Draft Tourette's Barbarian Guide: 1.00dr

[Occhidiangela]

Thanks for the visual. :lol:

"I'm dreaming of a Barb, Christmas . . ."

Der Bingle would be sooooo proud . . .

[Occhidiangela]

Some monsters influenced by Taunt stop "doing their special attack" when Taunted, others do not.

Tainted stop shooting Lightning balls and just whack you.

Unravelers seem to stop breathing, and just whack you when Taunted.

Act IV Spitters don't seem to eat anything to spit when taunted

Grotesques do not spawn when taunted, but I need to look at that again.

Abyss Knights stop casting their balls of elemental damage when taunted.

Overseers stop making explodee Spawn when Taunted. They also see to stop casting Attract.

Imps close to range "1" but it looks as though they still attack with fire, their only attack.

Crush Beasts with Imps on top still cast Inferno when Taunted.

The Procto attackers (Death Maulers) close to melee and stop sending Proctoscopes at you.

Undead warriors in Act V seem to stop charging and just attack, need to check more detail on that one.

You can't Taunt an Imp on top of a tower in Act V.

Shaman's, Carver version, attack with dagger, no fire attack. They also seem to stop raising Carvers while Taunted.

Cold Trolls in the Act V Icy Caves do not use cold inferno when taunted.

Ghoul Lords stop dropping Meteors, and seem to stop casting Fire Wall.

As noted previously, Frenzy Taurs just whack you, no Frenzy.

Balrogs will not Inferno you.

Gloams don't seem to shoot lightning at you when Taunted.

Stranglers just hit you, they stop shooting that silly red thing that sucks your mana,but they seem to eat mana when they land a blow.

Of course, snakes in Act III rivers will not respond to Taunt, the alloof serpants.

Fetish Shamans: it seems that a Taunt will still get you an inferno from them, will check again tonite.

Vipers will still shoot Bone Spear at you while Taunted in melee.

Bartuc's Boys seem to still cast Hydra when Taunted, but I will need to retest that.

Most missile attackers and spell attackers still attack with spell and missile, like skelly mages and archers, and as noted, their damage and to hit are not reduced. (Or, so it seems.)

[Zath]

To simplify matters, it seems that Taunt just forces monster to use their A1/A2 attacks as listed in the MPQ files. A1/A2 attacks are what most players call "normal attacks", since they both (always?) use a monster's normal swing, thrust, or shoot (if it can't melee) animation in contrast to some other casting or special animations. I have not examined monster attacks and the AI that drives them in detail, but it looks like all A1/A2 attacks have a physical component, often carry extra elemental damage, and occasionally have a special ability attached to them. Since these special abilities are an integral part of a monster's normal attack, they will never be shutdown by Taunt. Below is a list of such abilities I have noticed while taking a quick look at the MPQ files:

- Wraith and Gloam type monsters all have a chance to drain mana with their A1 attacks
- Mosquito and Swarm type monsters all have a chance to drain stamina with their A1 attacks
- Tree Hulk type monsters can always stun with their A2 attacks
- Snow Yeti type monsters can always stun with their A1 attacks
- Moon Clans can drain mana as guest monsters with their A1 attacks
- Blood Hawks can steal life as guest monsters with their A1 attacks
- Black Raptors can drain mana as guest monsters with their A1 attacks

Looking at the monster AI files, there may be a slight complication in that some monsters could be restricted to only use their A1 attacks when taunted. My guess is that any monters without a "att1/att2?" check in their "monai.txt" entry can only use their A1 attacks when taunted (they use the "attack?" check instead), and this would affect all but the Tree Hulk and Snow Yeti type monsters listed above (e.g. a Wraith will never use an A2 attack, so it will always drain mana with its A1 attack when taunted).

If a special ability, defined broadly (if I may speculate) as any action not using a monster's normal attack animation, is not included in the list above, then it can probably be interrupted by Taunt. This would specifically include any casting or ranged attack from a monster capable of a melee attack, which covers most of Occhidiangela's list above (I think Finger Mages can only drain mana with a ranged attack though). If a monster is not capable of performing a normal melee attack, it will then be forced to approach the taunting Barbarian before executing it's normal missile attack at point blank range.

[Occhidiangela]

That does not explain the Vipers using either Bone Spear or melee. However, the charge is of course gone due to "no room to charge."

If A1 A2, then you'd see more than one type of attack.

I suppose I would need to look at the entire list of attack tables for all monsters to come up with an intelligent summary.

[MongoJerry]

Taunted monsters "shut down" as you describe, but if you back away from them after they close to melee range, they seem to return to their normal AI and go back to using their special attacks. And as you mentioned, you can't Taunt them again unless you switch Acts.

[Zath]

Thanks for mentioning the Claw Vipers, Occhidiangela. I did not make the distinction between simple ranged attacks and skill/spell ranged attacks in my post above, so let me correct that now. My interpretation of the MPQ files is that there are now three types of monster ranged attacks (or more broadly, ranged actions) in game. Looking at the columns of "monstats.txt", they are...

1): MissA1 and MissA2 (i.e. missile A1, missile A2)

If a monster has an entry in its MissA1/MissA2 field, it will shoot a missile of the specified type when an A1/A2 attack would normally be executed by the AI. The damage of this missile will be equal to the damage of a normal A1/A2 attack modified by its respective El* fields.

The El*Pct field here determines how often an A1/A2 attack's damage (in general, not restricted to missiles) will also carry elemental damage of type El*Type (defaults to physical). The result of that calculation is then multiplied by the El*(MinD/MaxD) fields to find the base minimum and base maximum elemental damage dealt. Once that is done, we look up the actual missile in "missiles.txt" and check its SrcDamage to see if we need to further modify the base minimum and base maximum damage. From what I could see in "missiles.txt" however, all the missiles of relevance had SrcDamage=128 (full damage), so you can probably skip this last step on most occasions. A list of monsters that can release a missile with their normal A1/A2 attacks follows below(ignoring those that cannot be taunted):

Tainted (lightning balls)
Quill Rats (spikes)
Sand Maggot Queens (poison spit)
Unravellers (poison breath)
Corrupt Rogue Archers (arrows)
Skeletal Archers (arrows)
Frog Demons (spit)
Skeletal Mage (elemental bolts)
Regurgitators (spit)
Slingers (javelins and potions)
Fetish (blow darts)
Imps (fire bolts)
Claw Vipers #6-10 (bone spear, fire bolt, and poison javelins)

If a missile is released from an A1/A2 attack by this method, it cannot be interrupted with Taunt, although you can still force the affected monster to shoot at point blank range. This would explain why a taunted Claw Viper can still shoot Bone Spears in melee range (they can, right? :lol:) ; even though it looks like a special attack, it is in fact just a normal attack for the Claw Viper.

2): Skill1-8

If a monster has an entry in any of these fields, it will be able to use the specified skill when it invoked by the AI. Since these skills are not attached to normal A1/A2 attacks, they should be vulnerable to disruption by Taunt. Under this category we have the following (ignoring taunt-immune monsters):

Sand Raiders (special elemental rage attack)
Fallen Shaman (revive and fire ball)
Sand Maggot Queens (submerge, emerge, lay eggs)
Claw Vipers (charge)
Sand Leapers (leap)
Swarms (it just says "swarm move", most probably a decorative skill)
Scarabs (jab)
Unravellers (revive, heal, unholy bolt)
Mosquitos (life stealing bite, I think)
Gloams (chain lightning)
Spiders (lay web)
Tree Hulks (frenzy)
Vampires (fire wall, fire ball, meteor, and a "vampiremissile" which I think is just another decorative skill)
Blunderbores (smite)
Flying Scimitar (charge)
Cantors (heal, lightning, teleport, blizzard)
Fetish Shaman (revive, inferno)
Abyss Knights (elemental bolts, bone armor, bone spirit)
Council Members (hydra, heal)
Balrogs (inferno)
Reanimated Hordes (charge)
Siege Beasts (war stomp, charge)
Succubus (all curses, blood stars)
Overseer (attract, heal, frenzy whip, smite)
Imps (teleport)
Frozen Horrors (arctic blast)
Frenzytaurs (frenzy)
Death Mauler (tentacles)

3): MissS1, MissS2, MissS3, and MissS4 (i.e. missile skill 1, missile skill 2, etc. etc.)

If a monster has an entry in any of these fields, it will be able to release a missile of the specified type when the proper skill is invoked by its AI. As these skills are not attached to normal A1/A2 attacks, you should be able to interrupt them with Taunt. The only missiles that can actually deal damage through this method are some traps and lightning attacks from Council Member type monsters (can they shoot lightning bolts now? :blink:).

So there. Take a look at the two lists above and see if you can find anything out of place. I'm too lazy to actually test how every possible attack interacts with Taunt in game after all this now :lol:

Edit: Returned to my original interpretation of El*Pct after some testing.

[Occhidiangela]

Where I am unsure, you have given me a place to start tests to confirm or deny.

Grazie Mille, again and again. :D

[Occhidiangela]

I was playing around with some Bats in Act V in the Glacial Trail, and here is what I dicsovered:

1. You can Taunt bats, but it won't always work . . . because . . .

2. You can't Taunt a sleeping bat into attacking you. (When he's hanging from the ceiling, he is busy dreaming of Batwoman jumping rope in a wet T-shirt and will thus, naturally, ignore your insults and jibes.)

This discovery leads to such great advice as "Never taunt a sleeping bat," a companion tidbit for "Never pet a burning dog." :D

3. Once Taunted, a Bat will and can go back to sleep if he bloody well feels like it, he'd rather envision Batwoman, per above, than deal with your manly sweat and flashing axes. When he comes back from his rest, he will typically return unTaunted. He is one of the few monsters who can, shall we say, "get over it."

4. The shocking attack is his standard attack, and as such is the only way for him to attack you, so Taunting will not save you from his l337 lightning skillz. :P

[Aegis]

Well, first post here, ahh..
Anyway, Played around with a barbarian character similar to whats discribed here, This guy doesnt just open up a can, He opens up a hole six pack of whoop ass. Taunt is a very useful skill..

[Occhidiangela]

Messed around with the bats some more. Looks like when they wake up they return to Taunted status.

[Occhidiangela]

I am using Might to speed up killing rate.

Even with the extra bonus from Frenzy and Taunt Synergy, the added HP pretty much neutralizes the extra damage. :P

On the other hand, I have semi cheesy weapons, a pair of Naga's, one with PMH and 1-278 LIghtning, the other with 9% Mana steal and +1600+ to AR.

Maybe with Elite War Axes I'd do a bit better, a bit faster.

Also, no gloves with IAS on them yet, so attack speed is pretty slow for Frenzy. I am used to a bit quicker attack rates from a Frenzy Barbarian.

[Occhidiangela]

I noticed last night that when you Taunt a Grotesque Mother, she only stops spitting and giving birth to grotesque worms while she is lumbering toward you. When she arrives at melee range, she spits a worm as an attack, so I am guessing that the "spit a worm" is a "missile attack."

I suppose if you tanut anyone's mother you will tend to get attacked, go figure! Even demons have feelings. ;)

[Occhidiangela]

Thanks to KoP, Lemming, and Pren for their varied and sundry insights. It appears that most of Taunt's functionality has been retained, and that there is still some question as to the true action regarding "wearing off" and "duration."

Old School Taunt Guide From Lemming

[Catflap]

My 1.10 Hc ladder character will be very similair to Occhidiangela's build:

Howl 1
Taunt 20
Shout 15
BattleCry 1
Battle Orders 20
Battle Command 1
Axe Mastery 20
Increased Stamina 1
Increased Speed 1
Iron Skin 1
Natural Resists 1
Bash 1
Stun 1
Concentrate 1
Berserk 1
Double Swing 1
Double Throw 1
Frenzy 20
Leap 1
Leap Attack 1

(I think) this leaves me with 0 skill points left at clvl99 and all quests done, if he ever does gets there.1 point in berserk with a base of 15 shout is still more than enough magic damage against nasty immunes.I suspect i will be doing quite a bit of leaping (away from stuff, mainly) so i might take taunt down a little and increase LA to 5.

One little suggestion (should blizzard be reading this B)) Why not give 1-handed combat masteries (sword, axe, mace) synergies so it becomes possible for a dual wield barbarian to use an axe and a mace, and be just as effective as an axe/axe wielder? in other words, for 10 mace mastery/10 axe mastery to equal 20 axe mastery.Not only does this allow for more stuff to choose from item-wise, it looks pretty neat too. :lol:
I know this could be 'exploited' to give a 2-handed axe wielder allot of extra damage, but then again, he would have to spec 20 axe/ 20 mace for it to be really effective.meaning he will have to sacrafice in warcries or combat skills.

[MongoJerry]

Have you considered maxing War Cry instead of Taunt? Why reduce a monsters' attack ratings and damage when you can stun them and not let them hit you at all? Obviously, I'm having a lot of success using the Taunt/War Cry combination with my "barbarian mage," Gunter. The only downside I can see is that War Cry can be a little mana intensive, so you'd probably have to wear a couple of +mana items and have a decent amount of mana leech.

[Occhidiangela]

Two reasons.

It's different, and I have loved Taunt for some time now.

It has synergy bonuses for Frenzy.

It is not Mana Hungry. :)

Making a Singing Barb ala Warcry is a wholly different approach due to Mana Considerations.

Thanks, by the way, for this tidbit, from your Gunther Post:

First, if you Taunt Imps, they won't teleport anymore and they won't jump into Siege Beasts and Barricaded Towers. If you Taunt a Siege Beast and then an Imp jumps into it, then the Imp won't use its inferno attack. He'll just use his fireball attack as if he were still on the ground. If you Taunt the Siege Beast after an Imp has already jumped onto it, however, the Imp will go ahead and use its inferno attack. The Siege Beast will walk toward you into melee range, but the Imp will use its inferno attack the whole time.

[MongoJerry]

It has synergy bonuses for Frenzy.

Ah, I didn't notice that. Good point.

[Occhidiangela]

My Tourette's Barb has been in the sanitorium for a while, but he should be out later this week. Been working a Hammerdin from the ground up, which poses a few tactical problems (I never made an all the way hammerdin in 1.06, had one in HC 1.09 that died to a Trigger hack at 60 in NM: so I had some learning to do in re Hell problems for a Hammerdin.)

Anyway, my biggest problem at the moment is damage rates and attack speed. Will be trying to get some faster gloves, no IAS at present, that should solve some of the problem, and with the next Berserk Axe I find, I suspect that I will be able to do a little cubing and solve a few of my damage problems.

Life Leach on a Merc is a big assistance in Hell, however, with the Merc AI, it is simply something you will have to budget for: Mercs die a lot, due to walking into swarms.

[Olon97]

Bumping this thread for easy reference. :P

Occhidiangela, do you have any updates to the Tourette's concept with the official 1.10?

I should have my frenzy/taunt barb ready for softcore ladder hell difficulty later this week. I have one crescent moon legend sword, another empty 3 socket legend sword, and NM countess willing, I'll have cubed up another "um" in the near future. Plain legend swords appear to drop semi-regularly in NM worldstone. With sigons gloves + one other sigons item (have a couple choices), a fervor jewel somewhere (assuming I can find or trade for one), and slvl 24 frenzy (+2 rare combat skills helm I found, battle command, and one other - maybe Annihilus if I'm lucky), he should be able to reach a 5 frame per hit frenzy animation.

A high level taunt isn't really that necessary in normal and nightmare difficulties, although it doesn't hurt in NM act 5. Taunt also isn't too well suited for rapid co-op play, but I hope to play solo more often once I reach hell difficulty.

[Occhidiangela]

Post Beta, Gun_Tourettes is in Hardcore, and has not gotten much play at all. My team events take all my time.

I can, however, take a good look and make some comments during the Christmas Break, as I will get some "by myself" gaming time then.