Diablo 2 Fallen Classes: The Barbarian

[Flix 5,164]

Read more detailed info on the SacredWiki page for The Barbarian.

 

Character: Barbarian
Orientation: Close Combat
Aspects: Berserk Combat, Tactical Warfare, War Cries

Lore: Steeped in mystery and tradition, the tribes of the North refer to themselves as the "Children of Bul-Kathos," the great and ancient king. To protect their lands from outside forces, they adopted a nomadic lifestyle, frequently moving and maintaining few permanent settlements. Isolating themselves from the world outside their territories, they eschew the use of magic and complex machinery, as they believe these things can only weaken their resolve. The Barbarian, a member of any of several of these tribes, rebuffs the influence of those he sees as soft and weak. Ceaseless clan warfare and the constant struggle to survive in the hostile wilderness are evident in the Barbarian's sturdy and powerful frame. He has developed a kinship with the land and has learned to harness the primal energies within nature to enhance his own substantial physical prowess.
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Aspect: Berserk Combat


Bash - Summoning up their renowned brute strength a Barbarian can deliver a powerful and painful blow that staggers an enemy from its feet, knocking them back.


Frenzy - Although a Barbarian is capable of calculated blows and tactical fighting techniques, it is his fierce passion for battle that distinguishes him in combat. With this ability the Barbarian calls on the sum of his energy to attack and slay everything in sight.


Whirlwind - Of the Barbarian people, the Tribe of Thunder was the first to draw upon the primal forces of the weather. Observing the strength of the whirlwind, these Barbarians learned to emulate the swirling melange of the cyclone in their attacks.


Berserk - There is a fine line between passion and rage, something the Barbarian warrior knows well. One of the most powerful combat skills a Barbarian can learn is to cross that line into rage, without regard for consequences. While using this ability, a Barbarian drives more and more force into each successive blow as his anger and bloodlust mounts.


Natural Resistance (Buff) - In order to survive the unforgiving lands of the north, the people of the Barbarian tribes have developed hardy resistances to the common elements. Heat and cold alike are something they endure often. Since food is scarce while foraging, they have learned to consume species of plants that would slay normal men.

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Aspect: Tactical Warfare


Concentrate - Sometimes a series of blows is not nearly as effective as a single, concentrated strike. A Barbarian trained in this skill learns how to focus his strength into a single blow that cuts through the guard of an enemy and slices through their armor.


Double Attack - Are not two hits better than one? A young Barbarian learns to sweep his weapon to strike simultaneous blows at separate targets. As his talent grows in this skill, he attacks with increasing control and accuracy.


Stun - An experienced Barbarian can learn to strike an opponent in areas that promote the maximum effect. By putting enough strength behind an attack, he can create a zone of force so powerful it leaves opponents dazed and unable to strike back or flee.


Leap Attack - Because of his great strength, a trained barbarian warrior is able to perform great leaps. These jumps are noteworthy, enabling the Barbarian to spring free of dangerous swarms of enemies, and landing with an impact that sends them reeling.


Iron Skin (Buff) - The harsh grasslands of their homeland offer the Barbarian people little refuge from the elements. Constant prolonged exposure to the sun, wind, rain and other elements has toughened their skin to the resilience of natural leather.


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Aspect: War Cries


War Cry - Summoning the ancient powers known to his people, a Barbarian warrior can call on his spirit animal and lash out at his enemies with a cry that halts them in their tracks-a powerful anguish rising to burn the depths of their being. It is this skill that gives rise to the legends of Barbarians being able to sap the life from a creature with a single word.


Howl - A Barbarian warrior in battle is a fearsome enough sight. They cover their bodies with strange markings and the fire in their eyes can be seen from across a battlefield. Early in his training a warrior must learn how to tap the primal energies around him and utter a howl in battle-a bellow so fierce that it will cause enemies to falter. This permits the warrior an easy kill.


Grim Ward - This skill allows the Barbarian to fashion a totem out of the carcass of his slain enemies. The crippling damage caused by the resulting talisman serves as a grave warning to all foes. With additional training the warrior can increase the potency of the ward.


Shout - Barbarian warriors are born to command in battle. When a warrior learns this skill he can raise his voice above the din of combat to shout warnings of impending blows to his comrades in arms. This will alert them in time to allow them to guard against the incoming attack.


Battle Orders (Buff) - Although skillful in single combat, the Barbarian warrior also has a talent for group tactics. It is this ability that makes him a natural leader in combat. An experienced warrior can use this skill to better array his forces in battle, enhancing their ability to overcome the enemy.


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Dev Notes
The Barbarian was a challenge because for the original, one entire aspect was weapon-based combat arts, and another set was entirely passive skills. So I had to do some rearranging and improvising. Here's a cheat sheet for the rough equivalencies for the weapon-based Combat Arts:
Bash - Demonic Blow
Frenzy - Frenized Rampage
Whirlwind - Darting Assault
Concentrate - Magic Coup
Double Attack - Scything Sweep
Stun - Is not actually weapon-based but a spell. It uses an unused animation that is sort of like a shoulder ram/headbutt/shield bash, and the fx of Clustering Maelstrom. The effect is an instant hit Area of Effect that stuns enemies and causes light damage.

Berserk actually charges up damage, attack speed and attack rating after each kill. Similar to Killing Spree, but without the damage nova.

Grim Ward was originally designed just exude an Area of Effect fear aura like the original. But fear wouldn't trigger without an actual hit, so I changed it so it fires projectiles (many, many more than Malicious Totem). They also pierce. However, the damage isn't enough for killing, rather it will debuff enemies and make them flee. It's surprisingly effective.

[Flix 5,164]

Character Designs: The Barbarian


The Barbarian has human eyes rather than undead. His skin is a bit more lifelike and less shiny and grey. He is shaved bald and his evil eyebrows are toned down too. He now has a beard as well.

 

 

His base equipment is sparse, showing his scars. He only has boots and belt which are earthy brown rather than cold blue-grey.



Armor
Most SW armor was suitably "grim" already. Only the very brightest and colorful armors got subdued a little.
Links go to pics on the Wiki for comparison.

Cloth Armor


Leather Armor


Magic Armor


Generic Armor


Exxo Armor
4th pic: Dendaran's Tactical Genius


Crypt Armor
4th pic: Lucretis' Stars


Iron Armor


Redstorm Armor
4th pic: Kanka's Relics


Colossus Armor


Special Armor
3rd pic: Pandemonium's Pride
4th pic: Mutation Set


The following armor sets were not changed: Iron, Crypt, Enforcer, Exxo, Scourge of Lordaeron

Hell Knight Armor
The Shadow Warrior already got a Diablo-themed set in the last CM Patch called The Doom Guard armor, with a golden variant skin available as random rare armor. Therefore I don't expect to craft more armor sets for the Barbarian. The character already has a huge amount of sets compared to other characters anyway.


You may yet see a Hell Knight enemy appearing in the mod eventually.

Barbarian 2h Axes and Hammers
This seems like a good place to showcase some of the changes and additions to the Barbarian-exclusive weapon class: 2h Hafted Weapons. They were all revised to have useful and appropriate modifers, as well as unique designs not shared by any other unique. Some names were altered to recreate D2 uniques as well.

Here are just a few examples:

2h Hammers
Tervon's Might no longer identical to Shugrok's Illusion.
Extremely Might Bat of Devastation gets better modifiers and becomes Windhammer.
Michel's Forging Hammer now gives bonuses to Blacksmith and Strength.
Forbidden Punisher now has chance for critical hits and no longer identical to Gladiator's Grimace.


2h Axes
Regnif Dlog's Goldbringer now has bonuses to Trading and Magic Find.
Dragonslayer now has racial damage bonus against Dragons.
Orcslayer now has racial damage bonus against all Orc-type enemies.
Legend has extra sockets (as befits a legendary) and is no longer identical to Dragonslayer.
Executioner's Axe is no longer a hammer identical to Extremely Mighty Bat of Devastation. It is now a D2 axe called Executioner's Justice, and has an additional Deadly Strike modifier (deathblow).


Stormrider
Final pic is a new 2h axe coming in the next version, a recreation of the D2 unique Stormrider (courtesy Pesmontis).

Edited July 27, 2017 by Flix

[Flix 5,164]

Mini-Set Redesigns

 

Unlike full armor sets, mini-sets are typically 3-5 pieces that aren't focused on any particular aspect. Unfortunately, many are assembled of random mismatched pieces, which I think is a missed opportunity to showcase the standard sets. All random armor, from junk to rare, actually belongs to a visually coherent "set" of armor (such as leather, iron, cloth, etc.). Now the pieces of the mini-sets match each other better. I also changed some unique armor piece designs so they're not shared by set pieces. I know some players choose their armor not just on function but also appearance, so hopefully this will help make the mini-sets more appealing.

These changes don't apply retroactively. Only new copies of the items that drop will be changed. So if you already have copies or get them from the downloads section they will still be the old designs.

Barbarian
         

1st pic: Eternal Silence - only a slight texture change
2nd pic: Ravok's Renaissance - only a slight texture change
3rd pic: Infernal Torment - no change
4th pic: Executioner's Aids - now uses all blood-spattered steel armor
5th pic: Cold Grave - total redesign, now uses the golden hellknight armor introduced in the CM Items Mod.

[Flix 5,164]

Some upcoming changes for the Barbarian's armor. These were adapted from Wardust's serious textures.

 

Exxo Armor

4th pic: Dendaran's Tactical Genius

 

Crypt Armor

4th pic: Lucretis' Stars

 

Iron Armor

 

I'll update the Barbarian's character design overview above when the next version is released.

[Flix 5,164]

Once again working on the Wiki reveals some things about the mod that need work. I caught a few small typos in the Barbarian's CA tooltips.

 

But mainly I want to apologize to everyone who tried to tell me the animations for Whirlwind weren't working.

 

I had been testing Whirlwind with 1h weapons and polearms, which are correctly "whirling," as are the bare-handed animations (try it once you won't regret it).

 

However using most other weapons (dual wielding, ranged weapons, 2h hafted) produced underwhelming animations, many of them not even attacks but buff-casting animations.

 

Here you can see the difference:

 

 

Oops. I'll be testing all weapon types and working on a way to get them as appropriately "whirlwindy" as possible.

 

The CA actually works fine no matter what, so it's just an issue of form, not function.

[jordan0422 39]

Oh yeah, I am playing a lightsaber dual wielding Barbarian and the Whirlwind animation looks like he's clapping. Thought that was totally normal. Not really complaining about it since it's a quick attack animation so ...

[Flix 5,164]

Oh yeah, I am playing a lightsaber dual wielding Barbarian and the Whirlwind animation looks like he's clapping. Thought that was totally normal.

 

Noooooo...

 

He's supposed to spin like the Dryad using Darting Assault. At the very least he should be using a generic attack animation. That clap is the old Skeletal Fortification summoning animation I believe. I'm embarrassed it's gone this long without me noticing it.

[Flix 5,164]

Well that was easy enough.

 

 

Whirlwind animations now play for dual wielding.

 

For the other bugged animations: Bows, Throwing Weapons, and 2h Energy Weapons, a generic attack animation is now used, and the projectiles spread out in a radius from the Barbarian.

 

2h hafted weapons and 2h swords were actually ok. It's more of a sweep than a full spin, but it looks alright.

 

I'll put out a patch in a week or so, or whenever I'm done adding all the characters to the Wiki, since that seems to be doing a good job in alerting to me to issues with the combat arts.

[Flix 5,164]

On a hunch, I tested Whirlwind animations while mounted with Ranged Weapons. They were bugged too. I don't think that's my fault, it seems that the mounted animations for "Demonic Blow" with Ranged Weapons have always been bugged. Since I assigned this same set of mounted animations to Bash, Whirlwind, and Concentrate, all 3 combat arts were doing some weird stuff when the Barbarian used them with Ranged Weapons on his Hellhound.

 

He just curls up the fetal position and shoots the projectiles from his butt.

 

 

"Is this right? This doesn't feel right. How do I ride this thing?"

 

 

Anyway, it was easy enough to fix. Next patch will have corrected animations for Ranged Weapons while mounted.

[Gilberticus 374]

He shoots projectiles from his butt? Interesting that a screenshot like that hasn't made it to the Funny screenshots section.

[Flix 5,164]

Barbarian Changes Upcoming in Beta 8

 

Dimitrius154 made a new model for the Hellknight's Blade, the sword in the Doom Guard Armor set. It's longer and more ornate than the previous sword.

 

 

Thanks to more help from Dmitriy, I optimized the animations for Whirlwind so they no longer stop prematurely sometimes.

 

Also, the spinning animation now works when wielding two-handed melee weapons. Here's a test video:

 

[Flix 5,164]

A Song of Ice and Fire - Update to Scourge of Lordaeron and Doom Guard armor sets

 

 

dimitrius154 is a talented modder who is contributing some wonderful updates to his armor sets in Beta 9 of D2F.

 

Scourge of Lordaeron has received several model optimizations to the armor and sword, resulting in smoother polygons and better performance.

 

Doom Guard Armor has had its models and textures revamped. Most notable is a flame effect on the cape and sash.

 

You can also see that the Hellknight's Sword has been redesigned. It is very big and has evil fiery cracks that randomly crawl across its surface.

 

The Hellknight's Shield is also completely different. It too has random lava cracks on its surface.

 

All changes will take place immediately and retroactively, except for the Hellknight's Shield. Old copies of the shield (including downloads) will still have their previous design. Only new copies of the shield dropped under Beta 9 will have the new appearance.

 

Oblivion Knights and Lachdanan are not affected by these updates (except for the new sword). They will still retain their old armor and appearance.

================================

 

On a separate note, I am also making some changes to the Barbarian's buff Battle Orders.

 

I have increased the base regeneration penalty to be more in line with other buffs. This is because it was overpowered, basically giving several good melee bonuses for "free" with no regen penalty.

 

The player can still get regeneration time bonuses by taking the two "Steady" modifications, which have had their effects boosted.

[gogoblender 3,199]

The amor sets are just exquisite

Love the way the helliknights sword crackles with power

is the red glow I see at the base coming from the sword?

 

gogo

[Flix 5,164]

The amor sets are just exquisite

Love the way the helliknights sword crackles with power

is the red glow I see at the base coming from the sword?

 

gogo

 

Yep, it's actually the spell fx from Cleansing Brilliance that's been transplanted onto the red jewel on the hilt of the sword.

 

[Flix 5,164]

Barbarian Appearance Update



In Beta 9, the Barbarian will be a bald, bearded badass.



Big thanks to Pesmontis for working on the skin textures and providing a beard model.



Also, the base skin is no longer so shiny. He no longer looks like an oiled-up bodybuilder.

His skin now has the texture of... well, normal human skin.



It may be possible in the future to add multiple hairstyles and beards for selection at character creation. For now, this is the default appearance.



The beard is technically a hairstyle, which means it is saved on a per character basis, so will only appear on new Barbarians created after installing Beta 9.

[Pesmontis 168]

Oups, missed this.. nice write-up Flix!

[Flix 5,164]

Upcoming Barbarian Changes in D2F v12

The Barbarian has been another very stable character in this mod, aside from some hiccups with Whirlwind, the changes have been mostly aesthetic.  Like the Shadow Warrior, he is the premiere melee character, and probably the easiest character to get into for a newcomer.  The only changes in v12 are to his personal quests and some new quest rewards.

•  Howl: Enemy regeneration penalty removed because this modifier is non-functioning against NPC's. Not really a change, since it never worked, but I removed mention of it from the tooltip and removed the non-functioning line of code.
•  Class quest "Brothers in Arms" now drops Stormrider as reward instead of a random amulet.  This standalone side quest has the Barbarian meet a former comrade in arms and then help him rescue his daughter. I fleshed out this quest by having the two reminisce about their fighting days, and by having the quest giver reward the Barbarian with his old battle-axe, which he'd kept all this time.
•  Class quest "Orcish Necromancers" now drops Orcslayer as reward.  This about the midway point of the chain quest, so it seemed appropriate to give a class-specific reward that was also somewhat story-related.

More about the Barbarian class quest:

I'm truly amazed how LONG this class quest is.  Aside from the main campaign, the Shadow Warrior's chain quest might be the longest and most involved in the game.  This makes the character by far the most developed of the bunch.  I took the opportunity of having such a wealth of dialogues and journal entries to really flesh out all the characters and lore, and also to clarify (and in some cases simplify) what was an occasionally convoluted plot.  You will also find a few redesigned NPC's and quest items.

In v12 I made the leap of converting the Thraconians to Barbarians.  It was such a near-match already I don't know why I haven't done it sooner.  I can't change the opening cutscene however, and that is one of the Barbarian player being resurrected by Necromancers.  So although the character's identity as a former Barbarian raider is now pervasive throughout the quest, it is still the same story at its core - the character has to deal with being brought back from the dead. So it's a combination of remembering who he was and also figuring out what his new place in the world is.

This means the lore of Necromancers ends up being explored really heavily in this quest.  There are also some ties into the Paladin's class quest (the Dark Seraphim being a product of the same black magic), and some juicy history of the Sin War that I've worked into the game.

 

    

[Flix 5,164]

I finally got around to adding the Barbarian's classic ponytail as a selectable hairstyle at character creation.  So he'll have the option of: bald w/ beard, bald & clean shaven, or topknot and clean shaven.

      

[gogoblender 3,199]

On 8/25/2019 at 6:44 PM, Flix said:

I finally got around to adding the Barbarian's classic ponytail as a selectable hairstyle at character creation.  So he'll have the option of: bald w/ beard, bald & clean shaven, or topknot and clean shaven.

      

This looks good!

I like how it gives him a notably Asian cast

 

gogo

[Flix 5,164]

On 8/28/2019 at 4:49 AM, gogoblender said:

This looks good!

I like how it gives him a notably Asian cast

 

gogo

Haha I just saw this. You should have seen him when I was experimenting with adding other facial hair to him.  He looks like the bad guy in a kung fu film.

[gogoblender 3,199]

heh...that's exactly where I was envisioning the image in my head from

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,622]

Grim Ward has mods to reduce cold and fire resistance. It however does only physical damage. Are the lowered resistances global, means for all attacks, or just for the shots? if for the later it looks as if Grim Ward was meant to have a splitted fire/cold damage but has physical.

[Flix 5,164]

5 hours ago, chattius said:

Grim Ward has mods to reduce cold and fire resistance. It however does only physical damage. Are the lowered resistances global, means for all attacks, or just for the shots? if for the later it looks as if Grim Ward was meant to have a splitted fire/cold damage but has physical.

Luckily the reduced resistances apply to all attacks launched against the target for the debuff duration.  So the Barbarian might choose the modification based on what damage type his weapon does, or elements that his party is using.

The physical damage was needed in order to apply the various debuffs.  You'll notice the damage is very low.  I wish it had an invisible "aura" instead of shooting projectiles, but I wasn't able to make it so.

[Flix 5,164]

Pesmontis has worked his magic yet again! In v13, the Barbarian will join the Druid, Amazon, Paladin, and Sorceress in having a full selection of 6 different hairstyles in character creation!  These are the 4 new additions:

[dimitrius154 614]

@Flix By the way, are you aware, whether Pedro is still working on his World editor utility? That's the final tool needed to complete fixing the original game.