A vpn is useless for torrenting if doesn’t support p2p
Well yes, the VPN service need to support P2P, or to say it better: The VPN Service shouldn’t block P2P Traffic.
some people are telling me that i need port forwarding
You don’t necessary need Port Forwarding. Port Forwarding can certainly help to be able to connect to more people.
The underlying issue is the following:
Incoming Connection = <----- | Outgoing Connection = ----->
[Client1 without Portforward] ------> [Client2 with Portforward] ✓ works
[Client1 without Portforward] ------> [Client2 without Portforward] x does not work
[Client1 without Portforward] <------ [Client2 with Portforward] x does not work
[Client1 without Portforward] <------ [Client2 without Portforward] x does not work
[Client1 with Portforward] ------> [Client2 with Portforward] ✓ works
What does this mean?:
This means that you will only be able to connect to other people if they have a portforward. If you have a Portforward, the clients of other people will be able to connect to you.
Thats why some public torrents tend to be nearly impossible to download, because it happens that nobody has a Portforward.
yet some other guys are telling me that i shouldn’t get port forwarding as it reveals my IP address
That sounds like bs, but you may understood them wrong. Normally you will bind the Torrent Client to the Network Adapter of the VPN Client. This results in a neat kill switch, if your VPN Client crashes.
It can happen, that your Client is leaking your real IPv4 Address, but this has nothing to do with Portforward. (A IPv4 leak mostly happen due to misconfiguration or a bad VPN Service)
There aren’t many VPN Services who have Portforward. Currently I am using Mullvad without any issues.
Perhaps there is some misunderstanding, that these people thought that you have to open a port in your router, which is completely wrong if you use a VPN.