Revision as of 14:43, 17 July 2008

A simple listing of the known Barbarian skills, as seen on Blizzard's site and in the WWI gameplay movie.

Combat Skills

Cleave

Cleave.

A slashing melee strike that can hit multiple targets at once, Cleave leaves a streak of bright red light behind. It is a fast hit but has a slight delay between uses, making it slightly slower than normal attack.

Cleave can be delivered with one hand, seems to alternate forehand and backhand when used repeated with a single weapon, and can be used while dual wielding.

Hammer of the Ancients

This massive damage attack is dealt with an overhead slam; the Barbarian brings his weapon down straight overhead, like a man driving a railroad spike with a sledgehammer. The Barbarian's weapon vanishes when he uses this skill, the graphic replaced by a giant golden mace.

It's a huge attack, and hits quickly, but the Barbarian takes a second to recover after the strike, leaving him vulnerable to nearby enemies. This looks like a skill that's best used against single large targets, rather than while swarmed. It's not clear if the strike will hit multiple enemies, or just the one targeted.

Hammer time!

The skill's hover text was shown in the WWI game play movie, and it's reproduced in the table below.

Leap

This skill enables the barbarian to leap a considerable distance, and quite quickly too. When landing the barbarian drives down her weapons from overhead, creating a blue shockwave that damages and knocks back any enemies within several yards. It appears to combine the powers of the d2 skills leap and leap attack, and seems to deal quite a bit of damage, as rapidly as it dispatches multiple ghouls with every Leap, in the WWI movie.

At one point the barbarian uses it without traveling any distance, leaping straight up and then coming back down with explosive force, so it appears to be a skill that can be targeted right at the monster you are currently facing.

Furious Charge

Furious Charge.

A dashing attack that works almost like teleportation. The barbarian targets an enemy and dashes at them at a very high rate of speed. He deals damage to targets he passes through on the way, and deals huge explosive damage to anything near his terminal point.

It's not yet clear what "Fury" means in the Barbarian's skill descriptions, but it seems to be some sort of value that skills expend, like a mana cost? It's not related to the Barbarian skill of that name in Diablo II.

Seismic Slam

The barbarian lifts up one foot and brings it down with her weapon, slamming them into the ground and sending a wave of energy forward, dealing heavy damage to anything directly in front of her. Multiple monsters can be hit by each use, and the ground is torn and fractured by this skill.

During the WWI 2008 Denizens of Diablo panel, The D3 team spoke at length about the creation of this essential skill, and how it was used to focus the design of the character.

This is a skill where the Barbarian raises his weapon overhead and slams it down into the ground. Anything in front of him, in a sort of cone-shape, gets rocked and destroyed. This skill was first skill we made for Barb, and one of the first we did in the game. Getting it right took longer than it did with most skills. We did many iterations. Animation especially. Had to make barb feel physically powerful. Traditionally we associate big bold movements with power. But if you want a game that feels fast and responsive, you want the movements to be really fast. Getting balance of fast movements and powerful feel. It's a big challenge in many ways to get that animation right.

Once we got through all that, we didn't still didn't really like the skill. We got programming done and wasn't that great. Got effects done, and still not that great. Somehow didn't quite sing to us. Wasn't until we got sound that it was really awesome. Really fun. Key to that was faith to get through process. Once you do get through it, all the skills that come after that come much quicker. What's the Barbarian about? Look at Seismic Slam. With that he rocks the world with power. Next few skills we did almost required no communication between art and programming, since art knew what the barb was about. Knew what we were designing for, since we had a great example.

Whirlwind

The spinning, multi-hitting tornado of a skill returns in D3. As it did in D2, Whirlwind lands multiple, bonus damage hits to anything in the barbarian's path, and it can strike multiple monsters per use. It appears to be usable as long as you wish (mana permitting?) but only in a straight line. To change direction the barbarian must stop one WW, and begin another one.

The spinning graphic is much improved as well, with the weapon visible tracking around in a circle, leaving a glowing light as it spins.

The hover text for Whirlwind was visible in the WWI gameplay movie, and it's reproduced to the right. It's not yet clear what "Fury" means in the Barbarian's skill descriptions, but it seems to be some sort of value that skills expend; it's not related to the Barbarian skill of that name in Diablo II.

Stomps

Ground Stomp

This foot stomping skill, reminiscent of the Diablo II Barbarian skill War Cry, stuns and renders motionless monsters in a small radius around the barbarian. while stunned stars are shown spinning around their heads, and their defense is lowered and monsters that carry shields will drop them, making them very easy prey for the barbarian's other attacks.

Warcries

Battle Cry

This warcry is basically Shout, from Diablo II. It increases the defense of the Barbarian and any party members in range. The defense and duration increase with additional skill points.

The skill hover was shown in the WWI gameplay movie, and that text is reproduced to the right.

Yellow Warcry

Used early on in the WWI gameplay movie. This one stuns or dizzies the ghouls who are in range, but does not appear to damage them.