Is Taunt really that bad?

[danbjp]

I've read a lot of stuff about this skill and none of it's good. I'm thinking of putting it on my tankier char. I know that when I'm taunted, that my chars do crazy things, like casting Bless without good reason, and doing other ridiculous things.

Would the same thing happen if I taunted an enemy and cause them to use skills they wouldn't normally apply?

As the skill now bypasses armour, I'm wondering why it's seen as so bad. The only prob I see with the skill is it's incredibly small range.

Any thoughts?

[Eargasm]

i think it was patched...i use it on my tank and find it useful...they are not go crazy but attack only your tank for 1 turn

[danbjp]

Do they do dumb things when attacking you?

[Eargasm]

No,but they attack my tank with lots of armor and leave characters with less armor alone

[Eargasm]

its situational,but it saved me few times.

[pecbounce]

yeah it's the range. you should go download the 'better taunt' mod.

[Chaoslink]

Most of the time, the issues with taunt is the player characters being taunted. Since the AI is designed with only a handful of abilities, they will act pretty predictably when they are affected by mind altering effects like taunt. But since the player character has significantly more abilities and an inventory full of consumables, the AI gets confused and just starts doing random and weird things.

That said. No. I would not call it useful. You shouldn't play the game planning to take damage, even if you could theoretically control who took it. The only "tank" builds I have made work really well were my squishiest characters with the ability to bounce back incredibly fast.

[danbjp]

Yea, I thought as much; it's comical to get taunted by mobs and for your char to phoenix dive then cloak and dagger or some nonsense.

[Nibbie]

I think some of the stigma is from before it went through armor: it used to need physical armor to be broken, at which point something like a knockdown is strictly better (if possible). However, even after that, if the range is what I remember it being, it is hard to get it on multiple people while justifying that work, over just breaking someone's armor and using hard CC. Situationally it can be useful, but many other skills would take priority for your memory slots.

[Haddon]

I had a shield bouncy skill (whatever it is called) taunts mod, and I found that pretty useful. But then I got rid of it because enemies used it and taunting happened all over the place. Very frustrating.

The only way I can see taunt really being useful is for a 3 caster 1 melee build if you REALLY wanted to use death wish on the melee character. Generally, spreading the damage is better, because it is much easier to recover small amounts on multiple characters than large amounts on 1 with most builds.

[Warlord]

Taunt is only worth it if you surround the enemy and have characters with the attack if disengage skill. Otherwise it's a waste only lasting one turn.