Difference between revisions of "Barbarian skills"

Revision as of 16:13, 24 May 2012

This page lists all Barbarian skills. This page is a quick listing; follow the links to the individual skill pages for full discussion of every skill, including first hand reports, Blue quotes, skill rune information, and numerous screenshots and other images.

Useful skill links:

• Skills - General skill design and mechanics.
  • Skill runes - The huge skill customization and improvement system.
• Barbarian - a melee-oriented class with great physical powers.
  • Fury - The Barbarian's energy resource.
  • Barbarian skills - A list of all the Barbarian's active skills.
    • Shouts - Skills that buff the player or debuff monsters.
  • Barbarian passives - A list of all the Barbarian's passive skills.
• Barbarian skill archive - Removed Barbarian skills.
• Barbarian traits - Passive skills in Diablo III were called traits for a while before reverting back.

Active Skills

Click to the individual skill pages for more details about these skills including numbers, screenshots, Skill Rune information, blue quotes, and much more.

Primary

<skill class="Barbarian">Bash</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Cleave</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Frenzy</skill>

Secondary

<skill class="Barbarian">Hammer of the Ancients</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Rend</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Seismic Slam</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Whirlwind</skill>

Defensive

<skill class="Barbarian">Ground Stomp</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Leap</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Sprint</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Ignore Pain</skill>

Might

<skill class="Barbarian">Ancient Spear</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Revenge</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Furious Charge</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Overpower</skill>

Tactics

<skill class="Barbarian">Weapon Throw</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Threatening Shout</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Battle Rage</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">War Cry</skill>

Rage

<skill class="Barbarian">Earthquake</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Call of the Ancients</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Wrath of the Berserker</skill>

Passive Skills

Passive skills replaced Traits during late game development in 2011. A few Traits were simply changed to passive skills, but most are all new. See the Barbarian traits page for a full list of those old passives.

<skill class="Barbarian">Pound of Flesh</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Ruthless</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Nerves of Steel</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Weapons Master</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Berserker Rage</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Inspiring Presence</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Bloodthirst</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Animosity</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Superstition</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Tough as Nails</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">No Escape</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Relentless</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Brawler</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Juggernaut</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Unforgiving</skill> <skill class="Barbarian">Boon of Bul-Kathos</skill>

Skill Distribution

A useful player-made chart showing when the Barbarian gains access to skills, passives, and rune effects.

Barbarian skill progression. Stats as of May 5, 2012.

Development

All character skills underwent considerable changes during development, with perhaps the biggest change coming before BlizzCon 2010 -- skill trees were removed (but the tiers remained), and passive skills were separated out from the skill listing and renamed Traits. The second big change occurred when skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, allowing skills to unlock steadily from levels 1 to 30; also, traits were renamed back to passives. Finally, the Beta Patch 13 introduced a new categorization system, which placed each skill into one of 6 (fairly arbitrary) new categories for each class.

• See the Barbarian skill archive for the full list, with descriptions, of all active and passive skills that have been removed from the game during development.

Details

The Barbarian's skills and skill trees were first seen at BlizzCon 2008 as a mix of active and passive skills (mostly passive), with only a few enabled and many showing nothing more than vague descriptions in the skill trees. The Barbarian had 6 active skills (out of 18) in his Berserker Skill Tree, 6 active skills (out of 18) in his Juggernaut Skill Tree, and 5 active skills (out of 17) in his Battlemaster Skill Tree.

For BlizzCon 2009, the list of the Barbarian's passive skills had greatly shrunk, but the active skills were mostly just shuffled around. The Barbarian also gained four new active skills: Spirit, Wrath of the Berserker, Bloodthirst, and Weapon Throw.

The updated Barbarian tree-less skills list at BlizzCon 2010 removed all earlier passive skills (they became Barbarian traits) and changed around a number of active skills as well. The Barbarian lost Battle Cry, Onslaught, Bloodthirst, and Enrage; but also gained Rampage, War Cry, Ancient Spear, Rend, and Call of the Ancients.

With the skill system overhaul revealed in the July 2011 Press Event, the Barbarian's active skills were mostly just shuffled around, but he also gained Overpower and lost Rampage and Taunt. Soon after, he gained the passive Tough as Nails.

A large number of passives were removed for the beta; the Barbarian lost 8. After that, the list of skills was pretty well set, even if their levels weren't. The Barbarian's Leap Attack was renamed Leap, and he gained the passive Nerves Of Steel.

References

• Full Barbarian Skill Trees and Stats — 27th Aug 2009
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Kastigar's Really Big Barb thread — IncGamers 8th Aug 2011
• Barbarian Overview — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site