The Halls of Torment ability tier list is probably one of the most looked-up things online for players of this roguelike. Abilities are the ones that determine how well your run will go and whether or not you’ll last till the end. Strategizing around them, picking the right ones at the right time, and choosing the best upgrades will be crucial to beating levels and advancing down the path of Torment.
Abilities are, of course, only part of the game as the items, Torment Shart boosts, and potions can also make or break your game. Still, we find abilities the most important segment of planning your run that deserves special attention.
Halls of Torment Abilities Ranked
After clearing dozens and dozens of runs in Halls of Torment, we decided to come up with a useful list of the abilities in the game so you’ll know your way around them once in the heat of the battle. But remember that every hero has their own build possibilities so keep that in mind when making your pick. Our list shows abilities ranked from strongest to weakest overall. However, that doesn’t mean that some of the lower-ranked ones can’t work in a run.
The list will talk about some of the abilities in depth so if you’re new to the game, you should definitely check out our Halls of Torment Beginner’s Guide And Tips article to familiarize yourself with the basics.
S Tier
Ring Blades
Ring Blades represent a strong companion in the dungeons. It scales with Force, Critical, Attack Speed, and base Damage and massacres everything in your path both early game and late game, which is why they are at the top spot.
When it comes to upgrades for this weapon of mass destruction, we suggest you pick Cyclon followed by Piercing Blades. The first one lets Ring Blades circle around you and fly much further than before, while the latter upgrade adds 2 projectiles that deal magic damage, and more importantly, apply Fragile. Any Fragile buff that you can get is priceless.
Phantom Needles
When you get Phantom Needles, your early game is secured. Especially when you’re new to the game because this simple firing weapon can clear a bunch of monsters going in your face and, alongside your main weapon, help you clear the path forward and go for those valuable pickups.
This ability scales up really well with Damage, Multistrike, and Attack Speed. Upgrades we suggest are Phantom Split into Phantom Fetters. The first one vastly increases your damage output while the second one applies slow to the horde helping you stay alive, and giving you bonus damage when stacking slow on the same target, meaning it’s a valuable elite killing weapon.
When combined with Transfixion, Phantom Needles ability can do wonders.
A Tier
Lightning Strikes
Lightning Strikes ability is a strong spell that helps you thin out the horde from a distance and reduce the number of monsters approaching you. Its effect isn’t always obviously seen, but the strikes do a tremendous job (you can check the damage dealt at the end of the game).
When looking to upgrade it, you should go for either Explosive Strikes or Concentrated Strikes. The first ones cause explosions on critical hits while applying burn damage which is a strong solution for clearing out masses of enemies. Opposite of it are the Concentrated Strikes that make Lightning Strikes hit enemies with the highest HP and those near them. This can help you clear elites fast, and you’ll notice that as you advance through the Torment levels you’ll find elite enemies barging at you every couple of minutes.
Meteor Strike
An ally in the shape of a meteor shower raining down on monsters passively while you fight and dodge them sounds pretty neat. Multistrike and Attack Speed make this ability a mighty sidekick that you don’t want to abandon.
Burning Craters upgrade lights the ground on which the meteor fell on fire making them burn while Fireball upgrade lets the meteor roll down on the ground damaging enemies. Both are effective ways of applying burn on enemies killing them with the DoT damage.
Transfixion
Transfixion fires piercing projectiles in the direction you’re facing. These projectiles can be further enhanced with size, speed, effects on hit, etc. The ability benefits the most from Attack Speed and Multistrike (no surprise there) but its main advantage is that it can spread everywhere. That gives you a reliable weapon that brings down enemies like flies.
When it’s time to upgrade, go ahead and get Painful Incisions followed by Amputation. Both add projectiles that shoot from your back, giving you more damage per second. The first will add a chance for applying Affliction to monsters, while the latter will add 10% additional damage to all enemies that are affected by a debuff.
Transfixion already has Fragile (increased damage to enemies hit with direct attacks) and when you add Affliction (increased damage to enemies hit with elemental effects) to it, you’ll have a deadly combo.
Frost Avalanche
Frost Avalanche is the best utility ability you can find in the game as it freezes enemies around you while at the same time dealing DoT damage. We’ve found it especially useful in many of our runs as it slows down hordes and lets you maneuver around more easily and escape those clutch situations when your whole screen starts getting filled up with monsters.
Even though this ability isn’t created to kill a bunch of enemies, it is a great tool that can help both in low and high Torment runs. Quick Freeze is the first upgrade you’ll need as it leaves trails of ice patches to slow down the horde and apply the Frost effect which can be combined in a great way with the Norseman’s main weapon effects. To better understand heroes and their unique set of skills check out our Halls of Torment All Characters Guide.
The second upgrade should be Debris Avalanche as it simply adds more projectiles for a better effect on a wider area.
B Tier
Morning Star
Morning Star doesn’t look like much and when we’ve used it for the first couple of times it didn’t really look like much. However, it has proven to be a decent enough weapon that we can put it somewhere in the middle but not in the top tier of our ability list.
It scales great with Force, which multiplies its damage. Leveling up Area trait will be one of the most fun things you can do with Morning Star while Attack Speed is something that’s absolutely necessary since the ability doesn’t move that quickly to start with.
It is a decent weapon both in the early and the late game if you get Spiked Chain that makes the chain itself a damage-dealing menace and applies slow to enemies. You can follow this upgrade with any of the remaining two but we prefer the Unleashed Stars because of that extra damage that can wipe a group of weak monsters and give you extra breathing space.
Spirit Warrior
Spirit Warrior(s) is a solid option when it comes to DPS ability for both early and late game phases. If you’re new to Halls of Torment Spirit Warrior will help you fight through those bands of enemies. They will fight for you while you stay in a certain range and will then dash toward you when you exit that range. Increasing the Range stat will increase the range in which they can still fight before dashing so keep that in mind.
On the other hand, you’ll be moving a lot with most of the characters during your run so it might be better to use their dashing to your advantage. You can do that by picking up the Dash Impact ability that will send a physical damage shockwave when they jump to you. Spirit Orbs can be a great follow-up to increase the damage per second they dash out.
Even though Spirit Warrior ability can give you some reliable damage, it’s not really the strongest so that’s why we’ve put them in the middle. Of course, with scaling of stats like Range, Physical damage, and Attack Speed you can make these warriors into real killers.
Radiant Aura
Radiant Aura is an ability with a pretty solid damage output that can help you when playing melee characters. This is mainly because it deals damage to those next to your character, and if you’re blasting at them from afar, your Radiant Aura won’t be at its maximum potential.
The ability is overall better early game than late game because its damage spreads equally to all enemies surrounding you. On the positive side, that means that it can help you greatly in the final battle vs the Lord of Pain because he fights alone. The ability has a chance to apply Fragile, but it’s not as efficient as some other abilities that have it, like Transfixion.
When upgrading, pick Punitive Light to get the Fragile and Affliction going, and Echoing Light to spread the damage of the ability further.
Astronomer’s Orbs
The Astronomer’s Orbs ability is another interesting one that can help melee characters in most cases. However, that doesn’t exclude the ranged ones from using it, especially in the late game when you get overwhelmed. Their damage output isn’t the best (the main reason they’re in the B Tier) but can get decent with the right upgrades.
The main advantage of these orbs is that they can scale great with movement speed. Pick up the Inner Orb upgrade for an additional lane of orbs and then go ahead and take Electrified Orbs which will add lightning damage to them that scales up with your movement speed. Add to this the fact that the speed of orbs naturally increases with movement speed as well, and you can create a powerful weapon. Still, getting to that level requires plenty of trait boosts which is why this weapon isn’t at the top of the list.
Arcane Splinters
We could say that Splinters are decent in the early game and get better as time goes by. The main thing to know with Arcane Splinters is that you need to scale Attack Speed which will increase the speed at which you shoot them, Multistrike which will give you more Splinters and Force which will allow all Splinters to stay in the air longer. When all of these stats are boosted to a significant level, you’ll see a screen full of Arcane Splinters and no enemies.
To make this ability more deadly pick out Arcane Unrest upgrade that will give Splinters damage over time, and Arcane Shivers which makes the Splinters burst into smaller ones, thus giving you more flying weapons on the map, killing the horde. Even though this weapon can get effective when made right, it’s still pretty demanding to achieve the top-level damage so we’ve decided to land them in the mid-tier.
Dragon’s Breath
Dragon’s Breath is a good utility for the early game when you want to passively reduce the number of incoming enemies by sending them a fire wave that applies a burn effect. But, when it comes to the late game, this ability doesn’t keep up.
Since physical damage is great in Halls of Torment, we strongly advise you to pick the Heat Blast upgrade that allows the ability to now count as a physical attack. Follow this up by Refined Flame that lets burn from Dragon’s Breath to multiply by 1.01 and Attack Speed to multiply by 0.99. Doing that can give this ability the potential to be useful in the late game. But only in lower Torment levels, though.
C Tier
Arcane Rift
This ability is probably one of the more interesting ones as its place is different in each Halls of Torment ability tier list out there. Some people praise it for being an essential part of many high Torment level runs, while others (us) disagree and think this ability is still on the weak side of things.
Its main downside is that you have to enter the rift itself and tap the middle part to make it explode and deal damage. Now when you find yourself in the middle of a big horde (as you often do in HoT) you can’t always jump in the middle of the Rift and let that damage out.
The Wandering Rift upgrade can fix this issue because it makes Rifts move toward you and explode in contact with monsters. But if you don’t manage to get this one, you won’t feel a big impact from this ability.
Spectral Fists
A magical Fist that fires itself in the area in front of you is a pretty powerful ability for the early game. The important thing to remember when picking this one up is that it doesn’t scale with Attack Speed and Multistrike by default so you’ll be wasting time boosting those traits.
You can strategize with Spectral Fists in two ways. First by doing for the Ground Pound and Spectral punch upgrades that will allow you to keep your main weapon online and dash out more damage with the ability itself. However, if you want to take a different approach and try to get plenty of Fists flying around hastily and killing enemies you can pick the Consecutive Punches upgrade. This upgrade disables damage from your main weapon but allows Spectral Fists to be affected by Multistrike and Attack Speed.
Kugelblitz
Kugelblitz is an ability that is neither good nor bad. It’s okay in the sense that it will deal decent damage to enemies it touches and is a good enough way to apply Spark but it doesn’t excel in any area.
You can use High Voltage and Final Discharge abilities to let the ball of lightning affect more enemies but it still won’t be the best horde-clearing ability.
D Tier
Clay Golem
Clay Golem is currently a really poor ability that doesn’t offer the power that most of the other abilities do. The Golem fights alongside you and rolls around dealing damage. However, without a massive boost of traits that benefit him (Attack Speed, Physical damage) his impact is going to be really low.
Magma Fists and Ferrite Infusion buff up Golem’s attack partially as the first adds burn chance and the second spark chance, but that doesn’t significantly improve his overall damage output. Even the Double Trouble upgrade that allows you to pick out a second Golem won’t bring that much benefit to your run.
Flame Strike
Flame Strike is what it says and that’s what makes it bad. A single strike of fire that damages only one enemy and has a slow recharge time. The ability’s damage is getting bigger as its bar charges up but since you’re constantly getting swarmed by the enemies (even in the early stages of the game) that bar will rarely go all the way up to deal maximum damage.
Upgrades Blazing Emberfall and Scattered Sparks don’t do much to help this ability either. The first one puts enemies on fire without direct hit damage while the second one makes those on fire explode (the explosion damage depends on burn stacks). Its third upgrade Frost Strike simply changes the ability to now deal with Ice damage and to make your effects Frost. Unfortunately, this doesn’t build up to a big DPS build.
Hailstorm
One of the main reasons Hailstorm is ranked this low is that it hits only when you stop moving (so, not continual damage), and when it does the damage isn’t that high. Sure it can apply Frost but it’s not even great at that as Frost Avalanche, for example, does a much better job at covering the map with ice patches and dozens and affecting dozens of enemies with the same effect.
Ability upgrades don’t offer a huge boost as you can only get spikes (Hailstorm Spikes) and freezing vortexes (Hailstorm Vortex) spawning around and their effect is minimal. The last upgrade, Frozen Fire lets the Hailstorm apply burn on top of frost and changes its damage type to Fire.
Conclusion
As with any tier list, there need to be winners and losers. Some abilities in Halls of Torment are better than others but you don’t necessarily have to agree with us. With a large amount of Torment Shards boosting the character traits, you can get some of the B-tier abilities to outperform S-tier ones.
We didn’t want to add Torment Shards into the mix and instead wished to talk about abilities as they are in their present state. The updates to the game might change them and introduce even new abilities that will surely shake up the list. If you want to see which character goes best with your favorite ability we suggest you check out our Halls of Torment All Characters Guide.
Photo credits: Chasing Carrots.
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