I almost posted this on the WoW Warrior forums, but I wanted an adult response.

I know how taunt works. I know that when I press it, it looks at the aggro table for the mob I'm targeting, finds the highest value, and copies that value to mine, making me the highest if I'm not, and having no effect if I am. However, the question I was asked recently by my favorite priest that I couldnt answer was:

"If taunt works the way you say it does, then why does it have a duration?"

so you cant spam it and constantly have aggro without working for it?

Duration != cooldown

My understanding is that ithe (de)buff duration forces the target to focus on you, meaning you have to make up the additional 10% threat to take the lead before it wears off. If you taunt and nothing happens for 10 seconds, it will go back to the previous target.

I believe it has a duration in order to give the warrior a chance to get 10% more threat than the next guy on the threat list (if the warrior somehow lost aggro).

Also it gives the ability a cost (takes up a debuff slot).

The duration is so the the mob is forced to stay on you. In order for a mob to attack you, you have to be the highest in aggro, not tied for it. Taunt ties you in aggro with the highest person, you then have the duration of taunt to get above that person, and stay there, so the mob will stick to you. That is what it boils down to.

EDIT: BS, it did not take me two minutes to type that.

So what you guys are saying is that while taunt matches your aggro with that of the current target, it does not actually put you ahead of the current target on the threat list? Does it put you ahead of people with more aggro than you but less than the current target?

The reason I am asking is, assume there is someone with 5% less threat than the current target. You taunt, but the current target dies anyway while taunt is active. You now have 5% more threat than the other guy. Assuming nobody attacks, will you have aggro or the other guy when taunt wears off?

It matches the aggro of the current target...
Otherwise you could exploit this.

I think you will.

If I remember right, when they first changed Taunt from the old aggro generating skill back at the end of Beta it had no duration and they quickly hotfixed it to have a duration so a Warrior could have a chance to generate more threat.

I remember the patch they first changed Taunt they forgot to put Taunt in entirely, took the server down, then fixed it and added Taunt back in with the new functionality, then realized they forgot to put in the new aggro values for Warrior abilities, and also added in the Taunt duration. I believe it was the very last patch in Beta, just a couple days before the Beta servers went down.

This is one of the few posts on official forums worth reading - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post596760

Interesting there is a post on taunt. We were discussing this in TS yesterday, it seems that they have stealth changed taunt - probaly to allow the four hoursman fight to work

My understanding of taunt was:
- you taunt
- it puts you to the top of the threat list for 3 seconds
- if you get 10% more threat than the previuos leader you keep the agro
- otherwise it goes back to the person with the highest threat
- you havent got any extra threat from taunting, only the threat you built

Change seems to have been now
- you taunt
- you get the same threat levels as the highest person on the threat list
- if you get 10% more threat than the previous leader you keep the agro
- otherwise it goes back to the person with the highest threat
- however now the taunt has actually given you extra threat because it put you up to the same levels as the person with the top threat (we saw this using KTM on drakes in bwl yesterday)


Hopefully I'm explaining my self, its a small but significant change. This could be used/exploited due to the fact that range requires 130% threat to take agro. Scenario (purely example numbers):

- you have a 100 threat
- hunter on top of threat table has 120 threat but does take agro because of 130% rule
- you taunt
- you get 120 threat (as you are set equal to the top)
- in 3 seconds you build 30 extra threat
- after 3 secods you have 150 threat
- the taunt effectively gave you 20 threat

while this could be skirting a pretty close bar with hunters pulling agro it could theoretically be a new way to build more threat, due to the change in the way taunt works now. Like I said before I think the change was in the latest patch to allow for the 4 hourseman transitions. We were planning to test if this works soon and I will update my post.

Anyone's thoughts? Are we totaly missing something?

Edit:
Actually I thought we were validated by this post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post596760

But it clearly states Importantly, you won't necessarily get as much threat as the highest person on the mob's list, only as much as whoever is currently tanking it . So the hunter trick won't work.

Taunt has always been like you describe in the change in my tanking times (no experience before the "awesome changes" or whatever).

You get threat equal to whatever current target the mob has, that's it, it never goes away and it forces the mob to focus on you for a few seconds. During this time you have to exceed whatever threat value his target had by 10% (the 110% rule) to maintain focus. If you don't do this, you won't lose threat...

This is testable on something like a mind controlled add. The threat from that spell is gigantic. And I think if your priests fade BEFORE you taunt you are in trouble as well because you taunted off a mob while they were at a lower threat value that eventually all comes back.

Another thing to think about is how Kurrinaxx works. This fight is pretty long and requires a lot of tank switching and you can see that you do not generate 10% more threat than the off tank in the later stages of the fight during the taunt duration. You keep it all but that 10% is pretty huge late in the fight to overcome and not really possible to do in the few seconds some times. But a transition can occur after a second taunt giving enough rage from the mob hitting you to generate enough threat.

That's my interpretation of what occurs anyway.

I do not however know about the range exploiting nature of taunt though. Experience on Ragnaros indicates otherwise I believe. All the melee go out before a knockback then the off tank comes in and taunts and starts to build aggro. If they got the ranged characters threat (those that are highest) a melee character could instantly go in after a tuant and never pull aggro. This is not the case. Could be a special case situation however via Ragnaros unable to move though.

It certainly was for a very long time. Is it not anymore? (I haven't been to Rag since 1.11)

Also, this reminds me, how in the hell does Fade work?

Lowers your current threat level, and if you're the current target recalcuate target ignoring 110/130% rule. When it wears off, you get the threat back. Fairly simple, but you can do weird things like fade a mob onto someone, then not have it come back when fade wears off even if they don't do anything due to the target recalculation.

The recent change to taunt is nice because on long fights 10% threat barrier becomes quite large.

4 horsemen?

Aggro after a taunt is simple...

Pre 1.11: A taunt will equalize your aggro to the mobs main target. At the instant you taunt (not after the 3 second duration) the mob calculates who it should attack after the taunt. Now since two players are equal (the main target and the warrior who taunted) the mob would attack the person who was on the aggro list first (thats why its a good idea for warriors to always pull). So after the 3 second taunt debuff expires the mob will attack the target it calculated when the taunt was first applied unless someone has exceeded said targets threat by 10/30%.

Post 1.11: I'm not sure but this is what I gathered from Kenco's post. The order players appear on the aggro list no longer matters (this was a stupid mechanic anyway). The mob's default target is now the warrior who taunted. Therefore after a taunt a player has to overcome 10/30% of a warriors aggro every time.

On a side note this would make ebonroc pretty interesting...

Not sure why it would do anything with ebonroc but hmm. The threat list order thing was easy to test on Kuri, was always a good idea to let the "off tank" aggro first then have the MT get aggro, so that when the OT need to tank to remove the debuff it default to him.

Would simply make it easier on anyone if they really changed it. Good news.

10% threat into a long fight is a lot, its not something you can just build in 3 seconds, which is the reason I don't quite believe that you have to surpass this 10% barrier after a taunt. There has to be something else, I had been thinking you only had to surpass the warrior, which you taunted it off, in threat generation for those 3 seconds taunt last.

Boss

(A) Tank A
Tank B

*Tank B Taunts*
*Tank A & B do no additional damage after Taunt*

Tank A
(A) Tank B

*Taunt wears off, Boss is on B*

The mob won't go back to Tank A after B's Taunt duration passed. A needs to generate 10% more threat than B to take the aggro (or Taunt obviously) which is checked after the current effective Taunt is over.
This explains why when a tank dies on Drakes (and gets rezed) he gets the aggro back very easily.

Ah so it's true, one of our MTs was talking about this but this is the first time i've seen information on it. We've definately noticed differences on taunt heavy fights like the drakes recently, and out MT just got back from 3 weeks holiday and was pretty confused by it :)

First major wierdness was when I lagged and taunted firemaw when there was no wing buffet imminent, I didn't hit him after taunting, the taunt debuff wore off but I still had aggro which wouldn't have happend previously. I think it's a good change. Taunt becoming more and more difficult to use effectively as fights duration goes up was definately a flaw in the skill.