How exactally does taunt work

[Cloud9_]

Some say its like a reverse fade, where if a warrior taunts it off your priest and doesn't do anything else after the taunt, when taunt debuff wears off it will go right back to the priest.

Others say it raises you to the top of the agro list for the duration of the taunt debuff, and generates a high amount of threat. When the debuff wears off, you're no longer on the top of the list, but you still maintain that 'high amount of threat' generated'

Some think it places you at the top of the agro list and keeps you there, as in if someone pulls agro off of you and you taunt it off of them and no one does anything after this, that it will stay on the warrior.

I do not play a warrior but would be interested in hearing how it works. Anyone know for sure?

[Mazuli]

Taunt overrides all other aggro for the duration that the taunt debuff is on the mob. Unless someone else uses a taunt ability during this period, the person who used taunt will have aggro. Once it goes away, everything goes back to normal. I don't think taunt generates any extra hate but I'm not 100% sure.

[Cadrid]

Taunt is a form of "snap aggro". This means it immediately pulls the mob off your current target, but it doesn't actually generate threat. Mocking Blow *does* generate threat, however, since it also does damage (albeit very little). The fact that Mocking Blow costs Rage and Taunt doesn't, however, makes Taunt more viable. Not to mention Taunt is Defense Stance only and Mocking Blow is unusable in Defense Stance.

[Tolanin]

ya it doesnt generate extra hate it just puts you up on the list so the mob attacks you for the duration... taunt used to generate a flat amount of hate but it got changed awhile ago because it was 'boring'

[Metranon]

mocking blow would be >>>> taunt if it wasn't on a 2 min reuse timer

[Mimirswell]

Old Taunt applied a straight 1450 hate.

New Taunt is exactly as others have said, it's applies a temporary aura (debuff) on the mob that for the duration (3 seconds) the target must attack you. It generates no threat whatsoever.

Edit: Mocking blow is quite useful when taunt resists or you lose agro after the duration of taunt.

[emoo]

taunt does generate some amount of hate by nature of being an offensive ability, just like how demoralizing shout generates hate

[Grayson Carlyle]

Taunt can't not at least generate some hate, otherwise a revived tank could never get Magmadar back on him. It takes about 3 taunts towards the end of the fight to do this. But the fact that it takes 3 and not 1 also means that it doesn't keep you at the top.

There has also been a lot of threads and experiments done with taunt.

It does up to X amount of hate; no more than what puts you at the top of the hate list. It also causes the mob to focus on you for its duration unless it has a target changing ability (The Beast and Annihilators are good examples).

[beepbeepbeep]

I was screwing around with this exact question about two days ago. I had a mage friend nuke some elites to 30% hp or so, then taunt. I didn't do very many tests and they weren't exactly scientific, but...

Taunt alone had it turn at me, hit me, and when taunt wore off he was back on the mage.

Two normal melee hits for 90ish damage directly after a taunt made him stick to me after the mage had blown away 50% of his hp.

So as far as I can tell it doesn't put you at the top of the list, but it also does not JUST grab aggro for the duration. It obviously adds threat in some way.

This was in about 5 minutes of testing, I'll try some more extensive tests if I have the time. I would be very interested in the exact mechanics.

[Mimirswell]

It's completely feasible it does add hate but the spell database is vague.

It has two seperate effects.

Effect 1: Attack Me
Effect 2: Apply Aura: Taunt

Effect 2 could possibly be a model of the previous version of taunt in which case your claims would be true. My own testing proved inconclusive.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

It definitely doesn't not have any permanent effect. If you use it while you have aggro supposedly it does jack shit, but the theory I've heard is it will leapfrog you to the top of hate up to a certain amount and increases threat generation while applied (if you dindn't have aggro). I've gotten on my feet on several occasions dying on Mag or Golemagg at 30% ish, picked him up after a few seconds and continued to tank like nothing happened except for the dead mages. It also seems to me that if there's a lot of hate associated with the target it takes a lot to get the mob off of him, but I don't sit and watch FRAPS of these events so I don't know exactly what people are doing when I go down. It's possible that there is some hate retention after death as long as the mob is still aggro and you can reestablish unfriendly relations with it.

I still hold that The Beast has Surger aggro, though Grayson and I disagree on this point. SPOILER ALERT: if your tank pulls Beast to the haystack in the corner and builds just a bit of hate before DPS starts, The Beast will run off and run back and run off and run back, but unlike trying to tank him in the center he will not run all the way to the wall where (I presume) your casters are or nearly over to the orcs in the corner you may or may not have pulled before entering the room. He will never go further than the center because he's tethered to you as long as you maintain aggro. At least, that's my experience with him. YMMV.

[Vorge]

Er. Taunt puts you at the top of the hate list for 3 seconds while the debuff is on the mob. During that time you have the mob beating on you, and you're generating "buffer" threat as I like to reffer to it as so when taunt drops off the target you're still at the top of the hate list.

At leaste after 5 warriors this is how I see it working. Taunt gives no +threat, it simply puts you at the top of the hate list for 3 seconds.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

-V

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Vorge

Er. Taunt puts you at the top of the hate list for 3 seconds while the debuff is on the mob. During that time you have the mob beating on you, and you're generating "buffer" threat as I like to reffer to it as so when taunt drops off the target you're still at the top of the hate list.

At leaste after 5 warriors this is how I see it working. Taunt gives no +threat, it simply puts you at the top of the hate list for 3 seconds.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

-V

So then how do you get a mob back under control if you have died and theoretically have 0 hate while they've taken 500k damage?

[Mimirswell]

I've always been under the impression hate degrades over time so that even after death, it's not impossible to reassert agro. I'm a rogue mainly (warrior alt) and many of long duration fights during raids I have died and managed to pull agro from the warrior (who has not died or lost significant agro such as rag). Since I'm feinting and such as our the other rogues who DPS is similar to mine (yet they have not died), how is it that I am able to occasionally take agro?

This is the reason I don't believe taunt to scale threat by a % or just over the next highest person, its most probable that its a flat rate as per 'old taunt' with the addition of the automatic agro function for 3 seconds.

[boy-]

Originally Posted by Vorge

Er. Taunt puts you at the top of the hate list for 3 seconds while the debuff is on the mob. During that time you have the mob beating on you, and you're generating "buffer" threat as I like to reffer to it as so when taunt drops off the target you're still at the top of the hate list.

If you're not the person that currently has aggro, taunt most definitely will give you a permanent aggro boost. If the amount of the boost is capped, the cap is pretty damn high.

Everything I've seen is consistent with the idea that it puts you one point above the highest current person on the aggrolist. Thus, as soon as the mob turns, basically you and the #2 guy (we'll call him warlockguy) are on equal footing. All the icon allows you to do is it gives you time to gain rage for a sunder (if you don't have it already), and for warlockguy to wakeup and stop mashing the '1' button for a few seconds.

If this were not the case, then taunt and mocking blow would work the exact same way. The mere fact that warriors miss having taunt on Onyxia Vael and Broodlord pretty much indicates that there has to be some +aggro associated with it.

The easiest comparison is if you've ever had to do an unexpected tank change on onyxia, vs. the same thing on golemagg. An onyxia tank change will kill 10 extra players, golemagg will kill 0. Onyxia will switch back to attacking whomever the hell she wants once the mocking icon falls. This is not the case with Golemagg (or any other mc mob for the matter) with taunt.