Taunt

Enrages a monster into relentlessly attacking.

Taunt is a Barbarian Warcry (level 6, requires Howl, unlocks Battle Cry). For 3 mana it picks one monster and makes it come to you: the monster stops what it is doing, walks into melee range and uses nothing but its default attack on the Barbarian, and while taunted it hits for less and misses more, −5% damage and −5% attack rating at level 1, −43% of each at level 20. The numbers are the same two lines at every level; the pull is the point, and so are the hard points it lends Frenzy and War Cry.

The numbers

Mana is 3 at every level (mana 3, lvlmana 0). The attack-rating cut is skills.txt Param1 (−5, "Monster Attack Rating % baseline") plus Param2 (−2) a level, applied through the target's item_tohit_percent stat; the damage cut is Param3 (−5, "Monster Damage % baseline") plus Param4 (−2) a level, through damagepercent. Both are −5% at level 1, −13% at level 5, −23% at level 10, −33% at level 15, −43% at level 20 and −63% at level 30; the Basin's page writes them as 3 + (2 × slvl), the same numbers. Both read lvl, so +skills from items count in full. There is no duration line in the table; the state lasts as long as the monster's AI keeps it.

How it works

The Basin's page gives the engine's rules. Taunt causes a normal or minion monster, with the Basin's few AI exceptions, to stop, advance to melee range and use only its default attack on the caster; a target that is prevented from reaching melee range and attacking may revert to its previous AI. It is a cast and uses cast rate. Targeting is forgiving: with no monster selected, one is sought within a 5 1/3-yard radius of the cursor and the closest eligible one to the Barbarian is taunted; if there is none, the closest eligible monster within 13 1/3 yards of the Barbarian is taunted whatever the cursor points at. The cursor has to move to taunt another target unless one comes closer. There is no hit roll and no damage.

The damage cut has a floor: the Basin's page says monster damage cannot go below 10%, so −90% (level 44 and up) is the most that can matter against a monster with no +% damage from skills or unique-minion bonuses. The attack-rating cut has no floor, so −100% (level 48) is the ceiling there.

The Basin's page adds that the Resurrected Barbarian mercenary, the dual-wield one, uses Taunt; that a Myth body armour casts a level 1 Taunt at 10% on striking, and Unbending Will a level 18 one at 18%; and, on its Grim Ward page, that rapidly casting Taunt can force a frightened monster to attack. See Chance to Hit for what −43% attack rating does to a monster's roll against your defense.

Synergies and +skills

Taunt has no synergies of its own: no dsc3 line and no synergy calc. It feeds two skills, both by hard points only (blvl):

• Frenzy: +8% damage per hard point of Taunt (Frenzy's Param8, shared with Double Swing).
• War Cry: +6% physical damage per hard point of Taunt (War Cry's Param8, shared with Howl and Battle Cry).

Taunt's own two lines read lvl, so a +skill from an item deepens the cuts as a hard point does but gives Frenzy and War Cry nothing. The Basin's page says +1–3 Taunt can spawn on a primal helm of item level 12 or higher.

Against players

Taunt never damages anything, and its pull is an AI state the Basin's page describes only for normal and minion monsters; it says nothing about Taunt against players. See Player versus Player for the rules that do apply between players.

Build notes

• One point does the pulling; the cuts at level 1 are −5%, and the pull is the same at every level.
• Twenty hard points are a Frenzy or War Cry decision: +160% damage to Frenzy, +120% to War Cry, with a −43% Taunt as the by-product.
• The 3 mana never changes; the damage cut stops mattering at −90% and the attack-rating cut at −100%, both past the reach of twenty points plus +skills.