[bcbrown]

Thanks a ton for putting this into a single clear post. Please forgive me, but I've spent a fair amount of time carefully scrutinizing your definitions for Scenario A and Scenario B, and I must admit I fail to see the difference between them:

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Scenario A - Spam Taunt:

1. Press Taunt
2. Taunt fails for whatever reason (bad timing, mob distance, lose the random number game)
3. Switch your style to strategic taunting
4. Wait 6 seconds
5. Press Taunt again
6. Taunt succeeds
7. Continue taunting as necessary (mob flips again, multiple mobs are in camp, etc.)

Scenario B - Strategic Taunt:

1. Press Taunt
2. Taunt fails for whatever reason (bad timing, mob distance, lose the random number game)
3. Switch your style to strategic taunting
4. Wait 6 seconds
5. Press Taunt again
6. Taunt succeeds
7. Continue taunting as necessary (mob flips again, multiple mobs are in camp, etc.)

Is there something I'm missing?

Assuming there's a simple mistake there, I think I can completely agree with the spirit of your definitions for Scenario A and Scenario B, although I'll call them spam-taunt and strategy-taunt, as that helps keep me from getting confused by which one is which.

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The only difference between the two scenarios is spamming taunt has a lower chance of success on the first taunt. After that you can switch to strategic taunting for all subsequent taunts until the situation is under control. Nobody is disagreeing with the fact that spamming taunt has a lower chance of success on the first taunt, including myself. Nor have I ever argued otherwise.

Great, we're in agreement! Strategy-taunt has a higher chance of success on the first taunt.

"The benefit of spamming taunt is it allows you to save APM and/or brain power to focus on other things, while still retaining some benefit."

This is incorrect. Spam-taunt will be up to 10 APM HIGHER than strategy-taunt; after all, you might clicking taunt every six seconds will be ten clicks per minute. If you replace hitting Bash whenever it's available with hitting a macro of Bash/Taunt, then perhaps there might be zero APM difference, but the strategy-taunt approach will never have higher APM than the spam-taunt approach. Advantage on APM: (minimally) strategy-taunt

"and/or brain power"

The only component of strategy-taunt that requires brain power is when you lose aggro, at which point you need to hit taunt and cast an aggro spell, perhaps combined in a macro. In that scenario, spam-taunt has to cast an aggro spell. Same actions required, same perception required. The only difference is that aggro flips will happen some tiny percentage less often under spam-taunt, because of the extra +10 aggro/minute. Advantage on brain power: (minimally) spam-taunt, contingent on proving there's a measureable difference in frequency of aggro flips.

"There are multiple posters in this thread who have claimed that they do not use taunt at all."

The only person who has claimed they do not use taunt is Snaggles:
"My paladin doesn’t have disarm or taunt on the bar."
"It never flips. If it did I guess I would put taunt back on my skill bar."
"I might just put taunt back on the bar. Save some mana and kick my feet up when it’s a low risk situation. Like after slow lands and it’s settled."

If you want to assert that multiple posters don't use taunt, you need to prove it. I can provide a quote for everyone in this thread (who has expressed an opinion on this) supporting the strategy-taunt approach except Snaggles, who also noted that if he ever did experience aggro flipping, he would start using Taunt.

So the tradeoff between the two strategies looks like this:
In favor of strategy-taunt: minimally less APM. Significantly more likely to succeed on the first taunt.
In favor of spam taunt: +10 aggro/minute will lead to some minimal reduction in frequency of aggro flips.

We can codify this in math. You're advocating for spam-taunt as being optimal (lower frequency of unsuccessful first taunts):
spam-taunt < strategic-taunt
an unsuccessful taunt is the chance of an aggro-flip times failure_rate:
spam_flip_freq * spam_failure_rate < strategic_flip_freq * strategic_failure_rate

We can now isolate the strategic_flip_freq:
spam_flip_freq * spam_failure_rate / strategic_failure_rate < strategic_flip_freq

We know the strategic flip frequency will be higher than the spam flip frequency, because of the extra 10 hate/minute. Lets call that difference sigma:
spam_flip_freq * spam_failure_rate / strategic_failure_rate < spam_flip_freq + sigma

And isolate sigma:
spam_flip_freq * spam_failure_rate / strategic_failure_rate - spam_flip_freq < sigma

Simplify:

spam_flip_freq * (spam_failure_rate / strategic_failure_rate - 1) < sigma

And since we don't know spam_flip_freq either:

spam_failure_rate / strategic_failure_rate - 1 < sigma / spam_flip_freq

We now have provisional values for the left hand side. 1-0.083 is 0.917, 1 - 0.50 is 0.50, and that ratio is 1.83. Subtract 1, and:

0.83 < sigma / spam_flip_freq

In other words, with the provisional success rates of 8.3% and 50%, respectively, for spam-taunt and strategic-taunt strategies on first taunt, the impact of the change in frequency rates has to be 83% of the innate frequency of an aggro flip ever happening.

In summary, if the frequency of at least one aggro flip in normal gameplay for a given mob while using the spam-taunt approach is X, the frequency using strategic-taunt approach would have to be 1.83X for the spam-taunt approach to be more-optimal in avoiding aggro-flips.

If you can prove that, you will convince me.