The more I think about it, this makes less and less logical sense, to the point of not making any at all. People are just falling victim, as I did, to the idea that a mad barbarian automatically means their berserked and combat ready. If you look at their skill set, they build up their awareness and primal skills, learning to draw them out in a fight. If you draw on the supposed logic that making a barb angry and want to fight automatically means that they will berserk and fury, then the skill should simply become automatic and fire every time they go to kill. The fact that they had to learn it, train it, and draw on it (type it in) means that it is something that doesn't come automatically.
All taunt is doing is lowering intelligence and inhibitions, like getting drunk. It strips away any logical tactic and causes the victim to start swinging away with little care. It is sloppy fighting at it's worst, and exactly what the swashie wants you to do, drop your guard. Fury isn't about swinging blindly so much as it is about making your muscles tighten and your strikes faster. Really, because of this blinding rage effect, taunt should significantly lower the accuracy of the victim and increase their damage and speed.
As I said before, it all comes down to momentum. The swashie wants you off your guard, off your balance, and charging at him blindly. It is up to the barbarian to use his keen awareness and control over his rage to turn that around, and it shouldn't come automatically. In -any- other instance where the barbarian may be terribly angry, he still has to find a way to use than anger to his advantage rather than let it consume him and become a weakness. Trust me, if Vladmier automatically hit fury every time he was as angry as a taunt would have made him, then he would have been rarely without it.
Make it easier to berserk and fury while taunted, and/or make sure the benefits stack, but don't make an otherwise non-automatic skill automatic just because you think mad = berserk, because that assumption is wrong.
Non-giant barbarians could use a boost, but it's mostly in the range department. They are screwed by anyone who is in the back row, being the only class who has to rely solely on throw (a terrible and broken "skill") to hit there. I suggest either giving them a big boost to throwing that doesn't stack with boulder, allowing them to throw all types of weapons instead of just throwing types (again, not stacking with boulder), or give them a charging skill that allows them to take a few critical blows from those they pass in the ranks to take a strike at someone, basically trading damage for the chance to make sure someone isn't invincible against them.
Hmm.. That, added with my other post, is just about 500 I think. So, unless someone wants to refute my claims, I'm spent.
EDIT: Just did a word count, and this one alone is 510.
I can live with the idea of enabling fury and beserk more easily once taunted. But depending on RP of your barbarian not all are focused rage. I know when I furied Moreytia, he'd go in a complete frenzy, sometimes hurting friends and innocent bystanders. I like to view at as being completely consumed in rage, as the echo you get when you successfully fury. With no hint of control, except basic instincts. Since taunt does not let you flee or word of recall, and only leaves you completely inrage having your character dumber then before; and wanting nothing else but to kick the swashbuckler in the face. I think its more of an RP pont of view if you would want taunt to trigger fury in a barbarian or not.
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