None of the Ancients use a giant two handed golden hammer. Talic wields a fiery sword and shield and uses whirlwind. Korlic wields a polearm and uses leap attack. Madawc wields dual throwing axes and uses shout. I even checked their lore backgrounds on Diablo2.diablowiki.net and none of their backgrounds suggest the use of a two handed golden hammer.

an·cient 1 (nshnt)
adj.
1. Of great age; very old.
2. Of or relating to times long past, especially those of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire (a.d. 476). See Synonyms at old.
3. Old-fashioned; antiquated.
4. Having the qualities associated with age, wisdom, or long use; venerable.

Ancient doesn't just imply the Ancients on Mount Arreat, not to mention that just because they used a particular weapon against you doesn't mean that they never used a hammer sometime in their lifetime.

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Q u o t e:
We are the spirits of the Nephalem, the Ancient Ones. We have been chosen to guard sacred Mount Arreat, wherein the Worldstone rests. Few are worthy to stand in its presence. Fewer still can comprehend its true purpose. Before you enter, you must defeat us.

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-The Ancients may also refer to the Nephalem, the first generation of humans endowed with great power; and the hammer is merely one from their arsenal.

-The hammer could be a spiritual combination of all three of the Ancient's weapons, further shaped to form a giant hammer/mace by the Barbarian's own preferences.

-The Ancients may have mastered all forms of weapons, and the giant hammer is just one or many that they own and are capable of using.

Those three are not ancients

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Q u o t e:

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Q u o t e:
We are the spirits of the Nephalem, the Ancient Ones. We have been chosen to guard sacred Mount Arreat, wherein the Worldstone rests. Few are worthy to stand in its presence. Fewer still can comprehend its true purpose. Before you enter, you must defeat us.
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-The Ancients may also refer to the Nephalem, the first generation of humans endowed with great power; and the hammer is merely one from their arsenal.

-The hammer could be a spiritual combination of all three of the Ancient's weapons, further shaped to form a giant hammer/mace by the Barbarian's own preferences.

-The Ancients may have mastered all forms of weapons, and the giant hammer is just one or many that they own and are capable of using.

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So the ancient ones refer to some other people which we have never seen? If that is true then why do they need people to defend the mountain when they could just do it.

@ above

The Ancients are, well, ancient. They're so ancient they aren't mortals, so they chose the best mortal guardians they could find at the time to guard the mountain.

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Q u o t e:


Hopefully not the same ancients from Neverwinter Nights
Man, they corrupted sweet Aribeth
oh, and they were creepy lizard people...

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You can save Aribeth from Hell in HotU and, for further hilarity, buy her True Name and boss her around :D

Sorry about jumping on the bandwagon, but the hammer does look a little silly. I know that Blizzard wanted to give the barb his own "strong attack" skill and yet make it look interesting. What if they made the hammer transparent and showed the weapon inside? Then it becomes more symbolic of the power in the attack without it actually being a different weapon.

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Q u o t e:
Sorry about jumping on the bandwagon, but the hammer does look a little silly. I know that Blizzard wanted to give the barb his own "strong attack" skill and yet make it look interesting. What if they made the hammer transparent and showed the weapon inside? Then it becomes more symbolic of the power in the attack without it actually being a different weapon.

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For the looks of, especially the hammer head, yes, it looks a little, uhm, too "fancy" for my taste too (would prefer a more simple/plainer, more archaic Mjöllnir/"Thor's Hammer" like look to it), but that might have changed in the meantime already.
On the other hand, you don't really see it in the game as it's just a split second on screen anyway...

As for showing the hammer longer than that mentioned split second - bad idea, imho.
That it's only there for the purpose of one lightning fast single smash also perfectly captures the fact that the portion of "magic" the barbarian relies on during combat is only nominal and fairly temporary.

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Q u o t e:


Right. They were chosen as protectors of Mt. Arreat by the Ancients.

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Well, yeah, they weren't the original protectors of Mt. Arreat. If they were chosen, there must have been some reason for their predecessors to retire.

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Q u o t e:


But it's very easy to make the mistake because of the games dialogue. But if you go to the arreat summit and look at their monster page it has a little bit of their background fluff that clears up the confusion. Many people probably play the game and do not read tidbits like that on the internets.



- "The Ancient", Not Helping



Anya, Not Helping







- Qual-Kehk, Not Helping Several Times



- Larzuk, Not Helping



- Malah, Not Helping

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ancients

- Not Helping


http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-talic.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-madawc.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-korlic.shtml

The Arreat Summit, Helping

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they say they are the ancients...so they are the ancients: bashiok don't joke with us.

I don't like idea with creating (taking out from the ...) big hammer and smashing enemies with it (that's too cartoon for me). But whatever, probably in the end, I will have a reason to laugh from my barba with giant hammer in his pants.