Ancient Spear

Ancient Spear is a Barbarian skill unlocked at level 21. 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 Active Skill [e]
Ancient Spear
Used by:	Barbarian
Enabled at:	Clvl 21
Skill Description
Fires a harpoon to snag an enemy and pull it into melee range.
Type:	Debuff
Resource Use:	Costs Fury
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Unknown
Crimson rune:	Unknown
Golden rune:	Unknown
Indigo rune:	Unknown
Obsidian rune:	Unknown

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

• No synergies with any of the passive skills are yet known.

Skill Rune Effects

Ancient Spear runed for extra harpoons.

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

Ancient Spear made its first public appearance at BlizzCon 2010, where Wyatt Cheng briefly discussed its development:

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.

Flux found it difficult to use in the Battle Arena:[2]

...Ancient Harpoon for ranged attacks (though I never actually saw this successfully used, since hitting moving targets was tough)...

He did, however, suggest that it could be useful against Wizards who rely too much on Disintegrate.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Ancient Spear became a level 21 skill.

Media

Ancient Spear can be seen in action on video here:

• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2010 (in the Arena)
• Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects

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

• Diablo III 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
• 15 More Minutes of Arena Ninja-Cam from BlizzCon -- Incgamers 10th Jan 2011
• JudgeHype.com July 2011 Press Event Coverage - The Barbarian (Translated by Zediono)

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