Rufus (VII Rebirth boss)

Rufus is a boss in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth fought during Chapter 12, "A Golden Key", in the Musclehead Colosseum. He is the last boss of this chapter and is fought with Cloud alone. After losing a portion of his health, Rufus is joined by Darkstar.
==Stats==
==Battle==
Rufus is fast and failing to interrupt or block his attacks, or attacking him at the wrong time, often leads to Rufus countering. He often reloads every after performing two "named" attacks.
===Strategy===
Cloud can use Triple Slash to close distance to Rufus and interrupt his attacks. It is good to have ATB in reserve at all times and only use it at the correct time. can help with this.
Any time Rufus dashes, the player can open the command window to slow down time to more easily observe Rufus: if he is not performing an attack that appears as red above his head, and he is going to shoot at Cloud with his shotgun, the player can close the command window and block to perfect-block the shots. When a red ability name appears above Rufus's head, the player can use Triple Slash to interrupt him. Mistiming Triple Slash will result in Cloud being hit, some of Rufus's attacks being trickier to interrupt than others; the player should use Triple Slash before Rufus flicks his coin in the air. For Triple Slash to work, the name of the attack Rufus is going to use must have just appeared, or including Reload. If he is not attacking, has finished attacking, or has finished reloading, he will counter.
The Plasma Discharge enemy skill helps with the stagger, along with . The player can aim to dodge Rufus's unblockable attacks and block his regular attacks, gaining ATB in the process and triggering the discharge, pressuring Rufus. The gained ATB can be used to heal, for Triple Slash or Focused Thrust, which ignores his bullets and pressures him. If Rufus is too far from Cloud to use Triple Slash when he reloads, the player can use Sonic Boom. Linking with can be a great boon, especially in hard mode.
If Rufus is performing his double laser move, the player can use that time to heal or buff.
When Darkstar arrives, it is best to simply avoid Rufus. When Darkstar is about to attack, the player can block it in Punisher Mode to counter it, and instantly stagger Darkstar with Focused Thrust or Braver. 
Summoning Bahamut Arisen after Darkstar has appeared will help.
Cloud's limit break should be be used either to finish off Darkstar, or to ignore Darkstar and killing Rufus with it, if the player can do enough damage to accomplish this; if Bahamut Arisen has used its special attack, Rufus may be on low enough health to be finished off with a limit break.
===Hard Mode===
Linking to in armor absorbs the fire damage from Think Fast and ice damage from Blizzard Shot if the elemental materia is on high enough level.
==Related enemies==
*Darkstar
Category:Bosses in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth