Brickbattling

Crossroads, a fairly-popular Brickbattle experience by Roblox

Brickbattle is a genre of experiences in which visitors use a variety of weapons to face off one-on-one or team up in order to gain KOs by "bloxxing" (KOing) other visitors. In most brickbattle experiences, there is no time limit and users may jump into combat at any point.

Popularity[]

This genre could be found throughout Roblox since 2006. The genre then saw a decline from early-2014 to late-2017, but has seen a resurgence between mid-2018 and late-2019 through Doomspire Brickbattle, and Super Doomspire. It was first presented in the iconic place Crossroads, originally built by Telamon (now known as Shedletsky). Currently the most popular place in this genre is Super Doomspire, followed by Doomspire Brickbattle and its unofficial modifications, then by simulations of older Roblox, such as RetroStudio and Super Nostalgia Zone, and finally, by Crossroads.

Brickbattling is a nice hobby for a small portion of the Roblox userbase; these places will have a few thousand visitors at any given time. Compared to Swordfighting, another battling mode on Roblox, it has a more diverse selection of weapons, opening many different opportunities for different strategies. Brickbattle places are also popular on simulations of older Roblox. In these places, brickbattle miniexperiences are among the most popular.

Weaponry[]

Most BrickBattles (especially classic BrickBattles) incorporate the use of many of the older, default Roblox weapons, which include the Sword, Rocket, Slingshot, Trowel, Time-Bomb, Superball, and Paintball Gun.

Brickbattling Strategies[]

Sword: On almost all occasions, try as best as possible to avoid using the sword unless you're absolutely sure to go into close range combat. This is to save you from certain rage that you'll bring to yourself via anyone using a rocket, slingshot, etc. A sword should normally be wielded in Brickbattling so that you charge at the opponent, hook around so that their own sword (Should they have one) can't reach you, and get the job done. Refrain from any kind of moonwalking because of the fact that a rocket can easily slam you from behind when you're not paying attention. However, the sword will blox an unprepared foe in a second. Most experienced BrickBattlers use the sword lunge to jump higher making their movement more unpredictable for their opponents.

Slingshot: The slingshot's potential is usually underestimated. This is a great anti-sword fighter deterrent because of how fast it saps away health when at a close range so that all of its rapid-fire pellets hit. Apart from this, it works magic in close range combat situations like buildings or rubble. It's also worth noting that this is an amazing anti-rocket trap. Shoot this at low-mid range at a rocket coming to you so that the missile will catch on to one of your pellets and it'll explode harmlessly in mid-air.

Superball: Any brickbattler worth half their salt is going to tell you that this weapon is going to be your bread and butter. It's so effective in long-range combat - not easy by any means to just pick up and use, but once you develop your aim to an extent that you can hit a target with relative accuracy it's a miracle worker. With a default damage of 55, you can expect to get 2-shot kills against others at a regular basis when working in the open field, and it wasn't uncommon for you to one-hit KO, although it should be noted that due to updates this now rarely happens. To aim you must have a good understanding of projectile motion and thereby aim higher than your opponent's head. Mastering this weapon is the brickbattling equivalent of taking your training wheels off. As the great brickbattler link264 once said, "The superball in its speed, precision and usability, is the only real tool among the current set to add any real element of pressure and is what defines the active experience of brickbattling, as we enjoy it today".^{⁠[citation needed]}

Trowel: Again, underestimated - If used properly, can counter all superball attacks below the head, but you can also use it to get to otherwise inaccessible locations. Plant it nearby grounds just out of reach. By jumping normally, you have a makeshift platform to hop on to. It is great for getting away from a visitor, since the wall disappears automatically after a few seconds so that they can't hop on themselves. However, the best use for the trowel is to block and reflect bombs moving towards you, believe me, it's a life saver. Finally, it should be noted that the trowel is a weapon widely used by the great tacticians of the experience, such as for misguiding opponents, blocking trees or planting walls on top of higher grounds for full cover.

Rocket: So many people use it so that they don't realize its real potential in combat. Number one thing to look out for here is the element of surprise. Like, throw it down like a ninja would with a shuriken. A good rule with this is to have it equipped for no more than 2 seconds. Just enough to time to throw down a rocket as close of a range as possible so that you aren't harmed yourself, and then switch to another weapon. There's no point to launching a rocket, waiting for it to hit and then waiting another 7 seconds for the weapon to reload when you can be rushing at your opponent with something like a sword or slingshot. Don't let your enemy take a break, always put a little bit of pressure onto them. It is common to blox aggressive visitors trying to kill you with a sword by waiting for them to approach you at a close range and then switching to the rocket. When using the rocket, it is best to aim at your opponent's legs as even if you miss the blast radius, the impact with the ground will still kill them. The rocket is perhaps the most effective weapon at very close distances and can also change the structure of a destructive environment, such as by destroying trees. Finally, when using the rocket you should pay attention where you aim as it can result to self-kills if you are not careful!

Bomb: Generally, this isn't used much in DIRECT combat. But coupled with the superball, it generates one of the most positively rage-inducing attacks ever invented. Throw down a bomb, wait a little so that the countdown gets shorter, and then launch a superball so that the energy from the superball transfers to the bomb. This equates to a bomb travelling at the speed of a bullet with a huge blast radius to anything around it. Incredible in the open field. You can use this as a deterrent, too. Set it off at a place you don't want your enemy to go (a cavern they could run away to, etc.) and you'll have them pinned. It also has a larger blast radius than the Rocket, and it is a far superior destructive force than the Rocket. You can easily control the direction of the bomb by mastering where to shoot it with your superball. Hit it right in the middle, and it will move in a straight line, hit it to its left side and it will move to the right and vice versa. If you master the bomb, you can also make it jump about 5 studs high by aiming at its top surface. Many brickbattlers use the bomb to jump incredibly high, about 100-200 studs by launching the bomb and jumping at exactly the same time. As the bomb is being planted at the head but the visitor moves upwards, the bomb is stuck for a split second within the visitor creating an upwards thrust. Finally, you can walk to another base and start dropping bombs. As a bomb is much more powerful than a Rocket Launcher, you can destroy an enemy's base in a matter of seconds.

Brickbattling Groups and Community[]

BrickBattling can be considered as the only true form of fighting on Roblox not being inspired by any outside experiences. It has roots that date back to the creation of Roblox in 2006. In the early days most places used all or at least a portion of the brickbattling weapons and the community consisted of users regularly fighting at Crossroads. Some of the best brickbattlers of 2006 are: Predator (later changed to Predator.John123 for unknown reasons), Killing_machine_91 and Shedletsky. In 2007 Roblox hosted the Grand Melee tournament with user Koopa being the victor of the tournament and becoming the best brickbattler of the year. In 2008 & 2009 there were several great brickbattlers, most notably the banned user and developer HatHelper.

Brickbattle Group[]

With the introduction of groups in mid 2009 the BrickBattling and Gear-Fighting group "Forge Covenant Group" by user dictad0r (one of HatHelper's students) was perhaps the first group ever to use the brickbattling weapons as its primary weaponry.^{⁠[citation needed]} From the Forge Covenant annexed the BrickBattling group "Elite Stealth Bladez" by user elementalforceblade.^{⁠[citation needed]} The two groups came into conflict resulting in their annihilation.^{⁠[citation needed]} BrickBattle was later demilitarized with the first community group "Prymed" run by oloff and mj10 alongside several ex-ESB members with high roles in the council.^{⁠[citation needed]} In 2011 user Tainteddark won the annual BrickBattling tournament becoming the best BrickBattler of his era.^{⁠[citation needed]} However, in 2012 Prymed came to an end due to changes in leadership resulting in the corruption and death of the group.^{⁠[citation needed]}

These events lead to the birth of the community group Brick Kings by DANTEAXEL which consisted mostly of ex-ESB and Prymed members. While the group was initially successful it eventually fell to inactivity and was later destroyed at the start of 2014 as the users dictad0r and devMesh (known by the community as Vishal due to his vast number of accounts) kicked everyone below council.^{⁠[citation needed]} In attempt to revive BrickBattle, user Tyler9698, being considered by many the best brickbattler of his era, created the group "Ω". However changes in leadership lead to user junkkid (known as Dan by the community) taking control of the group in 2015. While this was controversial since he was one of the few individuals aware of dictad0r's and Vishal's motives and could have prevented the death of Brick Kings, it should be noted that junkkid was the teacher of several great brickbattlers that started in 2014-2015 and was given the group by popular demand.^{⁠[citation needed]} With the help of user odkal, dictad0r was given ownership of Ω by Dan in the summer of 2015, with Vishal joining the council shortly after. The return of dictad0r and Vishal irritated several brickbattlers, caused the death of Ω by inactivity and the rebirth of the again short-lived Brick Kings by user uberman360 which fell inactive a couple of months later. ^{⁠[citation needed]}

Many thought that the events of 2015 lead to the absolute end of BrickBattle, with most of the veterans of the experience quitting and without any active community group to guide the members.^{⁠[citation needed]} In 2016, the few remaining BrickBattlers would gather at junkkid's Private_Crossroads and there was an average of 10-20 active BrickBattlers throughout the year.^{⁠[citation needed]} It is without a doubt that since the inception of BrickBattle in 2006, 2016 was the most inactive year in the history of the genre.^{⁠[citation needed]} Out of this inactivity, a new generation of brick battlers eventually found the experience and with the return of an old veteran koke15 the group "Order of BrickBattle" was created which quickly rose to popularity in 2017.^{⁠[citation needed]} In the meantime odkal hosted several tournaments in attempts to find the best Brick Battler, which resulted in 3 victors, bombpow, fozetz and ranaldinio2.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Due to changes in leadership, user ScrewGuests gained control of Order under the surpervision of odkal (now using the account CosmicTheorem) and junkkid (Dan). Due to disagreements and rivalries between odkal and junkkid, Dan left the Order and created the group "BlackRock Monarchy", gathering with him all of his students from 2014 and 2015 alongside other veterans. The conflict between the two groups seemed inevitable and an agreement between odkal and Dan was made where the loser would have to delete his group. However ScrewGuests, afraid of having his group deleted declared peace by surrendering the group to junkkid and blaming odkal for having the community divided, leading to odkal's exile from both groups.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Eventually, junkkid gave both groups to koke15, and in the summer of 2017 Blackrock Monarchy and the Order of Brickbattle organized an FFA tournament.^{⁠[citation needed]} To the surprise and annoyance of many, an old inactive brickbattler from Prymed and outsider to both groups, joeymike which also happened to be one of odkal's friends triumphed as the victor of the tournament.^{⁠[citation needed]} Three days later odkal and junkkid, having settled their differences disbanded both groups in efforts to mark the end of community groups.^{⁠[citation needed]} odkal then created his military BrickBattling group Olvora while the famous obby maker GFink created the community group "Temple of BrickBattle". In September 2017, crossroads was shut and it was republished being filtering enabled with all of the weapons being altered and nerfed. User odkal and later on GFink and GloriedRage improved the old brickbattling weapons by localising them, making Brick Battle more dynamic, precise and faster-paced. Finally, GFink used his money and fame to expand TOB and revive classic places such as Chaos Canyon, Crossroads and Doomspire Brickbattle. At the end of 2017, GFink hosted several tournaments all of which were won by fozetz and odkal hosted Olvora's first and only tournament which was won by koke15. In 2018, GFink hosted a BrickBattling tournament with a colossal prize of 100K Robux which was won by ranaldinio2.^{⁠[citation needed]}

In late 2018-early 2019, an official BrickBattle Discord Server was set up; while this had not been the first, it was the first large one and first moderated one.^{⁠[citation needed]} This server was soon deleted after a large majority of the userbase left due to disliking junkkid.^{⁠[citation needed]} This proceeded to cause a butterfly effect which set the community astray for 5 months until koke15 and junkkid created The covenant of brickbattle, which lasted from May 2019 to August 2020 as the main hub for the community. odkal's tools, which were the main set used in Brickbattling^{⁠[citation needed]}, became broken due to a Roblox update. junkkid was terminated in March, 2019 for account theft and scamming, after stealing millions of limited items from user 1Koopa.^{⁠[citation needed]} This is also when the Black Flame Tournaments began, with ranoldinio2 taking the crown in Black Flame Tournament I and II, beating Accurative and rivetbomber.^{⁠[citation needed]} rivetbomber however beat DEMOSACRO by a singular kill to win the third Black Flame Tournament.^{⁠[citation needed]}

In 2020, GloriedRage created The Sanctum Prime. This group replaced the former group The Covenant of Brickbattle, this is due to koke15 quitting the moderating portion of the community, this server led to a large expansion in new-generation brickbattlers, due to being easier to access than the former Covenant.^{⁠[citation needed]} Around the time of the communities group transition, a new, pre-established RCL clan started visiting Crossroads.^{⁠[citation needed]} Lone Star Empire, they had quickly been noticed by the community and set up a "war against brickbattlers" in their own words. In the end they lost with a 4–40 team KDR.^{⁠[citation needed]}