Overview

So what do you think of when I say Barbarian? One massive hunk of man-flesh, sporting an axe the size of a small country, with a shaved head, some freaky face tattoos and a slightly wild look in his eyes? You'd think such a warrior would charge fearlessly into battle, howling with delight as he swings madly about, right? Well, if that's what you think of the Barbarian, don't play Diablo 2. In THIS game, he is anything but the fearless warrior. I've never had to run from so many battles as I did with this oversized target.

I was hearing many rumours and complaints against this un-mighty warrior before I got a chance to try him out for myself. But I figured that people were expressing their preference for different play styles. After all, playing a sorceress is very different than playing a Barbarian, right?

So when I started Runk the Barbarian, I figured I should give him a fair chance. He was equipped with a small hand axe and buckler as well as the standard keys, Town Portal and Identify scrolls. Barbarian though he was, I wanted to equip him with swords. I had found some great blades with my other characters and decided Runk was the perfect recipient of these "gifts." I had seen some of the rare and unique swords out there and was looking forward to causing some serious suffering with them.

To help me get on my way, I had transferred not only the swords, but some armour and miscellaneous items as well. The neat thing about the Barbarian, which I quickly discovered, is that he can use one weapon in each hand - even if they are normally two-handed weapons. This doesn't actually improve any of his stats because he swings one weapon then the other, but it's still neat.

That's pretty much where the neatness ends, though. Sure he's strong. It allowed me to equip him with some great armour. Sure he can use 2 weapons at a time. It allowed him to use two rare swords I hadn't been able to use before. But when I created Runk, there was only one thing I wanted to do: BASH things! And that's something he's not so good at.

Hello my name is Runk, would you like a white Zinfandel?

As I readied my newly-made warrior for battle, I couldn't help thinking how much fun pummeling Andariel was going to be. I ran into the Moors in search of prey and was pleased at the thudding sound my swords made when they hit flesh. Thunk, thunk, splat. Music to my ears.

I had a really tough time though, deciding what skills to improve. Whereas the Amazon's skill choices were difficult because there were so many good options, the Barbarian was difficult because there were NO good options.

I have quite a few complaints about the Barbarian's skill trees. First and foremost, a Barbarian should be the supreme combat character. You'd think that he'd have some way of doing great gobs of damage, eradicating swarms who come against him or at the very least, be able to do SOMETHING useful in a fight. Charging blindly into battle, unconcerned about the odds, Runk should have had Carver blood dripping from his blades. But unlike the skills of his compatriots, the Barbarian's skills don't support any kind of sustained combat.

Consider this:

The Amazon has passive skills to allow her to Critical Hit, Dodge and Avoid. She can do more damage, while staying out of harm's way.

The Necromancer can summon minions - skeletons, golems, mages and the like - to battle for him and take damage in his place.

The Paladin has numerous auras and skills to allow him to regain health points, increase his damage, improve his defense rating, resist the elements, etc.

The Sorceress, (at higher levels), has access to powerful spells to slow, stop, damage or kill any creatures near her.

The Barbarian has Leap - the ability to jump over the head of his opponent. Who can say "excitement" with me? Come on, altogether now; yay!

One-Trick Pony

I haven't disliked playing a class so much since...since...well, it's been a long time and I'm getting too old to remember the '80's. But the bottom line is, each class can do SOMETHING that gives it an advantage in this game. Each class that is, except the Barbarian.

Let's take a look at his skill tabs:

1) Combat Masteries. These are passive skills that improve the attack and damage percentages of the different weapons the Barbarian can use (swords, axes, polearms, etc.).
2) Warcries. These are "shouts" that have magical effects on all creatures/party members within the radius of the shout.
3) Combat Skills. These are physical skills that improve certain combat ratios and physical attributes.

While these skill tabs may sound good in theory, the skills themselves are either weak or useless. The Warcry "Taunt" for instance, forces nearby creatures to attack. How stupid is that? All creatures automatically attack you as soon as they see you. And if they don't, just go get them! Geez! And then of course there's the Warcry "Alert." Alert, "notifies your party that there are enemies nearby and improves your defense rating." This is useful because the arrows whizzing by or the monsters rushing at you are generally not enough of an indication that there are monsters nearby.

So, what about the Combat Skills? There's the ever-popular Leap, which you can get at 6th level. I hear it's actually quite funny to watch a 12th level Barbarian fly. But other than humour value I couldn't tell you what good it is.

And oh yeah, those Combat Masteries. First of all, if you want to use swords, you have to improve your Sword Masteries. If you later find a really cool axe - oh well, you've wasted your skill points on sword so you better sell or trade the axe. Never mind that, but the bonuses are minimal. It starts at 29% (at least the sword skill does) and like the Amazon's passive skills, the incremental benefit decreases as you increase the level. I have level 6 Sword Mastery, which gives me a +49% to hit bonus and a +49% damage bonus that is always in effect (provided I'm using a sword).

But why does this percentage bonus decrease? I mean my Amazon has level 5 Critical Hit and has a 55% chance to do 100% extra damage. I can understand why you wouldn't want an Amazon having 100% in her CHANCES to do stuff, but why can't you let a Barbarian do 100% extra damage? It's not a CHANCE to do it after all - it's a flat-out damage increase.

But the biggest issue I have with the Combat Masteries is that they are a waste. If you are lucky enough to know which weapon you are going to use the rest of the game, then you can focus solely on that Combat Mastery. However, this means that you will COMPLETELY IGNORE every other skill in this tab. So if you choose to improve your sword skill, you will never bother pumping axe, spear, polearm, mace or any of the other weapons available under this tab. In other words, this skill tab is in essence ONE skill. Which means the Barbarian is limited even further in his selections!

I'm Big. I'm Bad. Ooh, I Broke a Nail

Aside from his poor selection, the skills that the Barbarian DOES have access to are weak - especially compared to the skills from other classes.

Let's talk about Bash and DoubleSwing as examples - the only two semi-decent Combat Skills the Barbarian has. Bash is good for 1-on-1 combat with boss monsters. It costs 2 mana and increases your attack rating and damage. But the increases are not very significant. +20% attack, +50% damage, +1 extra point of damage. Each level increase to this skill adds 1 point of damage and 5% to attack ratio and damage bonus. This is not a significant enough increase to justify improving your Bash skill. Not for a "Barbarian," anyway.

Why is this weak? Look at the Paladin who has loads of combat skills. First of all, he has an aura called Might. At 4th level, Might increases his damage by 70%. It does so to ALL friendly party members within its area of effect. And it does so for NO MANA. This means that the Paladin can have a Might aura in effect with the right mouse button, and still use a specialized attack like Sacrifice with his left button. The Barbarian cannot do this. While Bash gives the added +35% attack rating increase, and the extra points of damage, it costs him mana to do so and the bonus affects only him. Compared to the Paladin's Might skill, Bash is bust.

And that's just a Paladin's aura. What about his activated skills? Well, Sacrifice is a prime example. It costs 0 mana but it does 8% damage to the Paladin. It increases his attack rating by 20% and his damage by 180%. 180%!!! Add to that the additional damage from Might and you get an idea of how much more powerful the Paladin is compared to our friendly neighbourhood Barbarian. Needless to say, improving Sacrifice means you can deal some truly sick damage at higher levels. If I want to do great gobs of damage, pass the Paladin please!

Plus, we can't forget my favourite class (and yours), The Amazon. The Amazon's weakest, first-level skill, Jab may only give a +5% damage bonus at 4th level, but it allows her to strike the target 3 times. 3 hits already does more damage than a +65% increase. Add to that her critical hit chance to do 100% damage and even a weak Jab is more effective than the Barbarian's Bash skill. And I haven't even mentioned her Poison Javelin, Lightning Javelin or Impale skills. Impale does a whopping 300% damage at its 1st level! But hey, let's not forget that the Barbarian can Leap!

I'd rather be an Amazon

So what about the Barbarian's ability to deal with multi-monster mayhem? To make a short answer shorter: he bites. The Barbarian's sole recourse is to use his Double Swing skill. Double Swing (and later Double Throw) allows you to swing two weapons at once for 2 mana. This actually sounds kind of neat, because it attacks two creatures at once or does two hits on one creature depending on how many are around. However, it's only available at level 6, costs mana and can at most, hit 2 creatures, once each. At higher levels, this is not particularly effective. And forget about multiplayer games!

To contrast this, the Paladin has Zeal. Zeal, aside from its attack bonus, let's you attack one additional target for each skill point you assign it or land several blows on one enemy. Thus level 4 Zeal will make FIVE attacks. Sure it costs 2 mana, but so does Double Swing and look how many extra attacks you get! Zeal is MUCH more effective when dealing with swarms of creatures then Double Swing can ever be.

And again, we go back to my favourite Amazon. Because of her Critical Hit, Dodge and Avoid passive skills, she can live longer in "swarm" situations. She may not have any skills to wipe out multiple bogeys (except for Multiple Arrow in her Bow skills), but she can live that much longer than the Barbarian since he has so little protection. And the longer she lives, the smaller the swarm.

Come Here, I'll Bite Your Kneecaps Off

Let me illustrate my harangue with some actual numbers. The Barbarian, with level 6 Sword Mastery (+49% damage) and level 4 Bash (+65% damage) is capable of doing 114% extra damage. In Runk's case this translated to 15-70 points of damage for 2 mana.

The Paladin with level 4 Might aura and level 4 Sacrifice (2 levels less than the Barbarian's skills) is doing +310% damage for 8% damage to self. Or look at it this way, the Paladin can do 70% extra damage at no cost, and 240% extra damage for 8% of his health. The Barbarian can do 49% damage at no cost (Sword Mastery) and +65% damage for 2 mana.

The Amazon can also do a lot of damage cheaply. With level 5 critical hit and level 5 Jab skill (available at first level, don't forget), she does 30-258 points of damage (not including her magical damage from her spear) for 3 mana. 30-258. Think about it. I'm not sure what this translates to as a percentage bonus, but you get the idea; the Barbarian is doing 15-70 damage for 2 mana, the Amazon can do 30-258 for 3 mana.

With no protection, limited combat abilities and very low mana levels (required for all of his skills), the Barbarian is anything but a warrior. But like I said, at least he can Leap.

Once More Without Feeling

Now you could be reading this thinking, "come on, give the guy a break. Those aren't bad skills." You're right, those aren't BAD skills but 1) They are the only useful ones I've found on the Barbarian (useful in a combat sense I mean). 2) They are WEAK compared to the skills other classes have available to them 3) They are not available at the right levels 4) They are MANA based, for heaven's sake!

I mean why does it cost a Barbarian mana to swing two weapons? That's ridiculous! Especially when you consider how small his mana pool is to begin with! Is any Barbarian going to waste precious stat points on energy? Not one who wants to live beyond the first chapter! So a Barbarian with 12 mana can Double Swing or Bash 6 times. After that, he must rely solely on normal attacks. And his normal attacks are nothing special! Mana is not the Barbarian's strong point but stamina is. If these skills were stamina based, THAT would make sense. These are physical skills after all - not magical ones!

His Warcries could still be mana-based, but physical skills like Leap, Bash, Double Swing/Throw - those should all use stamina instead of mana.

And if they did, it would actually make the Increase Stamina skill useful. As it stands, Increase Stamina (increase your available stamina by 30%) has NO effect on the game. Considering the Barbarian gets more stamina than any other character, and it takes a maximum of 5 seconds to get it ALL back, who cares if he has 30% more?

Not only is it a useless skill, but it's only available at TWELFTH LEVEL! Let's see, at 12th level the Sorceress can cast a lightning bolt which does 1-40 points of damage. The Amazon can cast a Lightning Javelin, and the Necromancer can Raise Skeleton Mages. What can the Barbarian do? The Barbarian can have more stamina. All together now: woo-hoo!

One last point about this - the Sorceress has a skill called Warmth, which increases her mana recovery ratio by 30%. Obviously this is an essential skill for a Sorceress to have since her entire skill set is spell-based. I think you'll agree that it's comparable to the Barbarian's Increase Stamina skill, right? So why is Increase Stamina available at 12th level when Warmth can be taken at FIRST?

Hey battabattabattabatta, Sa-wing battabattabatta

Maybe it was a bug, but I also found the Barbarian didn't connect with his target all that often at the higher levels. I mean, he missed A LOT. When my Sorceress swings and swings at a creature and misses 4 times in a row, I understand. Her Dex sucks. Her Attack Rating sucks. She is not a combat fighter. When my Barbarian - with an attack rating over 600 (a supposed 92% chance to hit level 14 monsters), misses 3 or 4 times in a row and he does so consistently, there's a problem. Either the class is screwed up or the attack rating system is screwed up. In either case, the Barbarian should not play ball.

I've been asking around on the chat channels and the majority of beta testers agree with me that he is weak - very weak. A few seem to think he's alright, but all agree that his skill choices are severely limited. In fact, the only reason they like him is the whole hack and slash mentality he supposedly represents. This is completely understandable and goes back to that play-style thing I mentioned earlier.

However, I can't help but return to my lovable Amazon, Kellara. With her Spear skills, she is a far superior hack and slash warrior than the Barbarian. And at least she can live through large battles. In fact, in large battles the Barbarian's weakness is even more apparent. Unable to defend himself or do damage quickly enough, he often has to flee or quaff numerous potions just to stay alive. It's a good thing that one of his first level skills is to target a corpse to find a healing potion. Even so, I'd rather be able to spend that skill point on something USEFUL - preferably something combat related. True, he later gets "Target Item" which gives him an increased chance of finding magical items on a corpse (always a neat skill). But I didn't try it because by the time I got to 12th level (when it was available) I just wanted to finish killing Andariel so I could move on to something less...painful to play.

No, I can honestly say that the Barbarian was not at all fun. I've never had to run from so many battles as I did with Runk. He was constantly getting hit, didn't do enough damage and had trouble in swarms and with higher level creatures. By 13th level it was apparent that he would not be a character of any value to me.

He has no useful skills, no resistances, no strengths to speak of and was frankly a real challenge to play. And now I hear that the Stress Test "Open Beta" will be limited to the Barbarian. That's too bad, because if anything, Blizzard is going to disillusion a lot of players with this game by showcasing the weakest class. I can see a lot of people getting frustrated and bored easily. And that's a shame because all the other classes are loads of fun to play.

So, unless he's got some super-duper skills at the higher levels, I can't recommend enough against using him. Axe he may have, but the Barbarian has jack-all otherwise.

Stay tuned for my next report outlining the Necromancer: Master of the Undead or Guy Who Can't Get a Date?