mug: forum

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

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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.

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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.

Welcome

to the

{WTF FAMILY}

Are you an active and competitive player?
Are you looking for a friendly and helpful place to grow in Torn City?
Then look no further!

The WTF Family has 4 factions (2 warring faction, and 1 reviving faction, and 1 crime faction); Each faction and a brief description is below their faction image and the faction image links you to the respective faction.

• WTF // 10m+ Respect // This is our oldest and toughest shell. It houses many experienced & veteran players fighting their way through the Diamond tiers of the Ranked Warring ladder.

• WTF Ducks // 10m+ Respect // Young & ambitious players make up the bulk of this roster eager to carve out a name for themselves as they fight in the Platinum/Diamond tiers of Ranked Warring.  If you're a young player, the absolute best fighting faction is WTF Ducks!

• WTF Healers // 6m+ Respect // Ranked amongst the top revive factions in all of Torn. They provide the framework for you to fast track your experience into the world of reviving. Boasting a Gold tier rank in the Ranked Warring ladder, these Doctors are never far from the action.
  
  
• WTF Tribes // 6m+ Respect // Money was meant to be stacked, and that is the Tribes goal as a hardcore Crime faction. They provide the framework for you to fast track getting to the end game crimes which will make you swimming in money.  Wars are focused on making deals to maximize members ability to make money.

We are a collection of factions looking to improve our ranks with new and veteran players alike! We take in a lot of promising new players, providing them with tools and guidance required to not only succeed, but to surpass their peers and thrive in Torn City. If you are an ACTIVE & COMPETITIVE player, big or small, looking for a friendly and helpful community to grow within, then you wont find a better place than WTF! If you are interested in joining us and can meet our requirements, please contact the Leadership team of the respective faction.

WTF do we offer?

• Ranked War // All factions under the WTF banner offer scheduled Ranked War enlistment. Offering competitive payouts, up to 85%, to help bolster your pockets as you progress your account.

• Organized Crime // Team up with your faction mates to complete heists & various jobs. Earning cash, respect & coveted Nerve Bar upgrades.

• Competitions // Battle against others in regularly scheduled individual & team based competitions focused on maximizing progression.

• Armory // Our stocked armories ensure all mambers have the supplies they need to get the job done. Offering Xanax for Wars/Chains, Medical supplies, Candy & Alcohol aswell as Advanced weapons and armors.
  
  
• Vault Banking // Keep your money safe in the Factions Vault. With a tight knit group holding the keys, you can sleep soundly knowing your hard earned cash is safe from muggers and thieves.
  
  
• Guidance // We offer a host of guides covering every topic of Torn, from new player tutorials to advanced war tactics and strategy. If you cant find the answers you need in one of our guides, then one of our more seasoned players will have the answers to your questions.
  
  
• Rotational Perks // Steadfast training perks are rotated on a monthly/biweekly basis to ensure stable training for all. Perks are also shifted to maximize event windows where Respect limitations hinder having them full time.
  
  

WTF do we expect?

• A willingness to learn. We are prepared to help every member grow within our community but we cannot play the game for you.
  
  
• A friendly enviroment. Being a competitive faction, friendly banter and trash talk is expected but we will not tolerate disrespectful individuals.
  
  
• Participation in Faction organized events such as Wars & Chains. We understand IRL comes first and you cant always partake but some attempts must be made.
  
  
• Use of Discord, TornStats and our WTF specific tools and resources.
  
  

We also expect that you are meeting or working towards the following in game requirements..

*Healers are not required to train energy but are expected to be actively reviving.

Who TF do I talk to?

If you believe WTF is the place for you, click the factions banner to apply. If you have any questions, please contact a member of the respective leadership team found below, those banners display if they are online or not and clicking leads to their profile.

[image: factionimages.torn.com]

[image: factionimages.torn.com]

[image: factionimages.torn.com]

***The most important thing to learn from this thread is the shopping list at the bottom of post 1 with all viable weapons listed.  The one thing you should take with you from this thread, is the fact that you are the dumbest mother f**ker anyone has ever seen if you are buying weapons not listed there or at least knowing your weapon is crap and needs to be replaced.  The difference between a weapon with 50 damage vs one with 60 damage is around 25% less damage from having 10 less damage... this means buying a weapon with AMAZING bonuses means nothing if your weapon has crap damage and accuracy***

Updated 11/12/2025/20: FIXED images broken by UK's Imgur picture hosting website.

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

This guide was written as more of a reference guide for what to look for when buying stuff and the ranges of legendary bonuses. Many players spend loads of money on horrible items that are actually hurting them through a loss of accuracy or damage. Tier lists are popular and many have asked me to keep it. All bonuses are viable, but I would suggest more so using A or B tiers, and then C or D tiers if you need a cheaper end weapon.

The answer to "What bonus should i get" is exactly the same as asking "whats better dex or defense". The answer is simply what you like the idea of better is going to be what is actually better. Please note that the most important part of this thread is in post #2 the shopping references. A weapon is not "S" or "God" tier if it is not on that list of names... if you have a red pen knife with blood lust, you qualify for the Torn Special Olympics if you think that's good despite blood lust being good. I wrote this guide as legendaries were being discovered and still think tier lists are useless due to them being simply just opinion, but players like them so I have 2 different tier lists. One list is ordered by damage that you could potentially be adding into a fight (I simulated the possible damage throughout a fight that you could be adding so there is no bias in this list), and a second list of utility. The damage tree is a bit more viable as there is more benefit in big wars to finishing your fight as soon as possible so that you can quickly move into the next fight and maximize the amount of kills you get before someone takes you down.

There are 3 parts to this guide and each part is it's own post in the thread.

Click which part you wish to navigate to below:
Damage Tier List / How to know what is good enough to buy (POST 1)
Utility Tier List (POST 2)

Armor Tier List (POST 3)
Best for each slot (POST 4)

mug's Tier List (Or at the very least a quick reference for what each bonus does!)
(How I rate each legendary is my own personal opinion, how you rate them and how anyone rates them is personal opinion. These are my current thoughts. You are not forced to use my guide. If you like it cool. If not, didn't really give a shit. In reality anything is potentially viable, but anything with C or higher in the tier list is more viable IMO.

This section has two tier lists a "Damage List" for those that like to go 'full retard' and try to kill as fast as possible, and a "Utility List" which can either help your fight survivability or to simply be more annoying)

Damage Tier List: This list is organized by pure damage increase. If it doesn't increase damage significantly enough it isn't in this list. If your goal is to do as much damage as possible this list is probably fairly accurate and took me a lot of hours to make with math/simulations. If you are looking for being more annoying/survivability then skip to the Utility tier list.

QUALITY RANGE: (Will update as i see higher or lower ranges)
Yellow 82.39% to 187.51%
Orange 136.91% to 235.67%
Red 210.72% to 312.19%




As a note below in A Tier, Puncture has been severely nerfed and is more like a B tier perk.  The nerf lowered the % for each color by a lot at the tradeoff that it ignores armor bonuses like EOD.

How do I know what is a good legendary weapon and what is not? (Good list for shopping)
(If you see a weapon and are wondering is it good and worth my money or not, read this section to help you decide on which weapons are actually worth buying)

These are the best weapons in the game in terms of accuracy and damage. If they are already great weapons; they will be improved further as legendaries so narrowing weapons down to the best non-legendary weapons gives you a great list for shopping of what weapons to look for. If you're wondering if a legendary is good and the gun isn't on this list then it's not the best it's just a weapon with a bonus.

Buying a weapon for the perk it has, and not caring about what weapon that perk is on could essentially lose you 1000's of damage within a fight. I will list the top few of each weapon type that have around 50+ accuracy and 50+ damage since some bonuses are exclusive to certain weapons, If the weapon you are buying is not on this list, you will end up replacing it one day with one that is on the list as they are superior.

Do not buy something for the bonus. Buy something because it is actually good and will be hard to replace.

Please note that the rough range of when a gun reloads does not include the math course. Items not on this list are still viable but will never compare to ones that are on this list (as in if 2 weapons had the exact same bonus with the exact same %... the one that is on the list would shit on the one that is not on this list).

This list is not in any specific order anymore, If you like accuracy more aim for something with higher accuracy with reasonable damage, if you like damage more go for the one with higher damage and good enough accuracy.

Primary -

Rifles: (Rifles are superior in every way and should be what you use)

• Armalite (Non-Legendary 68 damage/57 accuracy; reloads around every ~5th turn) (Ranked #1 best primary weapon)
• Enfield SA-80 (Non-Legendary 63 dmg/ 55 acc; reloads around every ~7/8th turn) (Ranked #2 best primary weapon)
• Tavor TAR-21 (Non-Legendary 65 dmg/ 52 acc; reloads around every ~5th turn) (Ranked #3  best primary weapon)
• SIG 552 (Non-Legendary 69 dmg/ 50 acc; reloads around every ~5/6 turns) (Ranked #4 best primary weapon, ranked #2 as second most popular rifle — large damage but lacks accuracy.  Many players love it for its high damage stat. I personally rank it as #4 but it competes with rank 2 and 3 depending on your preferences)
  
  Budget Rifles: Rifles are the strongest weapons in the game (New section for those shopping on a budget!)
  ~M16 A2 Rifle (62 dmg / 48 accuracy; reloads around every ~4/5 turns) - This weapon can get a 50+ accuracy on a very good pull, on a legendary the accuracy is boosted. It's not as good as the other weapons but a good budget choice.
  ~Steyr AUG (65 dmg / 46 accuracy; reloads around every ~5/6 turns) - Legendary will buff the accuracy to low 50's. Very good choice if you're trying to snag your first cheap legendary with high damage.
  ~AK-47 (Non-Legendary 56 dmg/ 53 acc; reloads around every ~5th turn) -- Lower damage means this could be a cheap buy as players favor damage.
  
  What makes rifles one of the best weapons in the game is due to several factors. Including lengthy clips, mods that can be used / no need to hinder your mods to make a weapon work, and perks that can be on the weapon.

Shotgun: (Highly suggested to use extra magazines mod with potentially recoil pad otherwise I would not use a shotgun as their ammo is very limited) (You hinder yourself by not using a rifle)

• Benelli M4 Super (Non-Legendary 59 dmg/ 55 acc; reloads around every ~3 turns)
• Jackhammer (Non-Legendary 69 dmg/ 52 acc; reloads around every ~2 turns)
• Mag 7 (Non-Legendary 56 dmg/ 62 acc; reloads around every ~2 turns)
  
  With recoil pad, the m4 can last 6-7 turns as it mostly only shoots 1 bullet. The other mod you want to use with a shotgun is a choke for more damage.

Machine Gun: (You hinder yourself by not using a rifle)

• Stoner 96 (Yellow version has 76 dmg/ 53 acc; reloads around every ~8/9 turns) (Far superior to the other new machine guns in terms of damage/accuracy/ammo)
  
  This weapon is actually one of the highest damage weapons (a red stoner will have as much damage as a red armalite). The downside to this is that you can't use a flashlight which I believe is one of the best mods to use and a flashlight can't be put on a heavy machine gun.

Sub Machine Gun (Please note that these primary SMG's DO NOT compare to the secondary SMG of BT-MP9 which is far superior as an SMG) (You hinder yourself by not using a rifle):

• Bushmaster Carbon 15 (Non-Legendary 50 dmg/ 57 acc; reloads vary... very large span of fire rate so with lots of luck this could last half of the fight and with bad luck only 2 turns)

Secondary -

Heavy Artillery:

• Milkor MGL (Yellow version has 79 dmg/ 45 acc; reloads every 6 turns exactly) [Stricken Only]
• The China Lake (Yellow version has 80 dmg/ 49 acc; reloads every 3 turns exactly) [Stricken Only]

Pistol: (IMO There are not many good items in a small cache outside of the BT MP9 SMG, chances are if you are opening small caches you are hopeful for something like execute as damage does not matter, only accuracy... or eviscerate to apply it and not use the weapon again... in this case i suggest stacking accuracy mods; If you do get one of these pistols secondary with an effect that you want to use throughout many turns, I suggest mods that increase ammo such as extra mags and possibly extra ammo magazine)

• Qsz-92 (Non-Legendary 62 dmg/ 53 acc; reloads around every ~2/3 turns) (Ranked #2 [tie] best secondary [Only viable with Assassination])
• Cobra Derringer (Non-Legendary 61 dmg/ 53 acc; reloads around every ~1/2 turns) (Ranked #2 [tie] best secondary [Only viable with Assassination])

Sub Machine Gun:

• BT MP9 (Non-Legendary 61 dmg/ 55 acc; reloads vary... very large span of fire rate so with lots of luck this could last half of the fight and with bad luck only 2 turns) (Ranked #1 best secondary weapon)

Melee -

Piercing:

• Macana (Non-Legendary 57 dmg/ 65 acc) (Ranked #1 [Tie] best Melee weapons)
• Diamond Blade Knife (Non-Legendary 60 dmg/ 63 acc) (Ranked #1 [Tie] best Melee weapons)

Clubbed:

• Metal Nunchakus (Non-Legendary 61 dmg/ 60 acc) (Ranked #1 [Tie] best Melee Weapons)

Slashing:

• Kodachi (Non-Legendary 62 dmg/ 56 acc) (Ranked #2 best Melee Weapons) (This is a Japanese blade and receives +10% damage from education)

Budget options that exist for Slashing: (These are not really as viable but are good on a budget / temporary legendary you will sell)

• Katana (Non-Legendary 52 dmg/ 55 acc) (This is a Japanese blade and receives +10% damage from education)
• Yasukuni Sword (Non-Legendary 65 dmg/ 49 acc) (This is a Japanese blade and receives +10% damage from education)
• Samurai Sword (Non-Legendary 58 dmg/ 52 acc) (This is a Japanese blade and receives +10% damage from education)
• Naval Cutlass (Non-Lengendary 64 dmg/ 52 acc)
  
  The best melees are balanced with great accuracy and great damage, but a Japanese blade can surpass the damage due to education at a trade off of accuracy so they are still good options.

Out of all weapons while there are a lot of "Viable ones" the specific ones that I ranked completely shit on the rest of the weapons and you should really if you care about being the best you can only shop from the 9 items below as these will far outdo the rest by miles:

Rifles rank the best primary to use in order:
1) Arma
2) Enfield
3) Tarvor
4) Sig 552 (2nd most popular rifle due to largest damage so ranks higher if you want damage over accuracy)

Secondary ranking order:
1) BT MP9

2) Qsz-92 / Cobra Derringer (Assassination perk only)

Melee ranking order:
1) Diamond Blade Knife (for those that like higher damage)

1) Metal Nunchakus (for those that like higher damage)
2) Macana (for those that like higher accuracy)
3) Kodachi (barely viable but more damage on paper, way less accuracy so may not actually add to more damage)

Introduction

The tutorial that torn has for new players is pretty terrible. I have been teaching players to play my way for years through factions that I have run. I always encourage a competitive environment, meaning that I have met 1000's upon 1000's of players as my time as a leader and I know exactly what makes a player part of the exceptional 10% of new players that I didn't kick -- and reading this guide will put you in that position. Players that I kept around are spread throughout torn in top factions fighting along side the best players in the game. I want you to challenge yourself as a new player to putting in the effort the ground work towards becoming one of top new players that that surpasses the rest of the new players. You may be small now, but there are still 1000's of new players you can outdo right now by simply educating yourself.

I like to organize guides that I make through sections that have large bold orange text for each section, and then a smaller bold green text explaining if you should read the section or not just to save you as much time as possible and keep things nice and organized. I do not want to overwhelm you with information and there is a lot to learn but I will try to keep things simple and only tell you what you need. Save the guide as a bookmark or hit the subscribe button and come back to it in the future when you need refreshers.

Choose a path (A brief explanation on the importance of an active factions as well as your role in torn between being a cold blooded killer, or a loving doctor handing out Band-Aids and cookies. I do not recommend skipping)

We are playing an online game, so let's be honest, chances are everyone in the game (yourself included) is probably a virgin and the cute girl you met earlier today in the game was actually a dude packing a 12 inch sausage. Despite this, making friends with these strange people should be one of your priorities within the game. The best way to go about doing this is by joining a faction. A faction will bring you game changing perks that you are unable to get elsewhere like a boost of 10-15% or more on stat gains, or an increase of up to +40 to your nerve bar. These are just 2 out of dozens of perks. You also get access to team based crimes called Organized Crimes that award you money and crime experience without using any nerve (significant amounts of money I may add). You will set yourself behind by not joining a faction. More importantly is a faction will also bring you friends and people you can chat and learn with. You do not want to join a faction that does nothing. There are many factions that do not have requirements; these factions do not grow and are full of inactive players. The main contributing factor that will decide if you will stick with the game or quit comes down to surrounding yourself with a bunch of players you can enjoy the game with and that you can befriend as a lot of people on this game are actually pretty cool. Most players that have been active and playing a few years solely continue playing Torn due to the friends they make in the game.  Without the social aspect the game can get pretty dull and repetitive over time since goals you set for yourself can take years in this game.

There are sort of two paths you can go. The first path is towards being a fighter and the second path would be a reviver (also known as healers/doctors) which is a more niche path. If you want to grow big and strong and kick peoples teeth in and constantly try your stats out to see how strong you are getting, then you will want to seek out an active warring faction. For those that enjoy playing support in video games, or just love picking their friends ass up off the ground, the healer/doctor role that torn calls "revivers" is for those that want to trade their energy for money and typically avoid hospital time from warring factions (unless it's some hybrid form of faction). If this niche role is something you're interested in I do touch on it a little bit later on as an easy avenue for making money. You can wait until after you go through the next section on Leveling up before you join a faction as leveling will help you gauge where you are at. It is pretty easy for good new players to get into factions that have high respect with a few million respect... the respect a faction has is used for buying perks so joining factions under 1 million respect will hinder your growth... a lot of these also just abuse new players for their money farming from wars with bad or no payouts for your effort or you are just used as a front line meat shield in war. 

Leveling up (Hitting level 15 is hugely important! Lets work to get you there!)
Hitting level 15 allows you to fly. Flying is the first form of income for new players that does not require any energy as you can travel for plushies/flowers and resell them. This allows you to earn several million per day and will allow you to gain stats while making money from having nothing.

Hitting level 15 should only take you 14 days (or less) you should be able to get 1 level per day if not more in the earlier levels. This is a way to separate yourself from the rest of the new players. I see a lot of players that are clueless in the game that are level 5 still and are 40 days old. If you want to stand out from the crowd of 100's of new players take your leveling up serious. I see a guy that is level 15 and age 5 and I kid you not, my first thought is that this man has a massive peen.

You can find a community list of leveling targets here: (Clicky link) There are three posts in a row of all of the leveling targets. I've been using my own list for a while but all but these 3 below are already on this larger list

Link to a level 100 with only 40 total stats: https://www.torn.com/profiles.php?XID=2209950

Link to a level 100 with only 200 total stats: https://www.torn.com/profiles.php?XID=2670154

People that level up extremely fast just hit only these 2 level 100's... the issue is that they are constantly dead and i will get into that in a moment.

The best thing you can do is find targets that you can kill and attack and LEAVE them. LEAVE gives the most experience out of all options. Your best bet is to use some sort of tool like TornTools and to visit the users profile and hit stakeout button that TornTools adds to their profile as you can set this to alert you when the target is OKAY status (meaning alive again and out of the hospital). This is how people power level in 5 or less days by just constantly killing high levels the second they are alive. You will be able to beat stronger targets due to most of these guys being low life since they are constantly killed and just coming out of the hospital. You can buy a cheap weapon like an Enfield and start killing and if needed you can attack and lose one time to afford this (many people are paying 300k for losses in the "Attacking" forums) You can buy some crappy leather armor for minor protection and a Full Body Armor extremely cheap in the item market and be at least somewhat protected in the fight. I would recommend you spend a few days training mostly strength and speed stats and if you have any trouble you can buy a cheap drug called Vicodin that boosts all of your stats by 25% for a few hours. You can download TornTools here (clicky link) and it will be extremely helpful stalking for when your target comes back to life. Find a few that you can manage to beat and spend all of your energy on them when you can and start leveling up. If you do not want to sell a loss to buy some initial weak gear -- you are able to buy 100 items per day in stores that are in the city, you can refresh and aim to buy 100 beers in the Bits 'N' Bobs store in the city and can resell them for 300k total on the item market.

If you can hit level 15 by time you are age 14/15. You will have a very easy time finding a faction with a few million respect and a lot of awesome perks that you can use. Many factions will take in eager new players and it looks really when you can do this, and if you can keep on killing it you have high potential to pass and catch up to top players when you're a few years into the game. A lot of players have a misconception that they can't catch up to the top players, but this is wrong as typically older players get lazy with training and activity.

If it ends up taking you longer than 14 days from finding this thread to hit level 15, don't give up. The truth is you aren't setting yourself apart from 100's of new players and that is perfectly fine... you may just be more of a casual player that can't dedicate as much time or things just aren't clicking with you yet and you may just need more time to improve and get better. If you hit level 15 in the time span you should be looking for a more serious / competitive faction as you will do extremely well and be able to make a lot of money from warring and crimes this way.

Flying (Must know information for first time flyers! Wait until you are level 15 to read this section)
Once you hit level 15, you are going to need a 2 things:
#1 Renting a Private island with an airstrip... now go to customize and hire a pilot staff (this lets you hold +10 items).  For a cheap PI 2600 happiness is fine for your first island, but the 4225 max happiness one is what you want as having just about double the happiness gives you an extra 20% to your stat gains when training (roughly).
#2 Suitcase (can buy from item market or hawaii - lets you hold +4 more items with the biggest size)
You may initially have to fly without these things but your goal should be save up to rent an island and then save up to buy a suitcase.

It is very important to use this website for flying so that you know what items are in stock: https://yata.yt/bazaar/abroad/ it also tells you what the items give per hour. You can narrow down your search by flowers and plushies as these are what you will buy on your travels and return back to resell for profit. You never want to travel somewhere that is out of stock or near going out of stock as then you may have to travel back empty handed.

Many players (including myself) use an app called "Torn PDA". This is huge for traveling as you can go to alerts and set traveling to alert you right before you land. This lets you fly very efficiently as you can travel or buy items and get out of a location as soon as possible. Leaving no down time between flying is vital to not getting mugged and for making the most profit.
To Download Torn PDA you can either search it in the store or use the Clicky links below
For Android users: CLICKY LINK.
For Apple users: CLICKY LINK.

It's important to fly back ASAP pretty much as soon as you land as muggers will mug or hospitalize you if you are there too long and then your 30 minute trip turns into a 3 hour one.

If you become a serious flyer your goal should be to be in a 10 star Lingerie Store, as it allows business class flights free (typically they cost several million each business flight) this allows you to DOUBLE your flying income, and fly so much faster with 1/2 or less of the flight speed.

You can either sell your flowers/plushies to traders or sell it yourself in the item market which makes life a lot easier (but selling yourself opens you up for being mugged so it's important to read the "not getting mugged" section below). 


Once you are at the point of being comfortable with flying -- players typically will use the money towards 3 Xanax per day (Xanax gives 250 energy so it is great for training) and then save up for a donator pack as well as saving up for the next rent payment and use flying as a way to continuously improve their character through the money earned.

There may be some other profitable items, the yata website that I linked earlier in this section does go over the profit potential but for now flowers/plushies are extremely cheap and profitable which is what a new player needs. 

Other items worth flying for outside of plushies and flowers would be xanax, and smoke grenades both located in South Africa as they sell for a decent profit if you can afford to buy them.  Xanax will sell quicker than smoke grenades as smoke grenades are really only used for wars during the weekend while xanax is useful for people all week long so it sells quicker.  You also risk being mugged as you need over 20m to buy enough xanax for a full trip. There is also the potential of new items being added such as Dog Treat used in Organized Crimes and is consumed to be bought and sold for profit.

Hiding money tips (Below are all of the ways that you can store cash, I've added a red *Recommended* for what would be the easiest simplest ways to store money as a newbie)

In my opinion the piggy bank is not really that good since you have to break and destroy it to get your money out. It is for pure noobs who are figuring things out still but lucky you, we are trying to get you away from being a noob with better options.

Property vaults - you must own or have a spouse that will let you share it that you trust in order to use the vault, renting doesn't work.

Cayman islands - It's a trip but it's a safe bank as long as you dont get mugged there or on the way back. People often expect those that are flying here to be withdrawing or depositing money so you have to be quick as there are always people ready to mug checking this area out... you have to be ready and online the second your plane lands and get out within only a few seconds... either depositing or withdrawing money and flying right back near instantly. It's inconvenient due to being a distance away but it is the safest bank you have available early game.

Faction vault - Use at your own risk. Ideally you can trust your faction but these are not made to be banks -- it can take long times for players to pay you out as well since access to them is limited and it has happened many times... someone with access can just empty the entire vault and run with everyone's money. So you are risking your cash in the hands of others as well are screwed if you need cash quickly. 

Company Bank - Companies have infinite banks but without Syscore stock (SYS) then you are open to being hacked by software companies. They can hack 100% of your money over just a few moments so it is too risky to store a lot of money in here unless you can afford the expensive stock benefit of SYS... this is the best and most convenient bank in game if you have the SYS stock benefit block which costs a few billion dollars. 

Stocks *Recommended* - You can buy a stock ticketer with points that allows access to buy stocks. The downside is your money could go down and lose several percentage while hiding cash here and there is a sale fee, but on the plus side when you do go to sell some of it no one will know so the chance of being mugged is low. There are times where stocks have dropped 10% so you could potentially be risking a lot but it might not be as bad if you diversify your hiding as some stocks might go down but others might have risen.

City bank - 1-2 week intervals, unable to take it out until it ends It is best to only bank for short intervals until you have 2 billion dollars which is the max amount -- at that point 2-3 months is the best option to pick. YOU SHOULD USE THIS.  Every 2 weeks you should add all money you have spare into the city bank to make a small profit.  2 weeks is the best option until you max the bank out (2 billion is the max), once you are maxed out you want to do 2 or 3 months whichever has higher interest rates at the time.

Item*Recommended*- You can store your cash buying things such as xanax or cheap donator packs because these things sell very fast so when you need your cash you can resell it quickly, however you risk being mugged when you go to resell it and losing to the market's 5% fee so diversifying in stocks may be better.  Points bought off the Point Market are another option to hide your money but point prices can fluctuate and slowly crash over time so this is better for short term hiding of cash.  

6 hour trades / "Ghost trades" - This is an important method to know as you need it will need it for selling items. You can start a trade with a friend or faction member/leader you trust. Torn calls these "ghost trades" you can temporarily if you need to hide your cash, you start a trade with someone you trust and put your money up. Trades last for 6 hours and can be canceled (this is why you want to do it with someone you can trust) and once they end via being canceled or expiring all money goes on hand. You can do this while hospitalized so you can sell stuff while dead to avoid muggers and then trade a friend and hide all of the cash in a ghost trade before healing yourself up and coming back to life to ensure that if someone does mug you as soon as you med out... the money is still safe.

Not getting mugged tips (A must know for trading/gambling/selling items. Skip this section if that's something you do not care to do -- you could always just go to a trusted trader and avoid being mugged to sell your flowers/plushies if you wanted)

Kill yourself and turn revives off - (you can turn revives off in Settings (HERE) > General Settings > Who can revive you: NO ONE)
If you are alive people will mug you if they see items for sale. Trust no one. People will trade you and mug you after or mug you if you're gambling. If you are dead and no one can revive you, you are safe temporarily from being mugged. Once you are dead you can hide the money in a trade with someone you trust as mentioned in the section above... and then come back alive mug free and hide the money elsewhere when the threat of muggers wears off.

1) Russian Roulette (losing a cheap game = 15 mins hospital time)
2) attack and lose to someone (~15 mins hospital time)
3) small explosive device (5 hours hospital, expensive item -- you can put this item into a parcel and blow yourself up)
4) have friend bounty or hospitalize you (2-3 hours hospital time)
5) *BEST OPTION* use wrong bloodbag (1 hour hospital time -- unlocked from education -- read the education section)... you can also use ipecac syrup to self hospitalize as this does the same exact thing as taking the wrong bloodbag.
6) You can fail the 15 nerve Kidnap Cop crime (this has massive negatives as you lose like 400-500 nerve worth of crimes [more accurately ~40 arson warehouse crimes worth of XP], but you can get 7-8 hours of hospital time so if you are desperate or do not care about your nerve you can do this for 7-8 hours of hospital time)

Easiest way to do this is to have biology done, fill a blood bag to damage yourself (the point of filling a empty blood bag is to damage yourself and so that you can figure out what your blood type is... if you are already damage you can skip filling an empty blood bag), then take a blood bag that you are not compatible with which will give you 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes of hospital time. As long as you are hurt still you can keep taking the wrong blood bag to reset the time back to 1+ hour.

Blood type compatibility below: (Yes you are pretty screwed if you are AB+ and have to use one of the other lesser options since there is no blood you can't take)

[image: i.gyazo.com]

Flying to attempt avoiding mugs - It can be a lot harder to get mugged when you are flying, and many players will do this but you need to be instantly returning the second you land. Someone in torn can buy from you and a friend can track you down with a faster flight (with business class flights that massively reduce flight time at a large cost) to mug you. People will stalk and track your flights so be careful if you are traveling with points/items/anything listed for sale. Some people will fly to caymans because of the bank that you can instantly deposit into but if it takes you longer than 5 seconds to put the money into the bank - you risk being mugged. You 100% need your phone with you and the TornPDA app if you are going to hide from muggers using this technique. Players are very good at stalking you and figuring out an estimate of your landing time and will arrive before you and have a friend buy and clean you out with a mug.


Education (There is a specific order of Education that you should take so I do recommend giving this section a read)

1) Biology - I suggest that the first course you ever take is in the biology section. You want to start with introduction to biology and then do the course called: Intravenous Therapy. This will unlock blood bags and allow you to use them as well as fill empty blood bags which is the best healing item in the game. It can also be used to hospitalize yourself taking a blood bag that you are not compatible with from the above section. You can figure your blood type out by filling an empty blood bag and seeing what item you get. After you finish these two courses and have the ability to make blood bags you can go into #2 sports science.

2) Sports Science - This course gives extra gym gains and this will add up in your torn lifetime, you want to get it started on these courses ASAP. It normally is best to finish all of these extra gym gains unless if you plan to run a company which I will hit more on later then it is okay to cut it short a little bit and do a mix of sports science and business courses.

From here you have three paths:

War path: (Recommended)

3) Combat Training - This should be your second ever education. Finishing this bachelor gives you weapon experience points with every attack. 100% experience gives like 25% accuracy and damage, it's a HUGE difference in fights. The sooner you finish this education the more weapons you can start to level up.

4) Math Bachelor - The very last course reduces ammo used, this lets you use your weapon more before having to reload or switch weapons. These extra shots can add up to a win. The longer you can use your best weapon before they runs out of ammo -- the better off you are.

5) Biology bachelor - Since these perks cost a lot of money so 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 boosters are very expensive but allow you to fight players way out of your league.

Business Owner Path:

3) Business MGMT - If you plan to run a company it's a must have to do this as your company will do literally 100% better instead of making 200m a week youll make 400m a week that's the difference between 0/13 business courses done and 15/13 courses done. I say 15 out of 13 because there is one course under Law education for a boost to advertising, and one course under Math education for productivity that also are company educations that are needed for running a 10 star company... the bachelor itself is not needed and should be the 15th course you do just for the merit. Without this education, it's VERY HARD to maintain 10 stars and I am warning you if you try to buy any company you will lose stars and your money you spent for a long time until you can get the stars back when this education is done with.

Trader:

3) History - The only good thing is that you can unlock the museum, allowing you to trade plushie and flower sets for points. This allows you to buy these things up cheap and flip the flowers and plushies as points.

Merits (Merits can be confusing, if you need help figuring out what to put them in give this section a read)
7 out of 10 merits costs 28 merits; meanwhile, 8, 9 and 10 by themselves is 27.

This typically means that unless something is extremely important that you should only have 7 merits in it. I will list off all of the decent merits and it is up to you on which ones you end up putting merits into.

Education Length - This is a temporary merit as eventually one day youll get rid of it, it's up to you to decide how many merits you want to dump into it but as a new player this is actually one that I recommend focusing on at first as it is going to help a lot early on getting through important education courses quicker (see education guide above)

Nerve & Crime XP - If you are not big on fighting these are fine options. The crime XP will fall off on usefulness a lot faster than nerve points. Youll also probably get more XP from the extra nerve since it allows you to lose less nerve regen and have better nerve refills. The only reason to put points into this in my opinion is #1 you are a reviver, or #2 you have a lot of spare merits.

Critical Hit Rate - In terms of fighting, a slight chance to deal more damage is a no brainer. However Life and Weapon mastery come above this, so only 7/10 until your more important merits are 10/10, then you can bring this one up towards 10/10 slowly.

Life Points - This is a must have for fighting, life is a 5th stat being able to take an extra hit or two is huge. One of the few merits you will go for 10/10 in. Extra life can literally swing fights in your favor when you're able to take more hits.

Weapon Mastery (just one for whatever weapon you use the most) - This is a must have for fighting and will increase how good you are in fights by almost double, it is way better to have 10/10 in this then 10 in every single stat passive. This is something you want 10/10 in more then anything else. The difficulty here is that you want to specialize in a weapon that is good and with legendaries you can end up finding better weapons quite frequently. Make sure you will use the weapon long term before picking a mastery. For non-legendaries an Armalite/enfield (rifles) are the best weapons... but you may end up getting a sword that is legendary and really good. Try not to seek upgrades too often as we only get 1 free merit reset every christmas and the cost increases with each reset.

Passive Stats - 7 out of 10 for these. After crit you can work them up higher. If you whore a stat heavier then the rest then choose to get that one to 7 out of 10 or higher first.

Masterful Looting - Increases mugging by 5% per merit. 10/10 gives a 50% boost on what you would of mugged without the merits. If you are a mugger, getting this is a must, and having 10/10 is also a must.

Bank Interest - Banking if you don't have 2b in there you should bank once every 2 weeks, but Once you have 2b in the bank you should bank it for 2 months long (sometimes 3 months if the APR is better). Each merit will give something like +22m. While it's extra money it probably isn't worth the merit slots to go past 7 merits unless if you need the extra 60m every 2 months that badly.

How do I escape the life of flying for money? (Flying is pretty necessary while building up cash; there are players that still fly that have billions of cash, but I get the common question of how can I build up enough cash where I can stop flying or stop relying on flying)

To me there are 4 big ways you can do early on to supplement flying income. You're still going to need to fly for a while but these are a few options you can aim for.

#1 Running a company (remember that education for business management)
#2 Rank Wars with payouts
#3 Reviving
#4 Organized Crimes

Running a company is typically not a good idea. Most companies lose money daily. I highly advise against buying a company or starting one from scratch until you finish the business management 15 courses (or at least 75% of them) that are mentioned in the Education section. You can when you have 100-300m saved up buy a company that is cheaply run (5-7 stars) and sell the trains that the company gets daily for 300-500k price range. Companies get 1 train per star (unless some job position gives more trains per day) If you are getting 5 trains a day that is 1.5m to 2.5m per day all the way up to 3 to 5m per day if you get the company to 10 stars one day. This is exactly how much flying makes. So if you are doing this and flying, you're slowly getting ahead of everyone that is just flying. You will likely need ~500m++ of stocks (TGP and TCP) in order to hit 10 stars or the higher star levels in most cases on top of the educations. Companies are very competitive. It is normally not worth starting a company from scratch and better to buy one already with a few stars. Most companies run at a loss due to paying employees so it's important to find a cheaply run company or a company with really nice perks (like a 7 star sweet shop, 7 star candle store as sweet shops give free energy cans and candle gives free energy these are highly desired perks so people will join for free just for the perks the company gives -- you can find a list of company perks on the torn wiki). There is a very active forum thread for buying and selling trains here (clicky link) where you can easily make yourself a few million a day and find clients looking to buy trains... as i mentioned the standard amount is 300-500k per day but you could sell in the lower range like 250-300k to get clients easier in a company that doesn't have as many stars/trains per day. The more amount of companies that exist of a specific company means the more competitive a company is -- so if you can get a company with not many active companies (above 0 star) then it will be easier to maintain the stars without the education/stocks. Cafe is a good example there are literally like a dozen cafes total and like 3 that are 10 star, like 8 total that are above 5 star... there is a severe lack of competition and that means these companies are easier to not lose stars in. Meanwhile a candle shop has like 150 that are 7 stars alone ... 150 more that are 8 stars... the likely hood that you need the stocks and 100% of education is a lot higher and youll probably lose stars down to 4-6 stars without having them because the competition is massive. if you are smart and use this information you can end up making a few million a day from just selling trains which helps and adds up.

Rank Wars with payouts is a way of making money through factions. Specific factions will pay you for doing hits in wars. There are many types of factions and right now is an extremely good time to make money. Some factions will open the loot they get for Rank Wars (RW for short) but others will sell their RW rewards and pay members out. You want to be one of those players that is established with flying and chomping down 3 Xanax a day working hard on your battle stats. You can find factions in the Faction Recruitment forums and find ones that advertise RW payouts. I will admit this is probably the best way to make money right now but it does take a lot of work because you need to be one of the top fighters in the faction to actually make really good money -- it can be hard as a new player to beat other players up which may deter you from considering this option, but some factions, our war faction included, will also pay out group fight assists. I have seen first hand that even though a player is young they are still able to get in on making RW cash if they are determined.

Reviving makes it really easy to afford the things you need. Revivers use a lot of their energy training their revive stat and making money so they won't gain as much stats as fighters, but being able to afford their daily needs is normally not much of an issue. If you can get paid 1 Xanax for 25energy for your revive you just traded 25e to gain 250e from that drug which is a profit of 225e. I have never seen a reviver run into issues affording the things they need when people toss Xanax at them for revives. If this is something you are interested in feel free to message me and I can give you some guidance on how to go this route and mail you some of the reviving specific guides that our revive groups use for becoming a reviver. Revive factions after Jan 1st 2025 raised prices to 1.8m per revive during contracts (agreements to revive for their faction) this can be competitive to be the first to get the revive but the potential for money is pretty high... people will toss you a xanax or 1m semi often for reviving them if they overdosed on drugs, and sometimes buy them in trade but most money is through contracts every week that revive factions have. It's a calm playstyle in comparison to warring.

Organized Crimes are massive now.  On Feb. 4th 2025 organized crimes released and most factions will be paying out for every crime done... the ability to make money is pretty high from crimes now.  You should take your crimes and using energy serious... you should take beer at the very least every single day making sure to constantly keep your booster cooldown maxed out in order to gain as much nerve as possible towards crimes.  It makes joining a faction absolutely necessary because this is a large amount of income that will add up over time through faction payouts.  You really want a faction the usefulness of one to you is absolutely huge. We are talking about players that have 45-50 natural nerve bars making 1m a day or around that which adds up a lot with the max you can make being 32m per day (factions normally take 20% towards faction funds but still organized crimes in factions can make some serious cash if you take crimes serious) [as a side note natural nerve bar is what size your nerve bar is without any merits in nerve increase and without any faction perks and without any company perks if any increase nerve bar size -- your raw nerve bar is your natural nerve bar].  Around age 200-250 or so is when you can start to get into these crimes as long as you work on doing your crimes to level your nerve bar size up (also called your crime experience or CE).  Make sure to check out the pinned post as it goes over crimes briefly so you can maximize your CE and get into good crimes.

Take your Nerve bar and Crimes serious... there is potential to make 100's of millions a month when you reach the end game faction organized crimes. 
ALSO take Racing serious from a young age... alot of the high paying crimes require a driver that scales success with racing skill.

You should be investing any of the money that you earn into things like stock benefit blocks (dividends that pay out items are typically a really good return) and towards filling your bank to 2b cash. When you get to the big leagues the end game companies that cost 1b++ can allow you to make 10-30m daily if you put in hard work with hiring a good staff. 

Easy links (Here is a section of essential outside sites/apps/scripts, I have used all 4 and I at the very least highly recommend Torn PDA and TornTools as they are both something I could never play this game without -- the websites are also amazing but I do not use them as much personally)

Torn PDA - I have mentioned this for traveling. This is the best app for Torn that you can install on your phone. You can have this app push notifications to your phone for flying so that you know when you land, setting it to watch stocks and tell you when they hit a certain price, it can tell you when your drug cooldown is over, your energy or nerve is maxed out, it can be used to tell you if your faction chain is dying. There is so much more you can do on this app and it is absolutely essential for a serious torn player. Torn PDA To Download Torn PDA you can either search it in the store or use the Clicky links below
For Android users: CLICKY LINK.
For Apple users: CLICKY LINK.

YATA - This is a great website and it's main use for me personally is for seeing stock abroad so I know where to travel. https://yata.yt/bazaar/abroad/. There are a handful of other functionalities that YATA has and going to the main page makes everything pretty self explanatory as there is a list of functionality https://yata.yt/

TornTools - This is pretty much the must have for your PC browser extension and you can find it here (clicky link). This will give you alerts while at your PC on if you get an mail or event, if your chain is dying, if your energy is full. A huge feature already mentioned is the Stakeout feature that allows you to stalk players which is super helpful for finding alive leveling targets when working to hit level 15. TornTools has tons of quality of life improvements or "ease of use" features that it adds into the game. It is actually impossible for me to not play the game with the features it gives... I turn off notifications and use Torn PDA to notify me on phone and then use all of the quality of life improvements that TornTools adds. If you are a serious Torn player this like Torn PDA is an absolute requirement.

Tornstats - Tornstats is a website much like YATA where it's main use is tracking statistics of torn. You can track your stats and progress you are making on this website and see graphs of how your stats have improved over the last 30 days. It allows your faction to track your stats and share player stat spies between you and your faction mates so if you get into a big faction you pretty much will have access to see most players stats if the faction has a good database built up. You can check statistics on your stock playing, how your company is doing, and a bunch of other things. A lot of factions will require you to use this for the stat tracking so leaders can check on your stats and it's well worth it since faction spy databases help a ton in war with sharing information of enemy stats with you before you get into battle. You can find the tornstats site here (Clicky Link)

I wish I knew that tip (These don't really fit into any section that I have and just think they are great things to know)
1) Speed Run Nerve Bar - With the release of Organized Crimes 2.0 on Feb. 4th 2025. All crimes pay out money, the higher level crime you qualify for will allow you to make more money so you really want to get your nerve bar up to increase your success rates at doing higher crimes.  Joining a company called a pub early on in the game can speed run you to being able to get into a high tier organized crime teams where you are making several million daily. This company gives extra nerve and refills to nerve free as well as increasing the effect of alcohol. There has been a player that went from a noob to being able to make 4m+ a day within a year (normally this probably would have taken several years but due to pub's giving massive amounts of nerves they are able to join level 7 and higher tier organized crimes). People that can do the high tier crimes become extremely desirable in factions.  The max level is 10, and trust me if you can do at least level 7 you will have factions begging you to join. It could be an option if you want to become an extremely desirable player to go spend 1-2 years sitting in a 10 star pub so that you can make some serious money.  Level 10 makes a faction around 32m according to the announcement (while the system may be tweaked in the future that is some massive money, likely a faction will take a cut but you are still looking at most likely 20-25m per day if you can ever get to being strong enough to be in a level 10 crime).  If you want to make some serious money it's something to consider taking crimes extremely serious as they can make insane money. I don't know exactly but it probably takes you around 250 days to reach the point of making 1m a day or doing the crime that makes around that... with a pub and using alcohol daily, the refills it gives on nerve, and the boost to total nerve which improves the free refill... any actual refills you pay for with points... you could be looking at it taking half of the time like 125-150 days... by time you are a year of being in the company you will without a doubt be able to do the big level 7+ crimes that are 4 to 32m per day (again factions will take a cut for their funding but it will be massive amounts still for you)
2) Maximizing newbie gym gains - You should while unlocking gyms train the best stat that the gym gives. Each gym will have dots showing the stat gains and you should always aim to go for the highest while you are unlocking them all just to maximize your gains. When you finally unlock the best gym, then worry about how you will train. I wouldn't read it yet but when you do have the max gym unlocked I do have another guide that takes a very extensive look into fighting (and it includes mention of training) which you can find a link to in my profile signature or forum signature.
3) Potentially easy money - Lottos/giveaways are a great way to get a little jump start in the game. I don't think they are super popular anymore but I actually got my start through lottos/giveaways. Getting a little bit of help through winning some prizes can make a huge difference. I had won a few million in prizes and it started off my addiction to building my networth. You can find discord channels that do giveaways/lottos/raffles or wahtever you want to call it here in the Discord forums section here (clicky link). 

If you are a fighting player and finished this guide and are looking to take your game to the next level, check out my fighting guide posted in my forum signature or in my profile signature. I go into stat training after the max gym is unlocked (I would not suggest reading it until this point unless if you're hardcore as you have plenty of time to just take things easy and not overwhelm yourself) and many tips for completely maximizing your character in every single aspect of battle.

I have a pinned messaged below in post 2 that goes into different training methods and a little bit about your nerve bar and a brief mention of each crime! Be sure to read that too so you are able to get ahead with your stat gains/crime experience for high tier organized crimes! 

The auction house takes 3% on any item you list.  I have a company that removes the fee and I add my own lesser fees... This means more money for you as less money is taken!

MY RATES:

• 1% fee on item sale [0.15% fee if you win your own item]
  

USE MY MONEY FOR A SAFETY BID

• (Add-On Fee, OPTIONAL) - +1%.  This is an upfront fee.  If you want a 500m bid on your item, I will have a faction mate bid on it and you will give me 5m (1%) upfront with the item to list it.  This is a fee I am keeping even if the item does not sell as I keep money collecting dust just to ensure I can offer this to the one rare person that needs it every now and then.  PLEASE NOTE: This safety bid will be placed on the item immediately.  I will not know who bids on the item as you do not get notifications of who bids only the final and last bidder that win's the item.

Why the hell would I use this service?
~~MORE MONEY PER SALE. I only charge a 1% when an item actually sells... the auction house charges 3% when it sells or when a friend wins it.  My fee when it does not sell is small and barely noticeable at 0.15% meaning you can list your item 20 times with me and win it every time before it even reaches the price the auction house would take.  On a sale since I only take 1% you would get an extra 2% so for every 1b the item sells for that's 30m the auction house would take... I only take 10... you would get an extra 20m.. so if your item sells for a few billion you are sitting comfy making extra profit.
~~You would have the ability to bid on your own item so you can feel like you have a friend and not let an item sell for a price you are unhappy with
~~Auction limits. You can only list 5 items on your own. My service allows you to list extra items that you can't list yourself.
~~Small cost if you win your own item. If you have a friend list an item for you, and win it yourself that is a 3% fee.. then having to list it a second time for another 3% fee... The fees stack up hard. With my service you can win your own item several times and not have to worry about this fee stacking up as 0.15% is 1/20th of what the auction house charges.

~~I offer up my own money to bid on your item for a small fee!

Why trust me with your expensive items:
~~I am a very trusted individual within the community. (Written several guides most notably "Fight better than top 100", Ex leader of TuS (now Carbon), Ex leader of a JFA sub (now called NS), Owner of the WTF family/WTF Revive service).
~~I have been a long term committee member trusted by chedburn.

~~Can produce my sheet of items sold/people that have used my service upon request (Did not start tracking until end of may 2024 so missed a lot of people)

ALL ITEMS ARE LISTED FOR ONLY 1 DAY.  People do not see items until the last 24 hours, they do not look for anything except for items ending soon.  

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Bump.  Hands down best script that you can use with any service.  

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It is definitely a nerf overall, not fully crap but it can't compete with penetrate unless you are fighting against a full faction of EOD players... and even then you now have nearly at max a 1 in 3 chance to hit someone that has a 1 in 3 chance to block a hit, so having the 2 perks proc at the same time isn't the best when both items are a 1 in 3 chance to happen.  It's a big damage loss when you are fighting someone that does not have either assault or EOD.

Someone that has assault because all hits block that ~30% bullet damage, each proc that goes off will do more damage and in this case the damage is still lower than what it used to be.

Someone that has EOD as mentioned you basically have like a 10% chance the perks actually collide and occur in the same turn since both are 1 in 3 chance to happen so out of every 9 turns we assume 1 bypass of EOD's full block will occur.  EOD has really high armor so it's a damage loss compared to the old puncture because now you're hitting armor reductions more frequently.  Bypassing a full damage block I did not do any math on but i assume the 1 to 2.5 times it happens per fight... i am sure that this bypass of the full block is only restoring the damage that is lost on hitting the armor reduction more essentially making it do literally f**k all but a nerf to the perk with no benefit gained at all.  Honestly probably the same with assault now that i think of it.  It probably falls down to B / C tier on my tier list thread when I eventually get to doing the math.  For sure is not tip top A tier perk anymore.  

Not really sure any thought went into the change despite the 2 year internal discussion on it that was mentioned by ched.

It's not horrible, it is a nerf, but I would probably jump off a bridge if I had spent 20b+ on a sick red puncture since it no longer is on the same level as penetrate.

are we not going to get any comment on the bug part where your post says base is reduced from 20 to 15% but the bonus on mrpringles weapon dropped nearly 20%?  doesn't really seem like this is fixed besides the typo

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