[mockery]

As seen in our blue tracker, Bashiok has responded to a variety of questions regarding Barbarian Fury in Diablo 3. Take a look:

Quote

Okay. How much fury does each skill cost? As an example.

"They require fury in amounts of full fury globes. So the most one can cost is 3."

Quote

Does each ability cost a full globe?

"Yes, currently abilities that do cost fury cost one or more full fury "globes". Don't get the term 'fury globe' too stuck in your brain though, there's going to be an official name for them and it may not be globe."

Quote

Do abilities cost a portion of each globe?

"There aren't and probably won't be abilities that cost a portion of a fury ... ball. I'm going to call them fury balls. Wait ... no ... that's a terrible idea."

Quote

Are the globes valued numerically, similar to rage, and the abilities cost a "number" of Fury?

"Right now they actually are, but that's because it's sort of mid-transition from an old fury system. They'll simply be shown and referred to in ability cost as full globes. At least that's the current thought.

As I said it's still a system and game in development, and any of this can change entirely. This is just a peek into the current workings."

Quote

Does fury deteriorate over time?

"Yes."

Quote

Is fury cost affected by skill growth (adding more points to a skill).

"I don't know of any abilities that do right now but it's always a possibility for balance later."

Quote

When you use a fury skill, does the damage dealt serve to recharge your fury (meaning that you could theoretically have a net zero fury cost when attacking crowds)?

"It does, but of course it's subject to change."

Quote

How many dots of fury (dots, yes) does the ground stomp cost? If three, I can see people holding it for when they need it, and not using any other skills to conserve fury.

"It doesn't cost any fury, but it does have a cooldown."

Quote

On that note, is 3 the absolute maximum? Or can you go a little over 3, like 3.9 or something, so you'll get a full bubble soon after? If 3 is the hard max, then you'd have to use a 3 dot skill immediately before it decays to 2.999 or something.

"Fury decay doesn't happen that quickly. There's a grace period in there before it starts ticking down."

Quote

Appreciate the info on the system as it stands bash, and if my deductive skills are working properly one could assume that there will be skills that dont use the fury system, such as ground stomp. Could you give us an idea of one that would use fury? how powerful will these skills be?

"Ground stomp is an exception mainly because of the nature of its use. A cooldown allows it to be used as an "oh crap I'm overwhelmed" ability without also requiring you to have fury built up. Most if not all straight attack abilities like cleave, leap attack, whirlwind, etc. have fury costs, in addition to most 'buff' abilities."

Quote

So it looks like each fury ball has 5 ticks to charge up. So cleave, which seems to be the most basic attack will take 5 normal hits to charge up before it can be used assuming it takes one fury ball. And if Whirlwind required 3 fury balls, then there would potentially be 15 normal attacks in between each use? Ouch! Spamming normal attacks and using a special attack about 10% of the time doesn't seem very epic to me. It would also suck for PvP, because it will be hard enough to land a special attack in most situations let alone 15 normal attacks just to get to use a special attack.

"Fury is also built from incoming attacks. If you're in a moderate sized scuffle you can unleash abilities pretty regularly. The animation that was shown in BlizzCast was made in a test environment, using a single weapon and attacking stationary (and non-attacking) zombies. So it built up fairly slowly, but nice and consistent for the video, which was the point. In a normal game, and as the barbarian especially, you're quite often surrounded and the balance of normal attacks/fury gen/special ability use feels quite nice."

Bashiok also chimed in on somebody asking about the amount of gore that we can expect to see in Diablo 3. Here's what he had to say:

Quote

"Heh, if people think there isn't enough gore... you ain't seen nothing yet. This is Sanctuary. Demons and evil cults still really like torture and putting bodies on pikes."

This doesn't really come as any surprise to those of us who've been paying attention to Blizzard's updates for a while now, but you'd be amazed at how many people think that what Blizzard has shown them so far is the extent of how far they'll be taking things in Diablo 3.

So what do you guys think about all this info on Barbarian Fury and the subject of gore in the game? Share your thoughts!

This post has been edited by mockery: 11 June 2009 - 09:15 PM

[Slippy]

aww man.. fury and cool downs? sounds just like WoW.. idk what to think about this.. i'm afraid that it's not even gonna feel like a diablo game.. that news was just heartbreaking or maybe that news has been out, idk, either way i'm :(

[Daemaro]

Except in WoW it's rage not fury, and cooldowns are in nearly every game. Fury works more like D2 assassins charges it sounds like to me.

I like the fury system, it makes more sense to me. Also I love the art design of the Fury Orbs. Can't wait to try it out if they keep it til the end.

This post has been edited by Daemaro: 11 June 2009 - 10:02 PM

[dunhac82]

I think it will be interesting to see how things develop for the fury system. I'm sure the hardest part for them will probably be balance. As far as the gore goes; well like Bashiok said, we haven't seen anything yet....which I'm sure is two fold concerning the gameplay and the game and graphics/levels/monsters what have you themselves. Why can't august be here already....

[Deadlyhazard]

Will be interesting how it works on boss fights. I'm guessing globes are going to drop off adds and maybe certain events in the environment.

[MijnWraak]

"Heh, if people think there isn't enough gore... you ain't seen nothing yet. This is Sanctuary. Demons and evil cults still really like torture and putting bodies on pikes."

That'll hopefully shut all the whiners up. That made me not come here as often. "zomgz, in diablo II there were corpses with blood in the catacombzz! Why not in diablo 3!?!?" Noone ever listened to the reason being that it's in alpha state and that we've only seen 1 dungeon. Did the arcane sanctuary have mutilated corpses that had signs of torture? Not as I recall.

[nefaust]

I'm fine with the fury as long as some basic skills i.e. bash, frenzy, maybe cleave, don't take fury. Or if fury builds real fast and you can still near-spam attacks that cost only 1 bubble.

[Dane]

This is the first thing that I've heard that I wasn't exstatic about. I know im probably just thinking its gonna be worse than it is, I know it's still gonna be awesome and I'll end up not caring once I see for myself how it works, but I don't like the idea of having to get hit and use normal attacks to be able to use my skills. This way probably makes more sense, but I like the idea of recharging fury over time, rather than losing it if I'm not in battle. Like nefaust said, I would like to be able to spam my skills.

And about the gore, clearly anyone who whines that there isn't enough of it is stupid. Game isn't near done and people complain about blood. No doubt Blizzard's gonna add a whole bunch of dead bodies and guts and what not. So far, imo, it looks fine the way it is. Maybe those whiners didn't see the corpses exploding because their tears were making the screen too blurry.

[akse]

Slippy said:

aww man.. fury and cool downs? sounds just like WoW.. idk what to think about this.. i'm afraid that it's not even gonna feel like a diablo game.. that news was just heartbreaking or maybe that news has been out, idk, either way i'm :(

yeah aww d2 had it so good.. mana! mana leech yeah right.

there was cooldowns in d2 also (after LOD came the cast delays == cooldowns)

[ShiWeiLi]

Oh wow, I wish I had seen this before the character skills contest--this does look sweet. Just like Guilty Gears is such a great fighting game for incorporating completely character-unique gameplay mechanics, so too could be Diablo 3. Fury orbs, any or other specifically character limited systems, definitely help in both balance and freshness of gameplay between different characters/classes.

[DesmondTiny]

I think its kinda cool you will get fury as you get hit as well. That be funny seing a barb getting smacked and suddenly unleashing a huge charge of energy blowin the enemy to bits kinda like sayin "Alright you hit me a few times and then I'll see if I can return the damage" :D

[replicant]

It's the rage mechanic from WoW and other games slightly revamped. Nothing special sounding about it and quite a rather bland update. Will be nice when they give us some nice concrete information and even D2 1.13 patch. Too much is being held back for their Blizzcon babies.

[Domestic]

I know you guys do not like Wow Ideas being transported to DIII. But rage as it was known in WoW was by far the best energy system of all classes in WoW and it would be a waste not to sort of transport it to DIII like they are doing with Fury. Its much better than Mana for a Melee class, you are going to like it, trust me.

[interception]

dinuR-v6SP4

[Switch]

Oh yes this is gonna be cool! Like the rage system in Guildwars. If they can pull this off in a good way (wich they can because they are blizzard) this system is gonna be pretty balanced for pvp as well. Love the idea and now it makes me even more excited to see the system in action in a fast-paced gameplay. Just picture an Assasin or a barbarian with a high attack speed choppin down creatures.

I'm curious what "mana buff" skills they are gonna implement for the caster types. If these systems are balanced this is gonna kick ass in pvp and pve.

[Son of Stone]

The rage system was terrible in WoW and it's only going to be a little better in Diablo due to the fact that you have have a lot more AI mobs attacking you to raise your rage faster, and you had no healers.

The biggest problem is pvp.

Yeah, you take damage and get rage, looks good on paper... Except the fact that you have to take your opponent's initial nuke (which they will open up with) before you get any rage.

Also you can't strategize or syncronize with others.
Warriors in PvP in WoW were near useless in high level arena teams because they couldn't time their abilities with others.

The Warrior only has a very select window of time he can execute his abilities, from when he generates the rage, to when it decays.
You can't predict when you will get this rage, and when you do, you either are already behind, missed your opportunity, or shouldn't because it won't be worth it, stubbornly chasing and getting yourself in deeper trouble.
It wasn't a good system then, it won't be a good system now.




EDIT: The only reason people thought it was good, was because it offers a potentially limitless supply of 'mana'.

people fighting warriors thought the rage system was awesome because the warrior wouldn't run out. The reason the warrior wasn't running out was because he was taking massive amounts of damage.

The reason he could take that much damage was because he had 1 or more healers keeping him alive.

they had to balance a warrior getting healed so that he wasn't overpowered. Once they did that, if you didn't have a healer you were dead before you could do anything.

This post has been edited by Son of Stone: 14 June 2009 - 04:56 PM

[ansl]

Well put SonofStone I too have played alot of Warrior in WoW and I could not agree more with your post. I guess we'll have to wait and see (another year or two :/..)

[liquid]

I've accepted all WoWish or something remotely resembling wow ideas or artstyle or icons/skill trees etc. But I sure as hell hope they keep and even increase the gore. God of War 3 anyone? Yeah, something like that. Ripping testicles and heads - lots of fun.

[Macros]

Domestic said:

I know you guys do not like Wow Ideas being transported to DIII. But rage as it was known in WoW was by far the best energy system of all classes in WoW and it would be a waste not to sort of transport it to DIII like they are doing with Fury. Its much better than Mana for a Melee class, you are going to like it, trust me.

I don't know. I've played Warrior in WoW, and I don't see what's so great about it. But anyway, this new system isn't anything like the WoW system. It sounds more like a mix between the WoW Warrior and Rogue with a bit of Death Knight thrown in for flavor. Or like Switch said, the rage system in Guild Wars, it's exactly that.
But what I don't get is the whole "melee classes shouldn't get mana" thing. I mean, the Barbarian had mana in Diablo 2, why should he all of a sudden not have mana now? Are we supposed to just forget that he had mana earlier? I don't really care anyway because the system is not much of a change, it's not any different than alot of other systems already proven to work, so it doesn't matter. Either way is fine, but I find it weird that they suddenly decided the Barbarian doesn't use mana when he did earlier.

This post has been edited by Ivaron: 18 June 2009 - 06:28 PM

[Morden79]

I just see a lot of problems with this system. Here is my two cents.

First off, if 3 globes is the max, they already botched the Barb, especially if an ability like WW costs 3 globes on its own. Sure, swarms would probably give you a nearly endless supply of fury, but what about harder individual monsters. And what happens if you get hit a lot harder? Will amount of damage reflect fury gained? What about bosses, and those special monsters that were supposed to make the game more dynamic?

Lets take for example the Berserkers. They hit pretty hard, but avoiding them is the trick. These are something you would want to get rid of quickly, but if you are trying to avoid his hits then you are just going to have to normal melee him to death? That sounds weak. What happens when you come up against certain mob combos, such as Berserkers/Cultists in the gameplay demo? You want to get rid of those cultists before they become much more powerful and get overwhelmed by a ton of heavy hitters, but now you can't just instantly react with a leap attack to smash them? No, now you gotta slap some guys and get slapped around before you can actually retaliate with some powerful attacks another class would be able to use right off the bat.

And what about bosses? Sure as a Barb you could take way more hits than a Wizard or Witch Doctor, but do you really want to be taking its damage on purpose to gain specials faster? If you don't then you have to melee him to death before you can get out a special. If you do get hit, I would surely hope you get a LOT more fury because of the power and nature of the hit so you can retaliate effectively.

I'm sorry, but I just can't see this working very well with Diablo unless we see some major improvements to the system at Blizzcon 09. Fury/Rage systems work pretty well on MMOs for a few reasons. For on, the classes that use them were generally being healed constantly or had abilities that generated a lot of rage easily. Also, MMOs have a tenancy to be much slower paced than a game such as Diablo. I won't lose hope in the Barb till I really get a chance to play it after release, but I truly hope by Blizzcon this system has been truly fixed or just trashed for the classic mana methods.