HOW TO BEAT RUFUS IN 1 COMBO UNDER 4 MINUTES FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE (FF7 PS4 PRO) NOT EVEN HARD

Rufus is one of the later bosses you fight, who might initially seem like a challenge but once you figure him and Darkstar out, they're super easy to beat.

Setup:
-Lightning (his weakness) linked to elemental. I used the Buster Sword here for its balanced attack and magic, but you could go all in with Hard Edge
-First Strike
-Steadfast Block
-Healing
-Triple Slash should be 100% proficient

Darkstar Phase: Use Punisher mode to counter Darkstar's attacks, especially corkscrew, which lets you give Darkstar a good combo wailing after. It's okay to take damage in this phase, as you want to build your limit meter for the second phase. You should have ATB stored so build stagger with Focus Thrust. Stagger and go for the kill on his dog.

1v1 Phase: Things get easy. All his moves are range based so stay in Operator mode to be able to block them. Steadfast Block will build your ATB nicely. You might have accumulated some damage and limit break should be ready. Once it's ready, build up the ATB to 2 bars. Now it's time to set up for the one shot.

He will counter all your physical attacks and he does about 2 shots, and will need to reload. Stand reasonably close to him. The moment you see the Reload, cast Thunder. If timed well, it will stun him for a bit. Hit square to close the distance, and hit him 3 times, followed by Cross Slash. That should stagger him. Hit him 2 times, and switch to punisher mode. Unleash a 4 hit combo, and cast Triple Slash. Mash square after Triple Slash as it'll do a few bonus hits (from being proficient).

Alternatively, you can just initiate a Cross Slash during his Reload, and one shot Infinity's Edge him but I've found it to be less predictable. And that's all she wrote. Onto the next one!!

For more tutorials, check out my other boss fight videos:
Tifa Haste Combo Exploit:

Bahamut Boss Fight

Reno Boss Fight on HARD mode:

Cloud vs 5 sub-bosses

Also, YouTube uploads the SD version first, and the HD including 1080P will come after. Be patient :)

PS4 Final Fantasy 7 Remake Gameplay Walkthrough Part 39 of the FF7 (Final Fantasy VII) Remake Full Game Story Campaign including a Review, Intro and Mission 28 for PS4 Pro. My 2020 PS4 Final Fantasy 7 Remake Gameplay Walkthrough will feature the Demo of the Full Game for Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough, Barret Wallace, Vincent Valentine, Yuffie Kisaragi, Cid Highwind, Sephiroth, Zack Fair and the entire Midgar Story. This Final Fantasy 7 Remake Gameplay Walkthrough includes a Review, Reaction, Boss Battles, Story Missions, Campaign Chapters, Single Player, OST, Soundtrack, Cinematics, Cut Scenes, DLC and more until the Ending of the Single Player Story.

And for the newbies that don't know, Final Fantasy VII Remake is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The game is a remake of the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. Square Enix plans to release the game in episodic installments, with the first scheduled for release on April 10, 2020 for the PlayStation 4 with timed exclusivity until April 10, 2021.

Players control mercenary Cloud Strife as he and eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE battle the corrupt Shinra mega corporation from using the planet's life essence as a energy source. Events send them on the way of the legendary soldier Sephiroth, who desires to possess the life essence to become a demigod. The gameplay combines real-time action similar to Dissidia Final Fantasy with other strategic elements.

Exploration and battle mechanics both take place in real-time, like Final Fantasy XV. The game features an altered "Active Time Battle" (ATB) system from the original, which gradually fills up slowly, or can fill faster with attacks. Once it is filled, the player can halt the action and use special abilities such as magic, items, and special moves. The player can also assign these special abilities to shortcut buttons, allowing them to play entirely in real-time without pausing. Each special ability uses up a segment of the ATB bar. The player can also switch between party members at any time. Each party member has their own individual skills, such as Cloud's close-quarters melee attacks and Barret's long-range distance attacks. Players will also be able to use magic and summons, and a Limit Break gauge allows characters to perform more powerful attacks once charged. Producer Yoshinori Kitase stated that while the game has more real-time elements, there would still be strategic elements, such as selecting weapons and magic for each character to wield.

[vanthadoun]

Thanks for the strategic help, I felt that RedXIII and Cloud should've teamed up in this fight to make it a 2 v 2 competition man and dog vs man and dog/tiger.

[ZukocucoeBeans]

items only until you use Rufus
It’s easy easier to hit bio or something when he’s reloading from a distance

[cyyuji]

oh my god thank you so much. this battle tripped me up for some reason and this video helped a lot <3

[rossshepherd]

It's actually quite easy. Punisher mode and Firaga on the dog. Then time your challenges with piercing ability on Rufus. A pain at first until you figure it out.

[xrcs]

First time I've seen Rufus crumble in seconds after darkstar leaves

[thenecrophymm]

Since you're using first strike anyway, you can open with triple strike on DS, which will cause 2nd hit to get Rufus, then back to DS - breaking the link immediately. As an alternative.

Also, any particular reason you use the default Limit Break?

[endingsnow]

I was just running/evading from them cuz I am dumb and didn't know what to do to defeat them till way later. Then I died when I figured out I had to defeat Darkstar first. I wasted Ascension on freaking Rufus (and he self-healed)

[smoothbanana]

Once he is staggered, you can finish him in 1 hit with Infinity's End

[Noblesseblood]

The Hard Mode is a different story. I needed to be extra defensive.

[frankiedelmar]

Awesome video! This fight is so frustrating!

[AndyseousOdyssey]

I was cursing Rufus all through the fight for his cheap ass tactics .

[pisicafairy]

everything about Rufus is fine but why SE makes him Lulu's knock off (ーー;)

[jannellerivera]

Someone did this in 4 minutes while it took me 10 tries and 2hrs.

[brad]

Lol I just defeated him in like maybe 20 seconds after downing darkstar on hard. Braver during reload for insta stagger, then cast stop. Then ascension. Just absolutely melted him😂😂.(used champion belt, No insta limit endgame OP acc)
Best ways to deal with darkstar I found was sleep, triple slash, & counters. (Sleep worked on Rufus only at the beginning of the fight, but it helped a lot) He is a lot harder while darkstar is up, they are just so damn fast, and trying to hit Staggered/Pressured darkstar is so freaking tough as Rufus just wants so bad to shoot you in the face with his shotgun😂
I'm kinda curious if you can instead sleep darkstar, and stagger then stop then limit on rufus to defeat him without killing darkstar. By sleeping darkstar, he can't heal him.
Doing chapter 17 again since there is so many great fights here, and bosses. materia management really isn't much an issue after the first playthrough as we know to expect to use all 4. Smart MP use is more important here.(there are tons of mako crystals at the beginning) But it was a pain in the ass on normal constantly switching parties and no idea what I would need. The bosses really are very well made. In hard, I found myself utilizing new materia combos I never would have bothered to try in normal. resist-magnify is sooo goood against a certain boss that is really good at stopping party members dead in their tracks, and also silencing them. Who happens to be right before Rufus. I feel like this materia combo is overlooked or not even considered in many fights where enemies debuff the shit out of the party to so many players frustration. 8 MP to resist all debuffs on all characters? Hell yes. Definitely more useful here than a manawall-magnify imo. (Tifa can also use all of her MP in this fight) Breach is also really useful against the same boss. Don't kill yourself on their reflect! And remove their pesky immunities. Silence as well works wonders.
Something I really love about this game, is that the combat is so much deeper than what I even thought by the end of the first playthrough. And I knew it was fairly deep then. So many useful combinations in different situations. (Stop on those blast rays was particularly memorable for me, removes their push aoe so it's easy to kill them on the first stagger) Knowing cancels and understanding of all abilities, materia, weaknesses and effectively staggering, and pressuring, really makes this combat shine. And how to use the characters to their obvious and sometimes hidden strengths. (Eg: Tifa is actually pretty good compared to cloud in melee aerial combat and it becomes *somewhat* tolerable when given full chi, although pretty much always the best way to deal with aerial combat is to use aero(ra) only at the right moment, you don't want it to miss lmfao🙄🙄. Or how cloud (all characters can do this to differing degrees) can cancel at the end and sometimes during any of their attack strings or upon holding square into an ability, and this is incredibly useful for building atb while still getting those quick focused abilities on a pressured enemy or disorder/overpower for pressuring etc etc.)
The combat in this game really feels soo satisfying when it's done right. And when you actually understand why it's done right😂 It's a lot more complex than it appears. For those saying it's not deep. I dunno man. Maybe not at first glance. But it's there, no doubt. Of course there is still room for improvement though. I don't think we need materia for deadly Dodge and Parry. These could simply be weapon upgrades or possibly even just there by default, with some adjustments. Very useful abilities, but arguably not worth a precious slot, imo. They are great though in making the action combat feel smoother, in a sense. Same with the yellow ATB building materia with the Cooldown. Kinda just feels like we should have it without it being materia. More enemy skills and yellow materia abilities would be great, akin to things like deathblow and mime, manipulate, mug, morph, and maybe even coin throw (manipulate could act a little like summon, where the manipulator could use their ATB bars on either theirs or the said creatures abilities) would be great.
I'm genuinely excited to see where things go from here. Combat and otherwise. Really hope they capture the same feeling as the original, in that midgar (the entire first game in this case) is just the beginning, and the world and story is so much more beyond Midgar.

WTF that was way too much text for a random YouTube video about killing Rufus fast😂😂

[zitimotleyxxjmxx]

You gotta get good. This is not even hard mode.

[SeverinoCatule]

Technically was 2 combos, One Thunder, One Thunder and then killed. But anyway congrats

[cmilla]

Wow you made it look easy. I found the fight retarded since I didn’t save my limit.

It literally punishes you for it. You can’t melee him without stunning with thunder so you are forced to run away from him.

[daddyzback_gaming]

This is the dumbest battle in this game, he will always counter unless u do specific attacks. This is what devs thinks makes a hard game.