Torturer guide by Zulyar

[[Loli]Zulyar]

This guide is intended for use in 5v5 normal-mode Forest of Caldavar pub play.

Many years ago, the Torturer was just a dying man who made a pact to serve the Hellbourne in exchange for eternal life. However, to ensure his loyalty without the distraction of physical temptations, the Hellbourne stripped the man of his physical body leaving the pure energy of destruction, agony, and hate.

Table Of Content
Introduction;
Description
Stats
skills;
Description
Skill Builds

items;

Starting Items

Core Items

Luxuries
Items to Avoid
Gameplay;
Laning
Ganking
Teamfights
Tips and tricks
replays

Torturer is a very fragile hero for the job he fills. He is ment to be in the middle of fights, dishing out a lot of magic damage in the fights. His low amount of strength and pathetic strength gain makes this very tough to do. The solution; items. I often see torturers pointed at for wards couriers and general support (I'm like ; What kind of suport? An aoe stun with 2 seconds delay and a semi-pull ability?), this is however not really the job for torturer. there are so many heroes out there who would be a better buyer for these items its ridiculous.

Here is an image of his lvl 1 stats.

Here is an image of his lvl 25 stats.

What do we notice of these 2 images? Well for one we see his terrible hp/str, on the other hand we do see a lot of agility this arguably is the reason for his high armor. But I'd like to see it a bit lower for a slight buff on str gain per level.

stat gains:

18+1.5
23+1.7
26+3.0

Chain reaction.

mechanic: this spel has a 0.4second cast time for the 'effector' to spawn this means that after 0.4seconds you can cancel the animation and continue running/attacking the stun will go off 0.35s later (this can mean you can cancel chaneling effects such as devour/tongue tied if they cast it in the 0.35seconds time span of your stun.)

This skill is very similar to pyromancers stun. However Pyros cast time gets lower by leveling his passive skill : Fervor, Torturers stun is always a 0.7 seconds cast. this however may make it dificult to land occasionaly.

Impalement

This is my favorite ability of torturer it makes him an early game beast if you position yourself correctly.

mechanic: This spell has a casting animation, however it doesn't really have a cast time-- its the same as torment. You can cancel the animation instandly making it possible to cast while moving uninterupted.

This is impalements range, it hits ONE of the units in its AoE randomly every 0.25 seconds. (HoN runs at 20 frames per second, or 0.05 seconds per frame(impale deals damage every fifth frame). Devourers decay deals damage every single frame (0.05) seconds for example. This is not a big deal though.)

PS: impale also damages towers.

(This spell will always do 300/600/900/1200 damage before armor reductions. so using this ability as a creepwave killed ability is not the brightest thing to do. lets say the the wave consists out of 4 creeps, every creep will take about 300 damage then. (not 1200 for evryone! also note that just like at the image above, the dmg is dealt at random. one may take all the dmg and the other may take none.)

Impalement hits random targets within its aoe location. As you can see the scout on the left took a lot more damage then his little brothers, this however is completely random. Note that in perfect situations you want to use this vs as few aponents as possible. In the early game you can snatch a lot of kills with this ability, but be wary, having even one creep within the aoe and the dmg is already halved.

This ability deals physical damage so it will go through magic imunity effects(void talisman will make you imune to impalement though.). and not a little bit of damage 300/600/900/1200! physical dmg in a 1on1 battle.

Agonizing bonds

This is a decent harassing ability-- I personaly don't like it so much though.

mechanic:

This spell has a 0.4 sec cast time after this time you can animation cancel it just like the chain reaction spell.

I casted the ability on the enemy scout, pulling everything within the spells aoe closer to the unit i targeted. (Orange circles indicating where the creep was standing.)

This ability has great range and with Torturers great mana pool can be used for very good harasment damage inlane to both enemy hero's. This skill only has a mere cooldown of 6 seconds so can mostly be used multiple times in team fights for good aoe damage.

Torment

This ability is what gives Torturer the ability to semi-carry. It however costs tons of mana to be used so this skill is usualy skipped at the lower levels and picked up later on when you have more items.

Conclusion

Torturer only has aoe damaging abilitys and required to be next to the enemy for 2 of these. Becouse of this Torturer needs mobility and most of all, more beefyness.

skill builds.

I like to build torturer like this.

1 impalement/chain reaction
2 chain reaction/impalement
3 impalement
4 chain reaction
5 impalement
6 chain reaction
7 impalement
8 chain reaction
9 torment
10 stats/agonizing bonds
11 torment

12 agonizing bonds

13 agonizing bonds
14 agonizing bonds
15 agonizing bonds/stats
16 torment
17 stats
18 etc.

this is a build some people like using aswell. (i never use this one myself.)

1 chain reaction

2 agonizing bonds

3 agonizing bonds
4 impalement
5 agonizing bonds
6 impalement
7 agonizing bonds
8 impalement
9 impalement
10 chain reaction
11 chain reaction
12 chain reaction
13 torment
14 torment
15 stats
16 torment
17 stats
18 etc.

items.

My opinion on spellshards in their current state.

may be used instead of sotm but do so with care reason is listed below at recomended items.

items to start with would be ;

x2
if you feel nice you could do this too.

/ x2

Core items would be

{}(this may be build to be disasembled later on for your sac stone when you have the other components.)

(in some situations the pretender crowns can be sold of if you can manage to get your symboll of the goddes quikly.)

with situational / (not both!)

1500

this item will make your autoattack a lot better making it easyer to lasthit creeps in-lane before you can farm them with your spells effective. it also gives you good amount of MS to hunt down your enemy and stay near them when they try to run away from your Impalement and Torment.

x2 (if you go for the agonizing bonds build, get a bloodchalice instead of the bracer.)

510(1020)

This item will simply give you some more stats and primarily your HP becouse you won't have any hp untill you get symbol of the goddess so these little guys will help you stay in the fray longer untill you have your Bloodstone. you can always sell these later on when you need room for luxuries.

546

If your on the sidelane you can consider making this out of your minor totem for some burst hp/mp on demand. if you don't feel this is necesarry you can just sell the single minor totem later on when you need the room.

600

This is a needed item if your on mid it will heal a load of your hp/mp at the start of the game becouse you have low health and you'll be able to store runes for ganks/refill it to heal yourself back to the top.

5050

Bloodstone is your core item. it gives you regeneration to farm creeps better with your spells and it will also give you plenty of health to be in the middle of the battles. when kills happen it gains charges, giving you 25 more health and 0.25 more hp regeneneration. on death half of the charges on this item will be lost and you will heal all alies around you for 400 + (charges x25) in a 1700 radius. for every charge on the item you will also respawn faster upon death and lose less gold upon death. when you die you will also keep having vision over that area while dead and you will get expeirnce for kills near this area untill you respawn.


luxury items;

1400

Recomended by CrazyAce

(i agree too though i just forgot. :<)

This item will make you imune to physical camage, do keep in mind that your magical armor will be reduced during this time. as a bonus it also gives a small stat boost.




3900




This item will make you able to run around without being disrupted by most slows stuns or silences. it gives a small health boost which is great, but the autoattack damage is sadly near useless for us.

4700

this item is great for several reasons, it gives you an aditional aoe. an AOE SLOW which will help you stay near people and kill them, also usefull for escaping purposes if they try ganking you and your not able to kill them. it does not give you health instead it will give you a good armor boost to negate physical dmg and increasing your EHP.

5500

This baby is great for making you even more beefy after your core coupled with great regeneration.

4850

Great item that will give you more mana regen together with bloodstone you will be able to farm creepwaves easely. it also gives you some nice stats. its nice passive ability will also help you a countless amount of times during the game.

5675

a nice suportive item that will make you able to disable the prime target for 3.5 seconds topped off with some usefull stats and mana regen. (i normaly don't go this item but it certainly has its worth at times and is a worthy mention.)

/spellshards
4300 / 4850

This item will give you some nice hp/mp stats and will boost your teamfight damage a lot. aditionaly it is pretty easy to build up all items are between 1000-1200G./ spellshards will give you a bit more damage then sotm will give you, but it will not give you hp/mana and is slightly more expensive. aswell as the +atk speed and +dmg being rather wasted stats

4750

only get this over SotM if the enemy is full of magic imunities and silences. it typicaly does the same on the damage front but it provides no hp/mp etc.

situational;

PlatedGreaves

1303

Reccomended by CrazyAce

This item can be used as a substitude to ghost marchers if your going for a pushing strat, it will give you a nice chunk of armor and a bit of stats.
together with impale and tougher creeps you'll be able to push verry easy.

400

verry cheap and it may help you a ton at the early game if the enemy is full of magic dmg nukers. easely a good item throughout the entire game. sell this after you sold your bracers if you need room.

2050

if they have like 5 magic nuke heroes then i guess there is no other solution but to buy this after you finished your Bloodstone.

3654

if they're full of aoe nukers like plague rider and magmus you can buy this to suport the team better. (your already in the middle of the fights so you can easly buff up your entire team--atleast easyer then that glacius at the back.)

700

due to your tanky nature your a great carrier for the eye after you got a few items.

2200

is this ever a bad buy?

items to avoid!

any kind of lifestealing.

any kind of attack modifier.

any kind of auto-attack carry item.

Gameplay;

Laning

During the laning phase you can be very agressive with torturer due to his high damage output. You can either go for impalement and sneak up on them from behind for kills or gank other lanes.(More in ganking topic) or skill agonizing bonds for a ton of harrasment damage keeping the enemy in check.

Ganking

Torturer can gank pretty well on a very low level due to his impalement doing such massive damage. It will deal 600 damage over 10 seconds at level 2 already aswell as an aoe stun. For this reason I don't understand why torturer is often put on the sidelanes. He is a beast in middle. If you see the enemy going for a rune you can go after him, if he decides to go on for the rune he WILL die due to impalement or he retreats and you have the rune and can gank a sidelane or the middle lane. In this sence he is unbeatable in runeraces even vs wretched hag who is known for her rune domination. yes she can blink and get the rune, but if she does she is a free dummy for the impale.

Teamfights

In teamfight you wish to be in the enemies face at all times, you dish out a ton of magic damage to everyone around you with torment and with 4 seconds cooldown on agonizing bonds and its huge aoe makes this even better. You can stun key targets/runners, or tank for your teammates because you have such a nice tanky items AND DAMAGE so the enemy can't just 'ignore' you or you'll rip them to shreds.(Disables won't stop your ultimate from working either so even if you get for example: grabbed by polywogs tongue, your torment and impale will still go on.)

Tips and tricks

It should be obvious by now. Torturer needs his items to do his job. For this he needs to farm. As well as a good hero killer, your also a great creep killer. Once you have some regen you can use your Chain reaction and Agonizing bonds to clear creepwaves(this will leave the creeps on very low health left so be sure to hit everything once before doing this.)Or you use your ultimate and then your agonizing bonds to lasthit them before your creeps might kill them.

replays.

patches after 2.0.25 (some minor changes were made to torturer.)

solo mid;

Match 31013234 vs wretched hag

Match 31284148 vs bubbles

pre 2.0.15.

solo mid;


Match 22048344 vs pebbles

Match 21217436vs deadwood

Match 21010159vs chipper

solo bot/top(legion/hellbourne);

Match 21822856vs double ranged stun, nymph engineer

Match 20604847double ranged stuns, pebbles glacius

Match 19408356 vs richard hag and gauntlet
Match 19115037 vs dsham legionaire and jereziah creep skipping behind tower. (killed at lvl 1 with junglers help, ophelia.) this ones certainly entertaining to watch the first few minutes.

sidelane;

Match 22415127 dual lane with sandwraith(I nearly managed full items.)

Match 20993830 dual lane vs swift&puppet

Match 28116672 dual lane with jeraziah vs swiftblade glacius

I do not always face a verry skilled oponents afcourse, however I don't find it fun to do pubstomps against low psr players unless I'm forced to when playing with a lower psr friend. some of the replays may therefore be against worse players. i apolegize for this. enjoy.


Thank you for your time.

[[S2]Vahn]

In you're guide you have Agonizing bonds Written at the top of Chain Reaction.

Chain Reaction has 0.7 seconds between the time you click and the affector spawning, there is then 0.35 seconds delay before the effects take place. Making a total of 1.05 seconds between clicking and the stun effect activating. After the 0.7 seconds you can animation cancel.

All of Impalements animation can be cancelled, the effect starts as soon as you activate the ability.

Agonizing bonds has 0.7 seconds between cast and damage/pull effect, you can animation cancel after that.

[[JPN]Zinron]

Small error below the first picture under impalement.

This is impalements range, it hits all units in this area randomly every 0.25 seconds. (This game runs on 0.05 frames per second. Devourers decay deals damage every 0.05 seconds for example. This is not a big deal though.)

[[Loli]Zulyar]

In you're guide you have Agonizing bonds Written at the top of Chain Reaction.

Chain Reaction has 0.7 seconds between the time you click and the affector spawning, there is then 0.35 seconds delay before the effects take place. Making a total of 1.05 seconds between clicking and the stun effect activating. After the 0.7 seconds you can animation cancel.

All of Impalements animation can be cancelled, the effect starts as soon as you activate the ability.

Agonizing bonds has 0.7 seconds between cast and damage/pull effect, you can animation cancel after that.

thank you vahn, i did not know the exact casting times of both these spells, what i did know is that they're terribly slow. that impalement had no cast time i knew though, but added it now to the guide, thanks.

Small error below the first picture under impalement.

what exacly is wrong here?

[[75m]CrazyAce]

I often see torturers pointed at for wards couriers and general support (I'm like ; What kind of suport? An aoe stun with 2 seconds delay and a semi-pull ability?), this is however not really the job for torturer. there are so many heroes out there who would be a better buyer for these items its ridiculous.

True that. I like your guide, but gotta say:

Abilities:
Agonizing Bonds: You also missed a key point: Courtesy of the 6 second cooldown, you can blow this ability at least twice almost every fight.

Impalement: How did you miss this ability is a tower killer? Personally I'm still miffed this ability only does 1200 versus DotA's 1600 against towers/creeps. (DotA's was mixed damage type.) Huge difference and the biggest reason I hate playing Tort: I start missing DotA.

Items:
Plated Greaves competes well against Phase Boots because Tort is not an auto-attacker, and it gives him much needed armor and a bit of stats. It's also cheaper, and Plated Greaves + Impale make Tort a fearsome tower killer in the early game. I'd only really go Phase if I wanted to play Tort ganker-style for Impale chase kills.

Icebrand->Frostwolf isn't too bad imo since it gives you solid hitpoints and good chase/escape power via slows.

You missed Void Talisman. Torturer does not give a rat's ass about losing his auto-attack. :-)

I'm also not big on sac stone rushes tbh. Everyone says it's core, and it's true that the item is really good on tort, but I'd sooner rush SotM since it's cheaper (4300) and boosts your ult a shitton (+33 dps, almost a mock), which means you don't need to survive as long to kill the enemy.

You'll also have to update your guide soon for Spell Shard which appears to be Rift Shards for magic damage, only instead of giving you crit that upgrades, it gives you WoW-style "magic penetration" that upgrades.

[[S2]ElementUser]

Ultimate is also pretty bad until it's level 3, and it also consumes a lot of mana early on if you actually get ultimate to 2 early.

[[Loli]Zulyar]

Ultimate is also pretty bad until it's level 3, and it also consumes a lot of mana early on if you actually get ultimate to 2 early.

having it has helped me countless of times, you don't need to use it every single fight, just when necesarry. i like it atleast.


the plated greaves can be nice if your going the pusher route i usualy use tort as a ganker semi-carry/tank, you still do fine on pushes, the stats and armor are certainly good for him though but i prefer the speed and early game lasthitting power the phase provides me, i'll put it in though.

on frostwolf i disagree, your better off getting frostfield plate imo.



PS: elementuser tell your lil friend nome to update his page at items, (i think most get their items from here atleast) http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=27999 , newer items aren't in it, such at plated greaves.

[[Loli]Zulyar]

You'll also have to update your guide soon for Spell Shard which appears to be Rift Shards for magic damage, only instead of giving you crit that upgrades, it gives you WoW-style "magic penetration" that upgrades.

spell shards you say? does this also count for impalement and torment? becouse they're both not really a burst spell. and even if it does i dont think it will be a core item becouse it wont give you a burst of dmg as tort

[Sheriff]

It is a fine guide itemwise but you cant really have a solid spell build for tort his spells are usually situational like if your mid vs hag impalement wont help much at all or if your in a lane to shut down a carry maxing bonds is amazing harassment

[IgomidSTFU]

Steamboots is good! Nome's wisdom is good!

[[Loli]Zulyar]

i think impalement is great vs hag aswell, follow her to the rune, if she uses blink to get the rune you got a free kill, or she leaves the rune to you becouse if she gets it she dies. just follow her to it on time.

i am trying to get a reply for me vs hag, but i havn't had one yet recently. i am sure i have during my 2500 hon games but not recently. i'll put it up once i have one.

steamboots are just not good for tort he does not need teh attack speed and they have bad MS yes teh str is usefull, but you build tort tanky by other items aswell its a waste getting steamboots. really.

[[S2]ElementUser]

Don't get item images from over there, get them from honwiki.net or the HoN main webpage.

Also I get Torment at 13/14/16.

[[E]Marach]

spell shards you say? does this also count for impalement and torment? becouse they're both not really a burst spell. and even if it does i dont think it will be a core item becouse it wont give you a burst of dmg as tort

impalement deals physical damage so spellshards shouldn't be able to buff it

[[Loli]Zulyar]

that post was pre-2.0 added my comment to spellshards in-guide

[snowman`]

Wonderful guide as I love playing tort.
Only thing I have to nitpick would be having two bracers as core. I feel having bracers at all is very situational to the other team's lineup(pebbs, pyro, witch slayer, dev, other early game gankers), if your team got wards making it much safer to farm, what your team lineup is among other factors.

Most games I don't really need even 1 bracer and am able to just rush sac stone right away and a faster sustainer means you can spam your skills more for faster creep kills.

Most times for me using 650 gold for two bracers (figure added from your two starting crowns) is better spent getting a lifetube/manatube in 200 more gold.

[[Bifr]chaRx]

> Kinda little info on torturer as a pusher. HotBL is also a really nice item on him, cheap & alot of surviva that he lacks. Nice to push towers to.

> Skillbuild is kinda bad, I'd only max impalement for a push strat. Maxing chains/bonds is far superior for a non-push strat. Ulti at those levels is meh to. No clue why you'd get 1 statpoint over bonds either.

> You'd say he's a good eye carrier due to his tanky nature, yet you just explained he isn't tanky by nature at all. He's tanky when geared.

> FWS & Harkons could do quite well on him, esp FWS. If there would be a melee hard carry on the opposing team & we have no hero that can naturally counter him well, I'd defo dare to go FWS on him as my first major item.
Harkons could be a very nice end-game luxury when you already got 1, mby 2 heavy surviva/int items & having a really good farm (for example after frostfield n sac stone).
In very rare situations, an abyssal skull could be a worthwile pickup to in lategame (to support your carry with the aura, not yourself).
Not even mentioning Chalice is :|.


Overal very limited guide.

[[Loli]Zulyar]

watch any of my replays and you see why i like impalement outside of pushing too.

i don't think chalice is needed at all, if you just don't use your spells unnecesarry it isn't neccesary, if you go for an agonizing bonds build i can see its usefullness, but as mentioned i don't like that build as much as i like the impalement one.

i don't think fws is ever worth it for tort. get a frostfield plate instead, the armor increase will give you so much ehp ontop of your sac/other hp stuff. aswell as a aoe slow, harkons doesn't seem that great to me either, you can better get spellshards in that case.

[[Loli]Zulyar]

btw why do i see my guide full of empty space?

[[E]Marach]

you're not the only one...

[[Bifr]chaRx]

watch any of my replays and you see why i like impalement outside of pushing too.

First clicked on the TB replay, gave me the wrong game.
Then clicked on the Chipper one, wouldn't download.
Then clicked on the dual lane w sand wraith n saw a magebane w brutalizer n charged hammer.

Checking the game vs nymph/engi now & it's a 1600 no ab where no wards & not even a courier are bought. On top of that this engi & nymph are horrendously bad.
Link me a good replay & I'll defo watch it. But this is just worthless. And I honestly don't know why you even use these repalys as examples?

i don't think chalice is needed at all, if you just don't use your spells unnecesarry it isn't neccesary, if you go for an agonizing bonds build i can see its usefullness, but as mentioned i don't like that build as much as i like the impalement one.

Chalice is an amazing allround item. It's also some decent earlygame stats & can be made from starting items. Could easily replace a bracer. Combined with a bottle you get imbaloads of early game regen.
I find it hard to believe that there actually sitll people out there who underestimate the value of this item.


On top of that, the thing is, you advertise an impalement build, which is a push strat build, yet you cover nothing specific about torturer pust strats & don't suggest any specific items for it (such as hotbl or even a stormspirit).
Like I said, this is a very limited guide, I'd rather see a guide that covers all aspects of the hero, rather spending hours on images just to get it premium'd.

i don't think fws is ever worth it for tort. get a frostfield plate instead, the armor increase will give you so much ehp ontop of your sac/other hp stuff. aswell as a aoe slow, harkons doesn't seem that great to me either, you can better get spellshards in that case.

FWS is a great item, offers some nice overal stats, nice surviva, adds some mana to & arguably one of the strongest orbs in the game. Like I said, I'd consider it a situational item for him. It's amazing vs any melee right click carry & can defo be a viable option in those cases.

Harkons can give you a devastating dmgoutput after core+a luxury.

btw why do i see my guide full of empty space?

a bug prolly