Ground Stomp

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From Diablo Wiki

These boots are heavier than they look...

Ground Stomp is a Defensive Barbarian skill unlocked at level 4, which stuns enemies around the Barbarian for a limited period of time.

Background

The Barbarian stomps the ground with such fury, that enemies around him are left bedazzled and cannot move.

Skill Rune Effects

The following is a very quick summary. See the Ground Stomp rune effects page for a more thorough description of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Name	Level	Description

Ground Stomp
(database)
Defensive

4

Generate: 15 Fury

Cooldown: 12 seconds

Smash the ground, stunning all enemies within 12 yards for 4 seconds.

Deafening Crash
(database)

12

Enemies in the area have their movement speed slowed by 60% for 3 seconds after they recover from being stunned.

Wrenching Smash
(database)

18

Increase the area of effect to 24 yards. Enemies are pulled closer before the strike lands.

Trembling Stomp
(database)

28

Enemies in the area also take 76% weapon damage.

Foot of the Mountain
(database)

40

Increase Fury gained to 30.

Avalanche
(database)

54

Enemies are knocked back 9 yards and inflict 55% weapon damage to enemies in the landing area.

Skill Design

Ground Stomp is a useful skill, it will buy the Barbarian precious time should the need arise. However, it is unknown if it will work on bosses.

On regular enemies, stars can be seen circling around the heads of stunned monsters.

The skill has unique properties as well, Skeletal Shieldmen for example, have a shield that blocks most if not all damage, but a well placed Ground Stomp will cause them to drop their shields, making these skeletons easy pickings.

This skill has an impressive and very powerful graphic. The earth trembles when the Barbarian stomps, and glowing yellow lines radiate out from the impact point, like pavement cracking under the weight of a dropped safe.

Video

A video of Ground Stomp in use can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Synergies

The following Barbarian passives provide a benefit to Ground Stomp, runed or not:

Bloodthirst - The Barbarian gains life based on the amount of damage he deals always.
Weapons Master - Provides a damage bonus when the Barbarian is wielding a sword or dagger.
Berserker Rage - Inflicts additional damage while the Barbarian is at maximum Fury.
Brawler - Increases the Barbarian's damage when he is swarmed.

Development

Ground Stomp was first introduced in the WWI 2008 gameplay video, as a Tier III skill in the Juggernaut Skill Tree. The original Ground Stomp gave enemies a slight knockback and had a very short cooldown. In June 2009 Bashiok said it was to cost no Fury reserves but would be subject to a much longer cooldown.[1]

Ground stomp is an exception mainly because of the nature of its use. A cooldown allows it to be used as an “oh crap I’m overwhelmed” ability without also requiring you to have fury built up.

At BlizzCon 2009, Ground Stomp was shown with the longer cooldown, no knockback, and moved to Tier II. Flux discovered another use for it:[2]

The radius of attack is very limited, just a few meters, so while this one worked to knock Dune Dervishes out of their invulnerable (to melee attacks) Whirlwind mode, you had to get quite close to use it, and time it just right.

In the BlizzCon 2010 gameplay demo, Flux was able to try it out with a rune that added knockback:[3]

I can imagine high level Barbs having fun with GS and knockback. If you had gear to lengthen the duration of the stun, it might be fun to torture monsters, banging them around like shuffleboards and trying to push them in various directions. You’d need high hit point enemies though, so you didn’t prematurely kill them during the maneuvers.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, allowing skills to unlock steadily from levels 1 to 30. Consequently, all skill levels were adjusted and Ground Stomp became a level 1 skill.

Beta

Ground Stomp was bumped to level 8 for the beta. With the Patch 13 changes, it was classified as a Defensive skill (but stayed at level 8). For the Beta Patch 14, it was dropped to level 4.

Previous Versions

See the Barbarian skill archive for more details on previous versions of Ground Stomp and other Barbarian skills.

In Other Games

Ground Stomp is similar to Diablo II's Barbarian skill War Cry, which does damage to monsters, in addition to stunning them.

The name and mechanic of this skill is possibly directly inspired by the Tauren Chieftain hero in WarCraft 3. The Tauren racial in World of WarCraft called "War Stomp" is also very similar.

Media

Ground Stomp can be seen in action on video here:

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

Stomp a-hoy!

References

Bashiok on the Barbarian's Fury — Incgamers 10th Jun 2009
BlizzCon 2009 Full Barbarian Skill Trees and Stats
BlizzCon 2010 Barbarian Hands-on Report
Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
Silva's Barbarian Runestone Effects — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
Barbarian Active Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

Fan-made Classes			Fan-made Skills [e]
• Alchemist • Arcane Warrior • Artisan • Aurian Mage • Bard • Channeller • Dragon Warrior	• Flagellant • Giant (U) • Hollow Man • Nomad • Onaga Manji • Phase Knight	• Ranger • Slayer (U) • Techpriest (U) • Telepath • Untainted (U) • Zealot	Dragon Warrior Skills • Bow and Throwing Skill Tree • Dragon Disciplines Skill Tree • Martial Arts Skill Tree	Untainted Skills • Divine Skill Tree • Void Skill Tree • Wrath Skill Tree	Aurian Mage Skill • Holy Power Skill Tree • Shadow Spells Skill Tree • Nature Forces Skill Tree
(U) = Unfinished

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