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This guide will tell you everything you need to know about Rufus and how defeat him in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Rufus is a boss in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth who can be fought during Chapter 12 during the mission “A Golden Key.” This disdainful boss is the current president of Shinra Electric Power Company. After Rufus’ father’s assassination, he assumed control of the corporation as its new President. He now sees Cloud as a potential danger to his plan of controlling the world. He appears at the Gold Saucer, and Cloud has to fight by himself for the entire fight. This is a two-phased boss with another monster named Darkstar, who joins Rufus in the latter phase.
Rufus can be difficult to beat without a proper strategy, and plenty of preparation is needed due to his unblockable attacks and with him being able to counter Cloud. Here is everything you need to know on defeating Rufus in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Rufus and Darkstar’s Stats
Rufus has the below shown HP values according to what mode you are playing in-
| Easy | Normal | Hard |
| 20686 | 29552 | 54631 |
Darkstar has below shown HP values according to what mode you are playing in-
| Easy | Normal | Hard |
| 11636 | 16623 | 30730 |
They both have same affinities with being immune to Poison, Silence, Slow, Stop, and Berserk. They also have a 0.5x stagger multiplier from Lightning and Magic attacks.
How To Defeat Rufus Shinra in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Rufus can be a very difficult boss to beat considering Cloud has to fight him alone. Rufus can counter most of Cloud’s attacks, resulting in a challenging situation. Defeating him would require proper knowledge and preparation.
Using Assess on Rufus at the beginning will tell you a little about the boss and how to counter him. Dodging is your best friend in this fight as Rufus has many unblockable attacks only avoidable by dodge. He will also counter most of the attacks that you make on him.
Your Own Setup
We recommend you use the Igneous Saber found in Chapter 11 with Altruistic Buff Up and Limit Gauge Stagger weapon skills. Choose whichever you want for the third weapon skill as the two we mentioned are very important. Use Haste or any other protective spell like Barrier to help with the fight. Also, use the below-mentioned materia for your weapon to make the fight much easier as they increase ATB gain and Cloud’s survivability.
- First Strike Materia.
- HP Up Materia.
- Vitality Up Materia.
- Luck Up Materia.
- Time Materia.
- Healing Materia.
The main attacks you will be using in this fight are Disorder, Triple Slash, Plasma Discharge, and Focused Thrust. When fighting Rufus, observe and learn his moves because you can attack him only after he performs certain special attacks. The best time to hit him is during his “Reload”. You will see a red indicator with the move name on his head during most of his attacks. You have to use Triple Slash while he uses “Reload” and spam the Plasma Discharge to build up his stagger.
This is all you need to do for beating Rufus, dodge his attacks till you get the opportunity to build up his stagger. Once you have staggered him, use a high-damage skill such as Infinity’s End till you reduce his HP to half point. Always remember to keep one ATB on hand to build up his stagger once you get the chance. Close to half HP, Rufus switches his phase.
Second Phase of Rufus
Once Rufus’s HP is low enough, a cutscene will trigger where Darkstar joins the battle. Try to isolate Darkstar away from Rufus by running around. Once you have put some distance between them, spam Triple Slash on Darkstar which can easily melt it very quickly. Try to put some distance between both of them in case Rufus does catch up to you. After defeating Darkstar, repeat what you did in phase one with Rufus by constantly building pressure and staggering him to dish out huge amounts of damage.
Constantly dodging till you get the attacking opportunity is the best way to deal with an annoying boss such as Rufus as brute-forcing will only lead him countering you for most of the fight. Defeat him to move on with the story by entering another chapter in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
This is all you need to know on how to deal with Rufus and Darkstar. Here’s another guide to help you in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
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