Now that I've passed lvl 42 I have some great cards. Prof. Balestrom was very excited to give me a minion but I'm not sure why I need him. I'm happy that he has his own pips and doesn't take mine but all he does is taunt. If that stopped the bad guys for a round that would be great but as far as I can tell a taunt does nothing. My professor wouldn't give me a helper for no reason. So what is he for?
You learn your Summon Water Elemental spell at level 18. A time when you are still relatively weak and venerable to attacks.
The intention of the minion is to taunt enemies and try to gain the enemies attention off you and onto him. This is why he does it repeatedly and shields (elemental shield) and/or heals (sprite) to increase in longevity.
But, if he taunts and you are still attacking said enemies, well, there is a possibility that their attention will still remain on you.
The spell does work.
He has since been updated however and now will occasionally use spells such as Storm Trap and shield or heal you.
But not to worry, you'll be learning a more useful one at level 75.
The taunt function is supposed to get the enemies mad at your minion instead of them being mad at you. The hope is that the enemies will attack your minion and leave you alone. The minion will taunt, then shield himself so he can take a few hits for you.
Since you're Storm and have the lowest health in the game, this can help take some pressure off while you're setting up a hit.
Storm wizards are the glass cannon class meaning that while they are really powerful, it really doesn't take much to one shot them. So you've probably been in the situation where you're about to kill, but then the boss kills you with an imp or something.
The storm elemental is there to use taunt in order to draw aggro from your opponents so they will hit him instead of you and give you a chance to deal the finishing blows.
This only works for pve though, it's useless in pvp as far as I can tell.
The minion is casting taunt because taunt makes the enemy (doesn't work on players) more likely to hit the caster instead of the casters allies (fun fact: the spells with the dove bird on them like soothe do the opposite of this effect, making enemies less likely to target the caster), which brings us to what the minion is meant to do (while on paper it works, in the duel circle the minion isn't all that effective in my personal option). The minion is meant to take damage for you has storms can't take many hits and is meant to cover for your weaknesses, the same idea behind the ice elemental minion being a good attacker. This means the minion will mostly cast taunt (to make enemies attack it instead of you) and sprite and shields on itself (to absorb more damage and stay alive). Every spell has its use and I hope now you can use this one to the best of it's (limited) ability, or not use it at all, your choice.
I have not reached that far in storm yet but taunt does do something!
If you're fighting a monster (not another player in PvP), then the monster will shift their attack towards your minion. And you could check online to see if your minion has some other spells that it can use. If you notice that it is only casting one spell and it shouldn't be, report it!
So taunt generates "threat", threat is what causes monsters to attack someone after they heal, do a big hit and sometimes blading/ trapping. This mechanic is useless vs players but the idea is that the minion takes agro(draws attention to itself) while shielding and protecting itself(so it lives longer) so you can blade/trap for a big hit. The opposite form of this spell is Pacify which reduces the threat a target makes(cast on ally) so that minions focus anyone but them
When i first started i used to love that minion, taking helephants, othorus', stormzillas from hitting me often allowed me to win in one hit without fear of dying before I could.
It does become pretty useless later on as it dies to any AOE spell but there are ways to use it up to zafaria or so.
Alia Misthaven
Jack Legend