Revision as of 18:47, 15 June 2009

Template:Class navboxThe Barbarian's skills are divided into three skill trees, each of which has about 18 known skills. Most of these were first seen at Blizzcon 2008, and while they are very much subject to change during the game's continued development, viewing them in this state is still informative and interesting.

Most Barbarian skills require Fury to cast. Fury is a mana-like bulb that fills up when the Barbarian hits enemies, then drains quickly away when he stops hitting. This means that a Barbarian is unable to use his more powerful abilities at the start of a fight, and must charge up his Fury before he can begin to unleash his more devastating attacks.

• Barbarian Skills Master List
  • Battlemaster Skill Tree
  • Berserker Skill Tree
  • Juggernaut Skill Tree

Diablo 3 Skill Trees

Juggernaut Skill Tree, Blizzcon, Oct 2008.

Unlike the skill trees in Diablo II, the trees in Diablo III are not focused on just one aspect of a character. All known D3 skill trees have a wide variety of skills, with more passive than active, and all allow for a variety of play styles.

All active skills in the BlizzCon build were capped at 1 skill point (or rank, as skill levels are called in D3), while most passives went up to 15 points. This will not be the case in the final game; active skills will allow more than 1 point, and passives may have different maximum ranks, to allow better game balancing. Know that skills will be modified, that some will be removed, that others will be added, and that the numbers are almost certain to change.

Tier 1 Skills

These skills are available for use as soon as new Barbarian is created.

Bash

• Active Skill
• Rune Sockets: 1
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: Bash the enemy for 100% of weapon damage.
• Fury Cost: 3 (?)

Like all the active skills in the BlizzCon demo, Bash could only have one point added to it. This was not the case with skills when D3 debuted at the WWI in Paris, and it will almost certainly not be the case with active skills in the final game.

Inspiration

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increases the damage of critical hits and added hits. Can stack up to three times.
  • Rank 1: Increases critical hit damage by 3% and increases the damage of added hits by 5% for 15 seconds.
• Fury cost: None

The figures on this one are suspect, since our notes were very hard to decipher. The function is clear though. This mastery boosts all critical hit damage, and increases the damage of other hits as well. It's not clear what "added hits" are, though. Possibly a mis-transcription of the skill hover text.

Power of the Juggernaut

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increases damage of all Juggernaut skills.
  • Rank 1: Damage is increased by 10%.
  • Rank 2: Damage is increased by 20%.
  • Rank 2: Damage is increased by 30%.
• Fury cost: None.

This is possibly the most straight-forward skill in the entire game. Obvious function, straight linear progression of improvement. It's almost akin to a Juggernaut Weapons Mastery, but note that it only increases the damage, not the to/hit.

Unnamed Skill

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Whenever the Barbarian is below 50% health, all damage is reduced by X%.
  • Rank 1: Damage is reduced by 21%.
  • Rank 2: Damage is reduced by 34%.
• Fury cost: None.

We missed the name of this skill, but got the description. The stats are sketchy, and may not be exactly these numbers, but the overall function is clear. This one causes the Barbarian to take less damage as his/her hit points decrease. Handy!

Tier 2 Skills

These skills are available for use once a Barbarian reaches level 5. There is no requirement that he invest 5 skill points in this tree before using them, as some early Blizzcon reports erroneously stated.

Cleave

Cleave.

• Active Skill
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: The Barbarian swings at multiple targets, dealing 130% of weapon damage at up to 2 targets.
• Fury cost: 1 orb

This 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.

This skill was a handy way to hit multiple enemies in the Blizzcon build. More points in this skill will likely increase the damage and perhaps the number of hittable targets as well.

Ground Stomp

• Active Skill
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: Stomp the ground, knocking back and stunning all nearby enemies for X second.
  • Rank 1: Knocks back and stuns enemies for 3 seconds. 5 second cool down.
• Fury cost: None

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.

The figures are suspect on this one, since they were heard to read from our notes. The function is clear though, and in fact this skill has been seen in use in gameplay movies. It's a simple war cry-like skill that knocks back and stuns nearby monsters. It would presumably not work on bosses and other larger enemies, but that's not clear yet. As of June it was said to have no cost to Fury reserves but would be subject to a cooldown[1].

Focused Strength

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increases the effect of strength on your physical damage.
  • Rank 1: +10% to the effect of strength on damage.
• Fury cost: None

An interesting way to add damage. It's not an increase to damage, or to strength; it's an increase to the effect of strength on damage. Since we do not yet have any idea how the damage formulas will work in D3, there's no way to say how big of a bonus this will give.

This one is somewhat muted by the fact that attributes can't be player-assigned in D3, since that keeps a player from going with a "titan" build and putting 400 points into strength, which would make this skill enormously powerful. As it is, this will be most useful for barbarians who have a lot of +strength equipment on.

Stubborn

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Resist all slowing effects by 27%.
• Fury cost: None

As with all of these skills, the values will likely change during development. This skill lets the Barbarian be less slowed by enemy slowing effects, which may be a huge bonus, depending upon how common such effects are and how common equipment with such resistances are. We have no idea, at this early point, but clearly there will be some, to make this skill useful.

Recovery

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 0/15
• Description: Increases the amount of health gained from health globes by 12%
• Fury cost: None

Health globes heal 25% of a character's max hit points as of October 2008. This figure may go up or down during further game balancing, but as of now 12% bonus is impressive, essentially increasing the healing by 50%.(Unless the 12% is calculated from what a health globe heals, instead of how much of the Barbarian's total hit points, which would be a far smaller bonus.) It's not clear if this increase will share to other players in the party, but it seems unlikely.

The tier 2 skill Scavenge in the Battlemaster Skill Tree increases the odds of health globes dropping. Points in both would certainly make for a healthier Barbarian.

Tier 3 Skills

These skills are available for use for any Barbarian who is level 10+, and has placed at least 10 points in other skills in the Berserker skill tree.

Revenge

• Active Skill
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: Smash the ground dealing 100% weapon damage to nearby enemies. You gain 2% of your maximum health for each enemy hit. Revenge has a % chance to be usable when hit by an enemy.
  • Rank 1: 10% chance, deals 100% damage and returns 2% of maximum health for each enemy hit.
• Fury cost: None

Apparently this one is an active skill. The description isn't clear, but it sounds like you can use it whenever you want as a sort of war cry. It deals your full weapon damage to all enemies in range, and works as a sort of life leech as well.

The first line about a 10% chance to be usable isn't clear. Is being hit a requirement before this may be used? Or does the skill trigger automatically on 10% of the times the Barbarian is hit? Triggering automatically would make it very powerful; giving the barbarian a free hit on and plenty of life from every enemy in range during every battle.

Taunt

• Active Skill
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: Taunt monsters to attack you at close range.
• Fury cost: None

No other description of this one was provided in the Blizzcon build. Range, % of working, effect on monsters, rage cost, etc. Presumably it would be useful to bring running enemies in close, but aside from some very low damage bats, there weren't any monsters seen in the BlizzCon demo who didn't do this anyway. Perhaps the skill causes ranged attackers and monster mages to move into melee range? Or could it be useful in multiplayer games to lure dangerous foes away from weaker party members?

Stunning Blows

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Grants all Juggernaut skills a 3% chance to stun attackers for 2 seconds.
• Fury cost: None

A powerful passive indeed, giving every skill in this tree a chance to stun enemies. A very small chance, albeit it, and it's just for Juggernaut skills; not skills in the other trees.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increases physical damage dealt with two-handed weapons by X%.
  • Rank 1: Increases damage 12%
• Fury cost: None

Basically a two-handed weapon mastery, but one that does nothing for attack rating, just damage. Two handed swords can not be equipped in one hand, by Barbarians in Diablo III.

Invigorated

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Picking up a health globe increases strength by 15% for 10 seconds.
• Fury cost: None

A boost to strength every time the Barbarian heals, or just picks up a health globe (if he's already at full strength). It's unknown if more points will raise the strength increase, the duration, or both.

Tier 4 Skills

These skills are available for use once a Barbarian reaches level 15+, and has spent at least 15 points in the Berserker skill tree.

Seismic Slam

Shock waves travel forward.

• Active Skill
• Max Rank: 1
• Description: Slam the ground causing a wave of destructive fire death. 100% of your weapon damage in front of the Barbarian.
• Fury cost: None

This transcribed description is not quite right, due to our indecipherable BlizzCon notes. There was no Fury cost listed on the skill, though it's hard to believe that will be the case in the final game, as powerful and useful as this skill is.

When launching a Seismic Slam, the barbarian lifts 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.

Iron Will

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Provides resistance to stun, slow, and freeze attacks.
  Not yet implemented.
• Fury cost: None

A powerful protective mastery.

Crushing Blows

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increase the damage of Bash and Cleave.
  Not yet implemented.
• Fury cost: None

The function is clear, but without any figures for it yet in the game, it's impossible to say how powerful this one will be. It seems a good bet to change names too, since Crushing Blow was a special modifier in D2, reusing the name for a very different function would be confusing.

Seismic Effect

• Passive Skill
• Max Rank: 15
• Description: Increases the damage of Revenge and Seismic Slam.
  Not yet implemented.
• Fury cost: None

Another higher level skill that's too far from completed to judge. Revenge and Seismic Slam both work as ranged attacks, damaging multiple monsters per hit (when aimed/used properly).

Tier 5 Skills

There was a space for these in the Blizzcon build, but no skill icons were found on that line. There will surely be some in the final game, or else existing skills will be redistributed so some occupy higher level tiers on the skill tree.