You're fighting in the Flayer Jungle. A crowd of dart-shooters is laughing at you and pelting you with tiny, irritating darts. You now must decide how to kill them.
A) Chase them down one-by-one, possibly running into unknown territory
B) Run away and hope they come to you
C) Use Leap Attack on each one
D) Taunt them and bring them to melee range
IMO...
A) Well, you could, but this is annoying.
B) Ha! You might as well ignore them completely.
C) You could miss and have to chase them around some more. Not the most efficient choice.
D) I'd chose this one. Would you? If not, perhaps you might do well to give Taunt another look.
Taunt is a skill on the Barbarian's War Cry tree. It is available at Character Level 6 and requires Howl as a prerequisite. It costs 3 mana per cast and does not go up in cost.
Taunt brings a monster to you and weakens its Attack Rating and Damage by a small percentage. The monster's AI is set to come to you until it reaches you or gets stuck. Once a monster reaches you it can still run away if it has an AI script that includes running away.
Taunt doesn't specify for a monster to come to you personally, it only specifies that a monster walk to the closest enemy and attack. (This is my interpretation of how it affects monster activity. If incorrect, let me know. :)
Taunt only consumes mana if it hits something, so there's no wasted mana.
Taunt only works on non-Boss and non-Champion monsters. Oblivion Knights, Water Watchers, Foul Crow Nests, Gargoyle Traps, Lightning Spires, Fire Towers, Stained Glass Windows, Mummy Sarcophaguses, and Trapped Souls are not affected by Taunt either.
Taunt has, from what I've seen, unlimited duration as long as you stay within a certain range. To describe this range, have you ever run into a Black Wall while in multiplayer? The Black Wall, I believe, is your "zone of action." Stuff in that area can move, etc. Stuff out of that area is not loaded or something. Maybe my description isn't 100% correct, but the general idea is that if you leave the "zone of action" and put a monster beyond the Black Wall it will lose Taunting.
Taunt stacks with Battle Cry if Taunt is cast first. Howl/Grim Ward can also have their effects without making the Taunt graphic wear off.
Because Taunt gets fairly low returns with more levels, I only recommend 1 point. This isn't a problem, however, as Taunt's "C'mere!" effect works as well with 1 point as it does with 20.
Taunt makes monsters stop what they're doing because it interrupts them. This is semi-useful if you manage to Taunt something like an Abyss Knight when he's in mid-cast.
You can Taunt almost anything that's on screen. You can also Taunt the edge of the screen and bring things to you that you haven't even seen yet.
You cannot re-Taunt a monster that already has a Taunt graphic.
If there is an obstacle between you and a Taunted ranged attacker, it will use its ranged attack until it can find a path to you.
While the enemy weakening aspect is interesting, I find that Taunt's most useful aspect is the "C'mere!" effect and that is what I will cover.
Taunt ranged attackers to bring them within melee range. Taunting ranged attackers brings them to you, and during that time they're not firing at you. It also puts them in melee range, so they're easier to slay.
Taunt healers, resurrectors, and birthers (e.g. adult maggots). Taunting a healer brings them to you, and they're not healing when they're walking. Taunting a resurrector has the same effect. Taunting a birther is a bit different in that it doesn't flat out prevent more birthing, but it does cut back on it.
Taunt things that are running away to bring them back.
Taunt vulture demons (the flying turkeys in Act 2 and 3 that seemingly have automatic stunlock abilities). It's advised to Taunt them only when they're on the ground (i.e. not when they're flying) or else there could be bug issues. Anyway, I've noticed that the vulture demons, when attacking, do NOT seem to pause between attacks. Once one attack finishes, the bird immediately attacks again. This may seem normal, but take a look at other monsters. Even Doom Knights pause shortly after an attack. I then observed that a Taunted turkey makes a short pause between attacks while a non-Taunted turkey does not. Taunting these demons thus has two effects:
-It makes them stop flying around and they'll calmly walk to you, if no obstacles stop them. It's much nicer for them to walk up to you than it is for them to fly and land near you.
-A Taunted turkey will pause between attacks. It's rather slight, but it makes a BIG difference between stunlock and non-stunlock!
A Taunted frog demon (Slime Princes, Swamp Dwellers, etc.) disappears for a moment after it becomes Taunted. The exception to this is when you Taunt a frog demon that's "stuck" between the river and the swamp, in which case Taunt takes effect but does not bring it to you.
The Battle Cry graphic disappears if a monster is Taunted after it has been Battle Cried.