[:1]A quote from the giant pvp report I posted today. Here's the barb stuff, though I discussed him throughout the intro sections also.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...-arena-report/
Quote:
The Barbarian
Though the Barbarian skills were varied enough to let him play in a variety of ways, almost everyone I ever saw went for melee brawling. It was just too much fun to race right into the enemy and start smashing. It wasn�t a good strategy, but it was a tempting one. The thing to remember is that this wasn�t Diablo II, you didn�t have 25% life leech and 50% damage reduction. You had no leech, and that made hitting while getting hit a not so good strategy.
On the whole the D3 Barbarian in the Arena is going against his nature, since he�s a character built on taking damage while dealing out much more of it. That works fine in D2 with life leech, and pretty well in D3 PvM with health orbs. But it�s not a good strategy in PvP, since you don�t get quick kills and health orbs to refuel.
If I�d had time to play a fourth round, I would have played a Barbarian again and tried to be more crafty and strategic. Pick my spots, save my speed power ups until I was in a great position to use them, save my Leap Attack for escape or Teleport pursuit, move in and out instead of locking into attack mode and going out in a blaze of glory, try to harpoon a Disintegrating Wizard, etc.
At the start of the round, the Barbarian had just a little Fury; not enough to use any of his big skills or power ups. I never played a Barb in a game without a Witch Doctor on the other team, but that would have been inconvenient, since in every round with a Barb I always found a dog or two right at the start and chopped on it for several seconds, to get my Fury up. Mongrels were ignored or run from for the most part; I never saw anyone intentionally killing them, since they didn�t deal enough damage to be really dangerous (unless the WD knew to Sacrifice, which few did). As a result, enemy Mongrels were the Barb�s best friend.
The Barbarian�s greatest danger, other than enemy team Barbs who tended to spur caveman slugfests that assured mutual destruction, were well-aimed debuffs. Slow Time and Grasp of the Dead were both very dangerous, if the Barb didn�t quickly Leap Attack to freedom, or use Sprint to race out danger. A slowed Barb was a sitting duck, and with Meteor dealing 250~ damage, any length of time spent motionless was doom.
I never completely figured out the �this skill cancels out this debuff� math, but quick reflexes and not standing around in the same area for too long were usually enough to get the Barb out of death traps. I did have one awesomely amusing death though, when I GotD'ed and Slow Time'd at once. I tried to Leap Attack out, but I was already double slowed, and while I leapt, I did not attack. Instead I floated, taking at least 10 seconds to leap from the middle of the arena to a corner. I was dead maybe 2 seconds into that, and despite showing zero hit points my Barbarian kept rising up in this incredible slow motion leap, the PoV rising with me, the battle continuing on below me. It was almost an out of body experience, and was by far the funniest/coolest thing I saw in the game all weekend.
Barbarian skillsThe Barbarian skills, in the Battle Arena demo at Blizzcon 2010.
* LMB: Frenzy
* RMB: Whirlwind
* 1: Sprint
* 2: Ignore Pain
* 3: Leap Attack
* 4: Wrath of the Berserker
* 5: Ancient Spear
I�m not positive on the order of those 1-5, and I�m not sure about Wrath of the Berserker (it might have been Battle Rage?), but it was definitely a speed/aggression offensive buff warcry.
As for tactics, I�ve already described them to some extent. He had Sprint for escapes and faster pursuit, warcries for offensive buffs and defense, Ancient Harpoon for ranged attacks (though I never actually saw this successfully used, since hitting moving targets was tough), Leap Attack for sudden entrances or exits. Frenzy on the LMB was a frightful sight, especially when two Barbarians went toe to toe, stacked that on top of Wrath of the Berserker, and started hitting at eye-watering speed.
To my surprise, about his least useful skill was Whirlwind. It was damaging, and I saw it used well a few times in short spins, but FSM help you if you tried to do a long WW in a crowded screen. The odds of getting stuck by a Slow Time or GotD, or both, or spinning into a wall, or just taking about fifty spell attacks on you way, were very high. I had one buggy/frustrating death when I clicked WW on another char, and tried to spin after them even as they ran around a wall. My Barb ended up stuck, spinning in place against a wall for about five seconds, until enough fire came in to put me out of my misery.
I had a lot of fun playing the Barb, but like I said, I wish I�d had time to try him once more. I don�t feel like I tapped at all into his real potential, and no one else I saw playing him did either.
Comments questions?|||Is WW mechanically identical to D2?|||Who wrote that and why is there any mention if life leech?
Was WW able to gain Fury to the point where a tri whirl is possible?
Other than a moving target, what made ancient spear hard to use?|||To above: I believe the post is from Flux's observations during PvP play as the barb.
Good Whirlwind questions though. Curious myself.
...What?! They didn't let you use Seismic Slam? Nooooo! Was it available at all during the PvE play? Did it work well? Thats the skill I'm largely thinking about using in my PvE build.|||I'd be very surprised if they let us use SS as a primary, spammable attack. It would infringe on Barbarian's meleeness and basic skills like Cleave. I think it will be more like a Meteor spell, using a chunk of the Barb's fury to clean out.
Though, then again, there is throw weapon that looks like a primary, spammable attack...|||Flux,
I know you commented on fury being a frustration at the start of a round until you could whack away at a mongrel or two. How did you find using fury as a resource in pvp? Did it build up slowly or quickly? Did it decay after a certain amount of time? Were you able to supply enough fury to basically use any ability on command (when off cooldown, of course), or was it a challenge to manage the resource as well as get yourself into a good position to crack some skullz?
Thanks
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Who wrote that
If you read the fist line you would have known who wrote it.
Quote:
Other than a moving target, what made ancient spear hard to use?
I think it was hard to use because its a slow attack.|||Posted =/= wrote.
After all, I posted the content in the quotes (which this is). You weren't the writer though.
My first impression was that this was something someone wrote, he quoted and posted here. It didn't seem like anything someone here would write since it mentions leech in pvp.
And the spear looked pretty fast in the videos. Across a screen, it'd probably be too slow, but in the range they all stayed, it should be fine. Or so I'd have thought.|||It is Flux who wrote it follow the link and read the first sentence.
The statement about life leech is because everyone was new and some of the players where playing like they would in D2 with leech (where the best way to stay alive is to hit stuff).|||yes the first part of the first line could make one believe that Flux did just post it and didn't write it, the second half clearly says he was the one that wrote it. "
though I discussed him throughout the intro sections also."
It didn't look as fast as other projectiles and it was only shown attacking targets a short distance away.
But as ael noticed before that doesn't mean I would complain about Arreat's Face finding it's way into D3 and eventually on my character's head. I don't think it needs to be changed, because if everything looked cool it would be kind of boring. 
|||Looks like it'll do its job to me. Carebear headwear isn't for me.|||i personally prefer the look of the arreats face type winged helmets.|||Quote:
|||My opinion
|||Nothing is uglier than the Monk. The Barb rocks.|||Quote:
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|||http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z7mTfLV5g
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