The Tormentor is great. It's a Punisher that loses a small amount of tank in exchange for a web.

Amarr will never be a drone race like the gallente, they're adding some drones to make them more viable seeing as tracking disruptors pretty much Nerf all the dps amarr can do, if your complaining the tormentor isnt good enough your not using it right, maybe as a sniper or t1 interceptor.

Or maybe the tormentor has been brought out as a lvl 1 mission ship, i think i remember getting the bpc for them way back in the tutorials.

Um, you missed the point. The punisher will not have a web. The tormentor will. From ~5km to the edge of scram range the Tormentor will beat pretty much anything else. The Tristan can be fit comparably, but its damage is almost entirely destroyable.

Atron/executioner are made of paper. Other brawling frigates may be able to close due to the Tormentor's low speed, eventually..but the Tormentor is still tanky and still capable of fighting up close. By the time most other brawling frigates get point blank, they will be half dead.

Tristan damage is pitiful without drones. It has two unbonused turret hardpoints, which can either be rails (laughable DPS) or blasters (slightly less laughable and requires you get point blank). Given that even bonused drones are exceedingly squishy, this does count as a notable weakness.

The Tormentor is probably my favorite frigate after the Tristan. (Which is hilariously OP btw).

High:
Focused Pulse II x 3
Mid:
AB II
Web II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler
Low:
DC II
200mm rolled tungsten
Adaptive Nano Plate II
SAR II
Rigs:
Small Energy Burst
Small Armor Nano Pump x 2

Hobs II x 2

Overheat your mids and approach to get the initial tackle. Move to 8km and kite after that. Anything MWD fit should die in a fire. This ship is infinitely better then the Punisher.

Dead Kiter

I have seen a few slip past. Their DPS is so horrible though that you can usually call for and get help before they kill you. And if you have Loki boosts? (Above example did not) -18km web and 16 km scram. Fly no tank kiters at your own risk.

Edit: with a web and an AB a target will have a hard time getting under your guns which is the real weakness of the Punisher. Instant ammo swap lets you push 180 DPS or so. (I don't have Pyfa at work for exact numbers). The ship hurts, has about 5.5k EHP, and can get a few cycles of it's SAR to add to that.

The Incursus can only permatank the thing (and most other t1 frigates) with a gimmicky dual rep fit...A dual rep fit that will not have a web and thus will never get into range. It would be a stalemate until the Incursus ran out of boosters at which point it would die.

Blasterboats with null (and no real range bonus) cannot effectively fight at ~8km. The only thing a Merlin/Incursus can kill at that range is something that also cannot project damage for ****.

TD/ASB slasher could probably win. Breacher/Punisher explicitly counter the tormentor on the basis of range projection, this is nothing new (though the tormentor isn't that much less tanky).

Unbonused autocannons are going to function like blasters except with **** damage. Dual neut could be interesting against a laserboat like the Tristan but you may or may not consistently be in neut range.

the Tristan does not have a full extra flight of drones. It has 3 extra.