Ancient Spear

Ancient Spear is a Barbarian Tier 5 skill unlocked at character level 14. The Barbarian fires a mystical spear to snare his foes and haul them back into melee range.

This skill is commonly referred to[1] as "Ancient Harpoon" for fairly obvious functional reasons. Spears are not barbed and do not have ropes or chains attached to them. Harpoons, on the other hand, are barbed and tethered, since they are used to reel in aquatic life forms. Why Blizzard didn't just call the skill "harpoon" isn't known; perhaps they didn't like the maritime connotation, since the Barbarians are not seafaring folk in the official game lore?

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]
Ancient Spear Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Barbarian
Skill Description:
Fire an ancient spear to snare your foes.
Skill Details:
Type:	Grapple
Quantity:	None
Effect:	Target
School:	Physical
Fury cost:	Unknown
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	None
Cooldown:	Unknown
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

The Barbarian throws an ancient spear that sinks into his foes, and he pulls them into his blades.

Skill Design

Spear in flight.

Ancient Spear first appeared at BlizzCon 2010.

The skill is a ranged attack that spears enemies and pulls them into melee range, where the Barbarian, should he react quickly enough, can chop them to bits.

This skill is highly viable in the Battle Arena where slippery ranged attacking Wizards and Witch Doctors are in desperate need of some "Get over here!" as far as the Barbarian is concerned.

The skill can also be used effectively in PvM, ideally on back row attackers like archers or shaman, who the Barbarian wants to kill but can not reach through their defending meat shields. Enemies all the way to the edge of the visible screen can be skewered and pulled in, when targeted accurately.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: Throws a spear with a maximum range of X feet, pulling each target back to the Barbarian, slowing movement speed and dealing X-X damage.

Synergies

• None known.

Skill Rune Effects

Only one is known; the runestone socketed in the pre-made, PvP Battle Arena characters at Blizzcon 2010 allowed the spear to skewer multiple targets and pull them both into range. Unfortunately, it's not known if this was the Indigo rune effect, or if it was the Alabaster or Obsidian wildcard rune bonuses.

Crimson is assumed to boost the damage of a successful spearing (or perhaps boost the damage of hits landed on a harpooned enemy for some duration?), and Golden is presumed to lower the Fury cost of using the skill, though these are not confirmed.

Development

Wyatt Cheng briefly discussed the development of Ancient Spear at BlizzCon 2010:

We knew that he needed a ranged attack so here is an example of Ancient Spear. We don't want to turn the Barbarian into a ranged class so this is something that feels very appropriate for him. We want to sell the theme that he's strong, he's tough, he's melee so we had to come up with something that felt appropriate for that.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo 3 screenshots and pictures
• Ancient Spear-specific gallery contents

• 

  Barb firing spear.

• 

  The spearhead and chain.

• 

  A wild shot, flashes off the screen.

• 

  A confused Barb nearly skewers his red team Wizard teammate.

References

• BlizzCon 2010 PvP Hands-on Report