Just wanted to bring to your attention this spear that I found in the recent community stream to confirm that there are in-fact piercing weapons (even 1H spears!) in the game: https://youtu.be/jSXMnXgoyFM?t=3442
A cool class concept would be melee/mid-range, revolving around combos of abilities to generate distance so that you can then throw your spear. Then you close the gap to retrieve the weapon and attack at melee.