Is famine malfunctioning?

Me and a friend tried to farm a huge group of melee monsters somewhere. I was a mo/me with the 2 visages and he had famine. I was tanking the monsters for a good 20 seconds and my screen was full with -3's and he put famine down. The monsters only took damage from it once and then kept attacking. Is this how it is supposed to work?

Well the monsters now run away from AoE when they reach low health too. The way it works is they keep attacking, constant energy drain, constant damage from Famine and die in seconds. That was used in Shiro'ken solo farming but that got nerfed when the monsters ran and Spirit Bond got nerfed.

I know how famine is SUPPOSED to work, but right now it isnt doing any dmg to them and I know for a fact that they are drained.

well if they are not all attacking at the exact same time then it seems possible that if visage is up all the time they could keep themselves at 0 energy thus only taking the damage once

Warrior monsters only have +2 energy pips.

Famine is working as normal for me, I use it in a farming build I use regularly.