Fight better than a top 100 player | Feb 12 update

Feb 12 update: https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16252083&b=0&a=0&start=320&to=25644004 Post #2 highlights the updated part (clicky link)

Intro
(Every section is grouped by orange text, and the green text will tell you whether to skip the section or not)

This series of guides is meant to teach players how to play at a higher level to completely maximize EVERY SINGLE aspect of your game, most players in this game, even ones in the top 100, could still tweak a few (or a lot of) things they do to play better.

Please make sure you are starting with the Part 1 thread (Links below to each thread)
No matter what your stats are, this guide was easily made to be skimmed through - each section is in orange text, and you are told whether you should read the section or skip to the next set of orange text, give every section a skim no matter what your skill level is.
Click which part you wish to navigate to below:
Part 1: Training
Part 2: Merits+Settings+Education+company
Part 3: Sway the fight in your favor.

This is everything I’ve learned in my entirety of playing torn, I may be 20b stats currently, but I was fighting players with the stats like mine since I was 3b stats and I was collecting retal hits on them every time

______________________________________________________


The fundamentals of attacking all starts with your training, Part 1 will focus on things you do while training.

Training
(If you are balanced stat player; your build is dead... You should only train this way if you are a newbie establishing yourself in stats... it is time to join the dark side. If are not a stat whore, or just generally not sure how to train... read this section.)

There are only 2 real potential builds in the game and both of them involve being a whore. Your parents will be so proud. Dexterity Whore or Defense Whore. I will go through training and how to start up and why it is important for you to pick a main stat and why it can only be dexterity or defense.

How to train from day 0 - As a new player to the game it can be quite important to to get all of your stats away from the lower end of the starting stats. Stat gains are PAINFULLY slow up to around the 20m mark in each stat and start to get a lot better around the 50m mark and continue to get better and better the higher they get.

Each gym has "dots" that show how much of a specific stat is gained. In the early stages of playing you should train towards unlocking new gyms and training to the stat that has the highest gains in the specific gym you have unlocked. I highly recommend joining a 3 star or better Music Store company while doing this as the company perk awards extra experience for unlocking gyms which ends up giving a massive boost to gym gains in the short and long run. This is one of the best companies for a newer player to join.

Once you have unlocked the final Georges Gym you should start to go this more balanced route to the point where you unlock a double stat gym (where EITHER your strength + speed is 25% higher than your defense + dexterity or the other way around where your defense + dexterity is 25% higher than your strength + speed) as well as a single stat gym (where EITHER your defense or dexterity is 25% higher than your second highest stat... it is very important that you pick between defense or dexterity and we will hit on that in the next sections). You should also at this point with all gyms unlocked try as much as possible without losing the special gyms to train towards your factions specific gym gains/Steadfast that are above 10%. These special gyms give an extra percentage of gains (the single stat gym training for the most, but the double stat gym still beats the best heavy gym). I hit on these gyms a bit later, but this should be your main goal as a player starting out. Unlocking all gyms and then working towards unlocking the special gyms.

 

Balanced Build (all stats fairly even) - For younger players only (Balanced is a terrible build for the long haul that only younger players should use, roughly between 0-3 year old accounts at the very most while you train to get your account established in stats)

Going balanced in stats means that they are all roughly the same... The first thing that I want to explain is that Balanced stats of 1b stats SHOULD NOT mean that you have 250m in each stat exactly... if that's what your stats look like, thank god you found this thread, because you're terrible... but that is okay because I am here to help you; for this guide's sake and for your sake of being a better player, balanced just means you are leaving no stats behind and that they are fairly close outside of specifically training to have special gyms. Balanced stats should be a little uneven for the sake of having these special gyms as they massively increase gym gains.

After you have all of the gyms unlocked and you have special gyms unlocked, It is probably best to keep stats within a decent distance of one another just to establish a base amount of stats. It is up to you to decide when you are high enough to stop training like a massive pussy and to stop being more on the balanced side and leave stats behind in the dust to die for potentially long periods of time. The higher your stats are the higher stats you gain so the sooner you pick your favorite stat and can leave stats behind the better due to the increase of gains. Set a goal for yourself, maybe it is 250m in each stat, or maybe it's 500m each stat, or if you want to go the long haul road then maybe it is 1b each stat; no matter what though at some point, if you want to become a good player, you will have to become a whore. Whoring does not mean that you will leave a stat behind forever, but you will just give extra love to a specific stat and make it your primary focus.

It's important to note that all 4 stats help and that you should train all 4 up to a certain point semi equally while maintaining those special gyms.

Here is a link to a post by Chedburn (the game owner himself) saying how he dislikes promoting balanced builds: (Link). You will never get any love for going balanced, and it will make you a weaker player. This is why you have to become a whore.

Whoring - Whoring in short is going heavy into a single stat as an attempt to make it pretty much equal to 50% or more of your total stats. The goal of whoring is to have a stat that you can use towards your advantage. There are specific items that you unlock called biological boosters (Epinephrine, Tyrosine, Serotonin, Melatonin) that are unlocked from education that boost a specific battle stats by 300-500% (4 to 6x, because 500% is 6x not 5x stats). These help create a massive stat gap so having a stat that you whored and can use these on helps a lot.

With the most recent update on the game gym gains get higher the higher a stat is. So going extremely heavy onto a stat allows you to potentially out train players giving you a reward for focusing on a single stat and having a stat that is much larger than the rest.

When you are ready to leave your other stats behind you need to pick one tank stat and say that you’re either a dexterity whore or a defense whore. No matter what stats you are, you should have in mind of what you want to go as you should have the single stat gym unlocked and ready to go.

Why can’t I pick Strength/Speed to whore? - Glass cannon build never works… in any game. You will get one shot while not being able to one shot back no matter how much strength and speed you have, it’s just never going to happen and you’re leaving yourself squishy where literally any and every player can still deal with you easily… the entire goal of training is to lessen the amount of players in the game that are able to deal with you and the only way to do that is to become a tanky beast (and with the med update in 2021 you want to not die and take the least amount of damage possible at all times more so now than ever).

So what is the better stat to pick then? - Let's go over both.
Defense
Defense is considered the more well-rounded and better stat - this is because if you have 14 times the enemy's strength in defense, they do 0 damage. Example. 14b defense versus 1b strength; In this scenario, anyone that is 1b or less strength will deal 0 damage to you. This is the entire reason defense is considered stronger.

The downside to this stat is that it’s pretty popular due to this reason, having 10b defense will make you strong to the average player, but so many players these days that have 2 to 3b strength just from training - so you’re looking at needing more like 30b defense before you are actually on the strong side and scary in war. Serotonin is also the lowest stat-boosting temp that only gives 300% boost (4x boost... not 3x it's 300% on top not 300% total so if you have 2b defense this will turn it into 8b), while other boosters give 500% boost (6x boost).

The plus side is that LSD buffs strength +30% but more importantly defense by +50%, while also giving 50e. While it’s no Xanax, it’s still a powerful large percentage boost to defense that can get you up to doubling your defense with merits/education/faction perks on top of it. Dex does not have any drugs that boost it up. It is a nice oh shit drug to have in your arsenal going defense.

Comments from Legendary update in regards to defense (edited portion of the section on new defense set)-
~with the release of the defense set the ratio of having 14x a players stats to reduce damage down to 0 "essentially" the set reduces this down to only needing around ~6x as much as a player. This does let poor players have somewhat of a chance to go this stat but you are still looking at needing 12b to block out 2b strength. This does add the ability for poor players to go defense but please note you still need to have a lot of money to use stat enhancers. While this allows you to have a lot less defense and not need a crazy number like 100b in defense -- but you are still going to need like 100b worth of cash spare by time you're ready to SE to dump into this stat as well as cash for buying the defense set to actual negate players (dex players do need to buy a hazmat or gas mask or something to block out tear gas), just now budget defense whores will be required to dish out cash now just like dex players need to. For anyone wondering if they should switch from dex to defense it's still something to keep in mind that dexterity has the ability to create a ~256x gap between yourself and the enemies speed with tyro and flash spam so if you're poor and can't SE or SE much dex will still be the best budget option. Essentially regardless of anything you should choose the stat you like the best, this way you don't regret making a choice just on what you think is more viable and actually go the stat you like the idea behind better. I know a lot of players when the defense set was released were wondering if they should switch to defense so this is my thoughts on that. (added this bullet point)
~With way better weapons being added to the game, defense is not something that is as valid of a choice if you are not 100% positive that you can hit 30b++ in the stat... in a smaller faction (not a end game hall of fame faction) the new armor set for defense can make defense viable around but you will still want 10b++. This means that you need a big bank role to be an effective defense whore. It is hard to suggest going defense to someone that is not able to back it up with a lot of funds. If you do go defense you want to be confident in your ability to make money and be able to toss a few SE's per year into the stat.
~Legendaries have devalued defense a bit which is something that really bothers me about this stat. With higher armor values on legendary armors this is technically a nerf to defense stat. Armors before legendaries had 40-45 armor. Each point of armor reduces damage by 1%. This means that defense was left to mitigate 55-60% of the damage. Armors now with EOD armor go up to 55-60 range, leaving 40-45% of the damage to be mitigated by defense (assuming the enemy isn't using one of the two armor penetrating weapon of sorts). I know EOD is something that is very rare but just it existing devalues defense; it also has a chance to reduce to fully block a hit with a 20-25% chance of that occurring. The actual amount of damage actually getting through went from 55-60% to about ~30% actually gets past the armor. Let's not forget though that there are clothing stores that give 20% more armor, or a private security that gives 25% more armor on a set. That 55-60 armor just went up to 68.75 to 75... only letting 25-27.25% damage in... or only like ~20% with the full block. All of this training to negate 20% damage. Now there are penetrate and puncture that rip through armor as well as ammo that rips through armor, but not every player will use those, so I think it's at least something important to consider and think about. It is hard for me to recommend defense because of this.
~Risks to defense: There are easy to apply debuffs such as weapons that have a strength boost on them (granted there is a speed boost weapon) that boost the enemies strength by up to 190% from what has been seen, there is also a weapon that reduces defense by 25% per stack up to 3 stacks and execute that a red one regardless of your stats can just kill you at like ~30% or less life.
~Potentially good weapons: There is a weapon that reduces enemy strength by 25% up to 3 times, this maybe has some potential to make defense more effective but is not the most effective for a faction carry to use -- if you are more of a newb this weapon will really shine but if you're in a hall of fame or one of the best in your faction it's very useful. Things like disarm / stun can help compliment damage reduction as well, but for legendaries it is best to use what you like the most.

Dexterity
If you have 14b dexterity compared to 1b enemy speed, you will dodge a lot of the attacks, but you’re looking at still getting hit - now these numbers aren’t exact it’s just my personal experience, you’re looking at 1 in every 6 hits at least hitting you still. Now this doesn’t mean dexterity is crap because there are some things that tip the scale to balancing it out somewhat.

There are 3 big pro’s in my opinion to being a dex whore that help it become a viable stat.
1) Dexterity helps you avoid negative status effects being applied on you (like gold ak’s demoralize; however, I will note that these effects cannot be applied if 0 damage is done so an extremely high defense whore can avoid these as well). With the addition of legendary weapons, being hit less means that these magical effects that kick-ass will not be applied as often since enemies will have trouble hitting you.

Now that’s pretty much the main perk on an everyday basis. Dex is an attacking stat, this is where it shines when a war is going on and you’re online and ready to kick some ass. While it’s not wartime you’re a wet noodle and easy to kill… but when it is wartime this is where #2 and #3 come in.

2) If you’re actually in a good faction and your faction leader is on everyone's ass, every member should be using smoke grenades for the most part. This means in war most of your teammates are supporting you by nerfing enemy speed which helps you out as a dex whore more so than a defense whore - yes they can wait smokes out but it easily lets you jump into some retal hits where the target is already smoked, or enemies are slower to kill you because they are dealing with all the smoke spam going on in the war where they won’t be dumb enough to attack you until the effects are cleared which allows a fellow faction member to jump on them and shut down their attack. #2 here requires a good team that you’re playing with, so for this perk, you’re relying on your faction mates to not suck ass.

3) The biggest reason and best for last, Tyrosine boosts dexterity by 500% for 120 seconds (6x stat boost, so if you have 2b dexterity it will be boosted to 12b). While these 120 seconds are going on, you quickly swap to a flashbang in the following fights which reduces enemy speed by 4/5rds. You only put the tyrosine back on to reapply the effect when the timer is getting low (so about every 3 or 4 fights with the 1 second turns... line your targets up before hand). This combination creates a huge stat gap. Smoke grenade also works since flashbang is blocked by welding helmets - it depends on where your stats are at as you probably won’t see many welding helmets until you’re a high stat player. If we look back at the example of a 14b dex to 1b speed assuming the enemy player has nothing applied no tear gas or melatonin you can boost that 14b to 84b with tyrosine and then throw a flash and nerf their speed down to 200m. Which puts you from 14x to 420x their stats… you can’t create that massive stat gap with defense. This makes dexterity feel very strong at a much lower stat amount.  This method relies on being the attacker, but defense has no method to create such a massive gap between stats. 

The cons to Dex besides that it isn’t a 14 to 1 ratio like defense (with credit to player Proxima for doing some math, it's more like a 64b dex can't be hit by 1b speed, a 64 to 1 ratio for 0% chance they can hit you)… while that 252x their speed sounds amazing AF...tear gas is pretty cheap and is a dex killer, reducing your dex to only1/3rd of what it is and stacking if multiple join the fight to throw them. You NEED to get an item that can block these as a dex whore. It is blocked by a Hazmat Suit or with a Delta Gas Mask (a legendary armor piece) so you are forced into using a Hazmat Suit the Delta armor set (or just the helmet, which means you will not be able to get any other armor set bonuses; though the Delta set is very strong). Both of these can potentially be quite expensive. It can get a little more pricey as well if you want to fully maximize and beat high-end players that have a welding helmet (as these block flashbangs) then you need to spend 16b on a Handbag so that you can throw 2 smoke grenades in fights and with the one second turns, a handbag is kind of something you should have just incase as well since a flash can only last half the fight. Other downsides are that there is also Tracer ammo that boosts accuracy, as well as accuracy mods, and melatonin that boosts enemy speed 500% so while you have the potential to create a massive stat cap it’s also possible for enemies to close that gap just as hard if they are a good player. This is why dex excels at attacking as players do not normally sit on tracer/melatonin and normally only put them on when they are preparing to shut you down.

Comments from legendaries update in regards to dex (edited portion of the section on new defense set)-
~With the addition of the dex set it is honestly just another thing to pile onto the already advantages dex has (which is tyro/flash or tyro/smoke swapping during fighting). I go more into this in my legendary thread and I think as a set it is a bit stronger than the sentinel defense set which is the counter opposite of the new Vangaurd set even tho they are the exact same set but in terms of being able to group fight a player and stack distraction stacks on a player that significantly reduce a players stats it will be harder to hit a dex whore naturally. In terms of this set it isn't adding anything that was missing from dex just adds an additional boost you can pile on. This could potentially make sureshot a more popular weapon, I've heard prices are up on that weapon bonus. I still do not think sureshot is a dex killer. You should not ignore defense completely and this just makes that more important if sureshot rises in popularity. It will be more likely players will use melatonin against a dex whore so you essentially need less defense than a defense whore since only a mad man would use an epi against you. To avoid being one shotted you should train defense you cannot completely ignore this stat as a dex whore. A sureshot at 11% gaurantees 2-3 hits on you and it will still assuming you didn't completely ignore defense, it will still take that player up to 50-100e just to kill you and wasting the enemies energy is still a good thing. (added this bullet point)
~Risks to dex: There is a weapon that has sureshot with a 11% chance to guarantee a hit. This is a scary weapon that is something to be a bit concerned about. A lot of players are concerned about this being a dex killer but I don't think so as there are ways to lessen the risk of this weapon killing you..
~Potentially good weapons: There are weapons like stun/suppress that can make the enemy miss their next turn, this is a good compliment onto your dex adding an even bigger gap reducing the enemies chance to hit you at all since you will have 25 attacks while they only have like 18-20 attacks almost a weapon that guarantees they miss pretty much. This is just another nice little addition to make yourself more annoying. Disarm can remove a players weapon for 12 turns so if someone is attacking you with a sureshot weapon you can potentially use this as a defensive strategy to reduce the amount of turns they can use it per fight if sureshot really worries you. With armor going so high in reduction you can just get EOD (one day) to reduce damage massively as well to compliment your dex and not need as much defense... assault armor also helps as it reduces bullet damage. Assault armor also blocks bullets and sureshot can only be on a rifle from the current data we have. With a security firm this is a cheap option and only lets like 30% of the total damage slip through at for "average" assault armor. I do not think Sureshot is that big of a risk when there are many ways to counter it.

------------------

It’s up to you to pick one of the two tank stats, in the end it comes down to whatever you like more, if you like the idea of being hit for low amounts or being that annoying f**k that players miss most of the time.

It is a slight nerf with the 2021 one-second turns as your flash will run out often before fights end.

Defense does not feel strong until a much higher threshold, dex with how high it can be risen feels strong at a much lower amount, this may be something to help you decide on which stat you pick to whore if money is not your strong suit.

[image: i.gyazo.com]
(https://wiki.torn.com/wiki/Battle_Stats#Stat_Weights) Picture above from wiki, credits: Proxima


Ratios / why is whoring good?
(If you think after reading this that whoring means you only need one stat, or you’re not sure about stats/ratios or why whoring a stat is good still then read this section, otherwise skip)

Some people think I am saying you do not need any stat except your whore stat abandon everything except for your whore stat. You need str/speed or else you can't kill anyone so I'm not saying f**k everything train def/dex only. What whoring will do is give you a stat that you can boost to the moon above what people can handle for wars say defense you can take LSD for +50% defense, and then take serotonin for 4x defense or dex using tyro then flashbang the next few fights putting you to a point where fewer people will be able to knock you down.

Here's a scenario for you to picture how this works out and why whoring is good.

Lets take a player that is balanced at 1b stats, 250m of each stat... you excel at nothing. (Balanced player)
Lets take a second player who is 200m str / 200m spe and 500m defense, and 100m dex. (Defense whore player)

The defense whore has the ability to buff that defense really high with LSD (+50% defense during the duration) and a serotonin (you will read about temps later in post 3 but serotonin is a defense booster that gives 4x defense during the duration). The balanced player can do this but can't hit as high. So in this example the defense whore player only has 2x defense compared to the balanced players strength... but add in LSD and serotonin combined you get ~9x the defense compared to the balanced players strength (and with 14x being the point they cant do anything at all you can see why this becomes effective having a stat you can boost to the moon like this)... now for dex whores say it's 500m dex, 100m defense instread just tyrosine alone (again a temp weapon you will read about on post 3 but in short it boosts defense 6x during the duration) you would have 12x the balanced players speed instead of just 2x without anything, there is also a way to use tyrosine and flash at the same time which lets you get 60x more dex than the enemies speed (closer to proxima's 64x approximation of a 0% chance you can be hit)

It's useful to have all 4 stats but one of the tank stats can be way above the rest of your stats... I don't have a ratio I never followed a ratio ever. As for hank/baldr or any ratio that lets you have 3 special gyms that's up to you personally I dont think it's worth it because you only gain an extra 10m a year for maintaining that crazy ratio, it's 2.8% extra on a stat which is only 50m extra in the stats lifetime until you hit it to 2b.

Just to note that if the balanced player and whore player go head to head in a fight with the exact same stats the balanced player will win every time... as a whore you are training to use game mechanics to your advantage, you are also training for the long term as these builds excel the higher you can get the whore stat. I'm a whore player and have all my stats above 2b, that should be a goal to eventually hit 2b in every single stat because you need all stats regardless of how you train.

Hit a point where you feel comfortable leaving your stats staying static at and then from there you should massively whore one stat. You ideally should be training by feelings. If you feel like you take too much damage, you should train more defense or dexterity (whichever one you picked is ideal, but if you go defense and are being hit every single hit then you clearly need more dexterity; or if you go dexterity and are being hit too hard then you clearly need more defense) . If you feel like you hit like a wet noodle then train strength, and if you feel like you cannot hit for shit then train speed. You can go back to a stat when it is needed for a while, but eventually want to always revolve around back to that whore stat. I can not give you a ratio to follow (and I get asked what ratio should I train a lot)... My advice is to not let your whore stat go over 50% of your total stats. From here every month try to partake in chains or rank wars and play by feel. If you notice you had a lot of issues because you were sexy and took little damage but you just couldn't hit very often or couldn't hit hard then work on your strength and speed more. You should be testing your stats to make sure they do not suck. If you feel like you dodge a lot of attacks as a dex whore but you just can't deal with the big hits then consider bringing up your defense. There isn't some specific ratio to follow, you have to actually think for yourself and think back of how your monthly test of war/chain went and what stats you feel like you need. Keep whoring your whore stat but you need to go by feel on how to tell if a stat is falling too far behind. There may be times your whore stat is 50% other times it's only 30% because you felt like you needed to train other stats.

Torn players are so used to ratios it's removed your ability to think about anything except a ratio. You need to understand what the 4 stats do... speed helps you hit, strength does more damage on your hits, dex dodges attacks, defense makes attacks you take less damage when hit. Then you need to train based off of feel; but also whoring the stat to shit. There was not a single time I followed a ratio in my life I picked my favorite stat and trained it to the moon and then when I warred there was always something shitty about my stats... maybe I couldn't hit enough... that's how i decided it was time to train speed, or maybe I noticed I was being hit almost all of the time... that's how i decided if my dexterity was lagging behind.

 

It's hard to tell you exactly how to train but I suggest training by using milestones.  By using milestones what I mean would be taking small leaps in stats and setting a goal: "I want to get all of my stats to 1m in all"... then 5m all... then 10m all... then as your stats start to grow you can create larger milestones of 50m all... 100m all... 250m all... 500m all... 1b all.  And how you would train would be something like working your whore stat up first or prioritizing it training it 4 to 5 days of the week while maybe training the other stats just a little bit or not much at all... and bringing all of the stats you have upwards after to reach the milestone point... and at some point you can drift off towards maybe your milestone point is 100m each stat but now you want to start to gain some distance with your whore stat so you take it to 125m instead and train the rest to 100m and leave your non-whore stat at 50-75m range by setting that milestone but ensuring you surpass it on your whore stat... and by time you are like im going to make my milestone hitting 1b in all stats you trained that you you train dex to 1.5b to far surpass your milestone while the rest of your stats are only like 500m.  This is the easiest way for me to try to explain it is just set milestone / goal markers and surpass it with your whore stat... and maybe not reach it but don't keep it too far behind in your non whore stat as maybe you only train that defense to 700m and be like 'good enough that's practically 1b' before setting a new milestone or 1.5b all stats... maybe when you set that 1b goal in all stats your dex was already 1b and you want to make sure the others don't touch it so you trained an extra 500m before you went and got everything else up to 1b.  So if this helps you just picture a goal for your stats to be balanced... but make sure you surpass it with your whore stat and say 'f**k it good enough not too far but close enough' with your non whore stat at some point and the strength / speed should be the only ones actually hitting that milestone.

Training (maximize gains)
(If you have the single stat gym unlocked, skip this section to the next orange text, keep that gym)

Special Gyms
Double stat gyms gain 2.8% more than Georges gym. A single stat gym is +12% more than Georges. You wouldn’t like it if your faction leader removed steadfast forever, so why are you doing it to yourself… get a single stat gym - the best stat you can get it on is either dexterity or defense, whichever one is your whore stat. Even balanced players should be a little unbalanced to get these extra gains.

Training (cans/fhc)
Anyone using Cans/FHC to train (read this, you’re using them wrong, I guarantee it), otherwise skip to the next orange section.

There is no f**king reason ever to use energy cans/FHC on more than one stat. EVER. You’re a f**king idiot and losing stat gains by using cans/fhc on all of your stats. Use them on your whore stat and that’s it. There is no reason at all to Can or FHC more than one stat ever. Get your whore stat to the SE point and take that money you would have spent on Can/FHC’s monthly and buy SE’s instead for more gains… if you have more cash and are thinking of canning another stat use it on more SE’s. Be smart with your cash… the gains are awesome I know, but you never know if whatever you make your money from to afford these items will dry up or not -- so you might as well try to become an actual scary player, don't train just to train, train to become a scary beast that can carry your faction.

As for when to SE it's best to wait as long as possible... the point most used to take SE's is 2b... I am sure people will still SE at this point but it for sure is not worth it with the increased gains. I will say what I have always said 2-5b is the range to SE. If you are patient enough it should be upwards of being near the 5b mark. It all depends on your patience but now it is better than ever to wait that long. I am unsure of when some virgin will do the math on when cans stop being good, but just try to wait on as long as you can for SE's.

Mods -
(Read this if you’re one of the players skipping missions to save your E to train, or if you want to know good mods to get, otherwise check out part 2 of this guide in the next post)

This isn’t directly related to training - but so many players skip missions to gain more stats. I’m here to tell you you’re a f**king moron. Mods are basically free stat enhancers you will gain far more benefit from mods than you EVER WILL from training. Stats actually scale less than other things in the game such as armor points, accuracy, damage. This means that mods are better than stats. If you’ve ever wondered is it better to take 25b to buy a golden AK or take 25b of SE's on one of your stats to nearly double. The answer is gold AK, because the accuracy and damage scale harder than the doubling of a stat when it comes to fighting.

I will briefly go over mods worth getting, it will be up to you and your personal opinion on which to get (this could change come rank warring when legendary weapons are released and more guns become viable)

I will review every mod and let you know my thoughts on it... the weapon you use will be different than everyone else... but if you are a good player YOU WILL USE A RIFLE AS YOUR MAIN WEAPON.  Rifle's are superior in every way.  I listed what weapons each mod can actually attach to for convenience:

Sights (Rifle, SMG, Pistol, Machine Gun)- This is an absolute staple giving you a good amount of accuracy every turn.  It is simply one of the best mods in the game if you are using a gun it works on it should be on your gun 100% of the time.  You should always be thinking oh what should I pair with sight on this weapon.   

Lights (Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, SMG) - The flashlight is the most powerful mod in the game.  Dex or defense it should be used to assist the enemy in missing you to reduce damage.  It reduces accuracy by -5.0 at the highest light mod.  Light + sight should be what most people use on their rifles which you have or will have one because I just told you they were the best.  The sight being one of the best mods only adds 1.75 accuracy on the max sight this thing removes just about 3x that.  If you have ever used a low accuracy weapon you know that they are a bitch to hit with.  Nerfing a large chunk from your enemy's accuracy is very strong.

Lasers (Machine Gun, Pistol, Rifle, Heavy Artillery, Shotgun, SMG) - Laser is likely a very popular option as people love high damage and big numbers.  IF you have DEADEYE, you should use laser with a sight.  If you want more damage or you have expose on your weapon and just want to say f**k it and try to stack that crit up to the moon this is the mod to use. If you are using bleed a crit will make the bleed do more.  It's up to you on if you want to use light because it's the best mod or this because you don't care about surviving and just want to kill and get more lucky crits.

 

Brakes (Machine Gun, Pistol, Rifle, SMG) - There are diminishing returns when you stack accuracy mods... meaning that you wont gain the actual amount you see numbered but gain a % of it.  If you are struggling with smoke grenades, if you just need to try hard to take a dex whore out you would use sight mod + brake mod + tracer ammo + melatonin.  Despite the mods reducing the effect of each other it is a great backup mod to have for those times you are getting pissed off at smoke spam or a dex guy is being a pain in the ass.

 

For the above you should really be using sight and then deciding between the 3 (laser, brake, or light) for the second mod slot.

 

Trigger (Machine Gun, Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, SMG) - Pretty much only use of this is for something like assassinate to try to ensure the 'first turn' damage boost is actually applied.  I am not a big fan the bonus as i would rather use a different perk myself but it is popular and this is the perfect mod since it is only usable once per fight to use on a weapon you will also only use once in a fight.  Only other time I would consider using trigger is if somehow chedburn blessed you with a double perk legendary of deadeye + expose and you wanted to run a laser mod + trigger because you just expect to one shot all day everyday anyways.

 

Recoil Pad (Rifle, Machine Gun, Shotgun) - I think this is good to have.  If you are using special ammo that you need to conserve or using a gun that has little ammo such as a m4 shotgun or a gun that has the specialist perk... you likely will need to have it on your shotgun to not run out of bullets by turn 5 same with a specialist weapon. A lot of people don't really care about running out of ammo and will just use the next weapon they have and that may not be an option for you or you just might like the weapon you have where you want it to last longer.

 

Chokes (Shotgun) - You should really be using a rifle but if for whatever reason you use a shotgun it should be choke + recoil pad to not run out of ammo by turn 5 or use choke + laser for max damage.

 

Extra Magazines (Heavy Artillery, Machine Gun, Shotgun, Pistol, Rifle, SMG) - Not the best but a nice to have mod, maybe you only have one strong legendary weapon and want to make sure it can last the whole fight / have more for people group fighting you.  Maybe you have sureshot and have a tough dex whore you're up against and want to make sure it can be used 25 turns.  It's nice to have, likely won't be using this in a hardcore war as you don't want to be reducing your damage output. 

Mount bipod/tripod (Machine Gun, Rifle, Heavy Artillery) - Even if you are a defense whore you likely don't have 100b+ where you can afford to just get hit a lot more nerfing your dex using this.  You should use brake over this if you are going to stack accuracy mods.  You still want to be training dex as a defense whore.  Even though it isn't your focus to dodge attacks, dodging attacks is still a massive decrease in damage you take and your goal is to not create a opening for the enemy to deal more damage by hitting you more frequently.




Brief mention of Legendaries (new section)
(Chances are you are shooting yourself in the foot trying to buy budget weapons and just f**king my whole guide over by hurting yourself too much. I go into more details in my legendary guide linked in my profile signature and forum signature, but finish all of the posts in this guide first as it is more important.) (NEW section)

I did a few tests to show you, it took me a lot of E on just a few attacks but I wanted to show you just how much 5... 10... 15 damage difference can do. A lot of people try to buy budget weapons because legendaries are too damn expensive.

Start of test with non-legendary weapons skip to the bold 'end of test' if you dont want to look at numbers and just see the results:

Armalite (68.28 damage)
mug fired 2 rounds of her ArmaLite M-15A4 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 1005
mug fired 3 rounds of her ArmaLite M-15A4 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 981
Average of 2 hits (993 damage)

Enfield(63.51 damage, 4.77 damage less than white armalite)
mug fired 2 rounds of her Enfield SA-80 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 967
mug fired 3 rounds of her Enfield SA-80 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 937
Average of 2 hits (952 damage, 4.3% less damage than white arma)

M4A1 Colt Carbine (57.74 damage, 10.54 damage less than a white armalite)
mug fired 5 rounds of her M4A1 Colt Carbine hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 793
mug fired 7 rounds of her M4A1 Colt Carbine hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 764
Average of 2 hits (778.5 damage, 27.5% less damage than white arma)

Bushmaster Carbon 15 (53.16 damage, 15.15 damage less than white armalite)
mug fired 21 rounds of her Bushmaster Carbon 15 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 710
mug fired 1 round of her Bushmaster Carbon 15 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 717
mug fired 14 rounds of her Bushmaster Carbon 15 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 698
mug fired 11 rounds of her Bushmaster Carbon 15 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 740
Average of 4 hits (716.25 damage, 38.6% less damage than a white arma)

SIG 552 (69.43 damage, 1.15 damage higher than white arma)
mug fired 4 rounds of her SIG 552 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 964
mug fired 5 rounds of her SIG 552 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 962
mug fired 4 rounds of her SIG 552 hitting Sienestaja in the Chest for 938
Average of 3 hits (954.6 damage, 4% less damage than white arma)

END OF TEST

Now these percentages are not accurate because I have enfield and Armalite at 100% weapon XP while the rest are all 0% or near it. I do not have any weapon mastery via merits on any of these tested weapons.

The Sig 552 despite having 1 damage more than the armalite because I have it at 0% weapon XP makes it do arma level damage so the best I can do in this test is assume that these numbers could be like 10% off for the m4a1 and bushmaster. Even without the mastery the summary comes down to it where against a 68 damage armalite using a weapon with 5 less damage is almost 5% less damage, 10 less damage could be something like 15-27.5% less damage depending if you have maxed weapon XP or not, and 15 less damage using a weapon that's just barely above 50 damage is reducing your damage by 25-38.6% depending on your weapon XP. As I said I cannot properly test these out because I don't have weapon XP capped on all of these weapons, but regardless damage is a massive factor in your fights. The wiki states how damage works is that fists with 10 damage against a 50 damage weapon means that the weapon will do 5x more damage if that's 100% accurate my test is pretty spot on for if i had weapon damage the 68 vs 53 damage would be a 28% lesser damage difference.

What does this mean?
Well it means that you're probably a f**king donkey. Buying a 50 damage weapon that has a 10% chance to do a double hit doesn't even come close to making up the damage loss, Or a 50 damage weapon that is removing 25% of an enemies armor... is doing the exact damage as a armalite and you're dumb ass just paid a billion dollars for an white armalite that's yellow.

It may just be something you should consider to skip yellow weapons if you cannot afford anything that is game changing unless if you can actually get something that is close to a white armalites 68 damage as possible. Accuracy is not something I can test without 1000's of attacks but you have to assume that it is just as important as damage and armor show themselves to be and don't shoot yourself in the foot getting something way lower than the white armalites accuracy.

Before you even buy a weapon do that just take the number 68 which is a flat default white armalite nothing special and then divide in the number of your new weapon's damage... lets say 60 so 68 divided by 60 is 1.13333, that's 13.333% less damage than a white armalite is going to do. If the numbers higher than 1 dont get it it's a piece of shit, but the number after 1, the decimal numbers is the %. Do the math and ask yourself am I a donkey if i buy this shooting myself in the foot to where a white armalite would be better.

What Should I am to buy then to not be a shitty player?

What Should I am to buy then to not be a shitty player?

Primary --

A Rifle is the most important weapon, rifles shit on all other weapons and should be your first purchase. In order from best to worst:
1) Armalite (Has highest Damage and highest Accuracy out of all rifles, reloads every 5 turns)
2) Enfield (Highest amount of turns before reload at 7 turns, and Higher accuracy than Tarvor by +3)
3) Tarvor (Reloads every 5 turns, higher damage than Enfield by +2 or +3)
4) Sig 552 (Highest Damage with having same range as Armalite maybe even +1 damage, Accuracy is 5 or more less than Enfield and Arma so quite a hit to accuracy) -- it is kind of barely just viable imo due to low accuracy as a top weapon but it is the most popular due to damage being a way more popular stat than accuracy.   Legendary status also increases the accuracy so it can rank higher if you don’t need the extra chance to hit and want to hit as hard as possible.  

For Enfield / Tarvor the Enfield's edge is from the extra shots before a reload... I consider this better as you can reload once and do ~14 turns versus having to reload 2 times to do ~14 turns with the Tarvor so in a sense the additional damage Tarvor has could end up being not as much since you need to reload more / having less turns possible to use the perk you have especially when rifle is the most powerful weapon you can have.

 

The best rifle perks are penetrate or puncture or powerful if your focus is damage... powerful technically is better at a high level due to special ammo since there are no diminishing returns / it doesn't negate piercing negatively. Deadeye and expose come next but if you can get the magical double perk of both, it's the most powerful weapon in the game.  The only other options would be sureshot if you really hate dex whores, and specialist but only on an Enfield and you are forced to sacrifice a mod for recoil pad since this can last you ~15 turns, ~30 turns if it has conserve double perk as well.

Summary--
-Powerful if you use special ammo

-Penetrate/Puncture if you don't use special ammo often

-Deadeye/expose as alternate options that do a little less damage
-Sureshot against if you really hate Dex players
-Specialist if it's on an Enfield for even more damage than powerful

 

If a rifle isn't your first purchase you're a moron.

 

Secondary -- 

The best secondary weapons in order:
1) BT MP9
2) Qsz-92
3) Cobra Derringer
4) Desert Eagle (barely viable)
5) Milkor MGL / China Lake

Nothing can beat BT MP9 with revitalize as additional energy to do more hits in war is just superior especially if you are a top end player this can help pin down enemies.  Each additional hit you get to do also increases respect gained or allows for more Retalation hits as well help cap players meds.  Stricken that a Milkor / China Lake can do only do the capping meds part which makes them a way less viable option. Another option for the BT MP9 is motivation.  Assassinate is another viable popular perk for the pistols with a higher damage gun but requires a trigger mod and another accuracy mod... maybe even tracer ammo if you want to secure the hit -- nothing beats revitalize but Qsz-92, Cobra Derringer, Desert Eagle are the viable pistols for Assassinate and that is in order of best to worst. Desert Eagle is not really good due to super low accuracy but it is an option if you are struggling to find one of the other 2 only due to the lesser but almost as high damage it has in comparison.

The only reason I would consider not getting a BT MP9 would be if you're struggle with med cooldown making it hard to even use the extra energy as this is the main reason that opens up the other weapons/perks being viable. I am not huge on Assassinate but if you can get the mods for it and even tracer ammo... it becomes one of the highest damage weapons but is only good for 1 turn so you will need a good melee to back it up so now you are needing to invest heavy into a second weapon just to make it viable. Assassinate becomes better if you have Double Tap as it can trigger the additional damage twice.

 

Summary--
-Revitalize for doing way more work in wars -- Only weapon in the game that pays for itself due to increasing your war payouts due to more hits which makes it extremely strong. It's extremely strong on a carrying player that can use the additional energy to help pin down / cap meds of high stat enemies and allow members to freely attack while gaining more retaliation hits / respect from having more hits.
-Stricken for capping meds / paid mercenary hits / selling hospitalize time -- not huge on this perk personally but it's an option.
-Assassinate if all you care about is damage, assassinate + double tab if you really care about additional damage.
-Motivation on BT MP9 for the 5 minute stat buff, helps assist in increasing the damage you deal with other weapons due to the higher stats after using this weapon.

 

Melee -- 
Melee has it's downsides against parry and the 10 star strip club perks that reduce melees effectiveness. 
The only real options that are viable in order are:
1) Diamond Blade / Metal Nunchakus
2) Macana (less damage but a lot more accuracy than the other weapons)
3) Kodachi (more damage than Diamond Blade / Metal Nunchakus due to the education for +10% damage on Japanese blades but 5-7 less accuracy points so it's just barely viable if all you care about is damage but want to miss more so maybe not even adding any additional damage) If I am honest slashing having it's own bonuses is the only real reason it's viable. (looking at you bloodlust)

The rest of the Japanese blades I hate to say it but are just not that good.

 

Perk wise is up to your own liking... probably one of the stronger ones is bloodlust but that is for players that are a victim to group fights often so only for beasts.

-Fury/Rage do the highest damage overall but are more RNG related -- nothing beats an extra attack as nothing can increase your damage 100% unless if you were to just hit twice (or more times) which these perks do.
-Penetrate/Puncture if you don't like RNG perks for more consistent damage, but a lesser damage increase
-Bleed can be an option but again not as much damage as the other perks. Since kodachi does the most damage a bleed on this would be best.
-Bloodlust if you are a group fight victim often (pairs well with EOD armor)
-Motivation/Eviscerate for a good buff/debuff. Evis lasts 5 minutes and applies as long as you hit so it's great to apply and then use your rifle, motivation lasts 5 minutes as well so great to apply and keep the stacks rolling with your biology boosters making sure to reapply when needed.
-Parry if you hate melee players or hate players using plunder (potential to lower damage in a fight, not a big fan of it)
-Plunder for mugging (doesn't really help you do any damage so not really helping you in a fight)

Now that we went over weapons, lets briefly go over armors.

 

Brief mention of Legendary Armors ():

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16252083&b=0&a=0&start=320&to=25665390 

This above post on page 17, the 4th post down I reply on armor sets if you are interested in that -- The main thing I want to point out here is for new players new to legendary armors.

 

Most new/younger without legendaries are using a full combat set, or a combat set with a full body armor for their chest piece.  The biggest upgrades you can get at this point when you have nothing is a Riot Helmet, and a Dune Body.  The Riot helmet covers your entire face unlike the combat helmet... the skin you see allows you to be hit in the flesh and every point of armor is 1% damage reduction so those flesh hits hurt like hell.  Riot helmet's visor protects against these flesh hits.  The Dune body just has a better bonus for a cheaper end legendary (if you can afford assault get that instead).  Most players use a full body armor because it gives the throat protection from those nasty flesh hits, dune vest does the same thing but has like 12 or more better armor which is a massive decrease of damage 12% or more!

 

These are just 2 cheap pieces, not something you want long down the road.  If you are not using any legendaries and do not have a lot of money GET THESE 2 PIECES.  A full assault set will be better but these are huge upgrades that WILL make a difference compared to not using any legendary.

Part 2 will go over merits, the company you are in, your weapons/armor, your settings, and education for younger players

Merits
(If you know hospitalization time, life, weapon mastery, are the absolute strongest merits and you have all of them maxed, then skip to the next orange text)

7 out of 10 merits costs 28 merits, while 8+9+10 cost 27 just for those last 3 points. This makes most merits only worth going up to the 7 out of 10 mark.

I will list off how you should go about doing your merits and rank them in order by strongest merit

#1 (Strongest must have) - Hospitalization Time (Suggested 10/10) - With the med update, you need this now. The number of times your enemy can get out of the hospital is limited, make sure it’s even more limited. In my opinion, this is a must-have 10/10. The more you let the enemy come back to life the more damage they can do to your faction, you’re single-handedly losing a war for your faction by allowing your enemy to come out of the hospital more times than they should be able to. For as long meds/revives have a limit on them you want to make sure your enemy hits that limit as fast as possible. It is the secret weapon and holy grail of merits for warring.

#2 - Life points (Suggested 10/10) - You need this at 10/10. Life is a 5th stat, and can swing fights you would have otherwise lost.

#3 (equally as strong as #2, Suggested 10/10 in one or 7/10 in two depending on playstyle) - Weapon Mastery - Prior to legendaries it was best to just go 10/10 as 10 gives +10% damage and +2.0 accuracy. 7 out of 10 gives +7% damage and +1.4 accuracy. I would say now that 7/10 is best in 3 scenarios. The first scenario is that you want to play around disarm... if you never run into anyone with disarm then you don't need 2 weapons to have mastery and can go a full 10 into the one you spam 95% of the fight, the second scenario is that you have a weapon that doesn't last long and runs out of ammo/clips fast (tho the +2 mags mod could fix this), the third scenario is that your main weapon you use 95% of the time is a melee and you want to play around anyone that potentially may have parry that will block most of your attacks... if you never run into anyone with parry then you don't need 2 weapons to have mastery and can go a full 10 into your melee. It is best to not reset merits to a new weapon type unless it is a weapon you will have for the long haul (orange or better, with a bonus you really like). The amount spent on taking one weapon to 10/10 and two to 7/10 is pretty much the same. I would say in most cases melee/primary would be what you specialize into as secondary has some nice effects that are good for one turn only (execute, eviscerate, stricken)

#4 Crit - 7 out of 10. After the decrease to how much crit these give - extra chance to do more damage is nice but it’s a low % so I no longer see a need to rush maxing this merit. Save getting these to 10 after you have the rest of the must have 10/10 merits. If you have a legendary that improves your crit damage (head, heart, or throat, or all crit damage); I would consider bringing this to 10/10 when possible to maximize the damage of your weapon. If you have disarm and really like disarm I actually recommend you do not use any crit merits... more crit = less disarm chance as there is a less chance to hit in arm/hand.

Also #4 - Passive stats - 7 out of 10. Save getting these to 10 after you have the rest of the must have 10/10 merits. Obviously your whore stat would get 10/10 first for the extra +9% on it, the rest are not as important to rush to 10 out of 10.

As for non-war related merits, if you mug then masterful looting is a must have 10/10. Education length and bank interest can be good if you are still in need of them as well as nerve for getting to 7/10 at least but you are hindering yourself in fights by not focusing solely on fighting merits.

Education
(The most important Educations for younger players) If you have finished all education then skip to the next orange section, otherwise, make sure you have these 5)

The order of education that you should do:

1) Sports Science - This should be the first ever educations you do those extra gym gains will add up in your torn lifetime, you want to get it started up ASAP.

2) Biology - You want to next start the introduction to biology and then do the course called: Intravenous Therapy. This will unlock blood bags which is the best healing item in the game... after this course, you are done with these educations for now.

3) Combat Training - This should be your second ever education. Finishing this bachelor gives you weapon experience points with every attack. 100% experience gives the same boost as weapon mastery merits do, accuracy and damage scale more than stats so it's a vital education to finish and very important to work on getting your main weapons up to 100%.

4) Math Bachelor - The very last course reduces ammo used. Unless if you have a Gold AK then your weapon probably lacks a lengthy ammo clip and will typically run out of ammo/clips before a fight is over. Having more attacks where you can continue to use your strongest weapon is vital and can add up to a win.

5) Biology bachelor - Since these boosters cost a lot of money it's the last one you should do. The temporary weapons you get MASSIVELY boost a single stat. Having trouble hitting someone? not anymore when you use melatonin temporary weapon to massively boost speed. These temporaries are game-changing and are needed to war.


Attack settings
(It’s probably worth everyone giving this a glimpse it’s important to have these set up correctly for your best chance in a defending fight, recommended not to skip)

Just a quick overview of Attack settings located in your settings (your settings are located at the circle in the top right corner, or click HERE)

I will try to explain how you should set this up to the best possible defend settings in 2 and a half steps


[background color=var(--bbc-body-bg-color)]Step 1)[/background]

The first step is to pick decide if you want to throw your temporary first or have a chance that it doesn't go off first. If you want to throw it instantly because you are using something like a smoke grenade this should be set to 100. If you want it to be a higher chance that it is delayed it should be set somewhere around equal to your MAIN weapon or within equal to +10 range... it still may be used first but there is a least a chance of an attack or two being used on you before you use it, which can be good in the scenario you are using serotonin to heal back the damage taken.

Step 2)
Before you can set yourself up for serotonin; You want to decide what your MAIN weapon is. What is the strongest weapon that you have? Which bonus effect gives you the hardest boner, or lady boner for any ladies reading. This is your main weapon as you want to try to get merits in mastery for it as well as use it at least 95% of the time. If it's a gun read step 2a... if it's a melee read step 2b.

Step 2a) My main weapon is a gun:

The first thing to note that is when I say main gun it is the main one you are using. There are primary and secondary I am not a mind reader and don't know which one you are using... whatever one that made your dick hard is your main gun... set this to 18. The next step is to set a backup weapon because the other gun and melee are set to 0 you will opt to hit with fists so having melee set to 1 makes sure you will never use fists... if you have a good NOT-MAIN gun you can set that to 1 and use it when your main gun runs out of ammo. Though you potentially risk running out of ammo twice and then hitting with fists.
If you have a not-main gun and like the effect that it has on you can set it to 30, set melee to 1, and set the reload to your not-main gun to OFF so that it will dump the clip... this can be good with an effect such as -25% enemy speed on hit stacks up to 3 times with a massive apply chance of 50%. This will aim to apply the debuff and then after it runs out you have to reload set to off so it will move on to focus on using your main gun with melee as a backup in case ammo runs out.

Step 2b) My main weapon is a melee

If your main weapon is a melee then just set it to 18 and then set primary and secondary to 0; if there is a high apply chance effect on a gun that you would like to use such as 50% chance to apply -25% speed debuff on enemy then you can set that gun to something like 30 with reloads off to dump that gun of 1 clip and attempt to add stacks before going to your stronger weapon that is your melee that you are wanting to use. Turn the other gun to 0 so it is not used we are not ninja's using 12 guns in a fight, if there is no high apply chance that you'd like to try to apply with a gun on either gun then just set both to 0. Congrats you are set for melee.

Company
If you ARE NOT using a company for the purpose of fattening your wallet (working for 1m a day does not count), or for perks that benefit fighting, or one that increases training gains (Fitness center does not count unless you are using the education reduction perk on important educations that buff fighting, otherwise is terrible, trading job points for stats does not count), then read, otherwise scroll back up and goto part 3 of the guide

If you are in a company because it helps you pay for Xanax as an employee, you have a bigger problem (ignore if you are in a faction company helping out). You should have 2 BB's of SYM, 2 of FHG, 2b in the bank, other stock bb's as well. Your first goal with cash should be investing it to pay for everything you need and just having one BB of SYM and one of FHG along with 2b in the bank with banking merits should typically be enough for funding all of your xanax and rehab bills, this isn’t a money-making guide, but you have some real issues if you are an employee being paid cheaply working for cash and not in a company for perks. You would probably make more buying a cheap sweet shop and sell daily trains for 3 to 5m daily and getting a few cans a week compared to working in a company for cash.

There are 3 acceptable company types and you need to make sure that you are in one of them (10* pub and 7* law firms are fine as they help the faction out with money and build you up for PA's but they are not listed here as I'm focusing on what makes YOU better and not the faction).

Training companies - (Adult Novelty, Ladies/Gents Strip clubs for the 10% gym gains for training your whored stat, restaurant for can users, music store for gym xp for younger players) - These have significant gym gain increases, they are fine for a company if you are training hard. Fitness centers is only good in one case and one case only and that is if you need to finish the 5 educations listed earlier, otherwise the gains are too small to be worth it. The job points for stats is also very small and not worth it.

Money-making companies - (such as a TV network as an owner, generally any company worth 1b+ to make can generate a profit of a few million per day) - If you are reliant on money it’s fine to own one of these companies. If you are barely making more than the employees you pay, it’s not fine, you suck ass at running a company and have no business owning one. You want to run a TV and make 5m a day. Go pay 600m for an adult novelty, sell trains, charge DVD’s you will make 10m a day but you probably can’t even do that because you’re f**king worthless at this game, get out of my guide - you seriously can’t be helped sorry if you made it this far to find out you’ll never be good at torn.

War companies (Energy job point companies, Gas Station, Gun Shop, Clothing store, Private Security Firm, Strip Clubs) -
These are the companies you want to be at. Every top player is in a company that is making them better than the rest of torn, they’ve figured out how to make money and sit in companies that buff them when it comes to fighting. Here is a list of them below:

Ladies and Gents Strip clubs - Recently these companies have been buffed and I would say are now two of the best companies in the game as they act as both war companies and training companies all in one. The new summary for ladies strip club perks is +25% passive increase to defense, 10% gym gains on defense, +50% increase to serotonin effect AND duration, and a 30% damage reduction from melee attacks. For Gents strip club it is +25% passive increase to dexterity, 10% gym gains on dexterity, +50% increase to tyrosine effect AND duration, and a 1/4 chance a melee attack is dodged.
So for the +50% sero/tyro effect these go up from a 120 second (2 minutes long) booster to a 180 second duration (3 minutes long) which is great in itself as enemies will have to wait a lot longer to wait out your effects. How this boost works is that it is a 50% overall increase... (please note here that you get +10% effect to steroids or all biology boosters from an education course that we all should have in sports science so this 50% increase would be a total of 60%) when you take serotonin and increase it by 60% it goes from 300% to 480%, tyrosine would go from 500% to 800% (that is 9 times your current stats, a massive amount). The biggest boost of all is that for tyro you would now have 3 minutes to spam flashbangs/smokes giving your a longer window, it will also be cheaper having the duration last longer in terms of cost of not having to reapply it as often. The biggest boost for serotonin is that this 50% also applies to the heal (or 60% as mentioned since there's that extra 10 from education) meaning that the heal goes from 25% up to a massive big dick 40% heal... add in a handbag so you can sero twice for 80% healing... some maurader armor... faction life perks. In comparison to a gas station, one heal going off would be 75% life back with a handbag, 2 heals would be 95% with a handbag versus the 80% heal from sero BUT you get that extra 180% defense boost so overall the heal should be more effective overall even if less healing does go off as well as the other boosts you get.
Both of these clubs completely hinder melee removing one weapon out of the game completely making it a great company to match with the bullet-reducing armor to ensure that no matter what your enemy uses they are doing a lot less damage.
I would say the ladies is better because the heal is also buffed but both are very good and would be my go-to recommendation if you can get into one that that's 10 stars, even without the melee effects at 7 star it is still quite good.

Not only do these companies increase your gym gains on your whore stat with ladies strip club giving +10% defense gym gains, and gents giving 10% dex gym gains. Ladies also gives +25% passive defense, +50% effect to serotonin (this makes sero go from 300% to 450% boost... plus if you have education for +10% steroid boost from sports science which everyone should, this is an extra 10% so the base value of 300% + 300*0.60 giving you 480% boost to defense) the 50% also applies to the heal and the 10% from education for 10% boost to steroids also applies so in total 25% + 25*0.60 gives you a 40% heal... with things like the maurader set, faction life perk, and handbags to use sero twice, this heal is f**king massive. On top of this for ladies strip club there is a 30% damage reduction to all melee hits at 10 star so it is possible to completely f**k your enemy with a bullet damage reducing armor plus this perk to always be taking way less damage regardless of the enemies weapon used or just using a disarm weapon leaving them with little option to not have to switch to melee eventually. For Gents strip club they get the same 50% which boosts tyrosine up from 500% to 750%... add in the 10% from steroid education and your needle is doing 800%... that's your current dex multiplied by 9 which in total is a massive amount, on top of this at 10 star 1 in every 4 melee attacks against you are guaranteed to miss and the 25% passive to dex is still here as well. I would say ladies strip club is a lot better because of the extra heal amount but both of these are still giant boosts to your stats and both really f**k melee while allowing you to get some sweet gym gains.

Energy companies after the med update are almost a MUST JOIN if you are a high-end top 100, or if you are generally the top end stat carry in your faction (one of the big stat players in your specific faction that when wars come you do a lot and do the most retal hits). It’s your job with this med update to pin down the enemy faction with a huge importance on stats. If you have trouble dumping your energy, this company is not going to be for you. Gauge how you are able to do in wars when rank wars are out and if you are having trouble getting your E down to 0, look for a company that can help you survive.

Gas Station - With the med update I would say this company has gotten a lot better as it’s almost a guarantee you will heal every fight, and with 6 hour med CD you will have 0 room to heal yourself in a serious war, as well it’s a nice little surprise when it goes off for the enemy, add in sero or maybe even a handbag and 2 sero’s and you just can have unlimited heals and be super annoying. This company is very weak in short fights, however is guaranteed one 20% heal and on occasion 2 in long fights. It also increases speed and more speed is great for increasing your damage output.

Gun Shop - Now you can buy the ammo with mission points or get the stock BAG but the ammo allows you to swing fights in your direction… hollow point is crap. But +40% damage from incendiary, or around ~15% damage from piercing, or +10.0 accuracy on tracer (that’s like having 6 accuracy mods on your gun) are pretty worth wild and large increases in your fight that will help it swing in your favor. Mostly only tracer and incendiary are good but piercing is still often a damage increase, if it hits a body part covered by armor it will often increase damage by 15-20%. The downside of piercing is that if it hits skin it does no damage increase and most armors have some area of skin hittable. This company gives a boost of +10% gun damage as well as allowing you to view someones armor and temporary weapon before hitting the Start Fight, allowing you to put on temporaries that counter the enemy greatly swinging the fight in your favor. Personally I own one of these and it's a very hard company to leave because it makes fighting way easier, this company will fall off for me as my stats get higher towards the 100b range but for now I find it as the strongest company to swing fights in your favor. I would also like to note that you get an extra clip to your weapon, this lets you use armalite for all 25 turns instead of just 15-20 without running out of ammo. Having a gun last longer in fights significantly increases your damage in a fight when you're using a weapon with mastery / potentially higher weapon XP, mods, and maybe even special ammo leaving this as the highest damage increasing company in the game as well as being very helpful in surviving fights knowing your enemies equipment.

Clothing store - This company is good for the dex/armor boost for more tankiness, since we know that every point of armor is -1% damage, increasing your armor from 30 to 36 or 40 to 48 with this perk is chunking the enemy damage down on every single hit, the extra dex on top of this for some extra turns missed will also help reduce the damage you take. This company is very similar to Gas station as they both technically increase your effective health pool and probably by the same amount, however in long fights I would say gas station has more potential.

Private Security Firm - With legendaries this company has been buffed in a sense that players now use armor sets. Clothing store gives +20% armor, this company gives +25% armor IF you are wearing a full set. It is almost going to be a requirement with set bonus's to have a full set so this extra armor can come in handy. It does not have a boost to dex but it does amplify flashbangs... with the release of legendary armor we may see less players wearing welding helmets so flashbang potentially will be usable more often. With armor's being higher in the 50 range that we are seeing on delta armor up from 40 range on combat these companies to boost armor will help further reduce damage. Each point of armor reduces damage by 1% each so this company did get a pretty good buff since armor sets were not used previously and with higher armors being seen. I would probably pick this over clothing store now.

Now that we have gotten through all of the passive effects that can help improve you, we will look at some of the biggest ways to sway a fight into your favor.

Temporary weapons - (How to f**k players up 3x your stats)
(Just recommended not to skip unless if you already bait out temp weapons, and know how to use all 7 and when to use them, and that you use a temporary in 100% of fights no matter what)

The biggest impact on attacking, you SHOULD USE A TEMPORARY WEAPON IN EVERY SINGLE FIGHT, regardless if it is an easy fight or not to mitigate the damage you take - the less damage means less med CD you have to waste on healing. If you are not using a temporary weapon in 100% of your fights you are a f**king moron

Lets start :)

The first important thing in combat is baiting out enemy temporary weapons:
The worst thing you can do is throw your temp weapon just to get a temp weapon thrown back at you and cancel out whatever you threw.

You want to bait the enemies temporary weapon out before you even consider using yours in most cases unless if your temporary counters their temporary hard (IE you have melatonin on to combat their smoke grenade, or a strength boost against their defense boost). When the enemy has a temporary that is a threat to you succeeding the attack (Tyrosine, Serotonin, Smoke grenade that will be the second smoke on you) You do not want to use your temporary... if you smoke them and they smoke you back you are just two retards flailing your aims missing each other more often. You want to attack first, in most cases the temporary weapon will be used and you are able to wait the duration out... this is where a blow gun shines... in most cases you can start a fight with your blow gun that you are now buying from reading this guide and they will throw their temporary that you can wait out. This will swing the attack in your favor drastically. Fights are 50% stats, 50% temporary weapons. If you want to maximize your fighting you will wait any negative effect out. Some players are stubborn and have settings where they wont use their temporary for the first few attacks... in this case i will knife up to turn 5 (Armalite has limited ammo and I do not want to waste it as I use a damage increase temporary 99% of the time I use tear gas, so I want my hardest hitting weapon for when my tear gas is finally thrown... don't waste ammo in a low clip gun if you are waiting to use something that will increase your damage). If nothing by turn 5 chances are they have temporaries turned off. If they only have a flash on it is fine to throw your smoke/tear gas as bait to get their flash to go off since the duration is so short your temporary will outlast it.

Biology boosters (Serotonin, Tyrosine, Epinephrine, Melatonin) & Temporary weapon stacking & Free Defends:
These are the strongest temporary weapons in the game... the power in them is that it's a massive few hundred % increase to stats for the duration. The second reason they are so powerful is that you can apply this effect in one fight and then have a second tab open where you quickly switch temporaries for the next fight and have multiple boosts or be throwing tear gas/flash bang/smokes on top of one or a few of these boosters... This is best done on PC, leaving a second tab open of your temporary weapons so you can quickly swap tabs and stack several boosters or temporaries, as well as several tabs of who you will kill so you don't waste time searching new targets. Do not leave these on during training periods as it will get expensive through random defends while training.

Serotonin/Defend Farming - Serotonin is best used to regain life when you have low life instead of using med CD, as well as good for defense whores to try to boost high enough to take 0 damage. This item gives you 4x your defense and heals 25% life. If you are using this item right away you are wasting the heal and losing the effectiveness of this item, take a hit or two first so you actually benefit from the +25% life gained. One of the best uses is to put serotonin on after claiming a retal, quickly set temporary defend settings to 100 if it is not and putting this on. I usually heal to 5000-6000 health range and use this temporary to bait a free defend from a retal or a second attack attempt on you. You should always swap temporaries after each defend if your life is high enough as the enemy will come back in with an epi and you can mess them up by having a different temp on (typically ill go with a tyrosine, sometimes an epi, and collect another free defend. A player will almost always come back at you to counter the temp they just lost to you with.

Melatonin is very good if you are struggling with smoke grenades, typically you put this on when you have 1 smoke on you already and are planning to go hard ignoring every smoke thrown at you. Be sure when you use melatonin to set your tracer ammo on as well as having double accuracy mods to compliment your chance to hit if needed. While yes it is great to bait temporary weapons out and wait them out... this is not something you can do as often in a real war as if you wait 2 minutes for a smoke to end, you might already be dead. This is the go-to for pushing past all of the smoke spam. This is also a dex whore killer.

Tyrosine is more of an annoying feature, best for dex whores but it's annoying either way. Despite being 12b defense / 2.5b dex at the moment of writing this I still often use it. It's complemented by using this and then in fights while this buff is still on you use smoke/flashbang to further achieve being unhittable, and then reappling tyrosine before it runs out. You can easily tyrosine, do 3-4 attacks afterwards with flashbangs/smokes, and then reapply on the 4th / 5th attack. Even as a defense whore it is still usable to reduce damage intake as it has a higher buff % than serotonin (This item gives you 6x your dex). It often isn't expected for a defense player to use this so it is great to toss in to throw an enemy off that is planning to come at you with an epinephrine. During war if you are dex heavy this is what you should have on most of the time.

Epinephrine will end fights very quickly or help you deal with defense whores, if you can't hit the target and they are much stronger this is the go-to temporary as this will help you get within range to damage them, even if you can do damage this is still a great temp to help you deal maximum damage and it helps you towards reaching 'true damage' (having so much strength where it is as if your target had 0 defense which is crazy effective at ending a fight quickly). Complimented with Incendiary/piercing ammo for insane damage output, you can end a fight in 2-3 hits very quickly. If you are not smoke spammed this is a good option when expecting to be retal hit by the enemy as they wont be expecting to be hit so hard so quickly.

Stacking biology boosters - All of these can be stacked if you cycle through them fast enough you could even have all 4 of these boosters going at once. They last 120 seconds... if you're on PC you can and should have a second tab open with your temporary weapons to easily swap between these effects. When you are running around with 6x all of your stats you are effectively turning yourself from a noob into a god tier top end player. Get into a rhyme of getting all 4 on and then reapplying the buffs that are near wearing off. Just note that doing this, while you will become a god among men, you will dump energy and cash on temporaries quite fast.

Defending temporary swap - Most players are too stupid to "temp bait" or wait out temporaries, unlike you who read this guide, so it is best to swap these around when you know you are going to get retal hit, If you are active and a player attacks you and loses they will often come back for a second attempt... if you had a tyrosine on they now know and will come back with melatonin on to combat you... but you being better than a top 100 player know to have quickly swapped to serotonin if you were injured or epinephrine to throw them off and get a second free defends... and often they will be dumb enough to come back again... keep swapping temps and collect those free defends. The amount of time's I won 3-4 defends in a row is far too many to count, they often give up and message you for being such an annoying C U Next Tuesday. Even as a defense whore I will even toss tyrosine in the mix... Typically if i had a sero they will come back with a epi... i will either epi or tyro here... if im hurt typically i will use a sero to bait a free defend while maybe using a bloodbag once to hit 5/6k hp. They will never expect your temporary to change regardless of how many times you do it.

Flashbang: - Good to use 99% of the time out of war or if you're a dex whore in war
Reduces enemy speed down to only 20.00% of what it is for 15-20 seconds seconds.  This is a good cheap temporary that is blocked by a welding helmet.  Thanks to the release of legendary armor, welding helmets are very rare to see now which brings flashbang back into the meta being usable to reduce enemy speed even further than smokes could for dex whores.  In general you only want to use these if you are a dex whore as dex is extremely powerful to have tyrosine counting down from a previous fight and then using flashbang's (shorter duration) or smokes (longer duration, lesser reduction).  This greats a massive gap when you are juiced up on tyro and spamming these out for the 2 minutes the tyrosine lasts.  The downside is that delta does nerf negative effects by 50-62% so if it is on someone that is using delta you may only reduce their speed in half or near that point instead of down to 20%.  

Smoke Grenade / What to do during war: - 99% of you will have this on 99% of the time in war
Reduces enemy speed by 66.66% for 120-180 seconds seconds, this is almost the temporary you want to be using 99% of the time. 2 Smokes causes an enemy to pretty much be forced to wait out or lose an attack slowing down an enemy assault. This slows down an enemy from just running through dozens of our members solo. It is also just generally good to swing fights towards you and to reduce damage you take through the fight (which is vital to keep your medical cooldown low).  All middle end / lower end players in a faction should be homies buffing their dex bros up by throwing smokes.  Even if you are dying you are helping the dex bros.

There are only 3 scenarios that you will not be using a smoke grenade in war.
1) You are a dex whore, typically it will be better if you have a tyro on... now it is good to swap around having tyrosine counting down from a previous fight and swapping to a smoke or flashbang but it may not even be needed... assuming your faction isn't shit, if one of your members gets attacked and you go in for the retal the ideal scenario was that your faction mate didn't suck and already smoked the enemy for you though another one wont hurt and stacks.
2) You are a top end player that typically collects most retals for your faction... in this case you would would mostly be using biology boosters, stacking them or using ones to counter specific enemies, or rolling multiple boosters at the same time.
3) A friendly ally needs your help on a someone they can't hit that has no hazmat, vanguard helmet, or delta helmet. Tear gas is the answer of what you should bring to the fight.
Any other scenario where you are not using a smoke grenade generally just means you're a shitty faction member and shitty player.

Tear Gas (-66.66% dexterity on opponent for 120 seconds): - Good to use 99% of the time out of war for damage increase
In a sense this is a lesser version of melatonin - allowing you to hit easier. This is blocked by hazmat, Vanguard Respirator, and Delta Gas Mask. If you do not use this item you should start, it makes fights a lot easier during your average everyday (ie. missions), and in war is extremely good for team fighting in scenarios such as helping a teammate on a pesky dex whore that doesn't have a something that can block tear gas, or just to help a teammate that is smoke spammed which is quite common if you have a high stat guy that you often wait to log in before doing pushes. If you are trying to counter smoke grenades, melatonin is far superior for helping your chance to hit, but this item can still help. Another good use of this item can be combined to lessen the gap on a dex whore... you can combine melatonin from a previous fight, tracer, double accuracy mods, and tear gas (again if they have no armor that blocks the tear). I personally have changed from smokes to this temporary in my day to day for the damage increase of allowing me to get more hits in... smokes are for war but tear gas is crazy good for missions and everything else. Hazmat suit, Vanguard Respirator head piece, and Delta Gas Mask head piece are all very expensive items.  If you are fighting low tier and notice you miss a lot and a player does not have these items you should for the next time you attack them swap to either this. It's fine if they fool you once, but don't be a dumbass letting them fool you a second time. A lot of people don't pay attention and just blindly attack... pay attention because you might not have to grab melatonin and might be able to get away cheaply with a tear gas. Plenty of big players think a delta mask/vanguard mask are not needed since it is rare to see someone use this item and you should be paying attention and know that they are a easy free kill..


Temporaries have recently been buffed. One of the courses has been updated inside of sports science to provide an +10% increase to the effect of steroids. (This means the biology booster needles)... serotonin goes from +300% to +330% as well the heal has gone up from 25 to 27.5%. The other boosters went up from a 500% boost to a 550% boost. I did not personally see this in the patch notes, maybe I missed it, or maybe this is just a secret update... but stacking temporaries is MUCH better now as they are giving a lot more stats now.

Special ammo
(recommended to not skip as this is important to slowly stock up on since it creates a huge edge in fights)


What does each ammo do?:
Incendiary ammo - Increases damage by 40%
Tracer - +10 accuracy
Piercing - Reduces armor where your bullet hits by 50% (each point of armor is -1% damage, this, when it hits skin, does nothing, when it hits armor turns -40% from a 40.0 piece of armor into a 20.0 piece increasing damage by 20% effectively). This opens room for more damage while the 40% increase incendiary has is reduced by armor. Piercing bypasses armor so with new legendary armor as long as it is connecting with armor then it is doing more damage than incendiary.  The wiki has charts on when piecing becomes better https://wiki.torn.com/wiki/Ammo#Special_Ammo but overall both piecing and incendiary are good for increasing your damage and make fights easier... you should get and use both.
Hollow point - Trash, you will never use this ammo except for the use 2500 merit or in npc fights since NPC's typically dont wear armor and only wear clothing.  It increases your damage by 50% but gives the enemy a 50% increase to armor, meaning that a person with 50 armor (-50% damage) would be buffed up to 75 armor (-75 damage).... technically with a red puncture the ammo becomes viable (at the loss of the viability of piecing since piercing does nothing if puncture goes off) but technically it would be profitable in damage if you had a red puncture at probably somewhere around half of what incendiary does.  

I will note that recoil pad for a mod is viable, reducing the amount of ammo use use by 25% which allows you to have ammo for additional fights. This would be at a loss of something like 5% crit mod though so it wouldn't be maximizing your damage short term but in the long term having ammo that deals 40% more damage would be better longer term opposed to having it run out and not having +40% damage.

How to aquire?:
BAG stock - (Recently buffed in stocks 3.0) - If you do not have one BB of these and have the cash it is well worth grabbing 1 or 2 blocks. This was recently buffed where it used to give 500 monthly to whatever weapon you have on, to 250 weekly (1000 a month per BB)

Mission points - After you have your mods it is well worth sitting at 2k points and grabbing any incendiary, tracer, and piercing ammo that pop up. I would say any incendiary that pops up is 100% worth stocking up no matter if you need books / mods still. I personally always buy these special ammos every time they are on special offer.

Gun shop - Job points for special ammo. you get 100 for every 15 job points so you can get a free 2000 being in this company every month.

If you have BAG stock or a Gun shop they award ammo based on the guns you have - which should be an armalite or a gold AK unless something better comes out, you should have no secondary that uses special ammo because you are using a blowgun now (which has no mods or ammo usable besides basic ammo). But if for some reason you are not make sure you take off your secondary before claiming.

When to use these:
As we know from reading this guide, damage and accuracy scale much harder than stats do so these are huge for swinging fights. In harder fights these will sway the fight in your favor and are also great to swap to bait free defends.

Piercing and Incendiary are great on their own, they are best paired with tear gas (the more times you hit the more damage you are getting in), or with an epinephrine when you want to hit as hard as a truck and end the fight quickly. It is useful to leave these on as well when you are expecting someone to attempt to retal hit you as they will not expect the damage boost you will have waiting for them. They can wait out your temporary but they can't wait out these damage increasers.

Tracer is only worth using if it is combined with 2 accuracy mods, as well as a tear gas (or a melatonin). It's good for when too many smokes stack up on you but you don't want to wait shit out, or when you are preparing to attempt to take out a dex whore.

Not many players stock up on special ammo but it is extremely important for swinging fights and often you can win fights you have no business winning with special ammo. I have often put on incendiary expecting a retal on myself and shut down group fights on myself because they just couldn't handle the damage output.

Fights are not just stats... between temporaries, stats, and special ammo, stats really come down to accounting for only half of a fight

Congrats on finishing my guide! If you have made it this far I highly suggest you check out my continuation on this guide that specifically dives into the massive update of legendary weapons and armor; specific uses and which ones are good for fighting/war and which ones are useless. You can find a link to my Legendary Guide in my forum signature.

Reserved for legendary weapon release come 2030 rank warring

reserved

Special thanks to TUS members for being the trial run for the guide and reading it, tus leaders for proof reading, and hank for quitting 18 times and never writing a guide like this and lastly champion for always helping test things out and loaning me his gold ak for years and letting people think it was mine instead of his.

Can honestly say I haven’t tested the weapon but due to the low apply chance that the weapon has to apply bleed, it’s not going to compare. Blow gun applies almost 100 percent of the time. Out of 1000s of fights the only ones that don’t apply are misses. I had thought about a bleed build before ched nerfed the bread knife and changed it from piercing to slashing (blow gun is piecing so having mastery in piecing could’ve had both weapons be a great DOT build) but even. Before this nerf it was still weak due to the low apply chance.


It can Still be a nice weapon for baiting out temporaries if you have it since it’s a stronger melee weapon and not wasting your limited armalite bullets. But a blow gun shot would still be better used first. I would say there are better things to spend money on.

Amazing guide, Mug!

Excellent write up. Nice job! Can't rate posts for awhile but R+.

Couple points I'd make:

Mods- I still think Recoil Pad is one of the best mods out there. Reducing rounds fired mitigates the turns for reloads and lets you spend special ammo as efficiently as possible.

Companies- Had me lol'ing irl telling people they're trash. 10/10 for that section. Think you could have gone into a little more detail about some companies. Restaurant is top tier for training and war. The bonus with proper faction perks lets cans exceed FHCs so your energy output is top during training and warring and 3e/jp to cash out for chaining / warring. Grocery Store is poor man's Restaurant. Better boosters but no e/jp and instead can trade jps for ecans.

Special ammo- You mentioned HP is good for NPCs, more to the point, the only thing it's great for is getting those max damage honor bars against NPCs. Headshot with HP Nockgun w/ choke against an NPC is about as close to a max hit as you're going to get. That's about the extent of its usefulness

Temps- Concussion reduces dex like pepperspray and is really expensive but can't be blocked by anything. Good to keep a few handy in case you face ppl with hazmats.