Revision as of 15:20, 30 August 2008

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

Combat Skills

Hammer of the Ancients

Hammer time!

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.

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

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.

Common sense would suggest that it boosts damage and attack rating, but details are not yet known.

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.

Furious Charge.

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, possibly related to Rage in World of Warcraft, which goes up when a Warrior attacks or uses certain skills, goes down over time rather than up, and is required for most skills in the place of Mana, which Warriors don't have. It's not related to the Barbarian skill "Frenzy" in Diablo II.

Seismic Slam

Shock waves travel forward.

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.

Leap

Leaping over a chasm.

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.

Whirlwind

Whirling up some goat jerky.

Everyone's favorite 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 whirling 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 below. 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, possibly related to Rage in World of Warcraft, which goes up when a Warrior attacks or uses certain skills, goes down over time rather than up, and is required for most skills in the place of Mana, which Warriors don't have; it's not related to the Barbarian skill of that name in Diablo II.

Stomps

Ground Stomp

This foot stomping skill has a function much like the War Cry skill, from Diablo II. It stuns and renders motionless monsters in a small radius around the barbarian, though it does not seem to deal any damage. Stars can be seen circling around the heads of stunned monsters, and their defense is greatly reduced for the duration of the effect. Skeletal Shieldman, for instance, drop their shields while stunned.

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.

Warcries

Only two warcries have been seen inaction, thus far. It's possible that Ground Stomp (and other unknown stomping skills?) are forms of warcries, since they seem to have a similar effect.

Battle Cry

Battle Cry increases defense.

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 below.

Yellow Warcry

Used at the start of the WWI gameplay movie, this at first appeared to be a warcry, but closer observation showed that it was just Ground Stomp. The Barbarian doesn't seem to take a big step and drop his foot, as he does later on in the same movie, but perhaps it's just the angle of the view, and the foot lift/stomp isn't as evident with the Barbarian facing right at the "camera."