Season 8 Brings Back the True Barbarian: Heavy Weapons, Huge Damage

Barbarian d4 art

Season 8 is bringing changes to the Barbarian class, reinforcing its core fantasy: hitting enemies with big weapons. The focus this season is on making weapon-based attacks feel stronger and impactful, reducing reliance on the class’ magical elements.

New Unique & Aspect: Mighty Throw Gets a Power Boost

A new unique & aspect will improve the skill Mighty ThrowMighty Throw, making it a devastating but less frequently attack.

  • Bane of Ahjed-Den (Unique Gloves)
    • Boosts Mighty Throw damage with instant Fire damage every 12 seconds.
    • Will deal 400-600% increased damage when detonating.
    • Affixes: Adds cooldown reduction, Fury regeneration, and critical strike damage.
  • Aspect of Delayed Extinction
    • Converts Cooldown Reduction into multiplicative damage for Mighty Throw and Steel Grasp.
    • Additional 125-250% damage boost.

Both this unique and the aspect will interact with each other, making Mighty ThrowMighty Throw a very heavy final hit on your enemies. While you will not be able to activate Mighty Throw that often, it will be a great finishing move.

Skill Updates: Heavy-Hitting Core Skills Get Buffed

Legendary Aspects and Unique Items Balancing

  • Whirlwind Aspects: Aspect of the Dire WhirlwindAspect of the Dire Whirlwind will offer more critical chance, and Dust Devil's AspectDust Devil’s Aspect receives an additional power: hitting enemies with Dust Devils increases damage from all other sources by 25% for 3 seconds.
  • The Third BladeThe Third Blade received an update.
    • Previous: Your Weapon Mastery Skills are now also Core Skills that have no Cooldowns but cost Fury, dealing 50 – 70% of normal damage. Their Fury costs are reduced by 5 for any additional Charges the Skill would have had.
    • Now: Your Weapon Mastery Skills are now also Core Skills that have 100% Cooldown Reduction but cost Fury, dealing 50 – 70% of normal damage.
  • Ring of Red FurorRing of Red Furor: Bonus critical strikes now apply to all non-Channeled Core & Weapon Mastery skills.

With these updates, Season 8 is looking to be a strong return to the Barbarian’s roots. Current Season 8 PTR testing shows that Barbarian is very powerful! If no drastic changes are made, we can expect great melee damage, devastating weapon strikes, and new popular high-damage builds.