Greetings fellow summoners,
Taunt[]
There are few clubs as exclusive as the taunt club. This exclusivity stems from Riot not making any new champions with this glorious mechanic for 5 years. This also means that the mechanic itself has not been looked at all this time, leaving it in a weird state on a few topics that I believe should be revisited.
Thematical incoherence[]
A mutated armadillo rolling up to you talking trash about your family would enrage anyone to the point of wanting to smack it. But when you are angry don't you also become reckless and put more power into your swing? Then why do 
Shen and 
Galio make their taunted targets deal less damage? Wouldn't the opposite be more likely?
Backlash[]
Continuing that train of thought, there should be a backlash like real anger. For those Buddha and Gandhi type people, anger usually makes you pretty tired at the end of it. Even worse, you start to feel the pain of injuries sustained during your fit of rage.
The proposed changes[]
In order for it to make more sense the mechanic itself should be changed to something along the lines of:
- A taunted unit will attempt to attack the target with increased speed and power while loosing a percentage of their defences.
Galio[]
A champion with a support lore, that gets more play as a counter mage to DoT-based champions like 
Cassiopeia and 
Malzahar. His issues are deeper then just the taunt and I'd like to address them a bit, without reducing his strengths and weaknesses. Primarily granting him a new passive that interacts with his Bulwark, while retaining his current passive by applying the scaling to the skills directly.
Notes[]
- All numbers should be tested and tweaked intensively in PBE
- Runic Skin keeps anti-DoT Galio alive from level 1 but will never be as strong as the current Bulwark.
- Bulwark is now a shield similar to
Command: Protect, with the difference of transferring runic shield and healing the ally for the damage done.
- Galio looses his passive when he casts Bulwark on an ally
- The animation on Bulwark should be more visible so its clearly that the target is now protected AND Galio is vulnerable.
- due to the percentage scaling, Bulwark is now more effective when cast on tanks (himself) yet still useful on carries.
- it also Dynamically interacts with other buffing/debuffing items like Locket of the Iron Solari and The Black Cleaver.
- it also Dynamically interacts with other buffing/debuffing items like
- Idol of durand looses the bonus damage in favour of a debuff to anyone that hits him. When it is tweaked correctly it would result in Galio dealing less damage with his ultimate, but being more useful to his team.
Rammus[]
Rammus has the backlash part of rage down to a button, hitting a spiked shell is never a good idea. However if taunt decreases defences innately there is no need for puncturing taunt to do it too. Keep in mind that taunt will now reduce both armour and magic resistance increasing in all other skills on Rammus to deal increased damage.
Shen[]
Shen has no other interaction with his taunt other then shielding himself to negate the damage. The only reward for successfully taunting is the energy you get back based on how many enemies were caught. I hope to change this into something that would prefer high priority targets.
Notes[]
- Again; All numbers should be tested and tweaked before going live.
- Feint dealing damage when broken should help shen duel but more importantly, help him farm/clear with a bit more ease early on.
- Especially making him a viable jungle option due to increased clear speed at the cost of safety.
- I highly doubt that Shadow Dash is balanced in this raw form. The idea is that taunting auto attackers is more rewarding then taunting mages or tanks.
Recap[]
The goal of these changes is to make taunt into something that makes effected targets exposed. Becoming more vulnerable by decreased defences, while attacking faster and harder. Reworking in that manner allows for taunt to be a risk-reward scenario that has merit for the entire team. It also allows for role confirming changes on these protective tank champions, focused more on decreasing opponents defences so allies hit harder, but specifically
- Shen being more focused on getting the right target to fit his Ninja style.
- Galio being more focused on protecting and assisting to fit his Guardian lore.
- Rammus dealing more damage if a target is taunted due to Taunt reducing MR as well.
So before the long blog ends here, I'd like to ask what you think about these proposed changes, and which champion that came out since 2010 would also have been a good fit to get a taunt?