Customer Reviews

Diablo II Official Strategy Guide (Official Guide)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The Diablo II Strategy Guide has almost no strategy, nor is it a guide. It's nothing but a regurgitation of spell tables and damage, as well as a set of tables on the unique weapons and magic items. Nothing more.

This book is lacking the following: 1) Character building strategies. Which skills mesh well with others? What combat strategies work best with each class and various skill sets. Examples: a Sorceress concentrating in Ice proficiencies works much differently than one concentrating in Lightning proficiencies. Similarly, an Amazon choosing the bow over the spear develops much differently, yet we get no hint from the author regarding this. This could have taken many pages and provided useful hints, but instead the author takes the easy way out, mentioning which skills seem to be liked by the Blizzard team and nothing more.

2) Creature descriptions, especially in comparison to the Strategy Guide written for the first Diablo, are severely lacking, but conveniently all available on Blizzard's own website.

3) Better descriptions of quests. The Guide's "hints" usually consist of "go here, fight this, and get this." Well, DUH! That's exactly what the villagers tell you in the game.

4) A better understanding of the Horadric Cube, the game's item transmogrifier device.

5) A comprehensive listing of areas that you can adventure in, as well as hidden areas.

6) Information on the "Cow Level," which now actually exists.

Simply put, don't let the shiny cover hypnotize you into purchasing this book. It's not worth it.

The Diablo II guide adequately covers all aspects of the game, if a list of how to complete the quests, and what the skills do is what you call adequate. The main problem with this book is that it is not a "strategy" guide, since there is virtually no strategy in it at all. No help is given in the sense of tips for how to create a good character - no information at all on how to best allocate experience and skill points. The multiplayer strategies are about five pages of stuff I already knew. The guide gives you a basic overview of the game, but the original Diablo strategy guide is far superior.

Blizzard should have written the guide themselves, or got a better publisher like Sybex, who always do good guides, to do it. The worst part is that in the introduction, Mr. Farkas readily atmits that he only ever got to play the game during his two visits to Blizzard North. How can you write a strategy guide if you've hardly even played the game?

Simply put, this strategy guide is the most complete, most in-depth, and most detailed guide I have ever read. As you leaf through the pages your first time you will notice the amount of raw information it holds. Bart Farkus, from Brady Games, covers almost all aspects of the game, written in a very clear and concise manner. His coverage includes all five character classes, (Amazon, Paladin, Necromancer, Sorceress, Barbarian) their abilities, strengths and weaknesses. This info will definitely optimize your style of game-play, as you will quickly learn what kind of situations to retreat from and regroup, or if you should push ahead and attack. The guide also includes a complete bestiary, items list, and guide to all weapons. These sections will outline and help you define what kind of items you will want to use. If you are unsure of what pairings to use, for example sword with mace, or dagger with javelin, this will definitely help you find the best weapon selection for your unique character. Not to mention which gems go best or worse with other gems. As you read deeper into the book, explanations of shrines, armour, spells and abilities also appear. If you're ever caught in a game not knowing what the spells or shrines do, as I often forget, then grab the guide and in less than a minute you'll understand. Detailed instructions for completing every quest, and killing each boss are also included. It may not be a good idea to read this section, you might like the surprise of finding out how each is to be solved, but this is for emergencies when you've played hours and still cannot beat the boss. Bart Farkus was recently interviewed, and the following facts are things you might want to consider about his experience and in purchasing this guide: -Bart has written a large collection of strategy guides for many different genres of games. -Bart had spent about 25 full days at Blizzard Headquarters to play the game, and ask questions about it with the QA department. -Bart has gathered many strategies and opinions from people from Blizzard themselves on the best strategies and tactics. With this background in writing extensive strategy guides, I think the DiabloII Official Strategy Guide (Official Guide) is a must have for any hardcore DiabloII fan.

Before I went out to buy this guide, I wondered if it had maps. I read the reviews and saw that it DID have maps, and color ones too! Let me correct this now... there are NO maps and the color section is not map related whatsoever! However, this is an excellent source of information if you are a hard core gamer and are going to go for the long haul of play.

The book includes the original story behind this game - short section. The characters in detail and their options. The Quests, and this is a very good section that does NOT spoil the play. It is a short description with pictures (small) of what to expect and briefly so as not to ruin the play value. Also since the maps regenerate, the Quest section cannot explain it with map detail or any other perfect detail. It is just enough to help you and let you know what to expect. Very detailed charts and listings of potions, spells, etc.. Just what you would expect the book to contain as far as I am concerned. Without this guide, you would miss out on a lot and find things out the hard way, when it is too late! :-)

this guide sux! it doesnt give any overall characterstrategies, and tells you everything you DONT need to know aboutquests - i dont care how to find the boss, tell me how to kill him! italso makes the bad skills seem good, which caused me to WASTE SKILLPTS on them. it also doesnt show how good some skills are. the guidesdoesnt show the damages for weapons, or even mention exceptionalitems. blizzards official website gives more info, and for free! italso has more pictures, and in color. i thought the guide would giveinformation not on the site - which MOST guides do. but no, it wasjust a waste of money. id get a better guide if i went to kinkos andtold them to print out and bind the whole blizz site.

I was greatly disappointed by this book. The layout is very good, but most of the character and quest info can be found in the game manual as well. I had hoped for more information in subjects like Cube recipes. The item charts, including unique items lists and set items attributes are useful, especially if you don't have Internet access. If you do, pass on. The bestiary is interesting, but in my opinion it could include the number of experience points each monster gives you. Overall, I think it was fun to read, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

if you ever play D2, do not buy this guide, I did when it was brand new, then you know what happened? They released version 1.02, and changed every skill stat, and item stat in the game, making every chart in the entire flippin book worthless. And even the writers opinions were killed because all the changing was to "change the balance" which makes other things more powerful than before, and some things less. As I write this, I still play D2 (quite obsesively) and we are now on patch 1.09 so even the expansion pack strategy guide, is out of date (based on 1.07) and it is now rumoured that version 1.10 is comming out soon. I sometimes look in my strategy guide and look at an item's stats, then look at the item in my inventory on the game and compare stats, all I can think about is laughing at how I wasted $20 on this when it was new. :(

If you opened up the Diablo II manual and found it lacking in information on items, skill levels, and spells then this is the book you want to get. I look at this as more of a reference book than a strategy guide and it is sitting right next to my computer. If you plan on being hardcore with DII you can't just randomly pick and chose your skill sets, you need to go in with a plan of action. The regular manual doesn't give you enough information to do so, but this guide does. Sure you can probably find all that stuff on the web somewhere in the numerous fan sites, but it won't have the ease of use that this guide does. You have your choice, either a ream of printed out webpages or a condensed book with elegantly done tables.

The only thing I found useful in this guide was the list of items. Everything else in the guide has either been outdated, or is just some crap opinion from some guy saying that "It would be powerful if you did this..." and it's really only something useful in a single player game when you're just messing around.

I suggest to anyone that plays Diablo2, to just enjoy the game and look up anything they need to know about items on websites. All the other info in this book is pretty much useless, and becomes your own knowledge within a week of playing on your own anyways!

Too bad one-half of a star isn't an option, because this is by FAR the worst strategy guide I've had the misfortune of buying. I'd played through Act I and was starting Act II when I bought this guide, and when I leafed through the pages, I realized how gypped I was! A majority of the information is outdated, now that I have the newest patch. I've got first hand experience with the game, and this is really inaccurate. If you want a decent guide for this game, hope Prima makes one. They know how to do it, their Diablo guide was awesome. BradyGames should call them up and take notes. This game guide is missing weapon and monster details. People want details in a game like this. Even the quest section is bad. It gives a brief, ineffective walkthrough. And, not that it hampers comprehension, but there are spelling and grammatical errors abound. I only recommend buying this if you are a die-hard fan of the game.