As you prepare to unleash your fury on the demons of Sanctuary once more, you’ll want to consider the revamped Barbarian class, a staple of the Diablo franchise. Blizzard has made significant changes to this melee powerhouse for Diablo 4 to provide a more engaging experience for veteran players and newcomers alike. Gone are the days of simplistic button-mashing – the Barbarian now requires tactical thinking to master. With a host of new abilities and skills to experiment with, you’ll have plenty of options to craft a build suited to your particular playstyle. However, the core identity remains the same – an unstoppable juggernaut wielding devastating weapons and laying waste to any foolish enough to stand in your path. The Barbarian represents raw power and the ultimate warrior fantasy for those seeking to unleash hell on the denizens of Sanctuary.
Overview
As a Barbarian in Diablo 4, you have access to a diverse set of skills and weapons to defeat enemies. This overview covers the pros and cons of the class to help you determine if it suits your preferred playstyle.
Pros:
- Excel at melee combat, able to bash opponents at close range.
- You can equip and swap between multiple weapons.
- Additional offensive legendary aspects due to increased weapon slots.
Cons:
- Without ranged weapons, you must engage opponents directly in melee combat.
- Barbarians require significant character planning to optimize damage and survival.
- Health management as a fortifying mechanic relies on managing health levels to increase damage reduction.
The Barbarian’s unique attributes, like the arsenal system, provide players with numerous ways to customize their character build. If you prefer obliterating foes at close range using an array of melee weapons, the Barbarian class may suit your playstyle. However, the lack of ranged attacks and health management requirements may not appeal to all players. By understanding the pros and cons, you can determine if the Barbarian’s brute force combat style matches your ideal Diablo 4 experience.
Barbarian Class Mechanic – Arsenal System
The Barbarian’s unique arsenal system allows you to equip up to four weapons at once: main hand, off-hand, bludgeoning, and slashing. This provides tremendous flexibility in customizing your build to suit different combat situations. You can freely assign specific skills to certain weapons based on your needs. For example, Bash, which stuns and damages targets, works well with a bludgeoning weapon. Equipping a two-handed bludgeoning weapon further increases Bash’s stun duration. Upon activating a skill, you instantly equip the best weapon for it in your arsenal.
Each weapon also corresponds to an expertise stat, so wielding certain weapons levels up specific stats. For instance, a one-handed axe boosts your critical strike chance. Because of this, collecting and preparing a variety of melee weapons is highly recommended to take full advantage of the Barbarian’s build diversity.
Barbarian Playstyles
The Barbarian class offers several primary playstyles for players to experience the game.
- Whirlwind: Spin to win! Swift battlefield navigation and fast slaying of large groups of enemies. This ability involves manoeuvring across the battlefield, utilizing shouts, and repositioning to maximize efficiency. It’s recommended for players who prefer engaging multiple enemies simultaneously and dislike remaining stationary.
- Bleeding or Thorns: This playstyle allows players to apply damage over time effects to enemies, enabling them to attack and then move on while enemies slowly die. Players who enjoy a “hit and run” approach will likely prefer this style.
- Walking Arsenal: This playstyle focuses on combining different skills and effects to create powerful combos that can decimate groups of enemies. The arsenal system also encourages swapping between different weapons to gain bonuses. This style suits players who enjoy executing skill combinations to unleash devastating attacks, as well as frequently changing between different weapons and skills.
- Support: While less common for action role-playing games, shouts enable Barbarians to significantly enhance companion abilities and taunt enemies, which may appeal to some players, although this is not an optimal build.
The primary stats for Barbarians are Strength, to increase damage; Willpower, to improve fury regeneration; and Dexterity, to boost critical hit chances. Investing in these stats, along with the appropriate weapons and skills, allows you to customize your Barbarian to fit different playstyles, whether focused on damage over time, area of effect attacks, or tanking.
With their high health and access to skills like Challenging Shout that provide damage reduction, Barbarians can take as much punishment as they dish out. If obliterating enemies and bosses at close range with an array of melee weapons sounds appealing, the Barbarian could be the class for you. Mastery of this brute force playstyle, however, requires significant character planning and practice.
Like in Diablo II and III, the Barbarian excels at decimating hordes of enemies. However, Diablo IV further enhances their ability to consistently focus on single powerful targets such as bosses by inflicting bleeding damage. However, some skills have lengthy cooldown periods, stalling their damage output at times.
Conclusion
As you have seen, the Barbarian in Diablo 4 is shaping up to be a powerful class focused on melee combat and survivability. With a variety of skills centred around weapons like axes, swords, and spears, the Barbarian looks poised to dish out punishment and withstand plenty of it in return. Fury management and timing your skills properly will likely be key to mastering this class. Overall, if you enjoy getting up close and personal with enemies, rending their flesh and crushing their bones, the Barbarian may prove an extremely satisfying choice in Diablo 4. The king of melee combat is back, thirsty for demon blood, and ready to rampage across Sanctuary once more.