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Tango
Observer Ward
Bottle
Phase Boots
Shadow Blade
Orb of Venom
Battle Fury
Heaven's Halberd
Desolator
Abyssal Blade
Eye of Skadi
Boots of Travel
Heart of Tarrasque
Divine Rapier
Assault Cuirass
Black King Bar
Daedalus
Drum of Endurance
Vanguard
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Ah! I see you now stop by to try and learn my ways, fellow traveler! Well it is going to take much more than motivation for this one, you are gonna need yer strong fist and an ugly face to get through this pub without taking perjaps too many blows to the head. Bring a round of drinks! The first hit is free.
Tusk is one of those heroes that people today are scared to play, for many reasons, Snowball rework, getting zoned out by perhaps better suited mid hero, not scaling well, getting outcarried, among other reasons. But it is not 
Tusk's fault, the trends change, and people still try to so the same things, with no possitive result. So I present to you my ways of Ymir, the Tusk.
Couple of notes before we crack into the guide: First, remember that this is my personal way to play Tusk, it may have some item decisions, etc, that you may think are not the best or that could be better spent gold. But Im not here for that, so sit down and listen, if you take it and feed, thats on you.
As always, I apologize for any grammar mistakes that may be in the guide, as English is not my native language.
For this particular Tusk playstyle you are going to at least the basic stuff about the hero, how the spells work and such, what I will be pointing out will be either the stuff that is not obvious, or the stuff that differs from regular Tusk playstyle.
Well, if we were to summarize the whole thing into a simple concept, it would be basically playing similarly to a 
Pudge early game and transition to a 
Phantom Assassin sort of big-hit carry. You will get this more detailed when you see why are those item picks.
On paper, this Tusk playstyle is familiar to any 
Kunkka player, strength hero, hits hard, and has great spells.
Luckily for us, the aggresive Tusk playstyle can re-scale to fit better your current economy. Remember, in this playstyle, attack is always the best defense, if they are dead they cant stop you, but if they dont die when you hunt them down, and then they start hunting you down, and you will be forced to buy a defensie item, which slowly starts decreasing how effective at killing you are, and that cant happen.
Basically if you are winning, get Abyssal Blade instead of Heart of Tarasque.
Strong side:
-Support eater.
-Good stats on all attributes.
-
Frozen Sigil its broken.
- Snowball has funky uses (Which I will cover later)
- Walrus Punch will give you a mental ***** when you hit for 1500 dmg.
-Easy ganks everyday
- Shadow Blade +150 dmg & Walrus Punch are no joke.
-Flexible
-Scales like a champ
-Casual Drinker
Weak side!?
- Snowball is a double edge weapon
-Never hit a 
Blade Mail, I learned it the bad way.
-You will be focused down
-You can get easily outcarried.
-Getting items late will really hurt your performance so...
-You need good map awareness and good judgement whether you should fight or farm.
-Silences will get you killed early annd mid game, probably later too if its during a teamfight.
-You need good laning capability, you have to be able to bottlecrow easily and have runes at hand.
-If you lose mid you are lost.
First off, you get your Tangos, and if you feel unsafe, go ahead and get a 
Healing Salve, but you better be good at last hitting because you are going to need that Bottle and fast. If someone buys observer wards, ask for one of them, you are going to need 2 places warded: One rune position, and uphill the river, so you have the enemy's position, for defensive and harassing with Ice Shards to create space to last hit, unless your life is in danger, Ice Shards is not worth casting in early levels, do it when you get your hands on that bottle and Ice Shards at least with 2 points in. Protip: If you Ice Shards someone near the creep wave will cause them to Aggro prioritize the hero and add a bit to your harass, for the same mana cost of course. If nobody buys Observer Wards, do it yourself and ward those 2 spots, if you only have one Observer Ward available, warding the rune is always more important than uphill (even if it helps you thrive in your mid lane).
Moving on, you will have to decide if you are going to buy an Orb of Venom, or just skip it. If you get first blood, your farm will be instantly boosted, probably getting yourself a quick Bottle or 
Boots of Speed. If you can get first blood on the opposing mid, even better. So now, you have the perfect opportunity to go to side lanes and gank, Orb of Venom is just a little tool for this.
If you decide to purchase this item, you are going to have to decide if you are going to keep it, and eventually upgrade it to an Eye of Skadi, or just sell it, preferably after you reach level 10 and a point in Frozen Sigil.
If you decide to keep it, also keep in mind that it will take an inventory slot, and when you do it by yourself you will notice how this is a problem. Having a Bottle, the Orb of Venom and the 
Town Portal Scroll slot, you will only have 3 slots left, and once you get the Shadow Blade, only 2. Manage your inventory, use your stash, etc.
The Shadow Blade its your main core item, nowadays, it works in better synergy with Walrus Punch, activating Walrus Punch first, and followed by Shadow Blade, the +150 dmg and the 350% critical hit will take most of the health of a distracted support.
Also of course, its a escape mechanism, but you know, never use it and expect to walk right out no problem, detection exists.
Even if you do the standard: Ice Shards > Snowball > Walrus Punch > Shadow Blade > Right Click attacks.
If you think you are going to need the movement and attack speed slow from the Frozen Sigil, summon it before you Snowball in, so it rolls in with you, giving the Snowball extra speed and damage. Remember that if no order is given, the Frozen Sigil will follow Tusk by default.
Now you see, if the other team has at least 2 heroes that are Right Click damage oriented, you get Heaven's Halberd, it makes you more tanky, give you some damage, evasion and the disarm. It is just a great item for Tusk.
If the other team only has one right click carry, but its the main carry of their team, you buy it too, in a teamfight, he will only recieving the hits, and not dealing them.
If the other team has no right click carry, you can think of grabbing a Black king bar, to cope with thier magic dmg. Or just skip it and go straight for the Desolator.
Do NOT delay your farm by purchasing Drum of Endurance or 
Medallion of Courage. You are the carry here, go get the big items.
If you feel like the match will be more late game oriented, go for a Battle Fury and a Eye of Skadi, if you feel it will be a short blitzkrieg, go Desolator and Abyssal Blade. Heavens Halberd is bought in the situations mentioned before.
For what the battlefury is mostly an item that will give you a bunch of damage, regen and cleave for farming and ammassing more gold, also, with a presented chance of Walrus Punch cleaving multiple foes in a teamfight. The Eye of Skadi its you know, metric ton of stats and a constant slow.
On the other side, if you decide to buy a Desolator, you must get it right after Shadow Blade, as soon as possible. So you can do the Shadow Blade & Walrus Punch + Desolator dmg and corruption armor reduction. It hurts. At this point you should have: Phase Boots, your Bottle, your Shadow Blade, a Town Portal Scroll (all of the time) and the Desolator ( you should have gotten rid of your Orb of Venom long time now). You should be roughly be hitting for 90+150 every attack, plus armor reduction. Farming should be really easy from now on.
In the process of farming your Desolator (which takes some minutes), or anything for that matter remember you can use your Frozen Sigil to easily take down camps like hellbears without trading in so much health, and maximize your jungle efficiency.
It is the same for the Battle Fury. Remember, the Battle Fury goes along with Eye of Skadi, and the Desolator goes along the abbysal blade.
After grabbing your items, replace your Phase Boots with Boots of Travel, and the slot that you used as your Town Portal Scroll slot, is going to be the place of your Heart of Tarrasque, or, your Divine Rapier.
Listen carefully now: The divine rapier, and I apologize for the expression im about to use, is no ****ing joke. Do NOT buy this item if either your team doesnt have a significant gold advantage and you are certain that you will not lose it; or if your team has a significant gold disadvantage and you believe this item will make the difference. Simple as that.
A lot of people got kind of turned off by the Snowball rework (there is still people who realize that its an amazing buff) but for those that do not see it this way, I invite you to watch this video, it showcases snowball posibilities. I did not create this video.
If you are really interested on seeing me play a Tusk Match, you can take this replay from my the last one I played (to the moment of writing of this guide), and I am using the Desolator side build.
Replay ID: 824557690
Tusk at least once, cause he is really sad and his dotabuff statistics dont speak well of the hero.DOTAFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new hero, or fine tune your favorite DotA hero’s build and strategy.
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