Favorite Barb skill tree?

[Hellspawn]

Which will you focus on?

[Gigashadow]

I have an interest in making a shield barbarian, so probably Battlemaster. But that may not be true necessarily, perhaps I'll get some skills in Battlemater to get a Shield Specialization, and then I can go to some high-damage tree...

[konfeta]

Clearly the Juggernaut. Barbarians with a huge 2-hander just feels a lot more natural than 2 small weapons.

[Flux]

You need an "undecided" option on the poll. I have no idea which I'll do first; and not just because I figure they'll change a lot between now and the game. They don't really specialize that much; it's not like one is all about ranged attacks and the other is all about raising defense; there seems to be a nice variety of skills in each.

I'm be curious to see how much mixing and matching will be viable. I doubt we'll see any synergies, but if the passives and actives are set up to require lots of points to become useful, then everyone will just stick to one tree and build up their main skills. If we get a lot of bonus skill points in quest rewards, or from +equipment, or the skills don't allow that many invested points, then we'll see more varied builds, with multi-tree use, or at least loading up on some of the tier 1 and 5 passives in other trees.

[jamesisbest]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing I am still not sure what tree I would like to specialize in. Though when forced to choose I would pick the berserker just because of the beauty of whirlwind. With so many good skills in every tree it is going to be so hard to figure out what my first build will be like. My first build however will likely be a trainwreck of a build so I will probably do a lot of experimenting with the different trees. I remember my first Diablo 2 build I tried was an inferno sorceress, reading about it before the game release I thought it would be a cool ability, it is a shame that it just wasn't powerful enough in hell mode and just plain terrible for pvp.

[Friedrich Halbarenz]

I think my first Barb will be a Juggernaut (2-hander) build. Of course, assuming that in the final build, investing in one tree will be as good as or better than splitting points for two trees. All three trees seem to have an even distribution of cool/effective abilities, so I think that, come launch, we hopefully won't see any builds being favored over others.

Personally, I've always wanted to try out a 2-hander, because for me the image of a Barbarian will always be that of a pissed, musclebound hulk swinging around a huge sword or dual wielding. It always annoyed me that 2 handed weapons became virtually obsolete when increasing monster difficulty and PvP virtually necessitated the use of shields, so I hope Blizzard goes the extra mile toward balancing all weapon combinations.

[Apocalypse]

juggernaut is my fav and i base that on name alone

[Tanksaabas]

But we haven't seen the tier 5 abilities yet. Hard to decide now.

[Instapeace]

Whichever route seems like the most logical choice to find me the best items fastest. Any D2 LoD player who MFs always used a ice/light sorc or a sword mastery ww barb.

But for sheer enjoyment, I like my 2 handed mace barb. Juggernaut with a huge 2 hander yelling like thunder ftw.

[Drytchnath]

Juggernaut for me! 2-handed mace along with Leap Attack from the Berserker tree!.
Barb will be named M.C. Hammer, and I'll leap attack while yelling "It's Hammer Time!" and Ground Stomp while saying, "Can't Touch This!"

[Raging_Zealot]

You need an "undecided" option on the poll. I have no idea which I'll do first; and not just because I figure they'll change a lot between now and the game. They don't really specialize that much; it's not like one is all about ranged attacks and the other is all about raising defense; there seems to be a nice variety of skills in each.

I'm be curious to see how much mixing and matching will be viable. I doubt we'll see any synergies, but if the passives and actives are set up to require lots of points to become useful, then everyone will just stick to one tree and build up their main skills. If we get a lot of bonus skill points in quest rewards, or from +equipment, or the skills don't allow that many invested points, then we'll see more varied builds, with multi-tree use, or at least loading up on some of the tier 1 and 5 passives in other trees.

This man speaks the truth. I figure my first barbarian will probably be almost a "trail" character anyway, to see how the skills work in the game and what I like doing etc.

[OneFromBeyond]

Juggernaut for me! 2-handed mace along with Leap Attack from the Berserker tree!.
Barb will be named M.C. Hammer, and I'll leap attack while yelling "It's Hammer Time!" and Ground Stomp while saying, "Can't Touch This!"

lol...unless I get the name MC Hammer first :)

[MasterRakinshu]

All the trees look really interesting.

Juggernaut seems to be the 2-hander focused tree, with lots of AoE attacks and stuns.

Berserker is the dual wield tree, which appears to be more fast paced due to skills like preventing against fury degeneration, allowing health to regen, and a more offensive approach. Interesting they put whirlwind in here too.

And my favorite Battlemaster. Seems really heavily defense oriented with lots of survivability/defense based passives and shield specialization. I also really like that Hammer of the Ancients is included in this tree. Lets you sit there and soak up fury then start wasting whomever with massive HoA crits.

[redjellosux]

This man speaks the truth. I figure my first barbarian will probably be almost a "trail" character anyway, to see how the skills work in the game and what I like doing etc.

This how it will be for me too. It will be alot of testing and so on to see what is good plus one doesn't know how the final skills will look like when they are done since it is still a long time until they will be done.

[Apocalypse]

i used to use the "tank" character first in games because they were always the most basic and easiest to learn the game with, i think bliz changed that around with the barb and his fury system. great idea imo to make a usually basic character alot more interesting

[Gigashadow]

i used to use the "tank" character first in games because they were always the most basic and easiest to learn the game with, i think bliz changed that around with the barb and his fury system. great idea imo to make a usually basic character alot more interestingI hope so. Barb was sooooooo easy to play in DII.

[Apocalypse]

barb was really boring imo, very basic, i kept trying different builds with him and they were either complete crap or still boring lol

[Valmy]

I can't wait to start a HC barbarian full invested in Frenzy, Whirlwind, Leap and some passives, like the dodge one, the nmerous boosts to fury, speed damage, and so on. It is the most similar to classic barbs and looks kinda fun with the new Fury. Sounds like a very busy barb without a second to pause. By far a long way different from the boring in D2 thanks to that Fury issue.

Then my easy election is the Berserker tree. Granted.


If I start a Barb (I suppose it will be my second or third char), I will make this way, picking just some passives and useful skills from the other 2 trees:



Juggernaut tree and those active skills... I don't like them too much, except this stun skill named Ground Stomp (I'm used to play in hc with the appropiate warcries to stun the enemies), and perhaps Focused Strength and 2-Handed Specialization (only if I don't go with 2 weapons ofc), and Taunt. Inspiration looks ok, too. But I dislike those powerful skills like SS or Revenge. I won't take any of them.



From the Battlemaster I'm not sure, I think there are many useful skills for my minded build. I like the warcries for boost defense and damage (and critical hits ofc), resistances and things like that. But I dislike a lot the active battlemaster skills like Hammer of the Ancients or Charge (I prefer the classic Jumps of the barb, more fun by far), or the "cheat" skill for resurrect. If I ever make a Barb (hc ofc) I think I'll never pick up this noob and chicken skill, except if the difficulty of the game is high enough to prove me wrong and make me a complete noob in D3.



Zerker barb, baby.

[Phat Wolf]

I'm thinking a Juggernaut with a big hander will be fun for me ^^.

[Psyco]

Juggernaut for me! 2-handed mace along with Leap Attack from the Berserker tree!.
Barb will be named M.C. Hammer, and I'll leap attack while yelling "It's Hammer Time!" and Ground Stomp while saying, "Can't Touch This!"

well emmm ok....its been done like 1000000000000000000000000000000000 time in D2 with paly and even barb but...ok O_o

nah i can't really decide on anything just yiet for the same reason as the other...not enought info and alots can still change

[Echod16]

While I'm sure I won't just be in one tree, there's something about the consistency that comes out of skills related to Battlemaster that I like a lot.

For a class such as the barbarian, I expect some long and drawn out fights. As a Battlemaster oriented barb, he would consistently deal out mid-high damage at a fair constant rate with a slightly higher rate of critical striking than the other two trees. He would also be proficient in a variety of weapons. He may lack the flashy skills of fury-intensive decimation skills, but he will wear you out in the end with his superior fighting skills.

At least, that's my vision of what a Battlemaster type barbarian should be

[StrikexForce]

Berserker tree for whirlwind.