Well, if they are targeting what is killing them, yeah. If they're not, no. Simple as. 
This tends to not work with empaths 
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This tends to not work with empaths
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I've noticed. Esp, since they are suicidal buggers that constantly tries to kill themself with Absob Pain. 
If I see the health bar drop on someone whose immediate whereabouts I can't detect my standard response is to click on them in the team list and taunt (think like an empath ). A high proportion of the time it'll grab the mob(s) attacking them. I find it useful when things get a bit hectic and people stray a little.
I've been doing this move too (especially if my positioning means that my camera view suddenly gives me nothing but the groin of the foe in front of me). However today I was in a PuG and when someone died and accused me of not taunting I explained that I'd been frantically doing so via them.
They thought this was really funny and informed me that this is not as effective as 'proper' taunting. Is this true guys?
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I've been doing this move too (especially if my positioning means that my camera view suddenly gives me nothing but the groin of the foe in front of me). However today I was in a PuG and when someone died and accused me of not taunting I explained that I'd been frantically doing so via them.
They thought this was really funny and informed me that this is not as effective as 'proper' taunting. Is this true guys?
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Well if you target a teammember and activate attack, afaik it should use your attack on the enemy that the teammember has targeted. However, this will fail at least if the teammember hasnt targeted anybody. Also, Im not sure if this still works like I described, and I wouldnt recommend taunting via teammembers. You can see if its working if your taunt is actually activating. If it isnt, then obviously it isnt working. It is also possible that they have targeted some mob that isnt in the process of killing them..
Instead its better to be conscious about all mobs at the area and use your PBAoE taunt power, taunt, and normal attacks to get the best coverage. The PBAoE taunt power often has shorter range than people think.
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They thought this was really funny and informed me that this is not as effective as 'proper' taunting. Is this true guys?
[/ QUOTE ]If you're just taunting from range, and always hitting the same 5 mobs, leaving the rest of the group to your teammates, then yes, it's certainly ineffective.
Yeah. It's virtually always better to be able to anticipate a threat than react to one when it happens.
In the case of the teammates, you could easily end up trying to multi-target through several people. If you target an empath and taunt, that empath might have YOU targetted, or a scrapper, or another defender... a toon's target isn't always another mob, let alone the mob that's hitting them. And if a mob DOES surprise a player, the instinct is to jump and/or run away, not stop what you're doing and target it.
Personally, I rotate my view around like a hawk when I'm tanking, and I watch the chat window for ambushes announcing themselves. I usually react when I see a nearby mob "twitch" (stop performing their "default" motionless/waiting animation and look towards my team before pulling their weapons out).
Jump towards them, taunt the one one at the front, footstomp the ones in the middle... The ones at the back need to run past my Aggro Aura to get to my teammates. "Hey guys, when you're finished with THAT mob, this one's ready..." It takes a certain knack to be able to keep the aggro of two full mobs on you at once without going over the aggro cap. But it's doable.
The most effective trick I've seen, and one of the most simple... is to avoid AV "splash" damage on teammates by having someone slow or immobilise a AV/GM and then you taunt it from range. At one point I tanked the four Patron AVs this way, the one the team was beating on was being taunted from range, the other three were giving me +defence in "invincbility" range. Done this with Monsters in Peregrine's Monster Island too.
Usually a good rule of thumb is to have the majority of a spawn pointed towards you but away from your teammates so they avoid being hit by any cone attacks. Jumping over a mob and taunting them as you pass overhead is probably one of the easiest methods of doing this... but bear in mind that taunt only affects 5 targets at a time, so follow it up with a good, hard AoE!
Id agree there. Its best to "proactively" taunt, to make sure nobody is getting hit in the first place. Good tanking takes some situational awareness.
However, the wheel sometimes comes off (thank goodness, be a dull game otherwise). In an emergency, when someones HP bar is plummetting fast, I sometimes taunt through them. The alternative is take an extra second to determine exactly the threat and thats sometimes to long.
If you cant IMMEDIATELY identify the threat and target them, then I would taunt through the toon in the red. You have an 80-90% chance of getting a result, which is better than a delay and a faceplant.
Just my 2 inf.
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Id agree there. Its best to "proactively" taunt, to make sure nobody is getting hit in the first place. Good tanking takes some situational awareness.
However, the wheel sometimes comes off (thank goodness, be a dull game otherwise). In an emergency, when someones HP bar is plummetting fast, I sometimes taunt through them. The alternative is take an extra second to determine exactly the threat and thats sometimes to long.
If you cant IMMEDIATELY identify the threat and target them, then I would taunt through the toon in the red. You have an 80-90% chance of getting a result, which is better than a delay and a faceplant.
Just my 2 inf.
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This is how I do it. Taunting through a team mate is an emergency response that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I'd say it works a lot more than it doesn't but with a good clear view of the action taunting a mob directly is obviously much more effective.
Prevention is better than cure as often the taunting thru a target gives you entirely different targets I find. You target a controller whose targetting a defender to buff them who in turn targetting a scrapper whose next to you 
I'd rather consolidate it.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
With blasters and defenders i often attack through the tank to avoid getting agro.
My question can I do the same thing with a tank and taunt through a another toon that's getting alot of agro and hopefully that way draw it off that toon?