Oooh. I’ve been playing a ton of VK recently. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for them!
No one is tired of you mentioning this. Really. No one. We want to hear it again and again, at least as many times as I saw Cats the musical. 
1 Like
Ask, and you shall receive.
1 Like
Maybe I’m too hypercritical, but Warpath looks weird to me. The character swinging his main hand backward to try to hit enemies seems a bad way to attack in real combat. Also, the way that the spectral weapon not in sync with his main hand and penetrating the character’s torso just looks bad.
Smelter’s Wrath might also looks better if there’re more effects around the main character while he’s channeling. It looks a bit plain now.
Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate you guys’ effort and love your work.
3 Likes
Honestly Warpath looks like poop sry. The mace that always stays in the same place while spinning looks terrible, like something is growing out of the toon. Everything else looks great.
I really like the animations for Forge Strike and Hammer Throw.
Smelter’s Wrath is ok, not bad, but for me is lacking more visual effects.
Warpath is horrible, sorry. It doesn’t feel like he is holding the weapon while spinning, and the spinning itself its painfull to watch.
PS: Sorry if I wrote something wrong.
PT-BR
Gostei das animações da Forge Strike e Hammer Throw.
Smelter’s Wrath tá ok, mas precisa de mais efeitos visuais.
Warpath está horrível, sinto muito. Não parece que ele está segurando a arma enquanto gira, e a animação do giro está sofrível de se ver.
I actually liked the warpath animation but it’s true that the “ghost weapon” is a bit strange.
Ok, maybe I was a little unfair with the spinning, but yes, the ghost weapon seems a bit off for me.
It’s def a bit off. Will likely get better before patch though I’d imagine.
The startup bubble riser particle thing on smelter’s wrath is odd too. Maybe have that fx play during the ground streaks fx, and “pop” right when the attack wave goes off.
It’s really cool to see all those updated animations for characters, it’s really needed i think to feel smooth.
Please keep in mind the most seen animations is WALKING and for each class you should focus on tha walking animation the most.
Thank you
1 Like
For a (scrawny looking) kid (he looks like a kid, and that matches with the class description, so it’s OK, though for a smelter’s son I’d expect him to have some more muscle), he seems to handle armor and (presumably) heavy weaponry like it was all made of plastic, it all seems effortless, and by extension, lessens the visual impact of the skills (except for the Forge strike, that’s a well done explosion). The hammer throw looks like he’s throwing a banana, not a deadly dangerous 10 kg heavy hammer.
I think that if you factor in the mass, intertia and express the movement in a more exaggerated way (you need to forgo realism with animating characters that are this small on a screen), I think the animations will improve, and the skills have a more satisfactory feel to them.
I need to feel something like ‘holy cow, that hammer’s gonna hurt on impact, yeah’, you know? Right now I feel more or less indifferent.
Smelter’s wrath: you got to have him animated while the lava thingy in fron of him progresses, instead of a total still pose. Have him build up energy, like puffing up his chest and raising his hands a bit, head slightly tilting backwards, to build tension to that explosion, upon which it’s released. This one feels as the weakest of the animations shown here.
The warpath animation feels spot on to me, if you consider this is a kid spinning a heavy hammer… but I agree that it looks painful, and not very ‘look at that powerful hero’ like, so you kind of feel him being controlled by the weapon instead of the other way around 
PS not trying to put you guys down, just sharing my honest opinion, I know animations on this scale are difficult to pull off!
Here are some rough visual notes to the above: https://imgur.com/feq9Xfu
Right now the hero looks like A, I think he should look like B or C, depending on your vision and target audience… E is more for former Diablo 1 players 
I think this feedback is spot on.
Have been a lurker for a while, but in an effort to contribute to the EA, and because I thought it important in this case, my thoughts:
Forge Strike feels impactful, and visually impressive (compared to what other games are doing, which is important for LE being the new kid on the block)
Hammer Throw needs more visual flair. I understand this is the base skill unmodified, but because the hammer is small, it gets a bit lost in the background. It should have more “swooshes” at the very least to give exaggerated movement and flair, but also I think the hammer could have more weight to it - meaning more wind up to the animation. At present, its size doesn’t match in my brain with how slow the throw is. It should either be bigger, or thrown faster.
At the moment it looks like he’s throwing a claw hammer. I appreciate that when modifiers are added and you have a whole bunch of them flying around you, it’s visually much more impressive, but I think the base skill could use some tweaks still.
Smelter’s Wrath is great, except for exactly what LastBrat mentioned. The unmoving, static player during the wind up is odd. It looks unfinished, like an animation is missing, even if it’s not supposed to. He is clearly doing something to create the ground effect, but we’re not shown that.
Warpath is a little bit odd. I like the spinning flair, but think it could be made faster. But it looks like he currently has a giant stick behind his back stretching from one hand to another, rather than holding and swinging a giant hammer. Obviously there were difficulties aligning the skill effect with his actual weapon - but it seems to be coming out of his chest? This is the odd part.
I really think the skill effect needs to come out of his hands, or that oddness isn’t going to go away. Ideally, the skill animation would change depending on what weapon (type) was being wielded, but I’m not sure if this is possible.
See, Diablo III: Barbarian Skill Animations - YouTube
At the risk of incurring some ire by linking to a D3 animation, credit should be given where it is due. Clearly, the D3 animators got around similar oddness (if you go to 0:45 in that video) by having the character’s own weapon spin around without any additional effect, and simply added “motion” effects/trails to the spinning animation, to make it look distinct. This might be the better path to take if the oddness can’t otherwise be circumvented.
Hopefully this feedback helps, I always look forward to seeing what the team comes up with next, very much looking forward to trying out 0.7.9 today!