Lesser Used Barbarian Skills?

[CrazyTom]

Firstly, Battle Leap or whatever it's called. (Possibly Leap Attack?) Seriously, it's amazing. Anyone else seen what this skill is capable of?

It has a range limit wider than my screen resolution, and can jump over many of the chasms and pits you find in the game - those red-lined ones in Act V, for example, or right across the pit in Tal Rasha's chamber to the other side. This in itself is interesting, but there's an even more useful thing about this skill - it isn't affect by being frozen. If you perform a leap attack, there seems to be no speed penalty. So when you're fighting a dozen cold enchanted monsters, even if they freeze you, you can leap around and attack them at will.

Secondly, I find taunt especially useful, since it's a skill you gain early on and it has a surprisingly useful effect - you taunt the monsters and they come towards you. Now, you can only taunt one at a time, but when you taunt spellcasters, archers and other missile-type minions like Forsaken and Dark Lords, they will come towards you instead of using their spells, savinig you a lot of damage. Then there's the Demon Imps in Act V - they stop teleporting out of the way.

So... anybody use these skills with their barbarians? I'd imagine they're mainly useful for early characters, but I thought I might provide this as handy advice for anyone wanting to start a barb.

[Moser]

I rarely ever make Barbarians anymore; I really should. I do remember using Leap Attack when I had them though, that skills really is fantastic. I love being able to jump the whole map, but I was unaware that it wasn't effected by Cold. Perhaps if I would have made more Barbarians I would have know that. This skill is good at any level too. Saves so much time being able to jump over pits instead of having to run around them trying to find the right way.

I never used any of the taunts, I'll have to try that. It gets pretty annoying when those imps are always teleporting around you and i've got to chase them down like a little dog. Same thing goes for the fallens and any other little bastard that runs away.

Hmm.. I suppose I really should stop making more then just Paladins. I've come to love them over the years. :)

[Magmaniac]

I use leap as a secondary skill not as my main, but just to escape from battles where I am getting owned, because I can avoid the freeze and whatnot.

[GenocideAlive]

Moser, don't stop making Paladins. Moving to any other class will rapidly remind you why you switched to Paladins. Because they're not invincible high damage dealing lifetappers. You're the only class that can make yourself neigh invulnerable to sorcs and still manage to smack the shit out of Barbs without any problems.

Leap is a great skill if you can get it to land. Otherwise you end up getting raped by people who invest 20/20/20 in offensive skills.

[Giantfish]

Another lesser used skill to consider is find potion. You can find full rejuvenation potions by act 3 in normal difficulty so making a potion-find barbarian doesn't have to be expensive and it's a lot faster to fill up on full rejuvies this way than cubing for them.

[vIsitor]

In a similar vein, there is also Find Item, but that is generally not opted for on account that sorcs are far, far more efficient for magic finding.

Oh, and bash too. People sometimes invest in it for its synergies, but its pretty useless overall (as you would expect a skill that requires you to be unarmed to be).

[Vezer]

Leap Attack is great in duels, it's usually a one hit KO. Aiming is hard though.

Stun is underused as well, but for good reasons.