How to unlock Great Tusk
Great Tusk is not sold directly, so the only route is the Paldea banner, where it occupies a 4★ slot. The 4★ band takes 6.5% of all pulls and holds 211 partners, so one specific Great Tusk works out to about 0.0308% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Great Tusk has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Great Tusk refunds 120 coins at the 4★ rate.
Great Tusk stats and rank
Great Tusk reads 122 HP, 115 speed, ×1.42 attack, ×1.42 physical, ×0.99 special, 131 defense and 53 special defense, for a 570 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 86.7 out of 100, which puts Great Tusk at rank 34 of 966 and in tier S. The relative picture matters more than the total: its strongest slot is defense (96th percentile) and its weakest is special defense (29th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Great Tusk's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Karate Chop at 46.2 damage per 0.38s (174.9 effective DPS, ×1.42 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (150.7 effective DPS, ×1.42 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (127.2 effective DPS, ×1.42 multiplier). 13 of its 18 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 5 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its physical multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.42 against ×0.99), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 24.3 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call. Compare it as throughput, not as damage per hit, because the cooldown is already divided out.
Evolution cards for Great Tusk
Its starting move, Mud Shot, evolves into Earth Power once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. The permanent menu cannot substitute: only a Power card picked during the run unlocks the evolution. 18 of its 22 moves carry an evolution card, across 5 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes and Armor). The strongest of them is Karate Chop at 174.9 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Great Tusk compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Buzzwole (-4 HP, -4 speed, +0.04 attack, +0 total) and Urshifu (-7 HP, +4 speed, same attack multiplier, -20 total). Against Buzzwole, Great Tusk is 4 speed faster and Buzzwole hits harder by ×0.04, and the rank gap is 10 places. Every one of those numbers cuts both ways, so the decision is about which stat the run needs, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.