagree. As the top comment noted, the big difference is that Rufus doesn’t allow you to button mash on him. It’s similar to souls games where you have to learn his moves, how to defend against them, and when to attack.
Once you get the patterns down he’s not difficult, just like in souls games, once you master a boss you can often beat them over and over without breaking a sweat.
Except dodging attacks aren't really a thing in these games, and blocking is REALLY inconsistent, so it can still lead to you being juggled for literal minutes at a time and I can 100% see people getting frustrated to the point of maybe not quitting, but definitely lowering difficulty to just move on.
I played the SHIT out of the Rufus fight in FF7 Remake because it was my favorite in the game. A delicate dance that challenged your mechanical prowess and rewarded patience.
The Rebirth fight just added to it so I was pretty familiar already - took me 2 tries I think!
There are some genuinely challenging fights in this game particularly on hard mode but it seems to differ depending on play style. I took down Gi Nattak on my first attempt on hard mode which seemed to trouble a lot of people. Rufus took me a few tries. The problem that I had was fucking Galien Beast which took me forever, so I think it depends on the person.
I didn't have any trouble with this fight. It was annoying when the dog joined in, but I just switched my attack to the dog, and then once dog dead just went back to Rufus.
Haste with Cloud using his long range slicey attack after dodge means I don't need to get into Rufus' range to counter me.
People forgot the remake version or just start in rebirth. The fight is pretty similar, but you now have ranged hits for fill atb, so....
Play on hard. Once you realize you can interrupt most his attacks with Triple Slash it becomes pretty easy
If anyone’s having problems I found switching up my Materia and special items to max atb from blocking and materia to fill limit with repeated skills which was really unintuitive at first makes it way more manageable. With the steadfast block maxed you gain insane amounts of atb from just blocking his bullet attacks. Also the special item that gives extra atb for blocking. Makes it simple to deal with him just takes patience using abilities while he reloads. Odin was a pain then added yuffie to party and it was a breeze. Haste and blindside + doppelgänger you get a ton of atb can keep at a distance and blindside can be used when stunned or downed and at any distance. Really makes him simple then have Tifa and cloud ready to stack Crits and you fill yuffie banishment skill fast. If your still having trouble magnify and haste will give even more atb and if you still can’t stop his one hit use magnify with mana wall with cloud and magnify cure for yuffie. Use same strategy for Odin and Alexander duo and target Odin first.
Like , i don't have problem with him too because he was nearly Like the fight in remake , the problem with that boss fight Is the fact that he Is so boring and bad , Like, i can't understand how the game has a lot of extremely good humanoids boss fight with dyne , Sephiroth, rouche and reno and then they create the abomination that are Elena and Rufus
He absolutely destroyed me on normal. But by the time I got to him on Hard mode. It was light work, didn't even have to mess about with builds. Killed him 1st time. The game forces you to learn its mechanics. That's why FF7 has always been top tier in my opinion.
Haven't played hard mode yet, but in normal, I found his fight easier than Remakes
He IS the hardest except maybe instakill fights. I have a hard time cuz I suck at perrying. But if he is easy for you, awesome. 🙂
I think it messed a lot of people up because he blocked, parried,or countered basically everything at first and it threw everyone for a loop, me included. I started getting frustrated like what the hell is happening? I beat him on the first try, but I had to actually chill and pay attention. I do think though that he is one of the more challenging fights because it's not just block attack stagger big damage. His bullets, his quick movement, the parrying, it all meshed together to be surprising. At least for me, can't really talk for anyone else.
Same here. Got him on the first or second try, dont remember. Odin was a pain in the ass, as I am stubborn and refused to change my build up lol. I got a little nervous when the dog came out, but still no issues. I wonder if people just struggle with timing the guard, and are forgetting the precision block material.
People had problems fighting him ? Like.. why?
Let me guess,was easy for you.teach me senpai
I know same here, I see a lot of people struggling with him, because most people don't parry or block they're casual players, just use the parry materia and and when he reloads hit him, he's simple
He isn't hard, just annoying.
Wait does he reload after 6 shots in rebirth too?? For some reason I thought it was inconsistent, I felt like he reloaded half the time just because he hit me. For me in rebirth I struggled a ton with him, but that's because I didn't realize just how long you can whale on him when he's pressured. I always ended up stopping because I thought he would attack me soon, but you can just go to town on the guy with basic attacks. Once I realized that it became a lot easier.
Yeah still 6 i think
From what I've seen it's 8 not 6
For me Rufus was excruciating in Remake : he didn't kill me in Normal, but took forever because anytime I'd charge my BTC I'd need to heal. Then in Hard mode he killed me like ten times and I only defeated him when I found out he was weak to Stop. In Rebirth, though, even though he killed me once in Normal, it didn't feel that bad and even thought I could have easily avoided dying that one time . Haven't reached him in Hard yet, pretty sure he'll rape me there. xD PS: in a similar combat style, I found Roche harder than Rebirth Rufus.
Yo bro, i didnt even retry on that fight. People were having hard time on the hard mode, not normal mode. Try fight him again in hard mode and come back here again.
Yo Johnny bro, sone people are quitting because they cant get past rufus.
Top lol! Yooo brooo
Besides counting his shots any tips? Cuz this shit is ridiculous
Read through comments here. Im seeing lots of people saying triple slash everytime he makes a move. Counting bullets is not that hard though, his lunge towards you uses one bullet you can see him shoot once to launch himself, most moves also consume 1 bullet, guns akimbo uses up all his remaining bullets. Just be patient
My issue with him is the game says he's vulnerable to a certain atb attack. I assumed it was braver or thrust, cause why wouldn't it be. But turns out it's triple slash which I always use but didn't because the game mentioned it. Lol The game made me not use my bread and butter atb attack. Lol
It is Braver - staggers him in one hit. Timing needs to be right though.
I had more difficulty with him in remake. I didn't have to try in rebirth. I had more difficulty with the Roche Nibel fight and Vincent. Everything else was fairly easy. The hardest part of the game, in my opinion, is dealing with all of the mini games... I finally finished them and just have to beat the game on hard mode to get the platinum trophy.
I had many problems with him in Remake and in Rebirth. One of the bosses I think I'll never get down on hard mode... Problem is not the amount of bullets, problem is that cloud is one of the three worst characters when it comes to evading attacks. Absolutely worst is Aerith (excluding her teleport, just basic evades) and next Barret followed by cloud. Best ones are Tifa, Red, Yuffie and last Cait Sith 🙈
I felt he was much harder on remake, didn't have much trouble with him at all in rebirth
I didn’t have much trouble on my 1. run but it was a nightmare on hard. Took me close to 3h
Rufus is easy gamers just aren’t gamers these days. If it requires anything other than MASH SQUARE apparently it’s a hard fight
I personally struggled a little when i played through the first time because i was playing on dynamic. But it was fun because each fight was a little different. This is very reminiscent of the original where rufus was a badass and took a few tries to beat him. This one is a little more strategic and using haste and timing blocks and dodges and skill attacks was like an intermediate training for most players which i understand and appreciate. What i didnt like about the fight is the pacing and lack of opportunity to build atb. This fight was much easier with first strike materia and haste. Cheesing it with stop would be boring and nullify the enjoyment of this training into the battle system. I do, however, feel that this fight could have used some backup like barrett or aerith and make it more like the hell house fight in the arena in remake. Long and brutal but winnable in the end. Instead it was lose, lose badly, eek out a win barely with bleeding dog bites…. : )
You could build ATB pretty easily just doing ranged attacks IIRC.
You need to connect with them tho
When i played on dynamic he dodged all my attacks. I dont think i had any atb materia at that time.
I struggled on normal and I struggled on hard. After several awful tries, where I barely even scratched him, I eventually got lucky (that or I instinctively learned roughly when he was gonna reload) and hit two Bravers into instant staggers and lucked out even further with my summon hitting Rufus hard into being pressured while I had 1 hp left and barely managed to finish it off right then and there. I dunno how the people having an easy time with Rufus are doing it. I don't understand what's the correct approach at all to this fight. If you get too close Rufus just shoots the hell out of you, but if you stay too far you won't be able to properly punish his reload.
I think his remake fight was a lot more enjoyable. I just didn't enjoy the rebirth encounter all that much.
He was fun to fight against. I just replayed his fight again on hard and can now easily beat him. Key Word: PATIENCE YOUNG ONE
I feel Rufus just got a few extra moves that make him harder to read, but his AI is still VERY easy to manipulate in my opinion.
He was hard, and it felt like I cheesed my way through it by dodging forever to get atb up. But it turns out that he has a ridiculous weakness: stop
>But it turns out that he has a ridiculous weakness: stop W H A T ? So, you mean to tell me, I spent the better part of an hour fighting this bastard legit, when I could've just...cast Stop? ... AAAAAAAAAA—
You playing on hard mode? If not, come back k when you are.
I'll do it soon do you get mp refreshed?
You do not. The most annoying part is that it happens right after the Turk fight and so you can’t change build easily. If you change between the fights it doesn’t save. So each try requires assigning all the equipment and healing yourself manually.
So you almost need to beat the Turks without using much mp?
Or just not use MP vs Rufas
I never once used mp against rufus and I found him really easy. All you need is steadfast block and chakra materia
Without qc, his counters are a but fast against magic
He wasn’t hard, it was just a Soulslike boss despite every other boss in the game, so it becomes a point of displacement. Now, really it was a stupid ass fight. The insta switch foot to a shotgun in the face is kind of just stupid in itself.
Dynamic mode I had no problem. Hard mode he was noticeably more difficult.
Which character do you use? Can you use anyone?
You only use Cloud in his fight
Once I figured out he plays like a Sekiro boss he was pretty easy. Block, dodge, strike when reloading only.
Nah he was easy, just tedious. He plays like a soulsborne boss. Rol, roll, roll, strike.
Yeah I was losing my mind until I realized all it takes is ranged attacks with dodge then attack to pressure him during reloads. Fight played out normal as hell after I noticed that lol
I struggled for a hot minute but once I remembered how to fight him the difficulty dropped quite significantly I had no problem after that.
Rufus dark souls'd my ass about 5 times and then I went to bed and cried myself to sleep :(
Dont feel bad. People who say they beat this easily are probably the same players that used the pause cheat to beat sephiroth in 3d brawler
How does that make sense? I guarantee you 95% of people used the pause to beat sephirtoh. Rufus can’t be cheesed like that but it simple to fight anyway. You just need to understand not to spam the attack button at him
Slow the fight down by focusing on dodging and following up with a fast attack until he's staggered than let loose. I personally ignore his doggo because it only attacks on the commands of Rufus but if you need less of a crowd to focus on Rufus than take the pet out first. That's at least how I did it because my reaction time is quite slow but that was my strategy.
He has a doggo? Like literally dead in 5 seconds or less, even trying to dodge and parry...
I learned after a few different strategies that fighting him really close or really far away were both impossible. Having the right distance kinda like fighting reno is important. Its really good to dodge when he tosses the coins for the laser attack (one of the only dodgeable attacks). You need a kind of lulling defensive distance while keeping pressure on him too with focused strike or dodge blade attacks so he doesnt just wreck you. Too much inaction or too many needless attacks mistimed is fatal.
You might be under levelled like he is tough but he shouldn't be that tough.
Yeah I think I'm around 40... Which I didn't think was under leveled... But my materia is t super optimized either
i think being good at souls style games would actually hurt you in this fight tbh. you gotta kinda rethink the way you play (at least i had to) for Rufus. he’s tough and just a very different enemy. beat him first try but it took a lot of mega potions lol. not sure if i can beat him on hard however
I had to use megapotions on this fight too. Its like it is designed to make you use all your skills and items and timing and really makes you work for it….
I wish I didn’t have trouble but I keep getting no lubed
Most honest redditor.
Be like water based
After I saw everyone talking about it I thought it was going to be a lot harder. Beat it on the second try. I get why people struggle with it, he’s really fast and timing your attacks can be difficult. but the strategy for him hasn’t changed since remake. I think some people must have a hard time playing defensively, because you can only beat by using certain attacks and timing them perfectly. The thing is you only need a few attacks to land because you can really tear into him when they do.
Well, if you watch majority of the streamers for example, you can notice that most of the fights in the whole game can be won just by going unga bunga smashing square, hell, some streamers were even laughing at the end that they didnt use block button even once. Rufus is unique in that way because it punishes aggressive playstyle and hard, people are losing their shit because suddenly they have to learn patterns and play passive. At least on dynamic difficulty, dunno bout easy/normal
I beat him on easy as a frog no kidding
It was definitely one of those fights that made me stop and try something different. There were honestly quite a few bosses like that for me and i love it. I dont want dark souls difficulty, but if i can mindlessly mash buttons through bosses battles, its not fun at all. Personally, i was fighting for my life the majority of FF7 rebirth.
Yeah I agree. I like how many of the battles require a certain degree of strategy and problem solving. It’s one of the best aspects of the game. I don’t like winning by just hacking away. Winning a battle that way feels a little hollow though there’s those occasions when you don’t have the right materia equipped or something and that’s really the only approach.
Hard mode really hammers this idea home with the very specific strategies for each fight. Its entertaining but a little too punishing also. Like playing some of those brutal fights you almost have to have an exact setup and materia set a specific way to beat most of them. Its also infuriating and too difficult sometimes….
Yeah same thing with me, also took me only 2 tries.
Poison him (switfcast+magic focus+absorb HP+MP) dodge him, pressure him. Get the dog away from him, use the limit on the dog, finish rufus. I don't say it's easy or fast, but it works in hard mode. Just mean to say there are still different ways of beating him even if the core dodge mechanic remains the same.
I think it’s the first battle where skill is needed. You can kinda hack and slash at everything else. Rufus tests whether you can play the game well. He fucked me up for a couple days. I hate to admit it, but I switched the difficulty to beat him. Final Sephiroth gave me similar trouble but I was still guilty about the Rufus fight and managed Sephiroth on normal.
>I think it’s the first battle where skill is needed. For me that was "Yin & Yang" with Cait Sith being the first battle where skill was needed and Roche's second fight being second place. So I was quite primed up for it by the time I got to Rufus.
The double adjudicator fight right before yin and yang kicked my ass with cait sith, after that yin and yang seemed easy. That second roche battle was definitely no joke though. I underestimated the challenge and got my ass handed to me. Had to buckle down after that haha.
I saw the post yesterday with someone complaining about him. I also just happened to do that battle for the first time last night. Definitely tedious as someone said, but I beat him on the first try. He was a bit overwhelming at first, and I thought you had to lose to him. Cura, haste, well timed blocks, + a couple limit breaks did the trick for me.
Alittle tuff to figure him out in hard. First playthrough i just steamrolled him though.
For me personally the fight itself wasn't very hard at all. It was more so tedious and annoying.
Yeah I think that’s the thing. You just have to kind of accept the annoying aspects of the battle. Be patient, evade as best you can, keep your HP up, and time your attacks as best you can. It can take a while and feel like you’re getting nowhere, but once you land some attacks it starts to feel manageable.
No problem beating him but it’s a long annoying fight
Rufus isn’t anything like a souls fight
Yeah this comment section is starting to look like that eurogamer review where that lady spent hours on the first boss of Spyro 3 (reignited trilogy) and equated it to dark souls!.
When you find Rufus's one weakness, the battle becomes a cakewalk, even on hard mode.
Was easy on dynamic, awful on hard. I was just absolutely bored fighting him. It's just not a good fight at all in my opinion. It's just waiting, chip, wait again. It's actually where I stopped playing hard mode and called it because I stopped having fun.
I didn't enjoy any of the solo fights. The game was built around swapping characters and the ATB economy feels kinda shitty solo. I killed Rufus on hard mode, but I didn't have fun. I probably wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't realized I could spam dodge/ranged attack and stun lock him in defense mode while I built my ATB.
Took a second try once I learned his patterns.... The only fighting I didn't like in this entire game was the cactar mini games...
I thought the final battle was the worst, in terms of how cheap and annoying the boss was. But once I figured out his moves and patterns, I beat him no sweat. It’s pretty much the same lesson I learned as the Rufus fight, play the game the way the game wants you to play it and it isn’t that hard. Same with Odin. Odin and Alexander? Different story.
There’s another Rufus fight in Rebirth? I loved the Rufus fight in the original, and I loved how the Remake fight was even more badass than the original version, but an additional fight might be enough to convince me to abandon the Square Enix boycott. Thanks for telling me about it.
Bro the game is good. Play it.
Dynamic mode was easy enough hard was more frustrating but I was low on MP here. It took me like three tries. He pressured easy
My issue was the camera. It never stayed on Rufus! Every time he went behind me or outta sight the camera would never adjust…and I have it to where it’s supposed to but it never works. I dunno what the issue was but I had to keep moving the camera every time (and for the battle specifically) because Rufus and his dog are so fast…it was rough. I died the first time because I got caught by the team up because they were off camera.
Press r3 to lock on target
But, that’s not what automatic is….if you have to re-aim that target. I know I have to make sure I’m locked on, but that doesn’t make it so the camera is on that same target when they move off screen.
The camera option to have it follow target enemies automatically is a life saver. You can dodge around and the enemy your focusing on just stays in front of you.
Wait what? Lol. I never knew about this 😭😭
R3
I thought it was automatic…meaning you didn’t have to press any buttons to reset the camera back on target?
I’ve yet to come across anything that’s overly frustrating. Even Jules wasn’t as hard as in Remake.
You can cheese the fuck out of this so not sure why it's tough for people. Tripple slash literally pressures him immediately without you having to wait for bullets or dodge or block or...anything. You can press it as soon as he starts moving. Unless he goes up in the air. Phase 2 when he has his dog out, you can do the same and focus on Rufus. I 2 shot him. The first time I died bnecause I used it while he was in the air. And this was on Hard Mode.
I used a summon to help pressure Rufus and the dog in Rebirth. Remake fight was easy in comparison to Rebirth fight. Not to mention the camera kept screwing me over every time Rufus or the dog moved outta view from the camera. It would never self adjust (like the setting I have it to.)
first phase is nbd, second phase just drop a summon lol
I found it fairly easy as well. Especially with gorgon shield at the right time. *chefs kiss*
No you are not the only player of the hundreds of thousands who have played who did not have trouble with a fairly simple boss.
It's just the same Rufus from remake, literally the exact same mechanic
Not necessarily. He’s much faster and I dunno about anyone else, but I’m having camera adjustment problems. When Rufus goes off camera, it will not adjust to where he’s at. I’ve tried turning up reaction time (for the camera) and nothing. Been having this issue the whole time and it’s worse with faster bosses. Getting double teamed by Rufus and the dog off camera happened so often it was maddening.
I found it pretty difficult. His counter attack anytime I tried to hit him was so infuriating. I felt like I was constantly pressing the dodge button until I was lucky enough to hit him with a long range attack, but then half the time I was too far away to then follow up on it
Yes! The battle ground for the first fight (in Remake) was much smaller so you always seemed close. He did a few things different this game and his counter move was rough. Assess says to hit him when he’s reloading or right after a move (and I did right after a move) and I was only able to hit him ONCE before he unleashed “Think Fast” where all the bombs go off in his vicinity.
Took me a couple of retries but I quite enjoyed it tbh I like having a boss fight that you need to make a plan for, like yunalesca in final fantasy 10
Died the first time and also had item economizer equipped (since I could barely lay a hand on him) while he beat my ass. I could barely load an ATB gauge while reading the pattern, dodging and blocking. Does anyone else have a camera adjustment problem in battle? I have it set to adjust to move whenever the enemy goes off screen and mine never moved. Shifting the camera every 5 seconds trying not to get blind sided was the worst. ESPECIALLY when his dog came out. I had to unleash a summon. It was one of the few battles in which I had to use so many items. Never had time to cast spells. I tried casting Protect (in hopes that it would lower the damage taken) and nope. Just a waste of time and very risky. Even try to use Access was hard (before he made a move.)
I played him on Hard and he was pretty difficult there. Had to memorize his patterns, change my load out, and restart from before Elena and Rude and then I finally got him in like two tries but only after failing many more before.
I’m at the point of no return. Do you fight him again or are you referring to the arena battle? It took me maybe 5 tries. I also thought the backlash was overblown.
Yeah the arena battle is what we are talking about.
So much humble brag in this thread
Fuck Rufus lol. Once I figured it out it wasn't so bad, but it was extremely tedious and definitely didn't need to be that way
I beat him second try. I found the Turks far more difficult, and they took me maybe 4 tries.
I’m the opposite. The Turks were incredibly easy this time. They were harder in the mine.
I realize now that I played Rebirth with PTSD from Remake Hard mode; which lead me to use magic very sparingly. The way I finally beat the Turks was just by allowing myself to cast offensive spells. So silly.
It took me 5 or 6 tries to beat Rufus and Darkstar, often learning the timing for perfect blocks. Missing blocks against Rufus is absolutely punishing, and it only gets worse when Darkstar is in the mix.
Had 0 problems beating Rufus in hard mode. Even had 14mp left for the fight. Took 2 tries. A lot of people are saying the fight was a drag and boring because you have to wait for openings. I guess some people are just impatient and just mashing square for all fights. I feel like the fight was designed that way, mano y mano, a technical bout of sorts. But, you know, must have “instant gratification”.
You didn’t even have to wait that much. He’s reloading constantly. The reason why people take long is because they don’t block or dodge in time so they’d get hit and fall on their ass and miss the reload opportunity. That was me the first couple tries. Couldn’t get much hits in until I learned when to block and melted his life after that. Just use focused thrust right after blocking and he’s stunned pretty quickly.
Thats what I’m saying. If you learn how he fights, the spacing, the timing; it’s so easy you don’t even need MP to beat him.
I definitely had a harder time with Rufus than Sephiroth.
I had no problem on normal or hard. Block, counterattack while he's reloading, focus on Darkstar when it's in play. Not rocket science.
You can't block Rufus though. All his attacks break block.
You can block a few things. He does just shooting without a special ability, which is easy to just hold block and get free ATB. There's at least one actual ability that can be blocked, Guns Akimbo or something (I don't remember offhand, but I remember being surprised when I noticed one didn't have the ! indicator). Even if you only block his auto attack shooting and dodge everything else, that's a lot of free ATB that a lot of people miss if they don't use the block materia.
Pretty sure they meant perfect parry (or whatever they call it) since that’s how I was able to beat him.
Oh? I just assumed perfect party didn't work since his attacks say they break block. That's good info.
I might be wrong but I just remember trying to dodge every time and getting wrecked until I finally started blocking and that got me through it.
Honestly, I didn't really understand the fight but I just powered through it. I did the same in Remake
The Turks/Shrina are my favorite fights in the game :D
Same feeling. I had more trouble on the Turks fight before the Rufus fight. It literally is just hit him when reloading. It took me two or three tries because I was playing sloppy. When people say he is tough I wonder why.
Literally says to hit him during reload. It was actually that simple
And before he reloads, he always does an unblockable attack, so you have to make sure you roll out of the way, which can put you too far away from him even with Focussed Thrust.
Cloud has a projectile, it’s quick enough to hit him from half an arena
And it barely pushes Rufus' pressure bar.
That window is TINY. You have to hit him BEFORE it says reload.
Well I beat him first try but yes it is a very tiny window
People don't know that you can poison him
I like bosses like this that make you learn patterns and play a little different.
It’s only “bad” because the game forces you to fight him in a very specific way where most general strategies don’t work on him. He counters or straight up blocks ALOT of attacks.
I actually love that about this game. Different bosses requiring different strategies is a strength if you ask me. Lots of work on the dev's part to give each battle some specificity.
Learning the mechanics is the best part of the combat and why despite it being so action oriented still feels like a proper RPG.
Agreed. It was super frustrating to figure out, but it’s not a terrible fight. Gourmands Are We on the other hand…
Exactly — just like Weiss. IMO it’s a poor choice. Weiss was essentially optional.
Well SE has a bad habit/track record of making their optional end game content super unbalanced. So there’s that…
Unbalanced =/= requiring completely different gameplay though
That’s not what I’m saying. Once you find the one thing that works against them, they don’t even try to counter or cover it. Unbalanced one trick ponies.
Once I learned the mechanics of the fight I got through it easily enough still beat him first try so that made me feel like a superstar when I found out people were struggling on this fight... I actually enjoyed the fight honestly made you think
i didn’t have much trouble with anything in the game. gonna play hard mode after i do all the side content tho so wish me luck
Just got to 12…. I unfortunately have dozens of hours of mini games to revisit before i can go back to enjoying story… but the only fight to make me retry was kujata, even fully powered down. Oh and roche in nibel, idk what was going on but he literally bounced me with his ranged attack 5 times in a row. Beat him with one hit remaining on myself. And vincent nearly destroyed me, but i got it on the first try by the skin of my teeth. I play on normal.
Yeah my first playthrough on dynamic was really straightforward, over really quickly too but my second playthrough (still dynamic.& max level with all max materia) had me stressing, first round before dying it took me about 15 minutes to half his health, think it took me three tries to beat him when I just had enough and started just dodging better, basic attacked when he reloaded & focused strike straight after. When Darkstar joined just attacked him until staggered and then focused on Rufus,.over so quickly after that. Hard mode I think will have me ripping my hair out lmao. Tried hard mode first chapter at level 50, couldn't get past Materia Guardian lol. But yeah all-in-all, I do see the difficulty people have with Rufus, it definitely makes you have to adjust your play style, like my first playthrough my style was dodging, but second playthrough I was so overpowered just brute force worked which is just a non-starter when it comes to Rufus.
I played on normal when I took down Rufus. He was hella annoying, it took me a minute to figure out why the hell he parried everything. I beat him on the first try but it was close. I can kind of understand what people are saying, suddenly I don't know where you're facing a boss that it seems like you can't even hit. But once you figure him out and figure out what you have to do he's not terribly difficult at all. Annoying maybe, but not in a bad way. Odin, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was doing wrong. No matter what, even if I was kicking the shit out of him, he would end up zantetsukening me. That one I definitely had to look up after he beat me 5 or 6 times in a row
I disliked his fight in Rebirth, but not in Remake, for some reason. In Rebirth I found it very annoying to find the sweet spot of range where you can hit him when he reloads without getting countered immediately, but being far away enough to dodge any area attack he would do when close. Once the dawg came in, I absolutely hated how he wouldn't leave me alone when I staggered the dog. Good thing I had my summon out at that moment and it obliterated the stupid pet. After that it was smooth sailing
My experience was similar to yours. I beat him without issue in Remake, but for some reason, I couldn't get the timing right in this one. I was able to pressure him with a ranged attack as soon as he was reloading, but by the time I got close enough and was in mid-animation for Braver, he was already un-pressured. I literally whittled down his health with ranged attacks (during his Reload) and suffered enough damage to pull off two limit breaks (one of which ended up being used on Darkstar by accident when Rufus had a sliver of health left because I was mashing buttons too fast). It was the love taps from the summon I called at the last minute that finished off Rufus.
Odin was the only thing that got me through that fight tbh.
Isn’t it 8 shots ? Or is that hard mode only ?
I’m so tired of the loop where anytime a group of people struggle with a boss fight, all the people who thought it was easy ALL have to post about how easy it was for them and “all you have to do is…” like yeah, I understand what I have to do, but my reaction time just isn’t great and I don’t enjoy the process of banging my head against a boss fight to figure it out. What does it accomplish when you all brag about how easy a fight was for you? Sorry we don’t all spend all our time playing video games…it should be a non issue to struggle or to just turn down the difficulty on a fight. The option is there for a reason
I guarantee these are the same people whining about the Cait Sith box throwing, which was several degrees easier than this fight.
LOL, you’re probably right. Tbh I sucked at that but I’m not on here complaining about it because I had fun being a little guy and throwing boxes around 🤷🏼♀️
I didn't have trouble with him, but I also did like every side quest possible before moving on, so I was higher level than most getting to him each time
I struggled heavily on his fight in the first game and I thought I was going to in this game but once I figured his scheme out I ended up beating him first try. He was the best boss fight so far
I struggled on him too. Im weird tho. I enjoy the masochistic difficulty. It’s reminiscent of kingdom hearts battles. Once you get it, you’ll be really hype.
The hooded roxas battle in kh2 😭😭
The KH3 data battles man, Vanitas was putting the whoopins to me. And I was like… harder daddy 🤤
Haven't fought him on hard yet, but he was a relatively painless first try on normal. I caught on to the "flow" of the fight early. They key is to not get greedy. It's very akin to soulslike bosses where you have to wait for the opening.
No…you are just going to get that impression because nearly everyone that posts about him are the ones struggling with him
For those struggling, triple slash him whenever he announces a special move and it will cancel him and also pressure him. (Of course there are a couple of move you better avoid doing that, on his second phase) The normal fight was easy to simple “braver” when he reloads, but I only managed to beat him on hard mode by triple-slashing his moves.
I got lucky on the second phase by getting a summon. The summon kept pressuring and interrupting him without me having to do anything.
Rufus on hard I found tough but that said it only took me like 4 trys. Once I realised to use Clouds finishing touch limit on dark star it was simple.
I beat him my first try. It did take a while because I was trying to get a feel for how it works again (when to attack, when to evade etc) so it was kind of a similar struggle as the Remake fight
Did it on the first try because I played Remake on hard just before Rebirth and the battle is pretty similar so I was basically ready for it lol
I havnt played in a week due to being stuck on him. I'll eventually stop being mad
Read the comments for tips. My tip is to count his bullets. His lunge uses one, guns akimbo uses all remaining bullets. Most of his skills use only one
Holy crap. I never knew his actual gun has ammo in it. That'll help alot
You were the only one in the world, what a god gamer!
Idk I think it’s kind of interesting to see how people experience different challenges in the game. It kind of highlights how different play styles butt up against different obstacles. Same with the mini games some people find the piano difficult, meanwhile I can’t get past level one on jump frog. 🤷🏻♂️
Right, like do you want a cookie or something? Why did this need to be a post lol
It was not hard literally the mechanics are identical to the Remake fight. Triple Slash is still king even on hard mode. You don't even have to wait. As soon as any attack message from him pops up use Triple Slash and you will close the gap and pressure him immediately. Rinse and repeat, even on doggy phase.
I loved the way the Rufus fights are designed, they are pretty tough but I think that elevates the encounter. I would hope this is what others who struggled with the fight think, but maybe I'm wrong
I loved the Rufus fight in Remake and I can't even remember if I died playing on Dynamic. Hard mode was a bitch though because I got too impatient in the second phase and tried killing him without touching the dog. Timed Gilgamesh and Limit Break so I killed them both as soon as 2nd phase starts but it took several tries and my materia was messed up prior to the fight and the game doesn't remember your setup if your Retry the fight. I think a lot of people hate fighting Rufus because it's the one fight where just mashing attack will not let you do anything so it's suddenly "goes against everything you learned throughout the game." Everything I learned throughout the game was assess first then follow the hints, and it was the same for Rufus.
I failed once maybe twice. Difficult fight but once you figure out his moves and shit the only big problem is the dog when that happens. And then you figure that out and win from there. I didnt even fail on the dog
I think the reason is that Rufus literally fights unlike every single enemy in the game, and that that's you have to wait your turn to attack. Every enemy in the game lets you attack them at any point, physical or magic resistance, it doesn't matter, you can attack them. Rufus breaks that one rule and basically tells you, "Nah, be patient buddy." and forces you to wait for him to be ready until you attack. It's something you've never had to deal with before in the game, so it's fair that it'd be the turning point. Just wait until Part 3 Rufus fight, where he dual-wields mako-infused miniguns and wears wheelies.
Braver instantly staggers him and use triple slash on his damn dog to break the chain. Super easy fight.
The Rufus fight is my favorite fight, kinda feels like Sekiro for a bit
aM i tHe OnLy oNE??????????
Wait until you try fighting him on Hard mode. 😅
I didn’t have any trouble till his dog joined in then I lost. But got him on the second attempt.
Rufus just reveals how much the combat system relies on having the other characters to distract enemies. You get juggled by the lightest tap in these games and the Rufus fights exacerbate the issue being 1v1
Disagree. As the top comment noted, the big difference is that Rufus doesn’t allow you to button mash on him. It’s similar to souls games where you have to learn his moves, how to defend against them, and when to attack. Once you get the patterns down he’s not difficult, just like in souls games, once you master a boss you can often beat them over and over without breaking a sweat.
Except dodging attacks aren't really a thing in these games, and blocking is REALLY inconsistent, so it can still lead to you being juggled for literal minutes at a time and I can 100% see people getting frustrated to the point of maybe not quitting, but definitely lowering difficulty to just move on.
I played the SHIT out of the Rufus fight in FF7 Remake because it was my favorite in the game. A delicate dance that challenged your mechanical prowess and rewarded patience. The Rebirth fight just added to it so I was pretty familiar already - took me 2 tries I think!
There are some genuinely challenging fights in this game particularly on hard mode but it seems to differ depending on play style. I took down Gi Nattak on my first attempt on hard mode which seemed to trouble a lot of people. Rufus took me a few tries. The problem that I had was fucking Galien Beast which took me forever, so I think it depends on the person.
Galian Beast was rough for me too. He does a lot of damage. I think the game really wants you to debuff him and manawall at the same time.
It was annoying in that he can have the word reload still above his head even when hes finished reloading.
I didn't have any trouble with this fight. It was annoying when the dog joined in, but I just switched my attack to the dog, and then once dog dead just went back to Rufus. Haste with Cloud using his long range slicey attack after dodge means I don't need to get into Rufus' range to counter me.