Overview

About Me: Hi, my name is Hack and I've been around this game for quite some time (5-6 years), I'm 16 and I live in Australia, NSW and I currently have a lot of time on my hands so I thought I should write this up.

What this 'Guide' Hopes to Achieve: Over these years of playing Toribash I've picked up a lot of tips, tricks and I have a good understanding of the mechanics involved in Toribash and I can see that sharing could do some a great deal of help. This tutorial will be mainly text based (sorry, no pretty pictures yet) but it will be dripping in things you need to know/understand about how Toribash works, so I guess you could say the purpose of this guide is too save you a year or two of trying to work out or discovering these things yourself and let you get down to becoming a better player along with helping with that.

Let's get to it shall we?

Mechanics!

What are Mechanics: If I had to pick the single most important thing about being better player, it would have to be understanding the mechanics. Nothing wins games more consistently than understanding the raw mechanics, how the game works and understanding the effects of different movements. You need to know how lowering that arm is going to effect your body or effect theirs and mechanics are your understanding of how it will.

The Most Important Mechanics:

Leverage: Leverage is used in all movements that require strength. In simple instances, when you lower your arm, force will not only be applied downwards on your arm, but force will also be applied upwards on the rest of your body. Harnessing this is key to powerfull hits. Many of you have noticed a thing called a "Snap-kick" in Taekkyon, it's a basic movement of a kick, that gains all of it's strength on the reverse rotation of the rest of the body to the leg causing the kick to snap around with a lot of force if the leverage is applied correctly hence the name 'snap kick'. A lot of people use these kicks but don't fully understand why they can be so power full. It's all about the reverse rotation of the arms and chest etc. Creating that leverage and applying more force to the kick than what little just the hip/glute/knee can provide.

To demonstrate leverage in a very simple manner open up toribash and just hit free play keeping the default game rules. Contract both pecs and raise shoulders, space 4 times then lower your shoulders. This should bring both fists down on ukes head. Now, do this again, except when you lower your arms, raise your legs as well. Notice this time how you decapitated Uke? This was due to the added force through leverage using the legs.

Momentum: Now, leverage cannot and should not be used for all movements. The downside of using leverage is that after the motion of the joints have all reached there maximum, almost all force is lost. The power of leverage is only useful if used 50-80% of the way through the motion. If you do a standard snap kick in a mod you'll notice how if you make contact with anything after the motion is complete you will have very little if any force. This is we're momentum comes in. Momentum simply put is just constant force with direction. Using momentum is what "Fluidity" is all about. You need to be able to first create that momentum with joints and then gently bend it to your will through using a lot of joints to control where it is going. With leverage you have a short range to apply the force gained with the sudden movement whereas with momentum that force is constant. The basic principle of keeping moment is keeping direction and general movement constant. Even more simply put, if your spinning left, keep spinning left to keep that momentum.

Balance: I can't stress this enough, keep your damn balance. If your going to attempt a movement that you can't think of a way your going to land or simply step out of, don't do it. Above almost all else, keep your balance. With balance you are in control of your Tori and with this control you can do anything. Just having that foot down in an Aikido match can give you the leverage to flip your opponent at the last minute. In multiplayer never sacrifice your balance for anything. If you can stand, you can walk, kick, run, jump, punch, anything. Balance is the first step. At least half of the principle of balance is simply controlling your momentum, you need to make sure that moving that fast won't throw you off and cause you to stumble, and if it is you need to slow it down. Use every joint you can to keep your balance.

Using all these staple mechanics will allow you to achieve anything. Combining leverage and momentum will give you tremendous force in your hits and balance will allow you to do them over and over again safely. Worship these 3 things and implement them into everything you do. They are already there, just recognize them and use them.

More to be added. A LOT more.