I don’t live in the US, so my ISP doesn’t really seem to care what I torrent, but the megathread vehemently recommends to always use one. Since VPNs aren’t cheap and I’m on a strict budget (wouldn’t pirate otherwise), is it really that dangerous to torrent without one?
Alternatively if price is an issue (NEVER use a “free” VPN) you could torrent over I2P, which is free and very safe (at least as safe as tor, if not moreso).
Also the next release of qbittorrent is about to have built in I2P support (but also standard I2P comes with its own torrenting software).