The next time you go shopping for a new gun, ask yourself one question: Are you a man? If you answer in the affirmative, then you're ready for a Torgue. You see, we at Torgue make guns for real men. Tough guys. Badasses. The kind of guys your dad was and you hope to be! Torgue doesn't screw around making lightweight toys and we sure as hell aren't concerned with selling you a stylish accessory like those hip-huggers over at Maliwan. No. We make them tough, and we make them heavy. It's up to you to make 'em dead. Do it with a Torgue.
— Torgue sales pitch, Official Borderlands Guide
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Torgue is a weaponsmanufacturer. This manufacturer's guns can easily be identified by their black, grey or gunmetal paint schemes and heavy construction - a stark contrast to many other manufacturers who have much brighter colour schemes for their weapons.
Torgue seems to follow an often violent naming scheme for their weapons. In Borderlands 2, the names for many of Torgue's weapons have a sexual connotation.
Torgue makes above average quality firearms, and are more common than the Atlas Corporation's weapons. They make good shotguns, heavy machineguns and sniper rifles. They tend not to excel in any one area - they might not have the astounding accuracy of a Hyperion or the raw power of a Jakobs - but instead are well-rounded.
Oddly, for their constant needling of Jakobs for their use of wood in their guns, Torgue fabricates various plywood boards found throughout New Haven and Old Haven.
In Borderlands 2, Torgue's main defining feature on all of their guns is explosive bullets. They also have stopped making sniper rifles, instead focusing on powerful yet somewhat inaccurate rocket launchers, pistols, shotguns & assault rifles. Their rocket launchers and shotguns are among the most powerful in Borderlands 2. They also have a much more striking and definitive paint scheme that incorporates racing checker stripes. The lower tier/more common Torgue guns use a very industrial and brutal looking green and yellow paint scheme that feature yellow and black checkers, while the higher tier Torgue weapons are identified with a flashy silver and red paint scheme with black and white checkers.
Very high damage, but at reduced accuracy. Despite the advertisement claiming the contrary, Torgue guns have horrible recoil-compensation and may be ill suited for users unable to compensate this.
White: weapons appear in normal grey metal that's been heavily corroded and weathered. It has a visible red and black Torgue sticker and a weathered racing design on the barrel.
Green: weapons are slightly corroded in places, have green and orange coloring, and have numerous racing patterns including white and black stripes as well as yellow and black checkerboard. It also has a matching Torgue sticker.
Blue: mostly clean light grey metal with a white and black checkerboard pattern on part of it. Although polished, the metal used on this tier of weaponry appears to be heavily scratched in corners. The Torgue sticker is a red, white, and blue combination. Assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns receive a larger cowling, and the shotgun gains a shell holder.
Purple: similar to the previous tier only with much shinier metal, no scratches whatsoever, and with a large red pattern near the barrel of the weapon. The sticker is black and white with just the text and the outline in black. Also the shotguns' clip is visually bigger.
Purple w/"Rock" prefix¹: These appear to be mostly made of a material that looks like black granite, with other parts using a lighter material. The Torgue sticker is dark grey with black text and a black outline. Unlike other "gem prefix" weapons, no parts of these weapons feature a reflective metal material.
Magenta¹+: Consists of six extra recoil dampers on the front, along with the signature E-tech 'fin' stabilizers to boot. The skin appears to be a mixture of a military and a desert ranger camouflage, having a signature military 'star' on the side. The front and stock of the weapon consists of weathered-teal and polished crimson paint jobs.
Orange²: Most of Torgue's legendary weapons consist of using military arsenal based skins, having the military "Star" etched onto both the Flakker and Unkempt Harold. The Nukem has a unique golden metallic skin with a "trefoil" symbol on the sides, as a reference to Duke Nukem. The KerBlaster, however, appears to use a purple tier skin with an orange and yellow paint job, rather than red and crimson.
Pink³: The only seraph weapons manufactured by Torgue include the Seeker, Ahab and the Devastator. They include a light-blue and silver (with a very light hint of pink) color scheme. The Torgue logo is also embedded in a very shiny metallic paint, suggesting it isn't a sticker, unlike the other tiers,
Pearl₄: The Tunguska has a very industrialized metallic body, composed with a matte black paint job, and yellow stripes on the front end of the launcher. This skin is very similar to that of the Unkempt Harold, but isn't an exact replica. The Carnage uses a unique dark grey skin with a stylised yellow stripe on the body and a crimson stripe on the barrel. Other details are in a lighter steel grey.
¹+There is only one E-tech weapon by Torgue, called the SWORDSPLOSION!!!, which as stated is only in Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, and is a unique, so the skin may not be accurate.
²An additional legendary can be found in Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. The Ogre's skin appears to be made from a wooden base and weathered plastic, which is very unusual for a Torgue weapon.
In Borderlands 2, Torgue weapons have high damage, low rates of fire, and have two different firing traits.
If the weapon spawns with a barrel component of Torgue manufacture, it will shoot folding fin rockets. This rockets cause very high damage, but have high spread and low velocity. They also cannot score critical hits and each rocket cost multiple units of ammunition. In this case, the explosive damage is included in the damage stated in the weapon card, and calculated by the game as a single hit.
The other firing trait is present when the barrel component is from any other manufacturer. In this case Torgue weapons will shoot Gyrojet projectiles. These projectiles have low initial speed, but accelerate as they travel forwards, and are faster than the folding fin rockets. They also deal additional explosive area-of-effect damage on impact and can score critical hits. The game calculates the bullet impact and the explosive effect separately (card only shows projectile damage), and the blast can hit enemies near to the point of impact.
Because the additional damage of the gyrojet variants is not stated on the weapon card the only way to figure it is testing the weapon (for example in the Sanctuary dummy). It's not uncommon that a gyrojet weapon with, for example, 300 damage listed on the card does more damage than a 1000 damage folding fin rocket weapon because of the additional area explosive effect.
Gyrojet ammunition starts to drop with range. Up to medium-long range this effect is negligible. At extreme ranges, this can throw your aim off. In special situations it can be used to deliver indirect fire from cover.
Torgue weapons are highly effective against Nomad Taskmasters and other physically shielded enemies, as the explosion ignores the thin layer of defense, but because the projectile speed is rather slow, they are less effective against speedy, evasive enemies like surveyors.
Notes
Assault rifles made by other manufacturers with Torgue barrels will shoot grenades instead of rockets. This grenades are not affected by any mod you have and will explode in 2 or 3 seconds.
All Torgue weapon sights are large, somewhat crude iron sights with holographic reticles in the center. This applies to any type of Torgue weapon.
Quotes
"Torgue combines good damage, high fire rate and recoil reduction into one lethal weapon!" - Marcus Kincaid
"400 percent more awesome! Also, Torgue doesn't make their guns out of freakin' wood!" - Marcus Kincaid This is a jab at Jakobs for the utilizing wood in the construction of their products.
"Did you know over 97% of all creatures on Pandora aren't exploding right now? THAT'S BULLSH*T! BUY TORGUE!" - Torgue Radio Ad; Borderlands 2
"The following message from Mr. Torgue does not reflect the opinions of Torgue corporation itself." "IF YOU DON'T BUY TORGUE GUNS YOU'RE ****ING RETARDED!" "The previous message from Mr. Torgue did not reflect the opinions of Torgue corporation itself." - Torgue Radio Ad; Borderlands 2
"Torgue weapons ALWAYS fire EXPLOSIVE ROUNDS. They are also LOUD and require EXCESSIVE use of CAPITAL LETTERS." - Loading screen tip.
"NOTHING IS MORE BADASS THAN TREATING A WOMAN WITH RESPECT!" - Mr. Torgue
Trivia
Torgue is the only weapons manufacturer in-game that has a direct reference to its existence within a special effect, the Torgue Bastard having the text "TORGUE! Bastard Guns for Bastard People!" The KerBlaster also references it's manufacturer with the quote "TORGUE got more BOOM!".
Torgue manufactured the radio inside of Moxxi's Bar in Sanctuary. The word "Torgue" can be seen on the front of the radio.
The "EXPLERIOD," or ҉ , is the official end punctuation of the Torgue Corporation, as established by Mr. Torgue himself, on Gaige's hacked ECHOcasts feed.
An EXPLERIOD cannot be properly depicted in Twitter. Torgue expresses frustration that they look more like flowers.
