Hotkey assignments and the Barbarian

[Arkahn]

I've read that when you try to use an offensive ability but you don't have enough fury, the game just defaults to using basic attack. This is good, but how do you build up enough fury to use something costly like Wrath of the Berserker (3 orbs)? It would require that you left one hotkey unassigned or that you were able to generate surplus fury from one of your other abilities. I don't believe the second option will be feasible, except perhaps situationally. The whole fury resource system would be trivial if you were able to generate that kind of surplus in fury from special attacks.

So does this mean that the barbarian only gets to assign 6 active skills rather than 7? Maybe that's the intention since standard attack will be more powerful in the hands of the barbarian and useful to build up fury.

And what about the Revenge ability? It's only occasionally available but it's not listed as having any fury cost. Does that make Revenge the one must-have Barbarian skill that you would use for building fury (going off if possible, defaulting to standard attack otherwise)? Obviously the developers would not want this, but there it is.

Someone enlighten me please.

[Moonfrost]

The whole fury resource system would be trivial if you were able to generate that kind of surplus in fury from special attacks.
Fury actually is generated when your skills deal damage, so presumably that generation is balanced so that using your main attack skill (e.g. Cleave or Bash) nets you more fury than it spends, thus resulting in a surplus of fury that can be spent on the more expensive skills. You also generate fury when taking damage, a situation that offensive melee characters, for obvious reasons, often find themselves in.

The resource system has to work that way in a fast-paced game because the barbarian needs to use his abilities about as often as the other classes. Having to spend a lot of time auto-attacking to generate the resource would mean his skills would be used less often, resulting in slower gameplay mainly due to a lack of AoE damage.

[Telzen]

Wouldn't you want to leave normal attack on left anyway? That way you can build up fury without having to use any, and if something weak is around you don't have to waste a fury bulb just to hit it.

[Dacar92]

Wouldn't you want to leave normal attack on left anyway? That way you can build up fury without having to use any, and if something weak is around you don't have to waste a fury bulb just to hit it.

But in something resembling hell mode, would normal attack deal any damage at all? It doesn't now in D2. I am not sure, just putting the thought out there for discussion.

[Arkahn]

Can anyone think of a single reason why not to hotkey Revenge for fury generation rather than standard attack besides the 1+ skill point investment?

[Dacar92]

It might be too early to really answer that. I agree with you that anything but normal attack should be set as a hot key. I understand the reasoning why it was suggested (build up fury) but by the time you build up fury with normal attack you might be dead. There has to be a better way to build up fury and do some damage at the same time.