Tusk, A Great Snowball! (Carry)

Introduction to Carry Tusk.

As you may know, most people play tusk as a ganker or support(y) character, and by all means, these are not "bad" builds, as Tusk is one of the most variable characters in the game, but in my opinion, Tusk is just as, if not more effective as a (semi-)carry. This not only because he has pretty good solokill potential from level 6 onward, but also because he just scales really well when you give him the right items.

Pros and Cons of Carry Tusk

Pros

-High phyiscal and decent magical damage output
-Great initiater
-Very Mobile in fights
-Extremely Disruptive
-Dominant laner from lvl 6 onward

Cons

-Easy to focus
-Mana intensive in-lane
-Lacking Escapes

Item Discussion

For starters, get your basic health regen along with some branches and a quelling blade, though you can skip the quelling blade if you know for sure you're up against and with someone who won't contest your last hits as much OR if you know you're good at lasting hitting yourself. Prioritize on Phase Boots right from the get go after this starting build, you'll need that bonus damage for the kill you'll try at six. After phase, go Battlefury for farming and damage purposes and buy a Desolator straight after that. From there, i like to pick up a Sacred Relic before going shadow blade, but you could skip it if you're not going that Rapier in the end. (or do pick it up and buy a radiance...) After shadow blade, buy a heart, that 1060 hp and 40 damage is well worth the cost, especially because of the 6% hp regen a sec out of combat and if you see what item you will be going next, you'll realise why we change priority from damage to survivability. finally, start stacking Battlefuries and/or Divine Rapiers, the latter of course being MUCH more risky, but a lot more fun, and requires some knowledge of when to actually know you can't take on a fight.

Skill Discussion

Up to level 9 this is pretty straightforward. Ice Shards for damage and Snowball for iniation purposes. The reason to grab Stats on level 10 is that 1 level of frozen sigil is pretty much useless and it will feed 120 gold each use if you're not good enough at microing it. From there it's, again, pretty straightforward.

Game Phases explanation.

Laning

In the laning phase, let your support(s) (babysitter(s)) harass enemies away from the creepline, to get you your freefarm. If your supports do this correctly, you should have phase boots and lvl 6 at around 5 minutes. When you and your support(s) are both ready at this stage, group close to each other and throw your Ice Shards, and even before they land, snowball into the target. let your support(s) stack the stuns if they have any and be sure to take the kill with Walrus PUNCH! some may consider this a KS, but you're a carry, you need that gold! From that kill you should get a laning advantage.

Ganking

If you do dominate your lane as explained above, you're likely to expect some ganks. If you play careful, this shouldn't be a problem, and you might even get a kill or two out of it. By now you should have Battlefury and atleast 1 Mithril Hammer for the Desolator. Once that Deso comes up, it's your turn to gank! Be sure to throw your shards BEFORE snowballing! this is a mistake a lot of Tusk players make. if you don't throw shards, it's a whole lot easier for opponents to outrun the snowball!

Pushing

By now you should have shadow blade (about 45 minutes in, or if you're a lower-level player, about 60 minutes) if your supports stacked ancients, don't take them just yet, as soon as you get a heart take those ancients (let your supports stack them a few more times if need be) it'll be likely that your team has said at least once: "Where was tusk during that fight? he's out farming too much!" tell them you're almost done farming. with that heart out, you can get to work on taking some Rax! During the Pushing phase, teamfights are likely to occur! help out as much as you can, try to take out key supports or teamfighters (eg: Enigma) first and use sigil to disrupt the enemy carry (because let's be honest, it's one of the better anti-carry skills). During the pushing phase you're also likely to get loads of gold! spend it on an extra battlefury and a rapier or 2!

Summary

As you play long games, you'll realise that tusk may be one of the best 1-hit Rampage carries when fed, along with Kunkka. I once played a match where I just litterly snowballed so hard that i got 2 1-hit rampages and 4 1-hit Ultrakills!!! The power of Tusk is insane when utilised properly, and he may become your favorite carry to play as. Carry Tusk is an undiscovered blessing, and i am here to show the community it is a whole load of fun to play.