Obviously, after so many years in development the creators of the game made many improvements to D3 to make it stand out. New unique classes are introduced, skill system is revamped, each class can have hundreds of different spell combinations, sockets work differently than before, but most importantly players can sell items for real money, making sure everyone will take this game very seriously.

If you really want to get ahead of other players in Diablo 3 a quality strategy guide will get you further than you thought possible. By getting a quality guide to help you understand the game better, level up faster and know where to get the best equipment and most gold you’ll be able to stay ahead of the competition and perhaps even make some money doing so.

Believe it or not I actually found 16 different Diablo 3 strategy guides, which is more than I’ve found for any other game, including MMORPGs. That alone should tell you that the demand for help in D3 is massive. I doubt I’ll be able to do a very thorough review of each and every guide, but I’ll try to list the better ones here regardless.

 1. Killerguides Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Over 40 different games covered in several hundred guides tells you that Killerguides are very experienced and serious when it comes to strategy guides. Their writers are expert gamers who play through these games over and over again and know so many insider tips and tricks that most players never will.

Killerguides D3 strategy guide includes a guide on classes, telling you every little detail about each one, as well as different strategies for fighting groups of monsters, bosses, and of course other players. There are very detailed recommended builds for every class that will tell you how to get the most damage in every situation. Equipment guides are also very helpful as they can also give you an advantage by knowing which stats you should aim for. The gold guide included helps you figure out how to farm more of it extremely quickly, especially since some of the spots they mention also yield other valuables that can easily be sold on the auction house.

To conclude, Killerguides published yet another excellent strategy guide and I highly suggest you give it a try.

Download: Killerguides D3 Strategy Guide

2. Natalya’s Diablo 3 Mastery Guide

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Natalya’s Diablo 3 guide is pretty well written and detailed. It includes most of the stuff you’d find in Killerguide: guides on classes, equipment, spells and skill sets, runes, boss strategies, walkthroughs and leveling guides for all acts, Pve & PvP builds, gold making, and a couple of other chapters. They go into great detail explaining things, yet all of it is very easy to understand regardless of your previous experience with Diablo series.

Of course the guide also features free updates, which seem to be coming frequently, with new strategies being added often. Natalya’s guide is just as good as Killerguides and for a change it’s hard to decide which one is better: it’s just a matter of personal preference, so it’s up to you which one to get.

Download: Natalya’s Diablo 3 Mastery Guide

More guides will be reviewed shortly.

In Diablo III there are no attribute or skills points to improve your character. Instead when you gain levels you automatically unlock new skills and your class’ core attributes will increase. Spells automatically improve in strength with levels but most of the customization to them comes from applying Runestones.

Each class in Diablo 3 has over 20 different skills but can select only six on the maximum level. They are unlocked automatically and you gain a new one on nearly every level. By opening the skills window as displayed on the picture on the right you can see your skills and place runestones into them. In addition to active skills you will also have three different passive spells that offer additional benefits.

The active skills can be bound on your mouse or keyboard much like in an MMO game, and any of them can be swapped for other skills which opens up many new gameplay opportunities. At start you can only hotkey two skills, up to the maximum of six on the level cap.

If you get bored with using one set of skills, you can just replace them with others, and since all of them can be further improved with the use of runestones the amount of customization is really impressive, if not a bit overwhelming: one additional reason to get a leveling guide and learning the best skill/runestone combos for every class.

So to recap:

• There’s a total of 20 active skills for each class
• You start with 2 skills and later on end up with 6
• Skills are automatically learned with levels
• You can swap skills anytime
• There are no skill trees or specs like in Diablo II
• Skills are improved and customized with different effects via runestones
• You also have three passive skills

Leveling guides are typically used for MMORPG games, where leveling your characters is a big part of the game and staying ahead of other players, especially at game launch is really important. In essence Diablo 3 isn’t much different from your typical online RPG game.

There are thousands of players who have way more time than you do and if you want to stay competitive in this game, you will need some kind of an edge. The good thing is that Diablo III is still a new game and as such it lacks really useful informational guides beginner players could use to learn more about the game. However, that’s why there are several paid D3 leveling guides that will help you gain an advantage over other players.

Having such a useful leveling guide to show you exactly where you should go and how to maximize your character’s potential is extremely beneficial to being good in this game. If you want to start dominating other players online than knowing the exact strategies for boss fights, class vs. class tactics, equipment drops and more is essential.

Be sure to read up on all available Diablo leveling guides. All of them are or will be reviewed and compared against each other on this site, so make sure you read the reviews carefully and get the best one.