I love Tusk, haters can eat DAHS boot

Characters Tusk
1

I find him very fun.

I really enjoy the satisfying amount of damage he does, I like the intimidation, I like how every button is this massive swingy thing.

I like how he looks and often plays really simply but has a lot of levels of complexity to him. Deflects and setting up for them adds another level of intimidation and mindgames different from the counter/parry game a lot of characters already have. It forces opponents to think whilst I’m having to think all the time about spacing, footsies and all those little fundamental things I really need to work on getting good at. Even skewer has it’s own little mind game to it. Do you break it to get me off you to risk the counter break? Or am I really jumping in to skewer? Am I going to block your entire block string or can I slip a c.MP in their to cause a world of hurt?

I love it, it’s like playing dark souls where everyone’s a katana user and I’m smashing them to bits with an ultra greatsword. And that’s where I draw a lot of parallels. In dark souls every button is a commitment. Every R1 or R2 is hail mary that can and will get you killed if you ■■■■ up. You live or die by the whiff punish. Every hit can take half your life away. Tusk sings to my inner dickwraith. Also can’t help but notice the face complaints when you don’t even see his face most of the time.

And if I ■■■■ up? I get punished in kind and often in ways I can’t respond to. I’ve seen enough of my weaknesses and those of much better players to see how he can be beaten. Let’s just say Tusk has far more bad matchups than people who like to chuck themselves at the wall think.

Bottom line is I enjoy the character and felt the need to counter the negativity. He’s fun as hell to play. He can’t/doesn’t beat everyone. To you he’s a pillar of salt. To me he’s giantdad with his shirt off.

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Dahs boot

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That’s a drinking boot. Not for eating.

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Respect DAHS boot

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I don’t like Tusk because there is absolutely nothing exciting about him. You don’t have to work hard to do anything with him - all you need is a hit confirm and a lockout and you practically win. The way he looks as he fights is even terribly unexciting. Ooh, look I swing my big sword. He has no finesse whatsoever. At least other characters are actually interesting to watch.

I play Aganos, and I find the matchup with Tusk the most boring and tedious in the entire game. It’s literally a waiting game. Tusk is waiting for Aganos to attack so he can deflect and Aganos is waiting for Tusk to attack so he can block it and then slam him through a wall. I’m sorry, but a matchup where neither character is willing to actually fight is, without a doubt, unequivocally boring. I don’t play KI to get bored.

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You don’t have to work hard to do anything with him - all you need is a hit confirm and a lockout and you practically win.
I disagree. His frame data is pitiful, meaning he can get punished hard for pressing the wrong button at the wrong distance. He actually has to work hard for openings by maintaining optimal spacing in the neutral, playing solid footsies and making raw reads. Lets not forget he has no projectile invulnerable shadow moves so zoners can space him out well.

He’s basic, thats true, but whats wrong with that? Not every char has to be anime and have a gazillion tools.

I play Aganos, and I find the matchup with Tusk the most boring and tedious in the entire game. It’s literally a waiting game.

Thats exactly your issue with tusk. He is forcing you to play patiently , smart and dictating a footsy based match. He is a bully and a punisher of bad habits and fundamentals.

About his damage. He needs to hit hard due to his glaring weaknesses. On average tusk cannot find many combo openings with his frames.

If tusk is opening you up constantly, youre doing something wrong. All I can tell you is you have tools to deal with tusk. Best grab range (punishes deflect), recycle chunk buff (bring out the louisville slugger or zone with rocks), and hella good buttons for footsies.

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The more I play Tusk, and the more I feel like he’s balanced by the fact… he has A LOT of bad match up.

Or maybe I’m just bad, but It’s like “you’re gonna get hit a lot, but when you’ll get an opening, use it to crush your oponent”

Glacius, Shadow Jago, Omen, Hisako, Aganos, Aria… all of these matchups seems really hard for Tusk in my own experience (and it’s not like it was easy against Sadira, Orchid, Riptor, Arbiter, Rash or Cinder…). But once I start a combo, “bad matchup” doesn’t mean anything.

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If They could bring back the damage to entire nerfed cast yall tusks are just correct. He’s no bad at all he do no much damage to me hes just a killer instinct character like they should all be.but now all the nerfed cast sucks. And people’s are looking for alternative to end up the battle so quickly as possible, and for it u did the good choice with tusk instead of my wulf😢.
Hope for yall he don’t gonna be nerfed but all the rest a Lil bit boosted :expressionless:

1 Like
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While “interesting” is subjective, I have to disagree with this too. Tusk’s gameplan is simple in concept, but actually very challenging to implement. He is really spacing dependent and being effective almost always requires good matchup knowledge. Obviously if you are fighting someone who doesn’t understand how to punish his normals and mashes breakers then you don’t have to work very hard, but that’s true for most characters.

As you challenge more advanced players it becomes obvious that Tusk really lives or dies by neutral spacing. Finding a way to initiate high damage combos can be really challenging.

Obviously he is not for everyone, but I find that he’s a lot less “automatic” than many of the other characters who largely depend on pressure offense and block strings and mixup “routines” that people do without a lot of variety.

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He isn’t though; in fact most of the time, I win. I just hate that he can take 80% for a single mistake. You seriously think that’s fair (for ANY character)? I know he needs to do lots of damage, but he doesn’t need it that badly. You could nerf it by 20% and he’d still be good enough to compete.

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I play Tusk more than any other Season 3 character thus far - he’s really fun to me. I main Hisako so I’m already used to using long slow pokes in neutral, perhaps that contributes to my comfort level.

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MAN! I knew eventually with Tusks damage there was going to be a conversation about whether or not he’s “Fair”.

I hate to say it, but if you’re playing ANYONE from the Season 2 cast you’ve really got no legs to stand on. They’re all super silly in terms of play styles and take a LOT of matches to learn how to play against with any character (especially with Tusk) effectively, assuming you’re playing against someone that knows what they’re doing.

Shago, Omen, Aganos, Hisako, Maya, KanRa, Aria, Riptor… All of these characters play like they belong in different games and most, if not all, get to negate the combo system as it was designed and play their own game.

Understand - I’m not complaining. This game has become what it’s become. But if you’re going to tell me the Tusk needs a nerf, but Hisako being able to cancel unsafe stuff into her parry is fair, then you’ve lost all credibility. And Aganos is more fair with a single hit that has like 5 hits of armor as a shadow, and a shadow that goes through projectiles AND if he has walls when he hits you with his huge punch? Well there goes 40-50% damage on a SINGLE hit.

I’m normally the player that says “Well if people consider my character OP I won’t play them”. But not with Tusk. If you think he’s OP, pick him up and try and win consistently. Don’t undermine the work that Tusk players have to do to play competently,

I’m sure they’ll nerf Tusk eventually, but right now, he’s just like Glacius in S1. Everyone complaining, but Tusk players aren’t really winning anything yet.

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How many times have you been hit for 80% off a single mistake? How often has anyone?

The high level tusk play I’ve seen rarely if ever breaks 50. If I break 60 you’ve made more than one mistake. You’ve been hit by a big slow button, failed to break, or simply fell asleep.

I mean you’re talking about unfair while simultaneously calling him free in every other thread on this. Are you just not bodying him hard enough?

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[quote=“ThisIsSPADAAA, post:12, topic:9418”]
has walls when he hits you with his huge punch? Well there goes 40-50% damage on a SINGLE hit.
[/quote]As an Aganos main, I can tell you that it’s only about 30% (with 1 wall). Getting an opponent through more walls than that is harder than you might think, especially since the start of S3, where literally everyone in the cast can easily bypass his chunk-armor with grounded, heavy attacks and then bounce him off of the ground multiple times in a single combo.

[quote=“BallisticSalsa, post:13, topic:9418”]
you’ve made more than one mistake.
[/quote]You know what? You’re right…

Mistake #1 - Get hit.
Mistake # 2 - Get locked out.

That’s all he needs, though. He’s practically 1 (combo) and done. When I really stop to think about it, I think it has a lot to do with the 2-way interaction within KI - once Tusk locks you out, there isn’t 1… If I wanted characters like Tusk in KI, I would’ve just kept playing other FGs that don’t have a 2 way interaction. It’s almost like saying you get a 1 chance break and if you fail, you eat 60-80% damage (it really depends on how much shadow meter Tusk has). I don’t know about you, but I’m all about 2nd chances, and Tusk - he doesn’t allow for that.

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Frankly, I have no sympathy. 30% for ONE hit is still ridiculous. And if you use the shadow version it has a lot of armor and does more damage.

That said, you just said “it’s harder than you think” - as is landing a hit with Tusk. People think it’s easy because they hit buttons and don’t block intelligently, but it’s not. Opening an opponent up as Tusk is harder than with any other character I’ve played in the game including Glacius who has a really tough time.

If you’re not happy with the 2 mistake, eat 60% damage, then stop playing KI. Every season 1 character can output that much damage in the same amount of time off a single lockout. Tusk doesn’t have a good mixup, he doesn’t have good combo capabilities and his DP is not very good in general (at least not comparatively).

The damage you’re taking is a symptom of playing Tusk. Kinda just have to deal bud… He does a lot of damage, so… That’s it. That’s the thing Tusk has. Aganos gets chunks of super armor, up to 4 at a time. As an Aganos player, you’re complaining to the wrong people. He’s got just as much if not more silly stuff as Tusk as does most of S2, as I mentioned before.

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The thing is, though, you beat ruin by blocking it, and once you do, he’s easily punishable, by just about anything. In my experience, against Tusk, if I block his slow attacks, I still can’t react fast enough before he either hits me again, blocks, or deflects. I would think I’d be able to hit him after a successful block off of his neutral attack, but nope - doesn’t happen. A good Tusk is incredibly hard to punish in turn.

The ONLY way I can punish him easily is if he whiffs his attack, and thanks to his incredibly long reach, that’s hard to do, especially since all he really has to do is dash, jump, or charge in to close the distance. Half the time I can’t even cross him up, even though I’m clearly on the other side of him because he just uses his big sword and still hits me!

I’m used to characters attacking quickly as part of a combo. Part of what throws me off with Tusk is the timing. He can hit me from half screen away with a grounded heavy, and if it hits, it seems like forever before the next hit comes in (in FG terms - it feels like about 2 seconds or so), and yet he can still get another attack (usually a standing HK) to hit me as a follow-up into a combo and there’s nothing I can do about it. It doesn’t let me block, because of what I assume is stagger (what else could it be?) and even worse, I can’t break the follow-up kick (dahs damn boot), because it’s not an opener or an AD. I think it’s a manual, which should be breakable, but I’m not even sure about that.

Just yesterday, I got beaten by a Tusk who used the above tactic and almost nothing else. He just kept resetting the combo and staggering me the entire time with seemingly no chance for me to ever break or block. If this is all Tusk needs to do, then I will continue believing that he’s a brain-dead character. At least Aganos takes some actual forethought to play and win with, with having to balance resources between his chunk-armor, walls, peacemaker, projectiles, and speed. All Tusk has to do is swing his sword and the game (and opponent) practically do the work for him!

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So the solution for you is to learn how to play against Tusk. Honestly. If you think he’s brain dead, pick him up and try to win.

Good luck.

I frankly stopped caring about these types of topics mostly because in most cases, the reason people think someone is overpowered is because they don’t understand how the character works. You’ve clearly not taken any time to specifically learn how to play against him as you don’t know what’s an opener, stagger, manual, etc.

But go ahead, I invite you to think he’s brain dead. Not going to prevent me from feeling good when I body you or anyone else with him.

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I know EXACTLY what those are. Don’t presume to think that I don’t - I’ve been playing this game for years, completed every dojo lesson, and have read Infil’s guide top to bottom multiple times over. It’s the fact that Tusk can hit with a normal and go straight into an incredibly delayed manual and back again with a reset that bothers me - it takes so long for the manual to come out that I feel like that, at the very least, the combo should be dropped. Any other character would’ve dropped a combo by then, certainly, so why is he an exception?

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Don’t get defensive, you said “He hits me with his big hit and can combo me way later”. He follows the same rules as everyone else. But said “I presume that’s a stagger” “I think it’s a manual”. I’m just taking evidence from what you said.

Here’s a secret… His stagger’s (mostly) are not “openers” unless they deflect. So until after the 3rd “normal” hit (none special) the combo isn’t opened. This is why you aren’t able to break.

Again he follows the same rules as everyone else. Once the combo is opened, you can break. And his linkers and his doubles are a lot slower than the rest of the cast and are thus EASILY reactable. Take the time and take TUsk into training to become familiar with how to break him.

I got bodied free as hell by @STORM179 last night in a set. But I’m not blaming his character. I didn’t know how to play against Hisako. I didn’t know how to counter her setups and break her combos. That’s not the characters fault that’s mine.

You’re in here calling a character brain dead that you’ve clearly not spent enough time playing with yourself. Until you jump in ranked/exhibition with him and can win consistently without thought, don’t make ridiculous claims.

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Again, you’re telling me something that I already know. What you’re missing is the fact that there is no 3rd hit. He’s using a repetitive, unblockable, unbreakable 2-hit reset combo.

I have practiced against numerous Tusk players and have only recently had these issues. Before, it was easy to outzone him and punish him on whiff. I think it has more to do with the fact that Tusk players are becoming more confident in their character and are becoming far more aggressive as a result.

In any case, the sole reason I often get locked out is because of Tusk’s MK and HK ADs. Again, it’s a timing issue, because I see how fast his HK AD hits and think, because of the speed that it occured, that it’s a medium, and attempt to break acordingly (and obviously fail in the attempt). The odd thing is that I’ve gone into practice mode and have already learned what they look like (and the 2 ADs do look somewhat similar), animation-wise, but I’m still getting fooled because of the speed of it, even though I know what I’m seeing. More than anything, I think this is the bad habit that I need to break (pun unintended) when it comes to fighting Tusk, because that’s the 1 lockout that gives him the 60-80% damage combos I hate to sit and begrudgingly watch. I can deal with everything else, if I can just get past this ONE mistake.