Torturer

[[1]Tryptophan]

Tryptophan's Guide to the Torturer

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 Contents

• Intro to Torturer
  
• Basic Info
  
• Skill Allocation
  
• Item Builds
  
  • Starting Items
  • Core Items
  • Other Items
    
  
  
• Gameplay
• Allies and Enemies
  
  • Allies
  • Counterpicks
    
  
  
• Changelog
  
• Credits

Intro to Torturer

Hello. This is my guide to playing Torturer. I used to be a huge fan of Leshrac back in DotA, and I used to enjoy playing Torturer in HoN, too. I remember when Leshrac in the DotA days used to see play in competitive games and high level games. But most of that's changed due to nerfs and changes in the game. I consider Torturer a jack of all trades and master of nothing. Sure he's a great pusher due to Impalement but other heroes due it better (ie. Defiler & Polly). Sure he can tank-carry via Torment & Impalement but other heroes do it better (ie. Defiler). Sure he's a great ganker but any hero that has an instant disable does the job better. In short, Torturer is a good hero but is overshadowed by others who do his job better (mainly Defiler). With the old Sacrificial Stone, Torturer became a carry with just 5K gold. Now due to the nerf to Sacrificial Stone, Torturer and other tank carries suffered.

Basic Info

Every hero has their pros and cons and strengths and weaknesses.


Pros/Strengths:

• Multiple Roles (carrying, pushing, ganking)
• Great AoE nukes
  
• High INT Gain (3.0)
  
• High base mana

Cons/Weaknesses:

• Low strength gain
• Low base damage
• Item dependent
• Low base health
• Stun is not dependable (requires aiming)
• Silenced = GG
• Animations long as ****
  

• Strength: 16 + 1.5 per level
• Agility: 23 + 1.7 per level
• Intelligence: 26 + 3.0 per level
• Damage: 45 + 49
• Armor: 3.22
• Movement Speed: 300
• Attack Range: 600
• Attack Rate: 0.59
• Health: 454
• Mana: 338
• Cast point/backswing: 0.7/0.6
• Damage point/backswing: 0.4/0.77
• Sight range day/night: 1800/900
• Missile speed: 900
• Turn rate: 0.36

Now for skills.

Chain Reaction



The Torturer summons powerful chains at a target location which whip nearby enemies, damaging and stunning them.

Level 1 - 70 damage per unit, 1.25 second stun
Level 2 - 140 damage per unit, 1.5 second stun
Level 3 - 210 damage per unit, 1.75 second stun
Level 4 - 280 damage per unit, 2 second stun

Mana Cost: 105/125/140/165
Cooldown: 9 seconds
Area of Effect: 225
Cast Range: 650

Deals magical damage type
0.35 second casting delay

My Notes:
Let's do the math. You got a 0.7 second cast point and a 0.35 second casting delay on this spell. That's 1.05 seconds from when you target the spell and when the spell lands. Sucks don't it? Better off investing one point in this stun until later. HoN Heroes page says that this spell has a total cast time of 1.3 seconds. That's because this spell doesn't have any cast time itself, just casting delay. 0.7 second cast point + 0.6 second cast backswing = 1.3 seconds. Now that Chain Reaction has the same AoE every rank, the one point investment comes in handy. With a 225 AoE, the radius is 112.5 and with a cast range of 650, the furthest that Chain Reaction can hit is 762.5 units away.

Impalement



The Torturer constantly summons many blades around him for a duration, impaling random enemies and structures near him.

Level 1 - 9.375 damage to a random target, 300 total damage, 95 mana, 30 second cooldown
Level 2 - 18.75 damage to a random target, 600 total damage, 120 mana, 28 second cooldown
Level 3 - 28.125 damage to a random target, 900 total damage, 135 mana, 26 second cooldown
Level 4 - 37.5 damage to a random target, 1200 total damage, 155 mana, 24 second cooldown

Mana Cost: 95/120/135/155
Duration: 8 seconds
Cooldown: 30/28/26/24 seconds
Area of Effect: 500

Deals physical damage type
32 blades at all levels (4 blades per second)
Can hit structures
Can hit invisible units
Not channeling

My Notes:
Torturer's only good spell. Much quicker cast time and is very effective at pushing and catching wandering heroes off guard.

Agonizing Bonds



The Torturer wraps an enemy with constricting chains, damaging it and nearby enemies and dragging them towards the target

Level 1 - 80 damage, 3 targets
Level 2 - 145 damage, 5 targets
Level 3 - 205 damage, 6 targets
Level 4 - 265 damage, 7 targets

Mana Cost: 100/115/130/145
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Cast Range: 700

Deals magical damage type
Drag all units hit for 200ms at 740 speed towards the main target.

My Notes:
HoN Heroes page says that the total casting time for this spell is 1.5 seconds. There's a 0.7 cast point and a 0.,6 second backswing. That leaves you with 0.2 second of extra cast time on Agonizing bonds for a total of 1.5 second casting time. Casting backswing can be cancelled so the total time is .9 seconds. Your enemies will move further in .9 seconds than you will pull them backwards. Main use is for harassing and farming. Much inferior to Leshrac's Lightning Storm since it had the same cast range but could jump 650 AoE. This means that a hero over 1300 units could be hit which made it one of the greatest harassing moves/finishing moves over. IT could also jump 8 times. Doing the math, 700 + 8*650 = 5900 range. Theoretically Leshrac could have hit a unit that was 5900 range away if you had vision. That's almost double Valkyrie's javelin (If it's 3000 like in DotA - correct me if I'm wrong here). Leveling this over Chain Reaction is still better because you're paying 0.2 seconds extra for a 100% hit.

Torment



The Torturer forces his Torment onto nearby enemies every second, damaging them. This ability is boosted by Staff of the Master.

Level 1 - 66 (88) damage per second
Level 2 - 100 (133) damage per second
Level 3 - 144 (177) damage per second

Mana Cost: 110 + 20/40/60 per second

Improved damage is shown in parenthesis
Deals magical damage type

My Notes:
Without a SotM, this spell deals as 20 more damage Agonizing bonds in 2 seconds at max level but at the cost of 230 mana. That's 85 more mana for 20 more damage. Obviously you need to keep it on longer for it to be efficient. In 6 seconds at level 3, you put out 864 damage for 470 mana. That's only a little more efficient than Agonizing Bonds. Agonizing Bonds gets you 1.828 damage per mana while running Torment for 6 seconds gets you 1.838 damage per mana. From then on, Torment exceeds Agonizing Bonds in damage per mana efficiency at a rate of 2.4 damage per mana.

Skill Allocation

There are many ways to build Torturer. Too many, actually. Most of it is situational but here is the cookie cutter build.

1. Chain Reaction
2. Agonizing Bonds
3. Agonizing Bonds
4. Impalement
5. Agonizing Bonds
6. Impalement
   
7. Agonizing Bonds*
8. Impalement
9. Impalement*
10. Torment
11. Torment
12. Chain Reaction
    
13. Chain Reaction
14. Chain Reaction*
15. Stats
16. Torment*
17. Stats
18. Stats
19. Stats
20. Stats
21. Stats
22. Stats
23. Stats
24. Stats
25. Stats

Explanation:

• 1 point in Chain Reaction early since a stun can come in handy. Maxed later for team fights where it's harder to dodge.
  
• Agonizing Bonds maxed first due to spammability/farming/harassing
• Impalement has second priority because it's effective at hero killing early and is useful for pushing.
  
• Torment maxed later because you need a larger mana pool to keep it up

Item Builds

Starting Items

• 1x Healing Potion - 100
• 3x Mana Potions - 150
• 2x Runes of the Blight - 180
• 3x Minor Totems - 159

Total Cost: 589 Gold

This leaves you with 14 gold left.

You can never have enough consumables. You want to stay in your lane for as long as possible. Mana Potions are just so you have a source of mana regeneration to continue using your spells. Minor Totems are just for an extra stat boost which equates to extra survivability and a slightly larger mana pool.



You should also have somebody on your team grab an Monkey/Winged Courier in case you run out of consumables. If nobody gets one then suck it up and get it yourself.



It's a pub game. 4/5 pubbies will ***** about not having wards. 1/5 will actually bother to purchase and place wards. That 1/5 is you. Torturer should play in the aggressive lane due to his offensive power. Ward the rune/forest and place an anti-spawn ward in the neutral camp to prevent pulls.




Never start off with a Bottle alone. By starting off with a Bottle you're missing bonus stat items or other important items such actual consumables. Once you have enough gold, run yourself a Bottle if you want to.

Core Items

• 2x Fortified Bracelets - 1020
• 1x Power Supply - 603
• 1x Ghost Marchers - 1500

Total Cost: 3123 Gold

This is the basic build on Torturer that you always want to aim to get.

• The Bracelets are just in case you need extra health/survivability. You can skip Bracelets if you decide that you don't need the extra health. I recommend at least 2-3 of these if you do.
• Enhanced Marchers can be bought out of side shop. It gives you speed to chasing/ganking and is a great item for positioning. Gives you a little damage boost for harassing and farming so you don't need to waste mana.
• Power Supply is your best friend. Clutch mana when you need that one more cast. Clutch health when you need it to get away. You're gonna be in a the middle of **** and you're gonna have 15 charges on this ***** always. Use it.

Other Items

You ARE the ward ***** of your team. So suck it up and buy wards. Your team having wards > you getting farmed. Because your role in team fights is to land a nuke, land a stun. And if you don't die, you'll pull out of your ass some extra DPS and maybe score a few kills with Impalement/Torment. If you run into some extra cash. Here's what you should buy.

• Void Talisman (1500) for 7 Strength, 7 Agility, 7 Intelligence, and the ability to not be targeted by physical attacks for 4 seconds (25 second cooldown). Great item for you since you're running into a massive cluster**** called a team battle. This will prevent you from dropping to physical DPS heroes and physical damage spells.
  

• Sustainer (1750) for 10 damage, 5 hp/sec regen, 125% mana regeneration, and the flexibility to use this item for a Nullstone/Sacrificial Stone.
• Sacrificial Stone (5050) for 450 + 25x health, 400 mana, 6 + 0.25x hp/sec, 150% mana regen, 1x mana/sec. Charges (x) gained whenever an enemy hero dies within a 1000 radius. On death, half the charges are lost, allies are healed for 400 + 25x in a 1700 radius, respawn time is reduced by 3 seconds per charge, gold lost is reduced by 25 per charge, and vision and experienced is gained in the area until you respawn. Despite the nerfs to Sac Stone, it's not a complete piece of crap item if you don't die a lot.
  
• Nullstone (4850) for 15 Strength, 15 Agility, 15 Intelligence, 10 damage, 6 hp/sec, 200% mana regeneration, and a spell block every 20 seconds. Good for regen and an alternative for spell immunity.

• Staff of the Master (4300) for 10 Strength, 10 Agility, 10 Intelligence, 200 Health, 150 Mana, and an improved ultimate. Gives decent stats but no regeneration. You'll get a decent amount of rejuvenation due to Bottle/Power Supply so this item is viable. since it doesn't increase the mana upkeep of Torment while it improves the damage.

• Frostfield Plate (4700) for extra armor, mana, and a second AoE nuke along with a passive AoE attack speed reduction. Gives +30 Intelligence, +15 Armor, -25% IAS Aura, AoE Nuke dealing 200 damage/-40% Movement Speed (30 Second Cooldown).

• Behemoth's Heart (5500) for extra health and regeneration. Gives +300 HP, +35 Strength (665 Health), and passive cooldown reduction of 15% and improved cast speed for +30. Great item. Not as useful as it was before since it doesn't give INT heroes the regen anymore.

• Totem of Kuldra (5675) gives you a disable along with stats and mana regeneration. Gives +35 Intelligence, +10 Strength, +10 Agility, 200% Mana Regeneration, and a 3.5 duration Morph (turns target into chattering teeth - 35 Second Cooldown).

• Shrunken Head (3910) is an awesome item if you need the magic immunity. Gives +24 damage, +10 Strength, and magic immunity upon activation. The magic immunity lasts for 10 seconds initially with a 75 second cooldown. Duration is reduced by 1 second and cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds for every use. It will not go under a 5 second duration and 55 second cooldown

• Shaman's Headdress (2350) is also good if you need more magic armor. The Headdress gives +10 Magic Armor and +8 HP/sec regeneration. Can be made into Barrier Idol
  
• Barrier Idol (3653) for +10 Magic Armor, 10 Hp/sec, and on activation creates gives a 400 magic damage Barrier to all allies in a 500 radius for 100 mana and 8 seconds. Cooldown of 60 seconds.

• Portal Key (2150) is a great item if your team does not have a dependable/ranged disable. You want to use this to blink in and land your spells and take minimum damage while initiating. The Portal Key gives an 18 second cooldown blink ability (1200 units maximum)

[[1]Tryptophan]

Gameplay

You need a good team composition as Torturer. You need a hero who can fill the role of tanking so you don't get focus fired. You also need support DPS to cover your ass.

Here's an example of a good organized lineup.

Torturer - You blow **** up with your AoE
Slither - Support DPS, slow, imba DoT
Keeper of the Forest - Fills the role of tanking, great initiator
Valkyrie - Support DPS, good initiator, can semi-carry
Hellbringer - Initiator, great laning phase

Torturer and Slither can run a cheese lane in the long lane to prevent their safe lane from farming. Keeper, Valkyrie, and Hellbringer can all effectively solo mid leaving the other two the short lane.

Solo middle lane is your best bet as Torturer in public games. You're a great ganker which means you'll be able to take advantage of the middle lane. Run yourself a Bottle ASAP if you've taken the middle lane by yourself. You want to gank as much as you can (don't overgank) and push if you went with the gank and push build.

Another great lane choice is soloing the short lane. Torturer can easily 1v2 due to 600 range, a spammable nuke, and a stun. If you're soloing the side lane then you're obviously playing with an organized team who has a good dual lane mid combination to shut down their farm. The obvious option is to have a jungler. Junglers can pull and gank for you. Having a jungler means you have two solo lanes. Obviously your team will be able to pull in more EXP because of this.

If you're playing with a friend, the best way to play Torturer is to run cheese lanes in the long lane so their short lane farm is ruined. Good partners for this would be Blacksmith, Slither, and any other hero with a slow/stun.

All you really need for Torturer to be useful is Marchers (Ghost Marchers if you're racking in a decent amount of gold), Bracelets, Power Supply, and a **** ton of wards. Of course, getting luxury items is good too :P

During team battles, don't try to be the hero and 1v5 everybody by staying in the center UNLESS you have items such as Void Talisman/Nullstone/Sacrificial Stone. Helm of the Black Legion may also work. At the beginning you want to stay back, drop a stun, land a nuke. If your team has good CC and has drawn a decent amount of focus fire, it's time to go in and rip with Impalement/Torment.

Allies and Enemies

Allies:

Any heroes with disables will help you. This includes heroes with disables target stuns that will help in ganks to set up your spells. Many heroes fall under this category

Examples:

Blacksmith - Stun, slow, magic armor reduction. Acts as good bait because he's melee.
Glacius - Slow, immobilize, mana regen.
Slither - Slow, disables health regen, perfect for running cheese lanes
Electrician - Nuke, grip. With electrician you might even want to skill Chain Reaction/Impalement because that adds up to 4-5 seconds of stun in early levels and 4-5 seconds of Impalement hurts like no other.
Witchslayer - Hex, stun. You can play incredibly aggressive with dual range and dual disables.

Counterpicks

Any enemy with innate magic reduction will throw you off. Other heroes that will throw you off are those with silences, magic immunity, or mana burn.

Defiler - 900 range silence for 6 seconds. Defiler overshadows you in every way possible. She's not as item dependent and play your role much more effectively.
:jera: Jereziah - 15 seconds of Magic Immunity. You're useless.
Predator - He can carry better than you outright and has 5.25 seconds of Magic Immunity and can easily lure you into wasting your stun.
Blood Hunter - 15 second silence. You're done.
Magebane - He can get 20.5 Magic Armor just by blinking next to you. Your spells are useless and your mana is drained. With your spells wasted and your mana being drained even further, his ulti against you is a multi kill if you're near your team.

Changelog

8/9/09 - Guide Released
6/17/10 - Complete reformat and update.

Credits

Enjoy the guide! If I made any mistakes please correct me. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

"Tryptophan's Guide to Torturer" is intended for www.HeroesOfNewerth.com only.
Copyright ? 2009 Tryptophan All Rights Reserved

[Utred]

Very awesome, just like the defiler guide. Best guides on this forum imo.

[Extenze1]

Very nice looking guide.

[[S2]ElementUser]

Add to Cons "May be difficult to use/aim Chain Reaction" or something like that. Unless you have a reliable stun like Hammerstorm's stun or Glacius' Ice Imprisonment, the enemy can juke out of Chain Reaction if they're experienced players. It's the same thing with Leshrac (only, it seems way easier with Leshrac because everything is slower & bigger in DotA...)

You should add some good reliable stunners to help Torturer combo his somewhere in the guide . Looks very good though, very little that I actually have problems with

[[1]Tryptophan]

I was going to finish the allies and enemies section earlier but I was dragged to go shopping for hours.

[Lethe]

Very nice guide, an official guide on torturer was way overdue. Personally I take torment at 13/14 due to the fixed mana cost of impalement and the strength at which it scales. I'm sure both approaches work though so yea very nicely done.

[[1]Tryptophan]

Completed the section.

Very nice guide, an official guide on torturer was way overdue. Personally I take torment at 13/14 due to the fixed mana cost of impalement and the strength at which it scales. I'm sure both approaches work though so yea very nicely done.

That's actually a very good build. I'll need to add that in.

[Internets1]

Excellent guide I have been wanting to see how other players approach this hero. I play Torturer 90% of the time.

I like the idea of Frostfield Plate first I always just went straight for the Sacrificial Stone.

[dune]

Love the guide, I knew voting for Torturer would come though! ^.^

Perhaps talking a little about how to play the hero in a dual-lane should the solo already be taken would make this perfect, particularly with the fun that is Impalement+Enhanced Marchers.

[noodle0117]

You forgot hellflower.
Hellflower works great with torturer, since all you have to do is aim it at a target hero, stun him, and continue to unleash all your powerful AOE attacks on him.

[[1]Tryptophan]

I'll look towards adding a little gameplay selection on that.

Hellflower is more for DPS heroes, not for Torturer. For 25 gold more you can get a Sacrificial Stone which is much more useful. There's many items more useful than Hellflower. For example, Frostfield Plate is cheaper and much more useful. This is what your end game Torturer inventory should look like.

Post Haste
Sacrificial Stone
Frostfield Plate
Totem of Kuldra
Staff of the Master
Shrunken Head/Behemoth's Heart.

You don't need a Hellflower.

[Bocks]

hmm, i usually buy boots with 1 bracer, then a guantlet (or w/e the +3 strength thing is called) with a circlet, with that inventory i finish a bloodstone, then finish my bracer and the posthaste, usually farm for linkens after, then heart if necessary, frostfield plate seems way worth a try tho, it will certainly help land that first stun

[dune]

Frostfield is just really nice for the incredibly sexy 200 damage AoE with a 4 second 40% slow! It'll do wonders if you're trying to chase someone down with Impalement and Torment on.

[Glykeria]

"Tryptophan's Guide to Defiler" is intended for www.HeroesOfNewerth.com only.


Not sure but I think that needs changed.

[RPZip]

"Tryptophan's Guide to Defiler" is intended for www.HeroesOfNewerth.com only.


Not sure but I think that needs changed.

What about it?

The copyright 2008 part is wrong, but that seems fine.

[[1]Tryptophan]

What the **** man? It's already 2009? Holy crap.

Yeah I changed it now. I used my Defiler guide template for this guide.

[PoopyDesires]

Will definitely be seeing this in premium soon.

[[1]Tryptophan]

I'll send the request later today.

[[whe]ChukNorris]

Very nice perfect guide.