The king of close quarter combat, they don’t come
more vicious than the savage Barbarian. The Barbarian has more weapons and
armour options that any other character. There isn’t much subtlety to this
class, as it basically revolves around being in a position to get close enough
to something to hack it open.
Therefore, Strength is obviously the stat you want
to beef up on. At every level, three points should go into strength, with the
defensive Dexterity coming in as the second most important. Like the Amazon,
when Strength reaches about 60, you are assured use of almost every item in the
game.
Unlike the Amazon, the Barbarian does not require a
high level of specialisation. Indeed, one of his advantages lies in his
capacity to pick up anything damaging and go wild on evil with it. Axes and
swords are the default setting of weapons, but don’t discount the Anti-Undead
Mace or the rare but powerful Pole-Arms.
Barbarian specialty skills are many. They can be
combined in many thousands of ways. Choose one weapon specialisation, such as
Pole-Arm or Axe and drop every bit of skill into it. Keep pumping up your
strength and you’ll be easily taking out daemons with each hit. Take a few
points in Leap, a few points in Two-hand Attack, a few points in Bash and
suddenly you have a hit-and-run warrior. Mana and life stealing weapons can
turn a high-level Barbarian into an unstoppable foe. An essential skill for the
Barbarians is definitely Leap. This is a skill that can utterly change your
combat strategy. Instead of simply being a war machine, this turns you into a
whirling dervish. It can get you in and out of combat, allow you to pick out
specific targets and is of especial use against Diablo himself.
The Warcries are an underrated Barbarian skill. The
Warcry itself at level 30 is basically the best weapon you’ll have. Nor should
you ignore Bash. A simple level one skill, even a few points put into it will
give you an extra strong punch that can give you the edge against the powerful
Super Unique creatures
