Shadow counters are WAY better this season and I think people (myself included) are really underutilizing them. I’ve been creamed by a lot of good players using Shadow counters in situation where they would not have worked in S2. I think this will be really important against the rushdown or high pressure characters like Rash and Shago. It works on Tusk too.
@TrustfulWhale way to go man. That’s you up in the top ten Tusks for number of Ranked wins right?
Wow, that is me. I didn’t know I was there…
Thank you for your support!
Jago has the same kinda situation except its with DP. The moments you try to punish Jago on his unsafe moves you have to be prepared for a Grab or DP in that window. Which can be very frustrating. As for Tusk if you keep getting hit by deflect on what you feel is a punish oppertunity then grab him as a punish instead. Tusk can’t deflect grabs. Also for some characters like Sabrewulf and Spinal they can avoid Tusk while he’s attacking due to his slowness. Wulf cam Dash through all of his normals and Spinal’s teleport is fully strike and fireball invulnerable. I can go on and on on how you punish Tusk and its only been a few days.
In my opinion on Tusk’s mix ups he only has one . Really good one. In his Immortal step you have three choices; Unsafe low, Semi-Safe Overhead, or Even Tackle. However you can actually press any normal out of a Immortal Dash as well when timed right on its last frame. People have tried to punish the dash itself only to run into my seemless St.HP Deflect Window. This also applies to command attacks. Immortal Spirit, final frame > F.MP = best mix-up Tusk has.
P.S. Immortal Spirit goes under Wind Kick.
Just put this in bold. By grabbing him, you accept a sub optimal punish but hopefully train your opponent NOT to try to deflect you after a punish opportunity. So next time when he expects a grab you can hit him harder.
This is underused, and actually pretty interesting part of his game. Both his sMK and sHK also have good range to add on to the end of this as well. Although both will be blocked by either a low or high block they aren’t nearly as unsafe as his slide and can sometimes catch somebody sleeping.
I’ve played the Hisako/Tusk match-up A LOT in the past few days. It’s kinda funny - about 70% of the match is played at roughly full-screen, jockeying for the middle… whiff punish fishing for days. Hisako and Tusk have the biggest “Swords” in the game, so Jago/Shago must feel woefully inadequate 
It was not meant to call you a scrub. It was a clear overreaction and that is a scrubby mentality. Just see it from the other side people that play him got labeled as braindead or mindless by you. Regardless if you meant it or not. Written stuff is easily wrong interpreted. just like i did with your previous posts. I assumed you wanted some nerfs for him cause you called him braindead or mindless.
Fair assessment. I make it a general rule to not blame the player, as any good player will take whatever advantage is afforded them. I do see where I poorly worded my earlier statements, and maybe I should correct myself a little.
I see a little too often the gameplan quickly dissolves into this style where you basically loop Tusk’s negative on block (and I’m talking the -5 or so buttons, not the -17) with other moves in order to actually time it to purposely catch the deflect window. I saw it frequently, almost every match I played. For a move that is supposed to be negative on block, it hardly felt like Tusk is ever at any disadvantage, and counterattacking no matter the timing was a pointless gesture. Normally a -5 on block should at least eat a jab, but frame perfect counterattacking isn’t exactly easy, and more often than not, a Tusk player can upon recovery go for a cr. MP which has an almost instant deflect window startup, making even the traditional jab punish useless.
These deflect window traps become a very common theme from the matches I played, and struck me as a little bit of a mindless deterioration of the character’s gameplan. Never any fault of the player using him, but something I felt maybe was overlooked in testing his playstyle. I’ve never called for him, or any character to my recollection, to ever be nerfed on these forums. I will say I disagree about some of Glacius’ changes, as an already strong character just got even stronger. It still takes sharp minds to make them viable.
So I’ll admit maybe I didn’t word it the best, and it’s certainly no fault of any player for using the tools at Tusk’s advantage. It just became a very common practice to see every Tusk match to eventually fall back on those deflect traps. I was probably prematurely writing off the tactic the way I did, but it’s how the gameplan struck me at the time, but it’s no fault of any player to use it to their full advantage. I’ve had people give me the same grief over using M.Bison’s aerial control in SF4 when everything he can throw out in that game is so easily beaten. Seriously, to beat Head Stomp, you simply walk backwards, and it loses to almost any aerial attack.
I will say I had a salty moment. After this week, when my playtime isn’t so limited by outside factors, I’ll be able to find a way to take advantage of the deflect trap game and see if there isn’t appropriate punishment of this tactic.
Simple answer for countering his deflect is to just grab him when you suspect one is coming. Pressure Tusk up close enough and he’ll probably be looking for a spot to sneak a deflect in; I usually am. That’s where you grab him.
The more i play him the more i think he should simply stay as he is.
I played a lot of exhibition matches and a lot of ranked and i feel without his damage and deflect he would be the extremely bad.
Don’t forget stagger, it was put into the game specifically to support his kit and make it work, after all.
I think it was fairly obvious these tools are what define him, which is why I’ve spent so much effort trying to scout as many guaranteed deflect opportunities as I can, and honestly is a big part of why I play Tusk. Deflect is really interesting and fun to do, it’s essentially a counter hit in reverse.
Keits said on stream that you’ll be deflecting by accident most of the time, but I’ve seen that the opposite is true for players who really sink into the character. In fact, Tusk players are going to have no choice but to learn how to deflect intentionally since using sword buttons is such a risk every time-- we have to make them count.
His Instinct is also very fun and interesting to use since it allows him to remove the weights for a brief moment to go completely ham on someone, which cannot be understated. Instinct cancels at important times have won me easily more than 100 games, and I still feel that I’ve barely explored his potential using it.
I think they have done a great job with his kit and yet again have made a unique fighter to join the roster. I’ve played a great many fighting games and I’ve never played as a character like Tusk before.
Although, I’ve also never played Weaponlord, so who knows.
I agree with this, but essentially what you are doing is making a read and predicting what your opponent is going to be doing and then using a move that has a high chance of scoring a deflect on it. You can’t do a deflect on reaction. Well, I can’t anyway…
I assure you deflecting on reaction is possible. No jedi powers required either, keep at it.
You can’t really deflect in reaction for alot of things. Deflect happens like 5 or more frames into the startup of a move, so you need to press the button that many frames early.
So even a slow move like Jago’s neck cutter, which is 20 frames, you are going to have to react in 15 frames or less and that ain’t happening.
I didn’t think I needed to underline that not everything can be deflected on reaction, but yes.
I struggle really bad against Shadow Jago. It seems projectile heavy characters gives Tusk headaches. Omen is bad as well
I believe they should nerf his damage. I was in a close fight and then the player that was using Tusk got an 69% combo wityhout any efford
Define “without effort”.
Im talking about the combo, all you need is two shadow moves and his damege ender and you can get with Tusk more damage than what you can get with any other character in the roster.
When the developers anounced the new changes in the roster every character got a nerf in damage.
Both of Tusk’s shadow moves are pretty easily breakable. And the Skull Splitter shadow will essentially eat up all the time you get for a lockout. So, the “without” effort part includes at least three or four chances for you to break the combo…[quote=“TophBeiFong, post:75, topic:7679, full:true”]
I struggle really bad against Shadow Jago. It seems projectile heavy characters gives Tusk headaches. Omen is bad as well
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These are pretty tough matchups for Tusk. It’s not so much the projectiles as the fact that both have low slides that immediately beat Tusk’s effort to slip under projectiles with his QCF K. You can actually close the distance pretty easily, but you have to be unpredictable. Blocking those fireballs really doesn’t hurt so you need to take some chip damage and then mix in a few jump overs with slide unders if you can.
Tusk is a really spacing dependent character, which is not always obvious, so any characters that are as agile as Shago and Omen are going to be a bit tough. You can’t get them at the distance you want and both can close in rapidly and pass right through or around Tusk’s sweet spot at the middle distance. I honestly haven’t played Omen too much but Shago can be miserable.
I just have to say, as a Tusk player… The Shago matchup is HEAVILY in Shago’s favor. His teleports are the perfect tool to get around Tusk’s big and high damaging strikes.
I think your problem is you need to play footsies. Stay outside his range, throw fireballs. ALL DAY. Sure he can charge under them but both Cinder and Shago can get away from Tusk EASY. Pick your moments. The only Cinders and Shagos I was able to take out were not very good with the character.
Also Shago can full screen slide punish ANY whiff from Tusk. Easy…