Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for advice and permission to reprint previously published material:

• The Dinozon Camp at USEast, my friends at the Amazon Basin, all good sportsmen for making this game more enjoyable, the smarty pants people at the Lurker Lounge, adeyke, Addiction, aetius2, analogkid/bzmaster, Arcinstone, Aurikan, Bartek Misiewicz, Bejinxed, Bolshoi Too, Bolty, botdude, Broome/TPJ, Chippydip, Chevalis, Chocolate Misu, Chronoshock, Chuck, ChunLi, Concillian, Corwin the Brute, Crystalion, D Spear, DaShiv, DaveO-MM, Double Trouble, DrNiceGuy, DSYee, Elric of Grans, epod, Erik Mooney, Evo, FrigidWoman, Fulminating, GAFinley, GD-3, GlowsInTheDark, Gobo, Golden Bow, Hecatonchires, HunkyDory, Icemage, Ignatz, INO, Jarulf, Jonathan Fine, Jonathan Spectre, Kalbear, kevinsteele, The Korg, Lanthanide, Lemekin, LineNoise, Lok, Loschonorg, MagiMac, Malphigian, Marina, MEEnie, Me'rana/Teiran, Ms. Gentur, Nicholas Yu, oprah, Otohime Mutsumi, the Pocky girls, Princesscupid, Ruvanal, saddguy, Sadira, sair, Serinda, shadguy, shren, Sirian, Skandranon, Spiderdrake, Spider Jerusalem, Spirea, steef of the munki tribe, Takahashi Rumiko, Talys, Targetam, TheDragoon, Tommi Gustafsson, Sailboat, Tortolia for convincing me to join the Realms, Trucidation, TrueMuppet, Vehementi, VenomousVixen, Windhallow, Wolfsong, Xanathar76, Xelen, Xet, ZenDragon, Zitta the Fashion Victim, and Boo.
• Blizzard Entertainment
• Jolt Cola
• Pocky
• Red Bull

Resources and Related Reading

Dead link? Let me know.

• The Arreat Summit
• Chippydip's Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Skill Information
• Tommi Gustafsson's Diablo II Character Guides and Information
• Diablo2.de's Weapon Speed Calculator v2.0 (English)
• Planet Diablo
• Horadrim Library
• FoxBat's Diablo II Accelerator
• Phrozen Keep
• The Amazon Basin: Diablo II section
• Amazon Basin Diablo II Forums
• the complete Diablo II guides of the Amazon Basin
• Corwin the Brute's Guide to the LoD Bowazon
• ZenDragon's Bow Bible v2.0
• Kalbear's Chinese Buffet
• Kalbear's Martial Arts Assassin Guide
• Lurker Lounge
• Lurker Lounge forums
• strategy articles of Lurker Lounge
• diabloii.net
• diabloii.net marketplace
• diabloii.net strategy compendium
• Diablo II Darkness
• Realms Beyond Diablo
• Jondefool's Mageazon Manual
• Ice's Mageazon Strategy Guide
• Sophie's Werebear Guide
• Baranor's Werebear Guide
• Casperi's Pure Summoner Druid Review
• Sirian's Diablo II Page (LOD page)
• A Treatise on Lag

Recommended Reading

Though it may seem presumptuous to find a list of recommended readings at the end of a guide for a video game, I can think of no better place to put them, if for no other reason than to unglue your eyes from the monitor and into a good book. These books won't only prove informative and enlightening (if you seek that kind of things), but will give you a general idea of where my train of thought originated from when this guide came into being — this was not a guide for treasure hunters, duelers, traders, or variant builders, but for players who not only wanted a character who could kill efficiently, but wanted to understand why that character was so well-built for the task beyond the infantile concepts of speed and power. The final word on the amazon is that she is at the top because she not only kills things, but can kill everything.

I've tried to quote every book I've suggested to at least impart the attitude of "the thing," but there's a ton of good advice in those books and not enough space in this guide. If you're interested, countless books have been written on how to fight a modern war (and more importantly, on how to focus on what Musashi calls "the spirit of the thing"): though my learning leans more towards the East, I would strongly recommend the works of Sun Tsu, Carl von Clausewitz, Napoleon Bonaparte, Erwin Rommel, and if you're in the mood for war games, Jim Dunnigan — I've read through the major books once or twice — not to learn military strategy, but to gain insights into the minds of the authors (and in the translated works, these vary with translator). If anyone has any other authors to list who aren't armchair generals, by all means, let me know.

• Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors. Trans. William Scott Wilson. Santa Clara: Ohara Publications, Inc., 1982. ISBN#0-89750-081-4
• Miyamoto Musashi. Book of Five Rings. Trans. Stephen F. Kaufman, Hanshi. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1994. ISBN#0-8048-3020-7. I've own at least four major versions of Go Rin no Sho, ranging from the classic Thomas Cleary to Victor Harris to William Scott Wilson (and an absolutely shoddy version that serves as coaster), but the translation by Kaufman has thoroughly charmed me with its straightforward style and the more-than-obvious observation that this book was not written as an intellectual excercise or pychological strategem for businessmen but as an instructional for potential warriors, and that the book itself should be translated not by a businessman or scholar but by a martial artist. There's a bit of self-assured arrogance in the tone, but it seems to come more from Musashi himself than from Kaufman. (Admittedly, I'd expect nothing else from the man himself.)
• Sun Tsu. The Art of War. Trans. Samuel B. Griffith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. ISBN#0-19-501540-1. The oldest treatise on the military in the world. Truthfully, I don't own any other versions because I didn't embrace it like I embraced Musashi, so I can't vouch for its quality. This book can be downloaded from gutenberg.net.
• Yamamoto Tsunemoto. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. Trans. William Scott Wilson. New York: Kodansha International, 1983. ISBN#4-7700-1106-7

On guides marked from v1.01~1.08: While most of the strategy should still be good, certain information may be inaccurate (especially statistical data).

My deepest thanks go out to LineNoise, who has graciously contributed the entirety of his work.