Goodness.
One Button. That much damage…
.#BuffTusk
Tusk’s gameplan is kind of obvious more quickly than other characters, and he’s got good damage so you don’t have to be right with that gameplan as often to win.
But his buttons are still massively slow, he doesn’t really have high-low mixups, and you have to DP every jump or else he has to deal with pressure. While I haven’t tested, I imagine his bigger hitbox makes him hate having to deal with some meaty crossup stuff. I imagine he has a really hard time against some zoners/hit-and-run characters.
But I mean… the guy has to press 25 frame buttons (or worse) often in neutral. If you block them, he’s at least minus frames, if not punishable in several situations. No matter how good his damage is, that type of thing has a lot of holes in it.
It’s really common to say “patch the easy day 1 stuff” in a fighting game, because it’s frustrating, but this type of thing very clearly will not be as good in a month or two.
Relating to the OP, I like that back stab does 22% unbreakable. That move looks like it should hurt, and it does.
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His buttons may be slow, but combining them with the whole of his moveset, especially with the use of his combo trait produces what feels like a very mindless playstyle.
At any rate, I’m not calling for anyone to “patch” anything, but I do hope that it will be observed with due diligence it deserves because there seems to be what feels like oversights in his design. Maybe they are smaller than I’m picturing them, and I’m simply not used to the match up (which is a fair statement to make). However, I do feel there is something within his gameplan worth observing to see whether or not it was properly operating and not overpowered.
Also, his dash into slide, much like Sabrewulf’s sliding slash move, does make for a decent high-low mixup. It does seem slower than Sabrewulf’s though, and is definitely punishable on block, so there is a decent risk to it, but it’s definitely fair if you get hit by it.
I will agree though, given the huge startup and timing of forward MP, I do feel like the 22% is justified. I have no issue with that at all.
Yeah, he has some mix up potential but both the low and the overhead are punishable on block. I think the overhead can be stuffed too, so it’s not useful as a close range mix up. These only really work after you have conditioned your opponent to be working around your massive sword swings and not be jumping into your face.
If you are patient and have good defense, Tusk has a hard time getting a combo started. Sure, you take chip damage but you aren’t going to get chipped out while waiting for Tusk to do something punishable. The tricky part is knowing when to initiate your offense and I think people are going to figure this out with a little more experience.
He is very vulnerable to this and it shows up in the matchup with Rash and Shago, in my experience. His DP is useless in my hands unless the opponent is jumping in from mid range (which is where they never really want to be with Tusk). However, I find that his c.HP sweeps back over his body fast enough that if you are expecting a cross up you will hit them before they hit you. I haven’t tested this thoroughly or labbed it up but it works pretty darn well “in the field” against Rash.
Kan Ra’s unblockable combos were not BS? Why is the first response to nurf, and not to learn to work around it? He is really slow, so he needs something to even it out. Just so you know I don’t even play him, but have fought him.
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Yeah, I’ve found that both crouching and standing HP tend to have this property and do well to dissuade people from using cross-ups. Cinder had an especially hard time applying cross up pressure against most Tusk players I’ve played.
I agree with mostly everything here. Tusk is a very very good Day 1 character. I’ve won plenty of matches against really good opposition feeling that I didn’t have to think all that much in neutral. I’ve been winning just with some decent spacing, a bit of patience, and a total disregard of whatever my opponent is doing. People will obviously get better against him, though.
One thing that I feel might be too good is his anti-air with heavy buttons. At the moment his neutral kinda feels like Aganos on easy mode. With Aganos, if I do a standing HP and my opponent jumps early, I’m getting destroyed. If I do the same with Tusk, I’m most likely getting a 19% anti-air that I wasn’t even going for. This is all with better walk speed and viable dashes to facilitate my spacing.
Also, his crouching HP is insane. As you can see in the video, I pressed my anti-air reeeeaaallly late but it still hit because the deflect window happens pretty early, doing 18% raw damage plus enough potential damage for a level 3 ender. You can almost use it reliably as a wakeup against not-so-meaty attacks.
I really like his playstyle though. I LIKE BIG BUTTONS AND I CANNOT LIE!
Yeah, Tusk’s dash -> high/low stuff isn’t really “real”. The overhead is massively slow, should be blocked pretty easily on reaction most of the time, loses to panic mashing buttons, and leaves Tusk in your face at pretty big minus frames (-5 or -6, I think). I think overhead is much better used as a poke from around 3/4 screen (LK spirit step -> immediate overhead will be left at further range).
He’s scary when close because the threat of throw -> skewer is high, but that’s kiiiind of about it, I think. He’s not, e.g., Fulgore who gets left, right, high, low, throw mixups on you that all lead back into the same thing.
The good thing is that if it turns out Tusk is still really braindead in 3 or 4 months, I think there are easy tweaks for him. Slightly smaller deflect windows on a few of his good buttons is probably all it would take, really.
But there’s still a pretty serious risk pressing any normal that has 25+ frames of startup, even if the coverage is good and a few random frames around frame 10 can’t be counterhit. Remember, this is a game where lots of characters have on-reaction counters, teleports, good fireball zoning, 6-frame half screen shadow moves, etc.
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The only thing I do think “needs” to be looked at is his skewer. Right now there is no reason not to do it.
Scenario A: Skewer hits, opponent doesn’t break, Tusk gets his damage and gets put back in his optimal range.
Scenario B: Skewer hits, opponent does break, Tusk still gets his damage and gets put back in his optimal range.
Scenario C: Skewer hits, opponent does break, Tusk counter breaks, Tusk still gets his damage and gets a whole new combo.
Scenario D: Skewer hits, opponent doesn’t break, Tusk counter breaks, Tusk gets punished.
Out of the four possible situations it’s never beneficial to the person getting skewered to break, and since Tusk has no risk on the off chance it does get broken there is no reason for Tusk to ever counterbreak. Basically it’s always going to be free.
Possible solution: Make it a multihitting attack that does it’s big damage on the last hit instead of right away.
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I agree with a lot of comments in here. I’ve been playing nothing but Tusk since the update and first I’d just like to say that he is an absolute blast. I have been eagerly awaiting Tusk since this game got released and I am really impressed by the design direction they went with his kit.
Deflect windows on sword swings elegantly capture that barbarian heavy swordsmanship, and his reach is just obscene as I figured it would be. Player fantasy and thematically IG nailed it, so I just have to voice my appreciation here.
Anyways, as for his potential problems, I don’t think the ‘mindlessness’ of his buttons is the issue. As @Infilament has been saying, Tusk is slow, and he’s actually understating this. Hisako is easily his worst matchup to the point where it’s not advised to be using his sword buttons at all during this fight. Even trying to pop her with s.MP during a punish opportunity she still has enough time to teleport and poke butts, and since Tusk doesn’t really have a mixup game as long as the Hisako player knows how to throw break there isn’t much Tusk is going to be able to pull off as far as opening her up. It’s okay though, epic barbarians shouldn’t be expected to have a good time against ghosts.
Continuing on the topic of his speed, his swings are actually slower than they look, if that makes any sense. I’ve been in the situation of a Sabrewulf at full screen clearly getting ready to start his run. Sure enough he goes, and me thinking I was ready for it tried to intercept with a sword button, but Wulf still managed to hit me first even when I had started my attack before he had reached half screen. That’s how slow Tusk is.
Shadow Skull Splitter is also so slow that it can be shadow countered on any hit, so it’s going to be difficult for him to pull of any “gotcha” Instinct Cancel moments like everybody else when he’s being a douche with this attack.
Furthermore, I would actually argue that the mindlessness @IronFlame is speaking of isn’t so much a problem with Tusk, but a problem with his opponent. By this I mean Tusk has to think about what sword move to use, if he’s going to use one. This might not sound all that clutch, but it can really make a big difference depending on whatever weirdness the opponent suddenly does at the wrong moment. Positioning is everything with this character; the only reason any of us are getting away with whiffing sword swings is because he’s new and nobody’s really sure on whether to go after him in those moments.
I agree 100% with @SithLordEDP about skewer. This was actually my first impulse when seeing the attack in IG’s spotlight stream, and I had even made a post about it at the time. I don’t understand why Tusk gets a portion of guaranteed damage on this attack even when broken. If Tusk gets broken he doesn’t really care, and that alone seems wrong.
Regarding @BigBadAndy’s comment about anti air, you can defend pretty much any aerial approach with cr.HP, even if you’re late. I’ve had matches where I’ve got a Jago doing his annoying crossup harassment where it can be easy to get flustered under his constant approach during your block stun and you’re scared to try anti airing him due to the timing. With Tusk, though, just do it anyways and the deflect window will do the rest, it’s nutty.
I had this exact experience as well. I’m gonna have to pick up Hisako on the side just so I can learn her animations better. Yikes.
All in all, I think this character benefits from being ballsy at the right moment but not too reckless. The sword feels unstoppable but it is most definitely not, so Tusk players can continue having fun in the sand while it lasts because people are going to force him to start thinking about his buttons in a big way.
There is definitely a finesse involved with his buttons and the intention is to make the opponent nervous about pressing their own buttons, but once everyone gets comfortable seeing him attack I have no doubts that sliding in between the pockets will make Tusk sad.
This kinda ■■■■ happens every time a new character is put into the game, anyways. Our habits get exposed real fast when there’s a new kit present in the game that happens to disrupt whatever that habit is. Lots of characters are and feel safe when making a sudden neutral or back jump to give themselves time to assess the field, but against Tusk this can get you swatted. Nobody has had any reason to get used to a character with his reach because it didn’t exist yet.
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Great post.
I’m not sure I really get what they are going for with skewer either - but it’s cool as hell and people break it anyway…
I don’t see much reward in trying to break it. It’s not that much damage. At the same time, Tusk takes a risk trying to counter break and since it’s a low reward break there’s no good reason to counter either. It’s a bit weird. They could basically make it an unbreakable follow up (that’s what all the moves it’s based on are in 3D games) or they could make it no damage on break. But now it’s weirdly in between. Honestly though I don’t think skewer is really going to have a huge impact one way or the other.
I do find that he sometimes misses with it. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong but if you don’t actually hit the opponent you can be vulnerable.
Sounds like you might be timing it so that you’re just getting a j.HP isntead of up+HP. If it’s a hard knockdown you have plenty of time to do it so if you’re rushing that could be what’s causing the miss.
tbh, I had a secret feeling going into season 3 that Tusk was going to be bottom 5 or worse. Seemed like he would be leaning on big damage numbers to make up for a mostly honest and not all that threatening offensive plan. I’m still not fully convinced otherwise.
First of all, you’re not calling frame traps mindless, are you? Frame trapping is one of the deepest things you can do in a fighting game. KI kinda banks on it in a lot of ways.
Secondly, I’m glad to see Tusk players using he deflect windows to create pseudo-frame traps. It sounds like a lot of fun, it means he actually gets to have a meaningful pressure game (which it didn’t seem like he’d have outside of oki, because he doesn’t seem to be a conventional frame trapper or have any potent mixups), and there are interesting ways to beat it that would fail to a conventional frame trap which give me confidence that what happens after Tusk presses one of his big buttons is going to develop into an interesting mind game. Beforehand it seemed entirely possible to me that deflect could just entirely be about being lucky enough to land the occasional deflect instead of eating a counterhit, which seemed a bit lame.
Probably best to do this. It’s gonna be kinda character-specific and spacing-dependent.
I’d expect throws to be useful, if I’m using Riptor then I think heavy shoulder charge (the slow armored one) will cover both the deflecty sword buttons and the faster jabs/kicks, of course I’d play around with heavy buttons and specials with the right amount of startup to land after the expected deflect window, maybe I’d try to lab out some OS-ish stuff where you block for a few frames to beat jabs and then input a throw or hit a button to beat whatever else.
But I’m just throwing out ideas without any real testing to back them up. Seems like there’ll be a lot of “feel” to figuring it out. Also keep in mind that the deflect buttons are slow, so it kinda makes sense that Tusk can put you into some sort of follow-up grinder if you let him run one on you.
Oldschool FG people like their parries.
Also when it comes time for the casuals to compile a list of things IG is doing wrong with KI, they need an overused mechanic to add to the list. Last season it was recap and command grabs, this season it can be parries. 
A character who heavily punishes the Jumping Jagos of the world is okay with me. 
This seems like an idea. Whilst I think Tusk does slightly prefer scenario A (Tusk has pretty good oki), it’s probably not enough to substantially differentiate it from outcome B. Your solution seems like a good one; alternatively, maybe registering him as airborne so he goes into knockdown when broken might suffice.
I like the method of your breakdown, by-the-by, i.e. clearly listing the possible strategy combinations and using them to identify dominating strategies.
Not at all, it’s a good tactic…until it’s the only required one at all. It feels like so far all people are doing with him is nothing but frame traps as an offense. If you learn a few frame traps with Tusk, it seems like you are more than set to handle a large portion of your competition. I can respect them, like what Jago uses, and I have a few I tend to use myself as Cinder, but there’s a fair deal of setup to them. For Tusk, it just feels like it eventually just regresses from any kind of thoughtful offense to a blockstring of normals that if the frame data is correct, being negative on block puts the activation of certain moves right at the deflect window, making counter attacking of almost any kind useless. Even invincible reversals are useless within this window.
So basically, you’re locked down at some point, where if you just block, they can chip and eventually go for a slide mix up once they feel less threatened to do so, or you can try (in vain) to find a window to counter attack without hitting the deflect moment and playing right in to more damage, which at this moment is fairly difficult.
I can understand him being a mid screen bully, and having those powerful damage pokes, but he’s got this lockdown game I feel wasn’t exactly intended. Most of his normals, even the big startup ones leave him between -3 to -6 on block at worst. While he technically has around 25 frame startup normals and some specials (or longer), it seems (which is the keyword considering I don’t know the frame data on the combo trait) like the deflect window on crouching MP for example is practically the first frame of the move, so at no matter when you mash your jab to counter or punish, as long as he got the button press in, the deflect staggers the jab punish and you are just screwed.
But that’s one example of that type of play, I’ve seen so many lockdown blockstrings of this type from several Tusk players. It’s so common, and while predictable, it doesn’t seem to have an appropriate punish for it yet. It feels like a super safe frame trap style lockdown.
Anyway, it’s something I just felt to bring up. I don’t so much mind the anti cross up stuff or the high damage pokes, but I feel like this lockdown is an unintended effect of sorts. If I’m wrong, then I’ll keep my peace about it, I’m just going to have to adapt a little is all.
As far as OS and stuff, I know the basic of them, I’m just not that good at finding or developing them.
I never had a problem with recaps or other mechanics. But the parry thing seemed a little too common this season. I do like Hisako though, but she’s never been a main I relied on.
Unless he’s in Instinct he’ll have no way to prevent a Shadow Counter doing that stuff too much I’m thinking.
It is possible to attack his sword.
Update: I just learned when Tusk deflects an opponent with one of his normals, the resulting combo is stronger than the same move on counter hit:
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cr.MP, Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 37%
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cr.MP (CH), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 39%
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cr.MP (DF), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 47%
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s.MP, Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 37%
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s.MP (CH), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 41%
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s.MP (DF), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 47%
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s.HP, Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 47%
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s.HP (CH), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 49%
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s.HP (DF), Shadow Splitter, Heavy Manual xx Conqueror - 66%
[Instinct Mode] -
cr.HP xx HP Conqueror xx HP Air Splitter (Manual) xxShadow Conqueror - 33%
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cr.HP (CH) xx HP Conqueror xx HP Air Splitter (Manual) xx Shadow Conqueror - 36%
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cr.HP (DF) xx HP Conqueror xx HP Air Splitter (Manual) xx Shadow Conqueror - 53%
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All of these are one chance breaks, can be done anywhere, and deflect recaptures so it’s anti-air OK.
This guy makes you pay.
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Tusk is strong. There is no way around it. But I don’t think it escaped IG’s notice that he does big damage and that his deflects can really hurt people. They built the whole stagger mechanic around him. The question is why did they push him out the door like this? Because we know they don’t just hate the KI community, the answer has to be that Tusk is deficient in other areas.
I am not a top tier player, but I am okay and I’m winning about 50/50 with my Tusk. That’s as anecdotal as you can get, and it doesn’t mean Tusk won’t eventually need some adjustments but to my mind it suggests that he’s not fundamentally op.
What I am seeing is that the “bully” moniker is not just a flowery label. The games where I dominate with Tusk it’s because the other player tries his offense and gets hit by Tusk, either sweeping normals or deflections and then basically panics and stops trying. This is Mike Tyson’s “everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth,” played out in KI. Seems like that’s according to plan.
The really competitive matches, like always are where the other guy adapts to what I’m doing and comes up with a new plan. I had a pair of great matches against two decent Maya players last night. I had an idea that Tusk would wreck Maya because she’s airborne so much that his huge range anti air would stop everything. But in reality it just disrupts Maya’s “automatic” offense and leads to a lot more tension in the match. Tusk gets opened up 2 or 3 times as often as he opens up his opponent, and so now the match is a tense back and forth and you can see why the big damage combos and damaging normals make sense. These are some great matches.
Then, sometimes I get wrecked and wrecked hard by people that my matchup knowledge and the day 3 conventional wisdom on Tusk tells me I should beat. I fought a terrific Shago (and I thought I had that matchup well in hand) who kicked my butt - doing all the same stuff that Shago always does. He just did it with better spacing and better timing than everyone else. Guy was a ■■■■ too, triple ultra etc. but I learned its not a free win. Similarly I fought a pretty mediocre Jago player. He wasn’t doing anything fancy or following some new anti-Tusk strategy. It was the same jump back fireball windkick, up close crossover Jago we all know and love. On paper I should have rolled this guy, but he had the timing and the spacing and he was unpredictable enough that he beat me pretty soundly. He had a magic pixel of green life left in round two even though I was convinced that I should be winning.
Sorry for the text wall, and recognizing that this is all anecdote from FT2 rank matches and not long sets, it just seems like, in my hands, Tusk is performing exactly as intended.
I had some good matches as Tusk in the beginning and thought I did pretty good. Then I got soundly beaten a couple of times making me reasses my previous thinking. Now having fought Tusk, with other characters, I’m ready to damn him, lol, couldnt even beat one with Hisako, who I think is his foil.
What did I take away from all this…well, being an all-rounder with several new characters I all want to play is a terrible strategy, I got seriously worse with my good characters aswell, because…loss of baked in strategy…and unknown matchups…
I was a solid gold lvl player and even beat boss shadow jago last week, now I ended up in Bronze 
Granted, had a babygirl running around distracting me, but still…
This attack shouldn’t be a problem. It is incredibly slow. You have plenty of time to bust a throw before it hits you.
If it does hit you, get ready to be whacked by a couple more follow-up staggers, then probably shadowed into combo.
I know one of my first orders of business with Tusk was learning what my options are for staggered opponents.
P.S. Tusk players, if you’re not using Skewer on every knockdown, you’re Tusking wrong. Even if they break it, it does full damage. Breaking it only removes the chunk of potential damage it causes… But that’s risky behavior.
Does Skewer add to KV or cause blowout?
No, I tend to agree with you. Maybe it’s because I main Hisako, but I feel like I “see through” Tusk’s gameplan to a certain extent. He wants to make you afraid to push buttons, and I’m pretty content to deny him that opportunity. Tusk rolls you because after you get deflected once or twice he gets to just kind of go nuts. He’s like Hisako in that he kind of needs you to sit still and take his offense - I’ve found that just by being obstinate and refusing to let him play his game you’ll tend to do well against him.
And that goes for all characters - a lot of my experience (and wins) against Tusk hasn’t been with Hisako.
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