The same, or different?

[Flux]

I'm wondering if people want to see the same barbarian play style/skills, or would like some changes? Obviously some things are different, that much is visible in the gameplay movie. Basic melee skills hit multiple targets, leap is kinda uber, Seismic Slam is almost like a bone spear or lightning attack, the charge skill is cool, and barb seems generally a lot faster in his movement with skills. leap crossing the entire screen before monsters can flinch, for instance.

But in more general terms, what do you want to see from the barbarian? i thought a lot of his skills were somewhat wasted in d2; 6 weapon masteries that all did the same thing? 4 other passives that were simply there as skill point sinks, when one or 2 overall masteries could have covered them?

I didn't think the throwing skills were very well implemented either; his other skills didn't really pair with them very well, throwing wasn't effective enough to compare to other barb builds, and since running down ranged attackers was so easy, there wasn't any need to use throw as a support skill.

Much the same for a singer. It could be played, but wasn't anywhere near equal with other barb builds in killing speed. why give him damaging warcries when 1) the char's so strong you don't really need them to support a combat build, and 2) they're not damaging enough to be really successful on their own?

Then again, making such distinct, different builds did promote some variety, for players who wanted to be different and didn't mind being less powerful.

[Davidus]

i want Kratos(from God of War) with fix camera and Diablo math+loot system. so i want the Diablo 3 barbarian
charge is my favorite new skill
oh and an improved offensive warcry tree would be nice

[ExtraStrongFireEnchanted]

As the narator put it in the gameplay demo, there can't be enough brute strength or something along the lines. If devs have such philosophy for the barb, I think everthing will be fine.

[lukefojut]

I agree with your comments on the Singer - in some ways he is almost entirely useless against tough opponents (even with amp or decrep curse coming from somewhere to remove PIs!)

Perhaps the concept of a character who can win battles purely with a warcry (shouting!) is less than believable. It would be good if the new game would allow for a combination of strong warcries coupled with a decent attacking skill to complement the areas where warcries aren't so good? For example, a magic attack that can be used at the same time as using a warcry that causes physical damage? I suspect that the balancing for such a 'combo' would be quite tricky..

I think a point that quite a few people have made so far and bears consideration is whether we're hoping that the developers give us another DII (where most strong builds require focussing on one skill at the expense of others), or whether we'd like to see a more balanced approach to skills (such as WoW seems to offer). I might add I'm not a WoW player, so sorry if I'm wrong in this assumption!

[lumpor]

I want the barb to be more agile than in d2 (and he surely looks like it). I don't like how he is so stiff in d2.

I think that a character should be able to specialize in about 4 skills. More would just be confusing and make classes non-unique. Less would be one-sided, repeating, and boring (like it kinda is now).

[prion]

its hard to say if they were just doing it to show off all the skills but it looks like the Barbarian is going to require a bit more strategy to play.

[CYBERPUNK]

well I think you really hit the head on the nail @Flux

yeah there were some redundant skills in D2 (speaking of masteries though, I didn't think they were such a bad idea EXCEPT they made barbs feel limited in what gear they could use, but I think this was intentional to further make each barb different, very emergent, but I liked it nonetheless)

Originally Posted by Flux

Then again, making such distinct, different builds did promote some variety, for players who wanted to be different and didn't mind being less powerful.

and there ya have it, D2 has proven itself through the test of time, you don't find a lot of other DECADE old games STILL going this strong, and why? because there is so much versatility and choice

yeah singers are slower killers, but the fact alone that you can even MAKE a singer barb is a testament to how FREAKING AWESOME D2 is =]

I am constantly amazed by some of the foresight from the D2 developers

EDIT: and if ANYTHING is to be a downfall in D3, it will be the failure of this new group/dev team to capitalize and take advantage of all the previous great ideas and not carrying them over and implementing them as well, a DAUNTING TASK to say the least

[Cast_Raider]

I would like to see a lot fewer passive skills in general. I'd like to see each character having a full toolkit of different moves for different situations. Just spamming the same spell over and over gets old.

You brought up an interesting point about throwers, how it's easy to just run down ranged attackers. Now that the game is 3D, perhaps that won't be the case. Maybe a backup ranged attack will be necessary, as monsters fly overhead, climb walls, climb ceilings, lurk under bridges, etc.

[Throndhart]

Personally, I´d love to see a similar barbarian, but also more useful in other situations other than straight-up bashing. For what we´ve seen the charge, leap attack and the new kind of shockwave abilities will give the barbarian some mobility that it was lacking, when it came to closing into melee range. That´s very good. Also, I liked the idea of masteries, but hated the execution, since it ended up limiting you in what weapons to use. Adding a re-specable set of abilities, or even having masteries affecting all weapons of a certain kind (Say, maces, polearms, thrown, swords and axes, but not affecting anything else, all at the same time) is probably the way to go.
So far so good, though. I can´t wait to get my hands on DIII.

[Flux]

yeah, I don't object to weapon masteries, but why have 6 different ones? same with the iron skin, nat res, increased stamina/speed. They were very useful, arguably overpowered, but that's a lot of points into skills you never get to actively use. and having the different weapon masteries locked your barb into one type of weapon, which didn't matter much after a year or 2, but sucked in the early going. (The joke in the beta and early d2 days was that the best way to find a great sword was to put points into mace mastery.)

I think bliz designed the barb with warcries and throwing as support skills, but then they weren't really needed, other than everyone maxing BO. I remember occasionally using warcry on most of my hc barbs early on, since being able to stun dolls or other swarming attackers was a life saver. But most barbs didn't bother, and better equipment made that less essential.

from what we can see in the early movies, I think throw might be eliminated entirely from the barb. Given how effective leap is, and he's got a charge skill now too? why bother with throwing skills? Might as well put those on the amazon/ranger type char; whoever has the bow skills, make them master of ranged weapons to match.