Blizzard Entertainment revealed the fifth Diablo III class at Blizzcon 2010. The Demon Hunter is a ranger which uses two crossbows to lay siege to its enemies.

a group of fanatical warriors sworn to avenge their beloved ones killed before the rampage of the creatures of the Burning Hells.

The demon hunter doesn’t seem to use arrows in a conventional way. They hone the powers of the demons as a weapon, and are resistant to the corruption of their demonic energies. This mechanic might be similar to the Hellgate’s Cabalist in a way, but much better. Not certain if she needs to buy or loot ammo, but from what the cinematic showed the Demon Hunter used a demon teeth found in a villager’s corpse, and before your eyes the teeth grows a shaft to become into an arrow.

As you may see in the screenshots, the Demon Hunter has an ability that makes her crossbows shoot over 60 arrows at once from the other side of the screen as a cone attack blasting through anything in the direction she points at.

She channels this demon power through her crossbows as seen in the screenshot where she shoots a bolt of light that turns into a heavy-assault swirling red fire.

Another screenshot shows another AOE ability that resembles Fan of Knives.

Vault: She can jump a few yards backwards, similar to the WoW hunter’s disengage to escape several incoming monsters to cast a devastating ranged attack, and she’s seen jumping to kick and split doors open.

Bola Shot: This looks like the Argentinian Gaucho’s boleadora (balls), chinese meteor hammer, and also seen in Africa. The weapon consists of two balls with a string attaching both. When hurled by the Demon Hunter’s crossbows they entangle around a single target’s neck and explode. Seems like a good choice for bulky monsters.

Entangling Shot: You will see two scenes where she throws some sort of shadow-energy trueshot arrow that looks like a harpoon. This arrow has a chain and binds several monsters together by chains causing some white flashing explosion and lots of electricity in a large area of effect.

Another ability looks like a meteor of fire coming from the ceiling and smashing the ground in glorious fire causing an expansion wave that devastates all enemies around the demon hunter.

She throws some sort of grenade mechanism that semi-burrows on the ground. When monsters come within its range, the three grenades transform into three huge round jigsaw gadget traps which shred them to pieces.

A few years ago, I speculated Blizzard would make a Van Helsing-like class, and this simply outdoes Van Helsing in every possible way. I love this class and her gadgets. It’s effing amazing!

The concept art reveals she uses a corset and jeans in her un-armored form, but interestingly seems to wear leather, cloth and plate. The right-most model in the concept art shows her with only one crossbow and an assassin two-clawed glove on the right hand. The plate design looks pretty much like the Diablo II Paladin’s with golden cross insignias.

There is so much more we need to learn about this class, and Blizzard will be revealing more on the second day of Blizzcon, and throughout Twitter in upcoming weeks and months.

Watch the Demon Hunter video trailer here.

Read the Demon Hunter lore from the point of view of Abd al-Hazir at the official Diablo III website.