How to Cheese Rufus on Hard Mode [Step by Step Guide] - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 

Having to reset your materia every single time you have to redo this fight is the single most rage-inducing thing I've ever come across in this game. This fight already blows ass on hard mode, then they add more annoyance on top of it. This strategy is absolutely top-tier, even if it took a couple tries. Great job.

My hard mode playthrough would have ended here without your guide. (Also thought I could only pressure him while reloading.)

Bro, I almost gave up on this yesterday after getting bodied all day. Got it in about 5 attempts with your build. You're a genius!

Finally got it yesterday took me a couple tries but the triple slash right before he attack is a really life saving tip thanks! Him and gi nattak were the only boss i struggled on hard mode so far

Hands down the best guide out there. Really helped me get past the boss fight. I tweaked it a bit and switched limit booster for transference module. I also preferred to block when he wasn’t doing a named attack to dodging as I sometimes still got hit by bullets. Great guide though. Excellent work!

Bro. Seriously. Thank you so much. Been stuck for over 10 hours. Trying to plat and fuck, it’s been rough.

Thank you for the video. It only took a few tries to get the timing down after watching this.

LOL I love the part when you say “counter his counter” 😂 A Really Nice guide btw

Thx this was helpful!

Thanks for this video, I was genuinely starting to consider giving up which was driving me nuts considering I knew I would be able to beat the remainder of the game easily afterwards and I genuinely enjoyed hard mode for FF7 Remake and was enjoying this so far. I was getting recked especially by his "dash directly towards you and shoot" attack because I tend to dodge rather than block so I basically had to redevelop my muscles memory just for this fight but this is much more to my play style and that tip to hit x each time he dashes helped me so much cause I stopped wasting opportunities that I knew I would be punished for because I didn't respond in time. Not to mention that consistent safe combo strat which is a litteral life savers, especially cause I couldn't get any consistent combos figured out and would use up my AP gauge without a good way to refill it and would quickly get into a long war of attrition until I was dead. With this strat I beat it in 3 tries.

Thank you so much!

Great video dude. You'll build that Patreon! this is quality stuff man. Good luck!

This fight really erked me. I tried doing this when I fought him, but I could'nt seem to keep hitting him, so I ended up playing it way safer. Great video, yet again.

Thanks so much for your stream I think it was very informative and useful! Please keep up the great work❤

i finally got him thanks to this video! 🙏

Phew. Finally did it. All my magic materia was level 1, and weapon level 7, so I think putting the magic actually made it harder cus I skipped out on stat boosts to get it. What I found most useful from this video is the limit boost gear, ATB boost gear, and the timing of counters, I thought I could only counter him when he reloads. pressing X after his zoomies is a good tip. I also put regen and chakra on for safety. Actually could not get him to p2 on first stagger. But it was great cus when I eventually got to p2 my stagger was almost full, just needed two counters to get stagger, and had summon + limit ready. So if you can do p1 OK, but struggle with P2 ( I know I do ) you can try to skip pushing him in the first stagger. Then get him to p2 with just normal damage while building a nice stagger bar. Then unleash hell in p2 when all aligns. Will take longer but it is way easier to build a stagger bar in p1 then in p2.

I did it with another strat; but this is the gold standard. I’ll use this if I ever do this fight again.

Awesome bro, was a pain in the ass

Thank you so fucking much! I couldn't even hit this guy to begin with!!

Wondering if you only have 2 maxed out lightning materia does it still work linking all 4 to the blue materia even when casting thundaga?

I summoned Odin and wiped out this trash and his dog Fluffy in one hit with the glorious ZANTETSUKEN!

Thankyou man! You saved us from the most stupid fuxking annoying fight of a great game. i'm so glad that I'll never have to do this again. If so I'll do it in a super duper easy mode only :D

I realized that my MP Absorption and and Magic Focus are only 4 stars, should I go back and level these up? I can't seem to beat this guy.

I really cannot do this figth. Ive been trying for 5 days for hours on end and nothing is working at all! Hes too fast and i sbt get aby attacks or counters off on him. Its so frustrating

I beat this guy easily with a magic build, but this looks like a really cool method to try out. This is what I like about Remake and Rebirth. Combat has so many options to pick from. I think this game eventually will be actually considered easier than Remake once we figure everything out. There's just so much more you can do and the improved blocking/canceling damage really helps. For example, the other day I beat Rebirth's final boss and then Remake's back to back. Rebirth should be harder, but with the proper setup and thanks to the characters' new abilities, especially Aerith's for the final phase, it just felt easier overall. Imagine fighting Rebirth's Sephiroth with Remake's more limited options now, we'd get our asses handed to us.

This fight was annoying AS F*CK! Yet you just revealed a HUGE exploit to it! Props for sure! Sub incoming! The fact if something goes wrong and you have to do this fight again and RESET all your gear was just stupid. Thanks for that square... horrible move! should of been something to retain your stuff after you change your loadout.

"Sponsored by....nobody yet." I almost peed.😂 You're on your way brother believe me!

I just got to this part and Cloud only has 9 MP. Did I royally screw up?

You save my life, thanks

I knew you can bypass Reload gimmick by attacking but I never thought about just spamming T-Slash during the start up of his long range attacks

The worst about this fight for me is that I'm supposed to believe that this effeminate, f****t pile of personificated Daddy issues and bad fashion sense who compensates for certain physical short(heh)comings with a shotgun is supposed to be an actual threat for someone like Cloud. Also, this game did not need a Rufus-fight. The Turks-fight made sense for the story, Rufus is just a dumb filler cameo. Roche in Nibelheim was annoying, too, with his spamming and spazzing, but at least that fight doesn't add insult to injury. It sucks doubly because so far, I managed to beat all the bosses on hard mode without help (not all very elegant, and sometimes with a bit of luck, but it worked), but Daddy Shinra's little princess simply wasted too much of my time, so, here I am. Now that that is out of my system, thank you for the strategy. Never in a million years would I have thought to try and attack during an 'exclamation mark' attack, given the intel and the fact that if you attack 'out of order', he seems to counter everything.

holyyyyyy crow you’re using the thundaga and absorbs instead of heal, that was driving me nuts, but it (oh hey I followed you on Patreon sorry I’m not rich I went with the $4 one) does 2 things at once (damage and heal) hahaha

homie you’ve pulled my chestnuts from the fire a few times how do i support you on patreon?

I don't understand the dodge to the side for multiple combos. I have been able to get it to work

This fight makes me wanna rip my hair out. I get so fkn close every time.

I really thought I can only attack when he is reloading to pressure him... your strategy worked fine but I still needed hours of tries (because I suck)... since fight really made me consider to not buy part three... -.-

This doesn’t work for me. He keeps interrupting my combo. Am I missing something? Driving me nuts.

I don't know if they updated the game, but my Rufus is way more aggressive than yours. I literally can't make a step without get shot by him. It's frustrating.

I got the platinum. This fight was the hardest. Replace Virtual Sephiroth with Rufus and I would not have cleared Rulers. Edit: The solo aspect is what makes it hard

My Strat: Phase 1 Use Counterstrike Into Focused Thrust- Rinse and Repeat until he pushes you away repeat step 1 Phase 2: Use Limit Break On Dark Star and Pop Gilgamesh. Pressure Darkstar into stagger and take him out. Repeat Phase 1 steps with Rufus and heal if necessary with Chakra. When Gilgamesh uses ultimate illusion he’ll either kill Rufus or put him to low health finish him off if needed Well done you’ve beaten the second hardest boss on hard mode

I still can’t beat him, the previous fight left me with no magic so I am forced to use chakra for healing and I’m still getting destroyed.

I have 12mp going into this.

I HAVE NO MP LEFT 😭 it's so joever for me. Ive probably tried this 100 times

super cool, except mine behaves NOTHING like this one... i'm beyond pissed off at this point...

I’m in quite the pickle here. I have 4 MP and half health with Cloud to get this far🤣

Lol. I could've used this yesterday

Also, I think it’s really stupid of the game to not let you save before doing this battle, so if I shut the game off, I have to redo the previous battle, which was also a bitch.

nope, doesn't work for me sadly

So many times in rebirth on hard mode or during the story I get mad and realize I don't suck, the game kinda does. Some stuff is awesome, some is average, a little bit is S TIER but about 25% of the game...sucks. OG FF7 like 5 percent sucked. A few minor things. The tuning is way off dude. The padding to relevant content ratio is way off. The side quests aren't REALLY related to much of the story. Cats, chickens, dogs. Fable TLC has better lore based side quests. And they try to link the expository dialogue to some lore and now people are pointing out that there isn't really a coherent narrative for anything other than "Sephiroth bad". They nailed some stuff, but making Cloud (and Red) and other characters be weak clowns doesn't vibe with the story or vision they had going in even with Remake. In Remake Barret wouldn't have been matching up a hill doing a weird baby voice talking about his daughter's future in stupid ways. He does eco terror and is a Derek Jensen type, and he's a hard ass. He doesn't have fun play regular people. I made a complete clown out of red with doggo meme nonsense. They have Yuffie absolutely nailed though. Cloud is pretty well done, but he too wouldn't do all those petty tasks. Tifa is like the annoying girlfriend, pulling you into stupid silly stuff but not regular "come dance; let's go out to eat at this overpriced place" but like "let's save fluffy!" She's too cheerful in this game and they should have carried the somber tone of midgar with them throughout rebirth. Aerith acts like an aloof hipster high school kid, they took the substance out of her and made her into a more generic character. Cid is too nice. Done well though. Rufus Shinra should NOT be getting the upper hand on Cloud in a fight. Cloud is the second strongest fighter (known) to be alive for sure in the game behind Sephiroth. 3rd if you count Zack. Even a skilled player is getting battered around like a cat toy to yet another one of these gimmick filled fights that NOBODY enjoys unless they're PRO at the combat. I should not be dying as fast as I do in Halo 2 legendary from an elite with two plasma rifles with no cover I mean it's ridiculous you should not have a boss fight that is literally harder then the main villain who is said to possess basically the strength that we see being able to cut into a weapon notoriously good at blocking bullets the buster sword covers his whole body but even the AI would not guard that I mean it's just ridiculous the way they portray this fight and it has me thinking about the game and how it's not really as good as I thought it was in the beginning I have 350 hours and I've beaten all the brutal challenges and two of the legendary fights so I don't think it's a skill issue not to mention I have all of the best gear and every materia so it is not that they just threw in a bunch of gimmicks like they do with all the battles that everyone hates the characters you play get interrupted way too easy and binded too easy they made us too weak relative to the story even on hard mode we can't even get 9,999 at max level on almost anything without genji glove magic focus I mean even with dark side braver is on the hitting like 4K without three different active buff spells not to mention the armor the top tier armor doesn't even really mitigate damage we had the zeidrich in the original and we had powerful weapons earlier on mid-game we definitely had strong stuff before the forgotten capital they really fucked this one up I like about 25% of the game just as much as the original 50% is tolerable and sometimes okay and then the other 25% is unbearable sometimes because it's stupid and the other times because of the gimmicks