Fury

Fury is a character stat that Barbarians have in place of the mana other classes generate. This feature was introduced in the Blizzcon (October 2008) build, and is not present in the gameplay footage from the WWI (June 2008) when the Barbarian made his debut.

Fury is built up during combat; successfully hitting enemies fills up the Barbarian's Fury bulb, enabling him to use his most powerful skills, most of which cost some Fury to use. When the Barbarian is not fighting, or not hitting enemies, his Fury steadily fades away, until it drops to nothing several seconds after a battle.

Fury changes the Barbarian's play style, making it impossible for him to use his most powerful abilities at the start of a fight. He must warm up a bit, building up his Fury with basic attacks, and only unleashing his devastating skills when the Fury bulb has filled up enough to allow him to expend the energy in violence.

Fury is modified by a number of passive skills, some of which cause it to fill more quickly and drain more slowly.

Hands on Report

The most detailed report yet filed on Fury comes from a Blizzcon Barbarian gameplay report by Flux, posted on Diii.net. A quote:

Fury is the new mana, but only (so far) for Barbarians. Fury replaces mana, but unlike the old blue bulb, it does not fill up when not in use. Barbarians have zero Fury to start with, and only build it up during combat, when they land successful strikes to their enemies. As soon as the Barb is not fighting, the Fury starts to drain away, and it seeps out quite quickly. I frequently filled my Fury bulb completely during a fight, paused to pick up an item or two, then ran to find more monsters, and arrived just as my Fury went down to nothing.

My Barbarian had about 100 Fury at level 7 or 8, and while I didn’t get to experiment with it that persistently, I could see enough to like the concept. The Barbarian is designed to be a melee battling character. He gets all sorts of bonuses while in combat, and many of his skills only trigger when he scores critical hits. With that design goal, the fact that he has to fight to build up Fury, and has to expend Fury to use most of his skills, is only natural. It looks like an expert Barbarian player will be most at home when surrounded by enemies, and will have to learn to cycle quickly through a variety of attack skills and war cry-style buffs to stay alive and able to smash his enemies.

The only big Fury expenditure available in the Blizzcon build was Battle Rage, a wary cry that boosted the Barbarian’s damage by 100%, increased critical damage by 30%, and lasted for 15 seconds. (With one point in it, which was all the BlizzCon build allowed to active skills.) That was half, or more, of my total [fury], but I never minded spending it. The combat improvements were substantial, and since Rage faded away so quickly, I had a constant feeling of "use it or lose it." Whenever I finished a battle with a full Rage bulb, I tried to remember to cast this war cry, since the precious juice would all be gone by the time I got to the next battle anyway.

Fury-Based Skills

While few of the Barbarian's combat skills were tied to Fury (or had Fury costs) as of the Blizzcon build (October 2008), a variety of passive skills effect or modify Fury in various ways. A partial list:

• Bad Temper slows the rate of Fury drain.
• Enrage increases the Fury gained and damage taken for a short time.
• Savage increases the Fury gained after scoring a critical hit.

These three skills are all from the Berserker skill tree, but it seems unlikely only that skill tree will have Fury-based skills. It's certain that the skills will evolve greatly over the course of development, but until Blizzard releases more details, players can only speculate.

Fury Questions

Few particulars are yet known about Fury. How is the maximum value determined? Is there equipment that will boost the total, or cause it to drain more slowly or fill more rapidly? Are there potions that will fill the Fury bulb? Does the Barbarian gain Fury when he or a party member collects a Mana Globe?

Lots of active skills don't currently list a Fury cost; are those skills going to be free to cast in the final game, or is their non-cost status more about the game's documentation being far from complete?

These and many other questions were discussed in a recent On the Drawing Board article about Fury. See it for much more on this issue.

World of Warcraft Influence

The D3 Barbarian's Fury works much like the "Rage" property of the Warrior class in World of Warcraft. This isn't surprising, since the D3 Team has frequently cited WoW as a major influence on their design concepts in Diablo III.