Battle Rage

Battle Rage is a Tactics Barbarian skill unlocked at Level 22, which grants a substantial increase in damage and critical chance.

Hover for latest stats

This is one of the Barbarian's shouts.

Background

Battle Rage in action.

The Barbarian enters a rage during battle, hitting harder than his enemies initially thought.

Skill Rune Effects

Icon	Name	Stats (Hover over)	Level Unlocked
	Marauder's Rage	(Stats)	36
	Ferocity	(Stats)	52
	Swords to Ploughshares	(Stats)	41
	Into the Fray	(Stats)	19
	Bloodshed	(Stats)	25

Skill Design

This skill is good for times when fighting enemies with lots of hp, to speed things up or to maximize the chance of critical hits, and when combined with other passive skills in this tree, can make the Barbarian a dangerous machine without the use of signature skills like Whirlwind and Leap Attack.

Synergies

Base Skill

The following Barbarian passive provides a benefit to Battle Rage, runed or not:

• Inspiring Presence - Doubles the duration of the Barbarian's Shouts always.

Bloodshed

The following Barbarian passives provide a benefit to Bloodshed:

• Bloodthirst - The Barbarian gains Life based on the amount of damage he deals always.
• Ruthless - Increases critical hit chance and critical hit damage always.
• Weapons Master - Provides a damage bonus when the Barbarian is wielding a sword or dagger. Increases critical hit chance when the Barbarian is wielding a mace or axe.
• Berserker Rage - Inflicts additional damage while the Barbarian is at maximum Fury.
• Brawler - Increases the Barbarian's damage when he is swarmed.

Into the Fray

The following Barbarian passives provide a benefit to Into the Fray:

• Ruthless - Increases critical hit chance and critical hit damage always.
• Weapons Master - Increases critical hit chance when the Barbarian is wielding a mace or axe.

Ferocity

The following Barbarian passives provide a benefit to Ferocity:

• Ruthless - Increases critical hit chance and critical hit damage always.
• Weapons Master - Increases critical hit chance when the Barbarian is wielding a mace or axe.

Swords to Ploughshares

The following Barbarian passives provide a benefit to Swords to Ploughshares:

• Pound of Flesh - Increases chance of finding health globes always.
• Ruthless - Increases critical hit chance and critical hit damage always.
• Weapons Master - Increases critical hit chance when the Barbarian is wielding a mace or axe.

Development

Battle Rage was first seen in the BlizzCon 2008 demo. It originally increased damage by 100% and increased critical chance by 30% at rank 1. It was also placed in the Battlemaster Skill Tree.

For the BlizzCon 2009 version, the damage bonus and crit chances had been nerfed heavily, to be more balanced. It was also moved to the Berserker Skill Tree. As typical for buffs in gameplay demos, this skill wasn't used much, as Flux explained:[1]

I used this one a few times to test it out, and it worked, but I could hardly tell the difference, since monsters were dying so quickly anyway. As was the case with the Monk, the Barbarian was so strong and overpowered in the Blizzcon build that boosting him further with war cries wasn’t something many players bothered with. “Ugg too busy smash! Ugg not use stragedy!”

Battle Rage was available in the BlizzCon 2010 demo, but there are no gameplay reports detailing any use of the skill.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, allowing skills to unlock steadily from levels 1 to 30. Consequently, all skill levels were adjusted and Battle Rage became a level 3 skill.

Beta

The Diablo III Beta started in September 2011, and while it ran, all of the skills continued to undergo extensive iteration. Skill changes varied from changing the levels the skills are unlocked, to changes in resource cost, damage, and even function. A few skills were removed altogether, and a few new ones were added. Also, the entire skill system received an overhaul with the Beta Patch 13 update in February 2012, with physical runes replaced by rune effects that automatically unlock at various levels for the different skills.

Battle Rage remained at level 3 when the beta started. With the Patch 13 changes, it was classified as a Might skill and moved up to level 14, putting it out of reach of beta players. For the Beta Patch 14, it was re-classified as a Tactics skill and bumped all the way up to level 22.

Previous Versions

See the Barbarian skill archive for more details on previous versions of Battle Rage and other Barbarian skills.

Media

Battle Rage can be seen in action on video here:

• No videos yet.

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Battle Rage specific gallery contents

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Barbarian Skill Trees and Stats
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Barbarian Runestone Effects — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Barbarian Active Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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