Bashiok on "Barbarian Fury" and "Gore" in Diablo 3

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

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."

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."

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."

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."

Does fury deteriorate over time?
"Yes."

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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

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:

"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!

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