Diablo III- Skills Article V: The Barbarian, Secondary Skill- Hammer of the Ancients

Hammer of the Ancients (20 Fury): Strike a circlar area near you for 200% weapon damage.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.

Hammer of the Ancients is your first Secondary skill, and in some ways it’s a doozy- and in other ways it’s a doozy.  The Hammer of the Ancients smashes flat an area in front of you at a respectable Fury cost, but it has some quirks.  For one thing, it doesn’t actually use the weapon that you have equipped- it summons and smashes down a ‘magic’ hammer that you pull from... well, probably hammerspace.  This hammer is actually a mallet by shape, and with its size this means you’ll often find it not striking whatever you’ve been hitting in melee- instead it strikes a large area that starts a couple of meters away from you.  This makes it a lot harder to use against melee opponents- but very useful if you’re heavily crowded or if something is lurking in medium range and shooting or spellcasting at you.  If you can adjust to the quirky area of effect, though, it can be immensely rewarding to use.

Rolling Thunder (20 Fury): Strike a circlar area near you for 200% weapon damage, and create a shockwave for 22 yards that deals 155% weapon damage.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.

Rolling Thunder is an excellent addition to Hammer of the Ancients because of being easier to use.  This is because where Hammer of the Ancients strikes a circle near you, Rolling Thunder adds a shockwave for a short distance away from you from that hammer, making it all the more valuable when fighting groups of enemies.

Smash  (20 Fury): Strike a small circlar area near you for 270% weapon damage.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.

Smash makes Hammer of the Ancients an excellent option for dealing massive damage to single bosses or small clusters of enemies, at the cost of its usefulness for clearing out paths to run (or just generally smooshing things).  It’s an easy tradeoff to make, since it can also help you practice actually hitting things with the Hammer.

Devil’s Anvil  (20 Fury): Strike a circlar area near you for 200% weapon damage and reduce enemy movement speeds in the area by 60% for 2 seconds.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.

Devil’s Anvil turns Hammer of the Ancients into a form of (admittedly near-fatal) crowd control, making it easy to hammer multiple times if you’ve got the Fury for it.  Usually it’s not as useful as the other runes for Hammer of the Ancients, but if you happen to have some friends along, especially ones with area damage skills like Meteor, localized summons like Spider Pot, or other similar things, it becomes much more useful.

Thunderstrike (20 Fury): Strike a circlar area near you for 200% weapon damage.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.  If you kill an enemy with it, all remaining enemies within 10 yards are stunned for 3 seconds.

Thunderstrike makes Hammer of the Ancients into even better crowd control as long as you can keep pumping out the damage- but it remains a bit heavy on the Fury cost to use regularly, so it’s best to save it for key moments when you’re surrounded by minions that you want to have hold still.  Against single enemies, this rune is completely meaningless, so don’t try it against Azmodan or other such foes.


Birthright (20 Fury): Strike a circlar area near you for 200% weapon damage.  This attack has a +5% chance of Critical Hit.  When you strike a Critical Hit with Birthright, there is a 10% chance of that enemy dropping treasure or a Health Orb.

Birthright is kind of a weird rune, and it’s one that’s not likely to see too much use outside of builds that are already heavy on the Critical Hit chance.  In such a build, though, Birthright can be a valuable way to ensure you can grab the necessary Health Orbs to stay on your feet and keep fighting no matter what.  Works especially well with equipment and skills that boost anything about Health Orbs, too