[GUIDE] How does the Queen of Hearts’ Taunt work with AoE specials, or specials affecting nearby enemies in addition to the target?

[zephyr1]

The Queen of Hearts (QoH) is a Minion Summoner, and her Playing Card Minion gives her a special ability: Taunt.

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In its simplest application, Taunt prevents any allies of the Queen of Hearts from being targeted by special skills until any and all Player Card Minions are killed.

As this effect is the result of the Player Card Minion, it cannot be dispelled.

That part is fairly easy to understand.

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But if you play the Wonderland Challenge Event, or have or encounter the Queen of Hearts hero, you may wonder:

What happens when I target the Queen of Hearts with a special skill that affects the target as well as the nearby enemies? Are the nearby enemies still hit?

Or you might similarly wonder:

What happens if I use an AoE (area of effect) skill that doesn’t target any particular enemy, and instead affects all enemies? Do they work as usual?

Or you might appreciate these elegant specific questions from @AnayaL and @AndyBSG :

@AnayaL

It’s apparently by design. The queen acts like a ligning rod. She attracts every enemy special to her. That’s why her special gives her high protection against special skills as well. But that brings another question: what about specials which affects multiple heroes? Will Proteus’ special affect the queen AND both heroes beside her?

@AndyBSG

If i’m firing an AoE that hit’s all 5 heroes for 100 but Queenie has her special active.

Does Queenie just take 100 damage or does she take all 5 lots of 100?

My understanding is if I try a single target hit on another hero then Queenie will instead end up as the target for that hit but she still takes the whole hit.

Whereas with AoE’s it seems that instead of her becoming the target for all the damage from the special she in fact makes all the damage that would normally hit the other heroes simply disappear?

These are great questions, and a Mad Hatter hat tip to @Adisty, @0mn1k, @AnayaL, @RedKirby, and @AndyBSG for helping to ask and answer them.

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Some Answers

@RedKirby

No. All multi-hit specials and their effects get reduced to single target (affect only QoH) when her minion taunt is active. Pretty op if it works

@Adisty

Queen’s minion takes 1 hit from specials, regardless if they are single or multiple target specials. So the 100 damage to all would still only do 100 damage to her minion, and the remaining damage that would have been done to any other targets would disappear.

I observed this when I was taking screenshots for my post.

@zephyr1

I noticed that when I used Wilbur, for instance, only she was affected with the defense debuff and spirit link. The monsters alongside her weren’t.

@zephyr1

Right, while Queen of Hearts has a Playing Card Minion giving her Taunt, no other enemies can be targeted, and specials that normally would have effects on the nearby enemies or all enemies only affect the Queen of Hearts.

The example of Hu Tao was given above. He can only blind the Queen of Hearts. He’ll have no effect on other enemies while she has a Playing Card Minion.

Additionally, it’s worth noting explicitly:

• A dispeller like Sonya, Caedmon, Sabina or Melendor can only affect the Queen of Hearts when Taunt is active, just like any other special skill

• Taunt is a function of the Queen having at least one Playing Card Minion, and cannot be dispelled — but can be stopped by killing her Minion(s)

• The Queen’s defense against special skills can be dispelled

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And Here We Can See This In Action

Image: Queen of Hearts with an active Playing Card Minion

(credit: @Adisty)

Image: Queen of Hearts with multiple status effects applied to her by special skills. Note that the other bosses were unaffected due to Taunt.

(credit: @Adisty)

And in conclusion about these screenshots:

@Adisty

Clearly only QoH was affected by the status ailments and only the minion took damage.

[Adisty]

@zephyr1 +1 Nice work on collectively gathering the information to demystify Queen’s abilities!

Just a quick note, dispel abilities (like Sonya, Caedmon, Sabina, etc.) will only remove Queen’s defense boost against special damage, not the taunt. This is because the taunt is an ability of the minion, not a dispellable ability placed on Queen herself. I think someone mentioned Sonya specifically in another post, so I thought this might be what they were asking about.

[zephyr1]

Thanks! I updated the post to make that explicit.

[Kerridoc]

Bonus question:

Will having two Queens with card minions mean that special skills target no one?

Thanks to an incredibly lucky researcher, the answer is: no.

Queen of Hearts compared to Inari

[ - YouTube]

Queen of Hearts compared to Inari

Looks like it targeted all 3, think that sums it up

Special skills will hit all QoHs with an active card minion.

[TKristensen]

Came to think of those talent skills that effects the enemy wil they be able to hit other then Queen if she has taunt?

[zephyr1]

Talents aren’t considered Special Skills, so they should be unaffected by Taunt.

[TKristensen]

I thought that aswell. But hope someone can confirm that. (Someone who had a fight with the queen)

[averagejoe33]

If the Queen is on your team and you have Gazelle too with her special active, does the Queens taunt still work as it’s an effect from her minion?

[LordV1]

Does QoH taunt last forever (4 turns) when she gets ghosted by Lepiota?

[LordV1]

Yes, QoH taunt works well while she’s dancing to Gazelle’s music. They complement each other. QoH card minion can take Joon’s hit and and live to tell the tale. Imagine if that beam was aimed at the fragile madame Gazelle. That would have been a desaster.

[averagejoe33]

Thanks for the info. My Gazelle is 817 defense and 1579 health so even if Joon strikes her she should be alright