DiabloFans

This is a question I've wanted to raise for a long time, but have never actually gotten around to it. Back when the DH came out, they released a gameplay video (I believe it was in a press package) that showcased the female DH running around shooting things, followed by some multiplayer, and finally a bit of PvP. The origins of the video are shady in my memory, but I'm sure you've all seen it.

Anyway, the thing that stood out the most to me in that video was that the lady Barb was running around with what looked like either a spear or pole-arm in one hand, and a small glowing knife in the other. Everything about that seems odd to me.

Can we dual wield a spear?

Was it actually some kind of one handed weapon that just looked like a spear?

Does anyone know anything, or are we all just brains in vats?

And finally, are giant barbarians with small glowing knives badass? (cause I loved that part)



Seriously though, those who know, let me in on the dual wielding of spears and pole-arms.

I doubt she was wielding a polearm, those are strictly two handed weapons by any means. Chances are it was a spear, duel wielding spears in normal, it was even in Diablo 2. I used to duel a red spear that had a lot of elemental damage when i was leveling. I can't see why they'd change it for Diablo 3.

Well... dual wielding javalins is normal. That was doable in D2, even though it looked really silly. Spears on the other hand could only be held with both hands no matter what character you were.

Javalins in D2 were held in an "over-arm" fashion, where as spears were held "under-arm."

In the DH video, the She-Barb is holding the weapon in question in an under-arm manner, and swinging it like a club. This does not compute.

I just watched the blizzcon b-roll presskit footage and yes. The female barb at around 9 minutes, is dual weilding what seems to be a type of spear / halberd with a small knife.

Well we haven't heard of any traits or skills that enable the Barbarian to dual-wield 2-handed weapons - that would have been my first guess to what's in effect there. Maybe they're testing this out? The hacking animation of the spear definitely looks awkward. Maybe it's just a bug? I don't know if there's any way to explain this beyond speculation. Good catch though.

I wanna two-hand jab with a spear. Not swing it and hit the monsters with the wood shaft and then jab with a piss-ant dagger.

LAME

Actually the animations look pretty good imo. And you will be able to jab with a 2 handed spear too, seriously. The way the female barb used this spear / halberd in this video was totally fine.

Yea, it looks like an axe-like top to the weapon, so a slashing animation makes sense. Either way, the animations at the Blizzcon demo aren't final.

I see nothing wrong with duel wielding spears since most spears were meant to be thrown.

Pole Arms are meant to be used 2-handed. The longer Spear type weapons would fit in this class better.

You know, one of the things that crossed my mind when I saw this was the wide difference in size between the two weapons. Why carry a knife with a spear? One possible explanation for that (aside from just coincidence) would be that Blizzard was or is experimenting with a new system for dual wielding where weapons (or weapon types) are given a "weight" value. As long as the sum of the two weapons doesn't exceed a given value, then the two weapons could be dual wielded. This arbitrary value could even be effected by modifiers such as traits or attributes. If that were the case, then one could assume that the dual wielding of such a large weapon as a spear required the secondary weapon to be something "light" i.e. the knife.

Maybe I haven't seen this video.. Because I thought I did, but now I can't picture this hybrid spear/polearm thing. Can someone link me please?

This link should take you to the Blizzard press kit download site. I think that the video in question is in the press kit labelled "Diablo III- Blizzcon 2010 Press Kit."

The video is probably on youtube somewhere, but you'll have to look for that on your own, as I live in China, and youtube is dangerous to the harmony of this civilization.

OOohh I remember now, I just never paid much attention to it. It is rather large to one hand. Though I'm with the idea of giving the barb as many weapon wielding options as possible. Hell if they stole that skill from WoW where you can duel wield 2 two handed weapons I'd be cool.

BTW, the guy using the Witch Doctor kicks ass in that video. Or maybe Sacrifice is just overpowered.

Seriously i don't see the problem. The guy on the video used a dagger and a spear because he droped a good dagger in the demo or any other random reason. It's not like Dagger / Spear is the new barbarian archetype.

When you give freedom to the player, some silly lookng sets may appear now and then. What you expected ? It's ok to equipe two large polearms or a polearms + sword, but a polearm + dagger is forbidden because it looks silly ?

Why ?

In real life people, used polearms with one hand, sometimes.

Quote from italofoca

Seriously i don't see the problem. The guy on the video used a dagger and a spear because he droped a good dagger in the demo or any other random reason. It's not like Dagger / Spear is the new barbarian archetype.

When you give freedom to the player, some silly lookng sets may appear now and then. What you expected ? It's ok to equipe two large polearms or a polearms + sword, but a polearm + dagger is forbidden because it looks silly ?

There's no "problem" with the barb carrying a polearm and a dagger. I thought it was groovy. The only reason I created the thread was because this is the first instance where I have seen the dual wielding of what appears to be either a polearm or a spear. Now I've followed D3 development pretty closely for a long time, and I just wanted to see if anyone else out there had picked up some bit of news that I had missed about dual wielding.

I can't wait until some Hollywood director creates a fighting style for a badass hero that fights with a spear and a dagger. Kind of like Riddick's somewhat interesting style, or the Last of the Mohicans guy's tomahawk/knife style. Power to the people.

A more serious production for a good piece of Diablo movie pack will be a great collectables.

A director that's willing to follow through the tone of us big gamers' takes on Diablo.

Someone who is crazy enough to introduce the precious treasure finds theme in, monsters kills, super killings interpret by a way only Diablo 2 did. That will be an one of a kind classics.

If they're gonna do it they should do it right. Find someone who already have something lined up nicely for how the project will work. Treat it like a freaken Star War, not Twilight.