Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Well, unless you are in the neighborhood of level 73, maybe you should be. You see, this Big Bad Wolf can do between 4,142 and 5,857 damage per shot, has 379,400 hit points and in addition to its wide swipe, has a terrifying howl that causes enemies to flee for three seconds.

No, this is not your childhood fairytale variety of the Big Bad Wolf, but rather one of the mobs you might face in World of Warcraft. 

BradyGames has released a guide to the monsters inhabiting the lands of World of Warcraft with the World of Warcraft Bestiary publication. From 7:XT and Abominations to ZZarc’Vul, the guide breaks down the monsters and gives users of the guide detailed information on the beasts which includes level, damage, hit points, mana, armor and heroic attacks they might have. There are more than 6,000 monsters listed here, though not all are individually marked. Some of the denizens, like bears for example, have one entry with 37 sub-heads for the different species.

Each entry comes with a picture of the mob, and the statistical details as well as special attack capabilities. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order for ease of use, and there is an index in the back to help quickly locate the page a specific monster might be on.

This 400-page guide is published on the same glossy stock that BradyGames uses for all their guides, making for not only a handy resource, but also a highly collectible publication.

Of course the guide could have been arranged in a variety of ways – by player/mob level, or even by region, but this would have made the guide a little more convoluted and tougher to follow. As it is, the alphabetical arrangement makes it somewhat easier to follow – though adding a sub-category to each entry detailing where the beast might be found would have been nice. In that way if you were looking for a specific beast you would know roughly where it was at.

About the only other drawback to the guide would come in terms of use while in the game. You might be venturing into an area, but chances are you won’t have time to look up the stats on a monsters if you round a corner and are suddenly engaged in combat with it. Still, if scouting and scrolling through the mobs in a specific area, the guide should allow players some idea of what they are up against.

In the end, what the Bestiary provides is a resource (in terms of a reference catalog) that should be of value to WoW players. Does it go far enough as a player guide? No. Some guides detail resists and what type of damage some monsters are susceptible to. The BradyGames guide does not go that far and thus cannot be truly considered a player guide book. Without that information, this is a reference manual but it is also a very nice WoW collectible.

Pros:
It gives strong surface details on all the mobs in WoW. The publication is printed on high-gloss stock and should be a nice reference manual.

Cons:
It does not go far enough as a guide in terms of outlining mob resists and susceptible damage types. It could have been cross-referenced by level or region, but it is understandable that to do so would have created a monster of a publication what would have outsized a Baseball Almanac.

Overall: 8.0
A nice reference resource, but not overly applicable as a guide to surviving against the monster types. Players will be able to see what they are up against, but this will happen after they have seen the enemy. If you are already engaged with the monster, this guide’s usefulness is non-existent.