Tusk Matchup Help

Tusks matchups

Hi there since there is no thread i wanted to start a matchup thread. Maybe we can help each other out especially with the possible bad matchups.

I played a lot in the last days/week and a i have played a few characters more than some others.
I start with some Matchups im having real trouble with based on my knowledge (which can be wrong of course):

Arbiter

Air Carbine Shots:

I have no idea how to deal with air carbine shots except for blocking. I checked all moves but Tusk does not seem to have a projectile invulnerable move. His immortal spirit is only upper body invul to projectiles so air carbine shots will still hit.

Forward Swordslash:

Arbiters forward advancig slash is -6 on block and it seems like it is mostly safe vs Tusk if he has no meter. Maybe i am wrong here but his only light move that connects into an opener (without meter) is st.lk into light immortal spirit shoulder. And st.lk has 5f of startup so it is a frame perfect punish if its punishable at all. A throw sometimes just whiffs.

Overhead:

Arbiters raw overhead after (air) carbine shots is hard to handle on reaction. Maybe someone knows any tricks.

Glacius

Hail/Multi Hail:

It seems like i have just to take it since i have no projectile invul move or did i miss something? Cause they dont hit high i can not immortal dash.

Shadow Hail after Puddle Punch:

Since i have no projectile invul move i have to take it or did i miss some tricks?

Liquidize:

Heavy Sword Normals are a no go it seems. Liquidize on reaction and punish. I already switched completely to med Sword Normals and Kick normals in this MU.

Shadow Jago

Any advice would be helpful. His Dash, Slide and Teleport Kick negate so many of my options that i am just lucky if i win or the Shadow Jago was just bad (and even if he is bad and random - there is a fair chance that he still avoids all my options).

My real trouble is after i got broken. How can i catch up if he backdashes after a succesful breaker on his part?

Omen

Slide:

How to deal with his slide? Its basicalyy a free way in vs me especially when covered with projectiles.

Projectiles

His projectiles lock me down so i am forced to use a yolo dp to get him a bit of me. With other characters i could buffer a projectile invul move in case a bad firbal scheme came out.

Maya

Air Daggers and Mobility:

This is a realy problem for me too. Her Mobility makes it hard to catch her.


It is really important to note that i am talking about raw specials that give me trouble. So Shadow Counter is no option.

Thats it for now. All the other characters i played are pretty much good to handle - though some i have never played like KanRa

Im hoping someone can give me an advice on some of the Stuff im struggling with.

Honestly, just do your best to block or avoid these. Air shots don’t really do a whole lot for Arbiter unless he wants to blow his wad to confirm a kill on you or something, and I’ve never seen a single one try this yet. They’re annoying and that’s pretty much it unless there’s some Arbiter tech I don’t know about (which is likely), so I can only speak from experience fighting them.

I haven’t ever tried to challenge this move due to its speed, and blocking it gives Arbiter nothing. If s.LK can reach him that sounds good to me, though I’ve honestly not tried this myself.

This move is really scary until you get used to seeing it, and once you do it can be deflected on reaction since Arbiters are really keen on throwing this thing out immediately after having an attack blocked, which only helps your timing more.

Sticky Bomb:
You didn’t ask, but I think all Tusk players should know this.
When stuck, Arbiter will usually start moving in on you with an attempt to launch you in some way, meaning he’s likely to be pressing buttons since he thinks you’re scared of the bomb (and he’s not exactly wrong).

  • A choice Conqueror into the ground bounce followup will give you enough time to block the explosion while simultaneously recapturing Arbiter with his own bomb, which I’ll admit gives me a half-chub every time I manage to convert off this.
    Sometimes they break the follow up, but that’s fine since the bomb threat will be over either way.

I’m still working on this one myself, but you pretty much have to start playing Galaga and do everything you can to bob and weave through his blizzard of balls. So far I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that you will get hit by some, so the objective is to spot the ones you can afford to get hit by quickly and recover. There’s pretty much no way for you to stop him from setting up all three on you unless you’re in slide distance, and even then you’re probably going to get hit out of any combos you manage to start.
If it comes to this, disengage to block whatever you have to since Glacius can obviously convert effortlessly at that range.
A surprisingly effective option that started as an accident has been to purposefully block hail at spots where you can either see or suspect a Shatter approaching, which will allow you to block the Shatter since you’re already in block stun.
This can be preferred since jumping isn’t always an option while trying to move in on Glacius.

LP Conqueror or Shadow Conqueror are your only invincible options, but in general I wouldn’t try flying through hail with it if you can help it.

Heavy swings are best reserved for sudden deflect opportunities anyways, or cr.HP if he jumps and tries to poke you of course. Otherwise if you can spot a Liquidize attempt, Backstab crossup can mess with him, or a deflect (but you obviously have to be sure about doing this).

I too have been grinding my teeth fighting ol’ Shago, but it’s still not as bad as the Glacius or Omen matchups in my opinion. The ones who try to pizza cutter all day aren’t a big deal, but the ones who run away shooting fireballs and tele-sliding are a headache. My best advice for the slide is to block (easier said than done, obviously) or jump and punish with something on the way down. If he tele-slides he’ll generally fly perfectly into j.MP or j.MK territory. Only go for j.HK if you’re a snipe show.
Otherwise it’s just a matter of memorizing his teleport patterns and habits, which super sucks but it has to be done.
If need be it’s completely legit to pop Instinct while he’s above you, dash out and Conqueror him into oblivion if you’ve got some Instinct combos in your arsenal (I highly recommend getting some. I can share what I have).

Against Shago you have to fight tooth and nail to keep up with him, and you’re definitely on the right track by using your kicks, but you should always be using your kicks regardless of the matchup, especially HK.

Same way as Shago’s. Omen’s slide has a larger recovery than Shago’s from what I’ve seen (I don’t know why you have to press a button on Shago immediately as he hits you, as the discrepancy is not intuitive at all, but thems the breaks). If you block and grab punish you’ll avoid being hit by any fireballs he may be towing. In fact, grabbing is an essential part of Tusk’s game precisely to avoid junk on the screen from several characters.

Spine Splitter (b+HP) will eat projectiles with the explosion, as will Air Shadow Skull Splitter. The latter of which is only to be used with Instinct mode, or for the kill.
I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten much use out of Skull Splitter almost at all because I keep forgetting it’s there; there’s simply no time to begin deploying it whenever someone is harassing you with projectiles. Keits’ demo against Jago was one thing, but his fireballs are the least problematic out of literally anyone else vs Tusk. I also find if you do destroy projectiles this way, they’ve already created more by the time you’ve finished anyways.

This in particular is an aspect about both Glacius and Omen that kind of cheese me off; both characters were presented as needing time and room to set these things up, but unfortunately said setup is guaranteed from what I’ve seen. Since characters can move and jump between rounds these guys can bust a move away from Tusk before the match starts and get all their fireballs on the screen before you can input your first Immortal Spirit.

And about Immortal Spirit: Get to know all three distances of this move. Being able to cancel the run itself into its followups is nice, but there are times where you don’t want to dash the longest distance, and instead want to only go part way and be free for a big boot or other such setup. Knowing what strength of dash to use is a big part of navigating through Galaga fights.

Her daggers can be a pain if thrown from the air, but if she wants to toss them from the ground it’s an easy command dash underneath, and now she’s forced to reach that corner to get it back. Air daggers can still be avoided with Immortal Spirit, however, you just have to be ballsy about it.

If she likes to jump around a lot just smack her; despite being slow, Tusk is actually pretty good at controlling the air around him.

That’s all I’ve got for the moment. Hope it’s useful for you, and all our brothers.

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This is kind of backwards, I suppose, but as a Tusk player what do you want to do against Kim Wu, and what do you NOT want to see her do?

I think I’ve lost every single KvT matchup while playing her for my Challenge, and it doesn’t really seem clear what I should be doing against him.

So Kim can be a tough match, but I have trouble reacting to her overhead kick. I find the counterplay around it to be rather strange for me to get used to based on the general pace that she throws attacks out, it’s difficult to explain, and I’m typically not phased by overhead attacks most of the time (though the ones in this game are pretty fast, so it’s a matter of seeing it enough times).
Also I think when she actually hits you it’s not very clear; the sound and character reaction are very similar to just blocking something.

Anyways, I like it when Kim, or anyone, tries to get pushy with their buttons (except Fulgore, good god) since it allows me to look for deflection openings.
I do not like it when she uses her Dragon Cancels effectively, as it grossly disrupts Tusk’s rhythm since he’s so slow to wind up.

I do like when she abuses LK Dragon Kick too much, as it’s pretty easy to either avoid or deflect if I’m ready for it. Tusk can dash under her, otherwise.
I also like when she gets too jumpy after resets or breakers. I often toss out s.HP in these moments since a lot of players have this urge to jump immediately, I dunno.

Her Dragon Counter can go either way, as anyone with a counter (Hisako) can sit back while a sword swing is incoming and get a pizza while they wait. Also, I’ve noticed good Kims baiting my wakeup or anticipating a meaty and countering it, which throws a wrench into things very quickly.
Inversely, if Kim gets too excited about using the counter, she can be baited like any other counter move.

I’d say the harshest things she can do to Tusk is use her chucks to attack his sword. I learned this the hard way even knowing that the sword has a hurtbox. Kim’s chucks deflect stuff really easily, so if she wants to sit there twirling them it can be difficult to find an opening outside of yolo slides, and I almost never find a reason to use my overhead against her.

Overall I think Kim vs Tusk is pretty even provided I’m not being a dumbass letting her overhead me all day. The damage she can wrack up is surprisingly high.

Also, important note, but if you play Kim please don’t be a douche using her Firecracker bug. I’ve only had one guy do it to me so far, and it will eventually be fixed, but it still made me sad :frowning:

Truth be told I thought I was gonna be a huge Kim Wu fan before she was unveiled, and yet I haven’t been able to put Tusk down at all.

My general Tusk strategy is to lock opponents down at medium and heavy Slash ranges, and get them to try to jump out or do something unsafe.

I might do a heavy splitter from aftar, then wait and block after that to see if she tries to jump in or flying kick me so I can punish either.

I will do more slashes in a row if it’s clear that aren’t taking the bait, but I’ll always be waiting eventually to score that punish when they get out.

To me, that’s the crux of Tusks game because he’s honestly super “meh” at actually opening opponents up for combos. He can do throws and his backstabbing to chip them away, but his OH/low is reactable.

How the Kim Wu match goes feels life lead dependent. If she gets the lead and can turtle me, I’m in trouble because she doesn’t have to take much risks. If I get the life lead then she struggles because she only has risky options for getting in on me vs my long range normals. Flying kick or jump in and I can make her hurt for either.

Of course, Tusk’s perennial issue is if someone jumps and you fail to bait it and do a skull splitter, you are in for a bad time because your in recovery FOOOORRRRREEEEEVVVVEEEEERR

@Shotgunlnsanity
beat my Tusk, like, 15 or more wins to my 2 with his Kim Wu.

Correct me if I’m wrong because I only just bought the Shaggy but isn’t slide unsafe- and Tusk can punish with a light into shoulder charge?

Yes, just throws are a pretty go-to punish across almost all fighting games, so it’s often an automatic thing when I don’t know what else to do at the time.

Thanks for your input. It seems that the mentioned matchups are pretty tough since there seem to be no solutions atm.

His slide is below -5 (i think its -3 or -2). He can backdash your throw attempt or simply tech the throw. Fireball - good pattern - dash forward 1-2 times and medium/light slide.

The problem is more when he is upclose and is doing st.mp into rashakuken shenanigans. if he mixes it up right you cant even shadow counter cause you have no projectile invul move. I have too yolo buffer a DP in risking that he only did a single rashakuken and being able to block intime.

Actually his st.hp is a godlike punish tool vs a lot of characters. Especially DP characters. And it is a whiff punish tool for certain specials with a lot of recovery and vs Tusk himself. An instinct cancelled its pretty strong too. And you can try predict some moves too.

The issue i have is the ability to cover the wild jumping with an air dagger throw.

Yes in general he is. The problem is the runaway and if he has surge meter the possibilty of crossup slide is there. I can stick out cr.l normals to interrupt but he can also do the non surged and hit me while trying to stuff crossup slide out. Of course i can just block - but the reaction needed is just too fast. if he is not abusing it with a pattern than it is pretty tough too handle. Combined with backdash and (surged) divekick it becomes really really painful to play.

Sorry, I should have clarified; s.HP is indeed a great punisher, and I consider deflecting to be a punish. I just won’t toss it out at neutral too often, but you knew that.

Regarding the slide, I didn’t know that at all. I’ve had no problem throw punishing it, but apparently I’ve been getting lucky. Good to know.

Regarding Rashakuken oppression… Yeah, I’m just as stumped as you are so far.
Similar story is going up against Fulgore players that get in your face and just relentlessly pip cancel into lasers and buttons. Complete jail time, and it’s so hectic I haven’t found a way out of it yet. Currently these two are my white whale situations.

I haven’t fought a ton of Mayas, but if she’s covering her jump in with daggers I generally either DP if possible or let her do it and avoid the dagger. She’ll have to retrieve it so you can take advantage of that

Unfortunately, we have to just be smart and patient. If you have experience playing traditional grapplers it will come in handy with Tusk.

Arbiter carbine: You can dash under it if they’re close enough. Arby’s jump is very floaty. You might get tagged once or twice but they have a very limited number of shots so you can weather the storm.

I’ve not had much issue with his sword slashes yet they look scary up until Arby gets tagged in the face.

Glacius anything: He’s a hard one. Best luck I’ve had is getting into his face and using the close in/kick normals until he gets spooked and slap him with the sword normal of choice when he runs away. Just try not to let him throw you back. That way I’ve dealt with as few snowballs as possible.

Shadow Jago: Only thing I can advise (and keep in mind @TrustfulWhale is a better Tusk than me) is patience. Shago has to hit you a bunch of times while you only need to get him into about one and a half combos. Sometimes they get a bit too frisky and head face first into a s.HP on a cross up attempt.

I haven’t really fought any Omens or Maya’s to say anything meaningful though. :frowning:

Any possible tips for Hisako? Mr. Freeze and 10$ Evil Ryu are bad enough, but Hisako feels like straight up Kryptonite. I don’t know if it’s just the Hisakos I’m playing against are plain amazing, or if she simply has some way to safely answer most of what Tusk is capable of doing. Maybe both?

My main issues come from using the deflect normals and them getting counted on reaction almost every time. Training them to counter often seems to work a little, as it lets me get in close sometimes for a quick throw, but I end up being the one feeling bullied by the end of it all.

I’ve noticed that the KvT match up is in Tusk’s favor so far.
I’ve played so many sets with a buddy of mine, he’s the Kim player, I just have to press medium punch just to keep her at a nice distance.

It’s all about dragons to get up close to tusk, and short bursts of damage. Her throw while she’s comboing is also a smart option. Easy read: Bait out DP’s and do what you can. Hard read: you can parry Tusk’s normals to prevent him from using his normals to often.

Also, ALWAYS go for anything that’s -4 or better. Cause one ■■■■■ up and you’re eating 40+ damage.

Use the kick normals a lot and b+hp after a throw.

Spirit dash lk than b+hp. Its a profectile and staggers. Dash cancel if you trained them to not counter.

B+hp is pretty damn good especially in the corner.

Other than that cr.mk into light skull Splitter is good.

The heavy spinkick is pretty good vs him.

I just wanted to add some Tips to the Shago Matchup:

If you get a knockdown stay outside of dp range and use st.hk as a meaty to catch backdash, wakeup divekick and slide. If he dp you still get hit but due to the range of st.hk and your spacing people tend to not do it.

The good thing about st.hk is that it is hit confirmable and +on block if hit as a meaty (so no shadow counters possible). If you hit st.hk use st.mk as a link (or manual if you want to call it - st.hk is min +10 on hit) to confirm into a (breakable) opener.As opener light skull splitter, slide or shadow skull splitter works to mix up the strenghts. If he blocks use st.lk as a frame trap or go for a throw or backdash for a st.mk into light skull splitter shimmy or bait a shadow counter.

Another Tip: You can actually train the timing to punish slide and crossup slide. cr.mk or st.mk into light skull splitter works as a punish for both. Interrupt shago before he hits you from the other if he uses surged slide.

Glacius Tips:

If Glacius jumps (without hail covereing him) try to predict the jumping kick normal (strength does not matter) and press st.hp to deflect the jumping normal. The timing is def trainable but you still take a high risk but get a extremely high reward cause the st.hp recaps.

Seems like you have a ton of useful info here already, so i will be quick:

There IS a move that puts the “deflect window” up faster than a jab.

I dont know what it is, but a Tusk player got used to my rushdown strategies and started to react to my moves with it. Its very good.

As much as i hate to say it, jumping around might be your best strategy, it is the only way to use the sword and be 100% safe from a full punish. Most jumping Tusks beat me, even when i Anti air them, because once they get use to the Anti Airs, they can mix it up by doing empty jumps.

HP Conqueror (DP) has deflect on the first frame, so it was probably that.

As for jumping, Tusk’s sword can still get hit during j.MP (the big poke), so depending on the opponent’s juggle abilities that could lead to a full punish. I know I’ve gotten my butt kicked for doing it too much.

Oh.

I play omen, so i cant get juggles on him.

But if he jumps, and i PREDICT the air MP, and he doesnt actually do it, then he gets close to me for free. So that strategy of faking the poke works well.

Do we have a reference for deflect frames on each move?

If not I can just frame step it after work today. This would be super helpful info to have.

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We do not. That would be pretty damn cool of you.