The Tortofist 101

As Gunner main myself, the main purpose of the Tortofist is to provide AoE burst damage, letting you hit multiple enemies whereas with most weapons you can only target 1-3 at the limit aside from some exceptions but are just as limited. Autogun-line only hits those at front, Magnus-line hits in a straight line, and Catalyzer-line needs a lot of build up to rack up damage. A good combo with the Tortofist is the Pulsar-line, as you can shoot a group with a charge and push back any enemies that got out back into the already lodged shards.
The Tortofist excels dealing high damage to a whole group in a short time-frame, letting you pick off stragglers easily with your other weapons once they're low.
In some cases, both the knockback and pushback can be a lifesaver to get out of sticky situations, do be careful about sending yourself into traps by accident though.

Hybrid builds can benefit just as much, by combining the Tortofist Charge with swords like the Brandish-line or Sealed Sword/Troika-line that have a lot of knockback, you can aim behind enemies to set a wall and quickly swap for a quick charge or light attack and push mobs into the shards for stacking damage.
Other Torto users can also send staggered enemies from the shards right in your direction to finish off or blast away with a charge if it's ready or place a wall between you and a mob if you're getting overwhelmed.

Bomb users can also make great use to both themselves and other Torto users, Status bombs greatly or completely impede movement, letting you and others to shoot charge attacks in convenient spots for maximum damage. Vortex bombs and Tortofists are an absolute combo; on maps with set spawns you can set a Vortex and launch a charge into it before a wave spawns, hitting every enemy caught in the vortex before getting swept by the contact damage. You can also group them up in a singular spot with blast bombs to fire away directly with a charge once in position.

Overall, the Tortofist while being a decent to great weapon when you learn how to use it at its best, its greatest strength comes when combining it with other weapons to make use of both the damage dealt from the shards AND consequent contact damage, aiding your team by blocking waves of enemies from rushing or make use of lodged shards.

Let me be clear about this- not every enemy can be dealt with the Tortofist, for as cool of a weapon as they are, sometimes it is smarter to cut your losses and change weapons for certain enemies or adapt your build if you want to use it.
But I'll explain them from easiest to hardest

Turrets: I put them here because while not exactly the easiest nor the hardest to deal with, they have some... weird quirks when using the charge on them. When fired directly, the charge will sometimes behave as if you're aiming at a wall making you miss completely, so you have to aim right beside them so that the shards spread around correctly. With high enough damage, you can time your light attacks to interrupt them with the 2nd hit stagger.

Beasts: While usually annoying to shoot at, wolvers can be baited to easily set up a charge without much issue but the bodyblocking they can do can get you if you're not careful. Chromalisks are just as easy to deal with, do watch out for pushbacking into the Status Chromalisk spit by accident.

Constructs: There really isn't much to say about them, they are slow enough that you can easily set charges without much issue by weaving around or baiting attacks.
The only exception being the Mecha Knight, they're a total pain in the ass to deal with regardless of weapon, but there is a plus to the Tortofist. The invisible shot of the charge can trigger their shields, giving enough time for the shards to fall right as the Mecha knight walks into their range, easily racking up damage and blocking their path to charge the next one.

Slimes: While they can be somewhat dangerous, most of the slime family can be baited to hit a charge dead-on so long as your careful and paying attention. There are 3 specific slimes to watch for Oilers and Quicksilvers for their fast speed and the latter's electric charge, and Giant Lichen colonies who can surprise you with their dash and spin attack but become easily manageable once you get a chain going and lock them in place.

Gremlins: Thwackers can be dealt just like Mecha Knights, their dodge to the invisible shot will give the shards the time to hit them as they walk into their range. The other gremlins while mobile can still be dealt with just fine, but I'd still recommend a status bomb for an easier time.

Undead: Zombies are easy to weave around and group for easy kills, and you don't have to worry much about bombies so long you stay out of their way. Almirian crusaders can be dealt with the same strategy as Mecha knights, and you can use the charge to obstruct the Deadnaughts movement and swap for a stronger single-target weapon. Kats are a whole different beast to deal with, their fast movements make it hard to hit a charge and light attacks put you at risk of getting hit if you miss the 2nd hit stagger as they charge. However, if you predict their charge and instead aim to where they will be, you can hit your charge with some luck or make the Kat run into the shards.

Fiends: Two words, Status Bombs. Highly mobile enemies like Devilites make it hell to even aim in general, even with a weapon that covers a lot of area such as the Tortofist, you're better off disabling their movement before engaging. Greavers being easily subject to staggering make it an easy picking by bopping them once and point blank charging so that you AND the greaver stay within the surrounding shards, the contact damage will prevent further attacks while you keep chaining. Trojans, while you COULD kill them through light attacks as the charge is mostly inefficient, why would you? you'd be better changing to a single target weapon.

Minis: They get their own section because they're easily the most annoying enemies in the game, while there are better suited weapons for these little jerks, you can use the shards as walls to obstruct them.

Thanks for writing this guide.

If you wanted to put it on the wiki (for better formatting, links, etc.) but didn't know how, then I could help with that.

@Bopp It would be really nice actually.

I'm doing this from a Steam account so I can't log in to the wiki... Can't do much on that front, and I'm not exactly well versed in the use of formatting anyways.

I was here for it before it was even wrote... THanks Scuttle! You are Awesome!
"...(and I need some bomb mains to corroborate me on this), the shards themselves are similar to those of the shard bombs: If there is no spot for the shards to fall (E.G. a super tight pack of mobs) they will despawn or fall right in front of the group, they also have the tendency to avoid walls and fall away from them." Similar behaviour, hopefully revisited for the sake of Turrets hitting clusters!...

This guide is now on the wiki at

https://wiki.spiralknights.com/Tortofist_Guide

I did some basic formatting and fixed a couple of little things, but I didn't change any wording.

Scuttlechan, you can edit the wiki by signing up for a Spiral Knights account through the web site. You don't even have to play the account. And if you edit the page, you'll quickly see how the formatting works. It's pretty easy to do basic tasks. But if you don't want to, then that's fine too of course. :)

And now it appears in the category of player-made guides. And it's linked from the Gunslinger Guide. So maybe people will find it.

Thanks for putting the guide on the wiki, hope more people see this post or find it while checking the guides so they can try it out. :)

I'll see if I can find some more tidbits about it to add later at some point in the future.

I had the pleasure of running FSC with Scuttlechan for a bit, and they singlehandedly convinced me of the Tortofist's value as a weapon. It's absolutely devastating when synergising with other knights who are able to set up crowd control of any kind, especially with Vortex weapons - if you're even the slightest bit coordinated with a party, the setups you can land are nuclear.

They put on such a solid performance I'm honestly looking to get one for myself, and this guide is really going to help.

Tortofists are a fun weapon and they're kind of a party weapon. Like Catalyzers or Shard bombs they kinda work better in large groups but not quite as extreme.

The biggest thing a party with Tortofist users can do is try to support each other. Not using certain weapons with knockback like Nitronome or Pulsar helps the charge attack land, meanwhile other knockback weapons like Heavy Swords can be helpful in pushing enemies INTO the incoming artillery.

The hardest thing for some players to do will be learning to slow down in order to speed up... button mashing as fast as possible or using your charge when it's not necessary or at the wrong time will reposition enemies away from the incoming damage or at the very least kill them a millisecond before the salvo hits and kills them anyways.