Halls of Torment Characters Ranked

Author: Verdict Games Editorial Team Last Updated: September 18, 2026

The Bottom Line

Sage sits at the top because it picks its own main weapon, which means it is never at the mercy of a bad trait pool. Landsknecht is the most complete without that flexibility, covering single-target and area damage from one kit. Shield Maiden and Norseman are the picks when you are dying rather than clearing slowly. Swordsman is a genuinely good starter and not a placeholder, and the Crone and Alchemist are Boglands DLC heroes you should judge after you own the expansion rather than before.

Summary

Halls of Torment has fourteen heroes and they are not variations on the same character — your starting ability decides which traits and items are worth taking for the entire run. Picking wrong means forty minutes of a build that never assembled. This ranking sorts them by how reliably each one turns an average run of level-up offers into a working build, then lists every hero with their starting ability and specialisation.

Who This Is For: Halls of Torment players choosing which hero to take into a run Intermediate

Key Points

There are fourteen heroes: eleven in the base game, Bard as a free unlock after completing it, and Crone and Alchemist from The Boglands DLC.

Sage chooses its own main ability, which makes it the only hero that cannot be handed a bad starting weapon.

Landsknecht covers both roles from one kit — Arquebus for single-target and grenades for area — which is rare.

Shield Maiden scales damage from Block Strength, turning a defensive stat into an offensive one.

Blessings from the Shrine are refundable with no penalty, so respec freely while you are still learning which hero suits you.

Halls of Torment gives you fourteen heroes, and unlike most survivor-likes they are not the same character with different colours. Your starting ability decides which traits and items are worth taking for the rest of the run, so choosing a hero is really choosing which forty-minute build you are committing to.

This guide ranks them, then lists every hero with what they start with.

Which hero to play — ranked

The test here is not raw damage. It is how reliably the hero turns an average set of level-up offers into a working build, because in a run-based game the offers are what you actually have to work with.

Sage Picks which ability becomes its main weapon instead of being handed one. The only hero that can never be stuck building around a weapon the run is not supporting — it removes randomness from the single most important slot

Landsknecht Arquebus for single-target damage and grenades for area, from one kit. Covering both problems without needing the level-up screen to cooperate is rare and it is why this hero holds up deep into runs Shield Maiden Scales damage from Block Strength, which turns a defensive stat into an offensive one. Every survivability item you take is also a damage item, and that double-dipping is genuinely strong Sorceress Built around critical strikes and Spark application. High ceiling that multiplies with every damage trait you find, at the cost of being fragile while you get there Norseman Physical attacks that trigger Frost Nova, so area damage comes free from doing the thing you were doing anyway. Reliable rather than spectacular

Beast Huntress Piercing spear plus a summoned hound, built on physical damage and crits. Two damage sources is good, but neither is exceptional and the hound does not scale as hard as you want late Warlock Master of summons, with ghosts dealing piercing damage. Summons work without your attention, which is valuable, but they follow rather than lead and thin out against dense waves Exterminator Flamethrower with burn, excellent against crowds and noticeably worse against anything with a large health pool. A specialist that the halls sometimes do not ask for Swordsman Tanky melee with area damage. The starter, and a good one — well-rounded enough to carry you through learning, with no direction that makes it exceptional later Archer Multiple piercing arrows and mobility, but a glass cannon. Strong in the hands of someone who never gets hit, punishing for everyone else

Cleric High base damage that demands manual positioning to land. The payoff is real, but a hero whose damage depends on standing correctly is fighting a genre whose answer to everything is to keep moving

DLC / later additions — judge separately

Bard Free unlock for players who have completed the base game, arriving with six abilities and six endgame artifacts. Sits outside the base ranking because you will not have it while the ranking matters Crone Built around the Boglands decay mechanic. Distinct and interesting, but unlocked from the expansion's quest board rather than available to a base-game player Alchemist Multi-element specialist from the same expansion. Same caveat — evaluate it once you own The Boglands, not before

If you want one answer: play the Swordsman until you have blessings, then switch to the Sage once you have it. The gap between them is not damage, it is that the Sage stops the level-up screen from deciding your run for you.

Blessings bought at the Shrine are fully refundable with no penalty. There is no way to waste gold there, so put every coin into it and reshuffle whenever you change heroes.

Every hero and what they start with

Hero	Starts with	Specialises in
Swordsman	Area sword attack	Tanky melee with area damage — the starting hero
Archer	Multiple piercing arrows	Ranged glass cannon with mobility
Shield Maiden	Hammer and shield with knockback	Tank whose damage scales from Block Strength
Exterminator	Flamethrower with burn	Fire damage and burn applied across hordes
Warlock	Summoned ghosts	Summons dealing piercing damage
Cleric	High base damage attack	Magic damage that requires manual positioning
Sorceress	Critical-based attacks	High crit chance and Spark application
Norseman	Physical attacks triggering Frost Nova	Frost accumulation and area effects
Landsknecht	Arquebus and grenades	Single-target damage plus explosive area damage
Beast Huntress	Piercing spear and a summoned hound	Physical damage and critical strikes
Sage	An ability you choose as the main weapon	Flexible, build-defining ability damage
Bard	Six new abilities	Free unlock after completing the base game
Crone	Decay-based skillset	The Boglands decay mechanic
Alchemist	Multi-element abilities	Elemental variety, from The Boglands

Why flexibility outranks damage here

It is worth being explicit about the reasoning, because it is not obvious.

Every hero in this game gets its power from traits chosen at level-up, and those traits are offered from a pool rather than picked from a list. That means two runs with the same hero can go very differently: one where the offers line up with your starting weapon, and one where they do not.

The Sage sidesteps this. By choosing which ability is its main weapon, it can look at what the run is actually giving it and build toward that, rather than hoping the run cooperates with a weapon it was assigned before the first enemy spawned.

The Shield Maiden gets a smaller version of the same advantage from a different direction. Because its damage scales from Block Strength, defensive offers are never wasted picks — the trait pool has fewer dead options for it than for anyone else.

Once you unlock the Cupbearer, potions let you reroll the trait pool, remove traits from it entirely, or take the same trait more than once in a single level-up. That reduces the randomness this ranking is built around, so heroes with fixed weapons get relatively better the further into the meta-progression you go.

How to unlock the ones worth chasing

Most heroes come from achievements tied to a specific hall:

Hero	How to unlock it
Archer	Survive to the 26-minute mark in the Haunted Caverns
Cleric	Defeat the Lich in the Haunted Caverns
Warlock	Defeat the Wyrm Queen in the Ember Grounds
Exterminator	Defeat 1,000 enemies in a single Ember Grounds run
Sorceress	Defeat 10,000 enemies total in the Forgotten Viaduct
Shield Maiden	Complete the Wraith Horseman quest in the Forgotten Viaduct
Norseman	Defeat the Elder Giant, the final boss of the Frozen Depths
Bard	Complete the base game
Crone and Alchemist	The Boglands quest board, with the DLC installed

The pattern is that heroes are gated behind progress in the halls rather than behind grinding currency, so the fastest route to a better roster is pushing one hall further rather than repeating a comfortable one.

Bringing it together

Fourteen heroes, one question: does this hero need the run to cooperate? Sage does not, which is why it tops the list. Landsknecht and Shield Maiden need less cooperation than most. Swordsman is a fine place to spend your first several hours, and the Cleric asks the most from you for its payoff.

And whichever you take, spend your gold at the Shrine first. It is refundable, it applies to every hero, and it does more for a new player than any roster decision on this page.

FAQ

Sage, because of how the game works rather than because of raw numbers. Every other hero starts with a fixed main weapon and then hopes the level-up screen offers traits that suit it. The Sage picks which ability becomes its main weapon, which means it can always build around the strongest option available instead of the one it was handed. In a run-based game where your build is assembled from random offers, removing that randomness from the most important slot is worth more than any damage bonus.

Fourteen. Eleven shipped with the base game — Swordsman, Archer, Shield Maiden, Exterminator, Warlock, Cleric, Sorceress, Norseman, Landsknecht, Beast Huntress and Sage. The Bard was added later as a free unlock for players who have completed the base game, and the Crone and Alchemist came with The Boglands DLC, unlocked through that expansion's quest board.

The Swordsman you start with, for longer than you probably expect. It is a genuinely well-rounded melee hero with area damage and enough durability to survive learning mistakes, not a placeholder you are meant to abandon. The more useful early goal is spending gold at the Shrine of Blessings, since permanent stat blessings do more for your first few hours than swapping heroes does.

Through specific in-game achievements, most of them tied to a hall. The Archer comes from surviving to the 26-minute mark in the Haunted Caverns, the Cleric from defeating the Lich there, the Warlock from defeating the Wyrm Queen in the Ember Grounds, the Exterminator from killing 1,000 enemies in a single Ember Grounds run, the Sorceress from 10,000 total kills in the Forgotten Viaduct, the Shield Maiden from the Wraith Horseman quest there, and the Norseman from defeating the Elder Giant at the end of the Frozen Depths.

Judge it on the expansion rather than on the Crone and Alchemist alone. The Boglands adds a new hall, three abilities, twelve items, six artifacts and over fifty quests, with the two heroes unlocked from its quest board. The Crone is built around the new decay mechanic and the Alchemist around multiple elements, so both are genuinely distinct — but they are the reward for owning the expansion, not the reason to buy it.

Yes, and you should experiment freely because of it. Blessings bought at the Shrine are fully refundable with no penalty, so there is no way to permanently waste gold on the wrong stats. That makes the Shrine the safest place to put every coin you earn, and it is the biggest source of power you control before a run begins.

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