The long awaited Diablo Immortal released a day ahead of its targeted date for mobile devices, with fans finally being able to try the unique title out. Although facing stigma due to its jump to mobile platforms, the new title appears to have found an audience.
An core element of the gameplay of Diablo Immortal, inherited from the broader Diablo series, concerns players being able to choose from a range of diverse classes with differing combat capabilities and skill sets. One of these character classes is the mighty Barbarian, which can provide an important role to both individual and team-based combat in Diablo Immortal.
The Fundamentals of Diablo Immortal
Diablo Immortal is a recently released free-to-play action-RPG designed primarily for mobile devices. Immortal does feature a PC build for players who'd rather not play on mobile, with crossplay capabilities between the two platforms being possible. Immortal was first announced at E3 2018, where long-term fans of the Diablo franchise were quite vocal in their disappointment. Having said this, millions of players signed up for the game's pre-release, showing plenty of desire for the title.
The Diablo franchise originated back in 1996. While the Diablo games have always been characterized as dungeon-crawler RPGs, none focus on multiplayer quite like Immortal, which takes on a faster pace and a more arcade-style gameplay look than most Diablo games. Diablo Immortal also contains loot boxes that have prevented Diablo Immortal from releasing in some regions.
The Barbarian Class in Diablo Immortal - Strengths
The Barbarian class within Diablo Immortal is the quintessential melee class out of Diablo Immortal's six launch classes. Barbarians are characterized by their commendable speed and devastating strength.
Barbarian gameplay is typified by getting up close and personal with enemies, with the potential to become a solo powerhouse at higher levels. As well as doing formidable damage against single opponents, the Barbarian additionally can deal massive damage across groups of demons with devastating area of effect abilities. As is the case with many of Diablo Immortal's classes, the Barbarian also has a respectable array of buffs that can be felt by the entire party, increasing the efficacy of the Barbarian role within group settings as well as solo.
The Crusader Class in Diablo Immortal - Weaknesses
Like all the classes in Diablo Immortal, the Barbarian of course has its balancing limitations. The primary limitations of the Barbarian class lie within the necessity to attack enemies from an extremely close distance.
With the Barbarian being essentially reliant on close-quarters melee combat, prolonged fighting against tougher enemies can result in significant amounts of damage dealt to the Barbarian, with group fighting only increasing the odds of a sudden drop in health. At higher levels, players may find themselves having to invest heavily within defense stats when playing as a Barbarian, taking focus away from other integral parts of a character build, such as Strength.
Another inherent downside to the Barbarian class stems from the powerful, wide-spreading nature of the class' abilities. As a trade-off to the high damage potential of the Barbarian's abilities, many of the abilities have unusually high cooldown times. Compounded with the aforementioned necessity of close-up combat, it is common for Barbarians to find themselves rapidly overwhelmed by an unanticipated high frequency of enemies after already using their abilities, with the resultant cooldowns making Barbarians much less powerful. The Barbarian is undoubtedly a promising class to use within Diablo Immortal, but one that has a clear high-risk high-reward factor that can make or break a party's strength.
Diablo Immortal is available to play now on Mobile and PC.