Right guys, again sorry for being the one to bring this on. But we need to take a look into this matter if we are to make this game fun.
Untill the global launch taunt was not adressed I think because we had such a small player pool and a lot more broken mechanics that it was hidden behind them. Now we have a large pool and broken mechanics are fixed, so other things that need attention now came to light.
Taunt was designed to prevent some toons to use their power skills, be it a heal, cleanse, or a big hit. It's a form of "soft" crowdy control, wich does not prevent damage, but prevent the enemy of using powers. It's a very interesting and cool concept and almost every game of the genre has it. But, for PvP it becomes a very powerfull mechanic since it depends a lot of how powers are used.
For the matter, let's take a look at the top taunters: Mummy Eddie and Sentinel soulless Demon. mummy Eddie has 45% chance of taunting with burden of the Damned, with no power cost. SSD has 55% chance of taunting when fully sharded, with no power cost. Both are AoE, and both have a lot of health and endurance. Add talismans like freeze or stun or even blind in the mix...
Much like F'n'Chuck'Prisoner'Norris they are not a problem if alone, but this is (Sparta!) LotB, and of course they are paired togheter in a lot of deadly combos. For example I saw a team with Mummy and two SSD and a GGS, blind/freeze/stun/void talismans. Guess who went second round? In my last days climbing I saw like 90% of the teams had Mummy, and SSD is climbing in popularity too. I myself have a setup wuth Mummy and SSD, and if I go first I get all enemies taunted 90% of the time.
Of course you can set some teams that do a ton of damage in normal attacks, but those teams are most of glass-cannons that are dead at the end of the first enemy round. And most teams depend on power moves to ensure victory, be it casting Endure, healing, fury, etc.
Much like Freeze party PvP now is becoming a Taunt party, and it's better to have this adressed sooner than later.
Problem of "tunning" (nerfing) taunt is that it will make OP toons even more OP. Look at F'n'Chuck'Prisoner'Norris: right now the only possible counter to him is Taunt, be it with Mummy, SSD or AoS power move. Just think if Taunt is "tunned"?
Again I now (Houston) we have a problem, but I still don't know how we can "fix" it. What are your ideas?