Diablo 3 class reviews: Barbarian

RyDub and I are doing a series of daily short reviews for each class in Diablo 3. We are doing them in the order they were introduced by Blizzard (and probably conceived). We have played each class enough to make at least an initial judgement call we feel. Today's review is the Barbarian. On Saturday, I will post a more complete overall review of D3.

The rating system is:

5/5: Very well executed. Super fun. Can't stop playing.
4/5: Very fun. Definitely enjoy playing.
3/5: Kind of fun, but just not inspiring. Will play again.
2/5: Could be good if the concept was reworked. Probably won't play again.
1/5: Doesn't work. Just horrible. Not going to play ever.

Sawsheezle's thoughts:
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Barbarian:

Active stat: Strength (this is what determines your damage #).

The Barbarian is actually pretty fun to play. This is the only class from Diablo 2 to repeat here and I was disappointed that this class was in D3 as it was my least favorite class to play in D2. Anyway, the Barbarian is the only realistic melee class in the entire game and the end result is actually pretty good. Instead of the traditional mana pool to fuel your spells/abilities, each class has their own unique "resource" for skills. The Barbarian has Fury which is generated by each successful hit of a skill that generates Fury. Let me say that no class uses a standard attack anymore. Every attack is a skill, but now some skills generate your resource instead of depleting it. Also, the Barbarian starts with zero Fury and then maxes it out which makes sense considering you would probably max out your real-life fury during a fight and not before. The build up makes sense. What sucks is that your Fury doesn't level up with you. You are stuck at 100. In D2 you could get a weapon that would steal % mana and then you could infinitely use your skills and whatever ones you wanted. Now we can't. We are limited. Also, there are some awesome returning skills like leap, but it has a long cooldown which makes it useless to me. There is a cool "Scorpion-like" (think Mortal Kombat) skill where you skewer an enemy and bring them to you for more punishment. Way cool.

Most favorite skill: Cleave. Large AOE which I always like.
Least favorite skill: Bash. Slow and only one enemey at a time.

Favorite thing: Overall the Barbarian is just a bruiser and they didn't screw it up too bad.
Worst thing: The armor animations. I do not believe that one of the Barbarian's armors is body paint.

Overall rating: 3.6/5

RyDub's thoughts:
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*First off, I've played the Barbarian a bit further than Sawsheezle* Barbarian has always been one of my favorite classes. I love being right in the face of the enemy. Each hit just seems to have so much power behind it. Mana being replaced by fury is a cool addition. The warrior class in World Of Warcraft works the same way so I am very familiar/comfortable with it. The ability to equip 2 melee weapons is nice as well. One thing I do miss from D2 is that you could equip 2 2-handed swords at the same time. This is no longer the case in D3. Health orbs are vital to the Barbarian and as such, your armor will usually have "add % chance to drop health orbs." After playing the Barbarian, you definitely notice the drop in amount of health orbs for other characters. Sawsheezle said that you're limited in fury but I see it the opposite way, I see it as we have infinite fury. You're constantly generating fury as you fight. Drop below half? Just keep hitting and you gain more. Sure it tops out at 100, but you'll never need more than this at one time so it really doesn't matter.

Most favorite skill: Seismic Slam (deals damage and causes knockback)
Least favorite skill: Sprint (just makes you move faster for a little while i guess good for escaping but i find it pointless)

Favorite thing: Slashing right through enemies like a hot knife through butter.
Worst thing: Not being able to equip 2 2-handed swords.

Overall rating: 4.2/5