World of Warcraft Dungeon Companion, Volume III (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames))

Comment: Yes, I know you can get pretty much all this information on-line from one or 2 different WoW websites, but I just like having the reference material in book form. The guide is well put together, and from what I've read so far, it's very accurate for the fight/mob info. I'd recommend it for someone starting out with a high level character in Northrend.

Comment: In terms of color and graphics, this is the best visually of the three dungeon guides. Unfortunately, though, its usefulness is very limited. In fact, some of the information in the guide was dated even at the time of publication, such as using Emblems of Heroism and Valor to obtain gear even when these were obsolete. Shortly after publication, Icecrown Citadel opened and the Emblems of Conquest drops became Emblems of Triumph, the Looking for Group feature completely changed, and all the daily dungeon quests were removed in favor of a daily random dungeon quest. Even so, there are still typographical errors and just plain wrong information scattered throughout the book, such as the number of bosses in Naxxramas and omitting how to handle all of Lord Jaraxxus' abilities in Trial of the Crusader. This is especially disappointing as these problems were also present in the first two guides, but Brady Games seems to have not learned from their mistakes. And while it does give a brief run-through of the Frozen Halls 5-man dungeons and the Icecrown Citadel raid up through Sindragosa, this would be the section most end-game players would really be wanting to see yet will not be able to find here.

On the positive side, the guide gives the reader information needed to negotiate each instance and raid in any role. Someone playing a ranged DPS character may master running Trial of the Crusader in that role, for instance, but find that the fight is far different as a tank, healer, or melee DPS and need this guide to quickly bring him/her up to speed. It also covers the Burning Crusade content that was released after the publication of Volume II (Zul'Aman, Magister's Terrace, and Sunwell Plateau) but it does so from the perspective of doing these instances as level 80 instead of the original level 70, since naturally most players doing them now would be at the higher level limit. The new level 80 Naxxramas section is not nearly as detailed as the one for the original level 60 instance in Volume II, though the current version is considerably easier in relation to its level than the old one was and does not really need an exhaustive breakdown in any case.

Overall, this is a good bathroom reader to make people wonder why you're taking so long, but anyone using it certainly needs to use online resources to update and correct the contents.

Comment: First of all, I am a tactile reader, I like having a physical book in front of me. Everything in these guide books can be found online, just depends on how much time you want to spend looking.

Clearly a lot of time and effort were put into the previous guides and this one is no exception, it's 400+ pages and full of pictures, stats and gear. Now I certainly wouldn't use this to look up loot for my character but for a casual player looking to get into some PUG raids this guide is great. There's over 30 pages on Naxxramas alone.

Also if you have guild mates that need to level there is a great little guide at the back listing specific equipment that would be useful. Most of it is based around the Argent Tournament and doesn't include the new 3.3 loot but it's useful for entry level 80s.

Overall, if you own the other guides and want to complete your collection $16.99 is a great price for this on Amazon

Comment: I own the first two of this series of books and this one isn't as good. The best part about these books is how they list the boss abilities and what needed to be done to counter them. Nothing like that in this one. They would give you the name of the ability, how much damage it might cause, and that's about it.

They rammed all of the info about what loot drops into a huge runon paragraph that is a headache to look through.

The entire book isn't laid out very well at all, and the boss on the cover isn't even touched on.

Maybe instead of wasting 1-2 pages with a huge picture of the boss, they could have gotten into better detail about the abilities and what needed to be done to succeed.