Game Mechanics
Throws
Press either 
/
+ 
/
up close (Gato and Tizoc/The Griffon are the only two with ) throws) or in the air with
(Jenet, Hoku, Hotaru and Dong only have air throws in the game with jump/hop ).
You can tech out of throws by pressing the / button.
You can air grab when you small jump, regular jump or even super jump as well.
You cannot tech out of command grabs or air grabs.
There is also a bug in MOTW that allows you to escape any ground normal/command throw.
Whenever you input a TOP attack/Super during the recovery of a move, you won't be able to get thrown.
It's a strange bug but it works pretty easy. This video shows it in application: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gRoJcRI-Jc&p=6B41D61AD830D624
It is possible to option-select the throw-tech, for example 
will come out as crouch if you whiff it (faster animation).
Throws have priority over meaty attacks on wake-up : if someone use a meaty attack while in throw range and the opponent presses throw, the throw will win.
Short Jump / Small Jump / Hop
Tap 
/
/
.
Your character jumps about half the amount of a normal jump which can help you when you want to throw an opponent off.
Since small jumps tend to be a bit more difficult to counter from the amount of jump height.
Use small jumps to throw off opponents that think you'll attack low as you jump in, to land a overhead attack opening.
Also remember that you cannot JD when you small jump so make sure you use it wisely.
The landing recovery is a bit longer than of a regular jump, however it can be special canceled.
Normal Jump
Press and hold //.
You can't air block in Garou MOTW but you can JD while you are in a normal jump state.
You simply press / just as you are about to get hit so you can JD their attack.
You can JD as soon as you leave the ground, also called instant-air JD with the motion :
On wake-up : waking-up with jump will dodge meaty low attacks.
Super Jump (SJ)
Tap d then quickly tap // (Only for Dong and Jenet). Cannot JD during SJ animation.
Dash/Run
Tap , .
Here is a list of character that run:
Rock, Hoku, Dong, Terry, Gato and Hotaru.
These characters dash:
Grant, Kain, Jae, Freeman, Kevin, Jenet, Butt/Marco and Tizoc/The Griffon.
Unlike in street fighter, dashes can be cancelled anytime like a run, with the exception of Griffon (he can only special cancel his dash).
Notes : Freeman can hold his dash to cover more distance. Jenet and Tizoc have airborne frames during their dashes.
Back dash
Tap , .
Everyone can back dash in Garou.
It has invincibility during the back dash so you can go through normal, special or super attacks.
It does have a small period of recovery at the end of it.
So use it wisely and don't do it at the wrong times cause you might get hit as you finish the back dash animation.
Certain characters can cancel out of their backdash animations as well.
Here is a list of which characters can cancel their backdashes:
- Jenet - During the backdash animation cancel into
- Hoku - During backdash animation cancel into either
or 
- Kain - During backdash you can cancel into his charge
, TOP attack (
), all supers. His backdash cancels require real fast strict timing. As soon as you backdash with him you have to cancel within two frames of the backdash start up animation.
T.O.P. Mode
Tactical Offense Position: When selecting your character, you can designate a 1/3 portion of your life bar for T.O.P.
When your character's health is within this portion you will notice that your character will begin flashing.
The following benefits become available to you once you are in T.O.P.:
- Enhanced damage to all of your attacks
- Faster meter build up
- Slow regeneration of your health bar (however, it doesn't regenerate past the T.O.P. section)
- T.O.P. special move becomes available
In competitive play it's used interchangeably between the start and middle.
Placing it in the middle or end of your healthbar can disrupt your opponent's combo timing, as the TOP activation's flash causes a short freeze.
Try different locations and see what works best for your character. For example, Tizoc does MASSIVE damage with his C justice Hurricane if he's in TOP, capable of knocking someone out of their TOP in a single strike.
Having it at the start means you don't have to get beat up first to use it, while being in the middle or end means you have more time to build meter first.
T.O.P. Attack pressed during the recovery of a move prevent from being thrown (throw bug).
T.O.P. sizes other than 1/3 of a life bar are available in home console versions of Garou and are usually ignored in competitive play.
The shorter the T.O.P is, the more damage can be dealt (max. of 1.75x), conversely the longer your T.O.P is, the less damage can be dealt (Min. of 1.25x = standard arcade setting).
T.O.P. Attack
+ while in T.O.P. mode only.
All characters in Garou have an extra move that becomes available to them only when they are in T.O.P. (the orange region of the health bar).
T.O.P. moves tend to do a decent amount of damage and almost always deal substantial guard crush damage. Notably good TOP moves being kain's and tizoc's
Super Meter
The super meter can hold up to 2 stocks.
Meter can be filled by doing one of the following:
attacking the opponent with anything, whiffing a special move, throwing an opponent, Just Defending an attack, or getting hit by the opponent.
Whiffing normal and command attacks will not build any meter.
In some cases, a super move connecting on an opponent will also give you a little meter.
Super Moves
S Power Supers - Level 1 Supers (
, + 
/) - Available with 1 Super Stock
P Power Supers - Level 2 Supers (, + /) - Available with 2 Super Stocks
Hidden Supers - Level 2 Only Super - Available with 2 Super Stock, only 5 characters have them:
- Rock Howard -
, 
+ 
- Kim Dong Hwan - , , +
- Khushnood Butt - , , +
- B. Jenet - Press ,
and quickly as you are JDing. - Gato -
, + , , + , , + . You have to keep doing it like a reka type special to land it fully.
Feints
Feints are partial attack animations that can be done in either of 2 ways:
- + +
- + +
Feints show the first few frames of animation and sound of a special or super attack, but do not follow through with the actual attack.
While they can be used for mindgames to make your opponent think you're going to go for a special move, they truly show their power when used in combos, since you can cancel out cancellable normal attacks with feints (like a special move).
This is called a feint cancel (FC). Since the feints are very short and can be cancelled by anything, this will often allow you to recover from a move faster, and even give opportunites for linking more normals than would otherwise be possible.
For example with Terry you can do stand , then hit (since the feint cancels the stand from its recovery animation and also moves Terry foward as well), stand again, , etc.
Certain Feints have particular properties :
- Griffon : forward feint has immediate upper body invincibility
- Freeman : down feint has upper body invincibility halfway into the animation (when his body is lowered)
- Jenet : down feint has full body invincibility halfway into the animation (when she spins around)
- Terry : forward feint moves him forward
Break Moves
Press +
Every character has one designated special move/super move that can be broken (only Tizoc and Kain have 2 different break specials moves and Hokutomaru can break his super move.
At the appropriate point(s) in the special move, inputting the break command ( + )
will tend to allow the character to recover faster, making the move far safer if blocked,
and allowing more extenstive combos (mostly juggles) if hit.
Garou only lets you perform 1 break move during a combo, unless you land a counter hit which lets you do another free break cancel.
Break moves are some of the easiest methods of hit-confirming a combo to super in the game. All characters can break on hit and a few can whiff their breaks to build meter.
Hit Break - a hit or grab is registered before the move is broken (Tizoc is an exception to this because his break moves will cause him to backstep, but he still only has one timing for each of these).
Whiff Break - no hit or grab is registered before the move is broken.
| Character | Break Move | Command |
| Rock Howard | Evac Toss |  +
|
| Kim Dong Hwan | Kuusa-jin |  + 
|
| Hotaru Futaba | Kobi-kyaku |  + 
|
| Khushnood Butt | Kohou | +
|
| Hokutomaru | Kuuha-dan Chou Hissatsu Shuriken |
+ , +
|
| Kevin Rian | Hell Trap | +
|
| Freeman | Morbid Angel |  +
|
| Tizoc | Poseidon Wave Olympus Over |
 + +
|
| B. Jenet | The Hind | +
|
| Gato | Rai-ga | +
|
| Kim Jae Hoon | Hien-zan | ch.  , +
|
| Terry Bogard | Power Dunk | +
|
| Kain R. Heinlein | Schwarze Lanze Schwarze Panzer |
ch. , + ch. , +
|
| Grant | Kyou Choujin | +
|
Just Defend (JD)
While Standing - tap .
While Crouching - tap .
While Jumping - tap //.
By defending an attack just before it connects, you can "just defend" it. JDs can be done in succession on multi-hit attacks or combos. JD windows are normally 7 frames wide, and give you the following benefits:
- Air Defense: There is no air blocking in Garou, but you can JD in the air. An instant air JD can be performed with
(Note: you can not JD during any short or super jump.)
- Gain Life: Regain a small amount of health for a successful JD, even against moves that would do chip damage when blocked (the more damaging the move, the more life gained).
- Shorter Block Stun: If an attack is JD'd, the block stun is reduced by 2 frames, allowing you to recover faster.
- Guard Cancel (GC): Completing a special move (including T.O.P. Moves) or supers during a JD will cause a GCL, immediately ending the block stun and going into the attack's animation. The motions of the command can be buffered before the JD occurs, or done entirely during the JD if you are fast enough.
- No Guard Meter Loss: JD'n a move will not bring you closer to a guard crush (GCH) like blocking will.
Guard Cancel (GC)
An essential counter attacking system in Garou (there are similar counter attacking systems in other fighting games, but without the added stipulation of JD).
GCs can only be performed during JD frames (while you flash blue). During a JD, a counter attack of your choosing will cancel frames in the JD animation, allowing you to counter attack.
Only 3 kinds of attacks will let you guard cancel out of a JD animation:
- Special Moves
- Super Moves
- T.O.P. Attack
Note that the large buffer allows you to perform the motion before JDing, for example 623 > 4 > JD > press A : will GC with a DP.
Evasion Moves
Universal Anti-Low (UAL/AB) - Press + (Any character).
When you do an attack your character gains lower body invincibilty,
so if an opponent tries to perform a low attack it wont hit you.
These attacks hit overhead and can counter-hit.
Gato and Rock are the only characters who don't come off the ground with their move.
As a general rule, this attack has more blockstun than hitstun (in some matchups they are punishable on hit but not on guard).
Universal Anti-Air (UAA/2AB/dAB) - Press + + (Any character).
When you do a attack, your character gains upper body invincibility.
A great tool to use as an anti-air attack against aerial moves that don't hit too deep. It also beat most standing attack (lowprofile). These attacks can counter-hit and have to property to be cancellable only on hit (except Tizoc and Grant), making them a great tool for hitconfirms.
Kara Cancel - Press + / + +
then do a special move to cancel out of its starting animation.
A lot like Kara Cancels in Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike you can cancel certain high/low dodge attacks with every character.
Some are more useful than others and some are easier to cancel out than other characters.
Great tool to benefit from the upper/lower invincibility when performing special moves.
Here is a list of characters that can cancel their + overheards while in the air:
- Tizoc - +
- Hotaru - +
- Jenet - +
- Grant - +
- Hokutomaru - + or +
- Rock - any of his specials/supers - Rock (His doesn't come off the ground but he uses it the most effectively. Mainly because it opens up so many options for him during wake up situations.)
Kara Cancels
Japanese term that means "empty cancel".
In other words when you can cancel out of normal attack into a special move, before seeing the normal attack animation fully finish.
Mainly used to gain some extra range on certain special/super attacks.
Each normal attack for each character has different timings for the kara cancels.
Use them again to throw off opponents in mind game situations.
Counter Hits
In Garou, Counter Hits differ from most games, as they grant huge amount of frame advantage and juggle properties, somewhat similar to SFV's crush counter mechanism.
All attacks (UAA/UAL included) and Supers can cause a Counter Hit. A Counter Hit can be obtained from hitting an opponent out of a start-up animation, as well as certain specials during their recovery.
A Counter Hit on the ground will cause the opponent to spin around, allowing for a ground combo follow-up in most situations.
A Counter Hit in the air will send the opponent flying, putting them in an airborne situation, allowing for an air combo follow-up in most situations.
Air combo can be performed with light normal cancelled into a fast enough special/super, a strong normal will air reset before a special can hit.
If the opponent hit the ground, they will land facing the ground, allowing for an extra OTG hit (Off The Ground). However they can techroll with any button to prevent this.
If a super's freeze animation happens at the same time the opponent hit the ground, they won't be able to tech, allowing unescapable OTG combos.
Guard Crush (GCH)
Blocking, but not JD'n, a move reduces a hidden guard meter for your character.
When the guard meter is close to empty, your character will flash red, more strongly the closer you are to being guard crushed. When this meter empties, you are 'guard crushed', and your character reels back, completely vulnerable for a short time. Your guard meter instantly refills to full when this happen.
Guard Crush state lasts for 64 frames, but the 64th frame is invincible. Crush state lasts longer for both Dong (7f) and Marco/Butt (5f).
Guard Durability ranges from 50-60. Here is a list of guard durability for the characters:
Hokutomaru, Hotaru, Jenet - 50
Rock, Dong, Jae, Marco, Freeman, Gato, Terry - 55
Kain, Kevin, Tizoc, Grant - 60
Ground Recovery (Rolling)
Roll Recovery - When you land on the ground on your back/stomach press , , or .
Depending on which button you press executes the direction you will roll towards.
Use them to recover quicker than just the normal get up recovery.
Helps you out by preventing possible crossups or jump in attacks from the opponent as you get up.
Though be careful which ones you use as it's possible for an opponent to use the roll recovery to his advantage as well.
Here is a list of what each button does, as you hit the ground press:
- - for a forward small roll recovery
- - for a backward small roll recovery
- - for a forward big roll recovery
- - for a backward big roll recovery
Motion Storing Technique
In MOTW when multiple button press occur, the weaker button will come out, following this priority : > > >
This also applies to special, therefore if you do + + ,
a normal stand will come out, not a fireball or whatever special was qcfA or qcfD.
This allows you to "store" motions to make combos easier.
For example cancelling light attacks into supers : xx requieres very fast execution,
you can instead do (stand A) xx (Super comes out, thanks to the first qcf previously stored)
