Diablo 3 Barbarians Guide

Barbarian Destroying in Melee

Barbarian melee strategies are designed to help you streamline your attacks and get into the fight as quickly as possible with your Barbarian. How you fight in close quarters will depend largely on what type of skills you select, however, and what you expect to gain from your attacks. To get you started, here are some basic attack strategies for your new Barbarian.

Choosing the Right Skills for Your Barbarian Melee Strategies

The Barbarian is inherently melee based. However, there are some ranged attacks like Ancient Spear and Throw Weapon. These are useful if you need to close distance or mitigate kiting in PvP. However, in close quarters PvE, only those abilitis that gets you close to your enemy are truly useful. I like Furious Charge for this because you can rush toward an enemy, deal 100% weapon damage and inflict a knockback as you build fury toward more powerful skills.

War Cry is another very useful ability because it boosts your armor by 100% for a minute (and the ability has a 30 secondcooldown), plus it loads you up with 30 Fury, getting you much higher very fast. It starts a fight instantly.

Leap Attack is great if you are in an AoE situation and want to get into the action fast while building Fury. It provides less damage overall, but offers a nice AoE effect and can draw people towards you in co-op situations.

Difficulty Changes and Your Skills

Barbarian melee strategies will and should change when you jump up in difficulty levels. While your attack strength may vary based on your items and runestones, you also must deal with much stronger, faster enemies. To counter this, you need to load up on more mitigating skills like Ignore Pain and you need to get your Fury up as fast as possible. War Cry is your premiere Fury Generator. Combined with Cleave or Frenzy on auto attack, you can hit your cap fast and start unloading Whirlwind or other big time spenders.

Barbarian melee strategies will advance as the game moves forward but remember to have a nice mixture of abilities to build Fury, spend it and keep yourself alive. And don’t forget how effective Runestones are at pushing your damage over the top.