Can I Beat Duriel?

General Discussion
1

I am a level 23 Sorceress and I want to know what you think my chances are for beating Duriel.

I tried with a level 28 Sorceress and died pretty fast. I spent over an hour trying to loot my corpse without success, came to the decision that looting it was not possible and ended up deleting the character (even though she had two very nice items) and starting my present one.

I really, really, really don’t want to do that again. If I am most likely to die again I would rather spend my time leveling up to increase my damage output and trying to get better gear. I have better gear this time since I have farmed most of my gear from Andariel and can also go back and try to improve my gear further by beating her again. I have probably killed her around 30 times if not more and she is actually quite easy since I can move around and defeat all the other mobs and then bring her out where I can fight her solo. I think I died just once in all my attempts to beat her and I was level 17 or 18 then. She would be cake now.

What follows is a list of some of my gear and my stats.

Defense 184
Stamina 212 (this doesn’t really matter does it)
Life 274
Mana 99 (I have 0 skill points in mana recovery

Resistances (do these make any difference since Duriel is just melee?)

Fire 28
Cold 75
Lightning 24
Poison 18

Strength 38
Dexterity 25
Vitality 106
Energy 45

Fire Bolt Damage 74-99 (20 skill points)
Fire Ball Damage 96-138 (4 skill points) (Should I spam this when attacking him)

When I first enter his chamber should I run to the wall and cast a return portal to have a greater chance of being able to loot my corpse? (This takes time away from attacking him and I can open one up before I enter his chamber). In my failed attempt I died right next to him which made recovering my corpse virtually impossible and resulting in my deleting the character.

(When fighting Andariel I would have two heal potions, one mana potion, and one anecdote potion on my task bar all of which I would use immediately before attacking her. Would 3 heal potions and one mana potion be best for Duriel? Or two heals and two manas?

Gear:

I have Gorefoot Heavy Boots which increase my run 20% and attacker takes two damage. (Does he take this two damage with spells or do I have to use a melee atk for this benefit?) The casting speed of my weapon is very fast.

I have three items which increase my probability for getting magic items: Gloves (defense 9), Helm (defense 17), and a ring.

Since I don’t get any magic items if I die, I can replace these items with others that will increase the probability of my defeating him. If I can defeat him, then I believe I would have much better options for improving my gear after I have killed him so perhaps replacing all these magic generating items should be replaced.

Any suggestions you have would be appreciated.

Thank you for your help.

2

Use Static Field and you can beat him real quick.

And one more thing, if you are not confident that you can successfully loot your corpse, press save and exit and you can find it in the town. Important note: don’t equip any other items until you got your corpse back.

3 Likes
3

Oh this is a nasty fight.
You’re right; duriel is melee.
But he also has a freeze aura that pumps his melee up with cold damage, as well as pulsing AOE cold damage to everyone around him.

He has about 4,000 hit points in normal difficulty and 20 fire resistance. You’ll need to hit him with 36 of those fireballs to drop him.

As someone else mentioned, static field deals % damage, and would be a quick way to get him to 50% (can’t lower further than that with static field)

I Guess the best advice I can give is to hire an act 2 merc and use him as a meat shield. Buy a bunch of thawing potions, and feed them to him before the fight. They’ll temporarily boost his cold resistance.
The duration is short, but it stacks, so feed him a few to make it longer. Let duriel aggro him as you use heal potions on your merc, and blast duriel with fireballs. Make sure you keep a portal up for a quick escape. You’ll likely need to revive your merc a few times.

I have heard of a strategy using firewall and teleport. You just let him run thru your firewalls, and teleport back and forth. Haven’t tried it tho.

Best of luck! Hope someone else has more ideas I’m not thinking of! :slight_smile:
This is a notoriously difficult fight and commonly regarded as the hardest boss fight of normal difficulty.

EDIT: rejuvenation potions can be found off enemies and stored for the really hard bosses like this.
The small ones instantly heal mana and health by 33%, and the large ones instantly heal everything to full. They do the same for your merc too.

1 Like
4

Leaf and Stealth runewords are your true friends. Try to find a grey staff that has 2 or 3 fireball in it and of course 2 sockets. You can get the runes from Countess. Have mana potions in your belt and when you enter his chamber dont release right mouse button. :slight_smile:
Btw, I would respec to full fireball, so its damage would be above 200 on that level.

1 Like
5

since this isn’t Hell difficulty you can use SF to get Duriel to a sliver of life.

35%

As Kuz said, the staff needs to be grey, not blue. Runewords don’t work in magic items.

Respec. Never ever max a synergy before the main skill. (SOme exceptions exist, e.g. find potion for magic find or bash if using double swing if AR not needed).
It’s a nasty fight, problem is your build though.

If you play online, you can ask for help - just create a nonpassword-protected game called needhelpduriel or some such and someone will likely come.
Nosuch luck if playing offline. :frowning:

Add a level or two if you still struggle. A few levels can make a huge difference.
Lvl 28 should’ve been plenty enough though. I fear the problem mighta been your build as well. Remember your spec?

1 Like
6

Thank you for your posts everyone! Much good info here and lots of stuff I know nothing about yet. I know nothing about hiring Mercenaries and will research that. I didn’t even realize rejuvenation potions are instant and will stock up on the highest level of those I can find. How does finding a weapon with “2 or 3 fireball in it” work. Does it add 2 or 3 skill to that skill? I will level up until I have 200 fireball damage before I try the fight. “Never ever max a synergy before the main skill”. What does this mean? What is a synergy?

7

look here what that streamer is doing in general: Let's Play Diablo 2 - Sorceress NORMAL Difficulty Guided Playthrough - YouTube

8

Fireball is a good skill even in late game, so that is a main skill. If you look at its description you will see at the bottom that fire bolt increases its damage by x%, it makes fire bolt a “synergy”.

You can buy one hireling at a time from certain people in each towns. Walk around and you will find them. Just dont forget, that if you equip items on your merc and then you buy a different one and dont take off his gear, you will loose those items.

If you need help with build, do not ever look at videos where the character is already lvl90+. Most “influencer” use god-level items to show if a character is strong or not and those gears are not something you will ever see and also their playstyle is completely different to a playthrough playstyle. Instead, watch full playthroughs where the player starts at lvl1, so you will see the progress and will hear useful tips (Zakrol already linked one).

9

My Merc is a rogue and has the following stats:

Life 216
Str 58
Dex 83
Damage 41-66
Defense 286

Her armor has 95 defense and attacker takes 1 damage

Her weapon is the Plague Harp Long Bow with 3 -12 damage, adds 1-6 lightning damage and +27 poison damage over 5 seconds. Is this an okay weapon for her to use?

10

On the long run it is better to use act 2 mercenary. Watch the playthrough that Zakrol linked.

11

agreed, watch play through, drink lots of thawing pots (both you and merc), and I would switch the merc to a Act 2 Might if avail. Revive as needed, static fast and many times, when I first did duriel I bet I died 10-20 times, but it does work doing the above

12

Which of these two weapons is better?

I have a “Blood Crescent Scimitar” and a “Plague Song Sacred Globe”. Since my damage is the same with either one, I have been using the Scimitar because of its Very Fast Attack Speed and because it offers better resistances.

The Globe adds Level 1 Fireball (17/33 charges), and hits cause monsters to flee 50%.

Is the Globe the better weapon? What does the 17/33 charges mean?

I have watched some of the video that Zakrol posted. I have significant hearing loss so it is hard for me to follow what the guide person says. But I noted that rather than putting all the stat points he could into vitality he spreads half into energy, 46/44 respectively at one point.

I thought it was better to put all the points into vitality, which everyone all the time everywhere recommends for every character. Is this not correct? Do the advantages of increased mana make the 46/44 spread a better alternative for a Sorceress?

At this point I am considering just starting out with a new Sorceress and emphasizing Lightning rather than fire so I can use Static Field. It would only take me a few days to get her up to level 24 and perhaps then I would have a better chance of killing Duriel. I have already used up my first skills reset option with my current Sorceress as well as the option to improve any non-magic weapon that one of the NPC’s in Act I provides.

It is just amazing how hooked I am on this game. I even played Diablo IV for an hour or two earlier today but would rather play this game. It is similar to the Paradox games in that it takes a long time to figure out how to play successfully, which is a lot of what makes it so appealing to me.

1 Like
13

Sorry you are just not good enough at the game to progress past a2. Remake your char again for practice.

1 Like
14

Reaching lvl 2x is pretty quick, so you did not loose much. My advice is go for Fireball when you can. When you cant add 1 point to Warmth, 1 to Static Field, 1 to Telekinesis and Teleport.

I personally think that one of the easiest build (especially for beginners) is the Frozen Orb/Hydra dual spec, but for Normal and up to the first half of Nightmare fire skills alone are good enough. I usually respec around lvl 30-35 when I can start using Frozen Orb and Hydra, after all they will become the main skills, so you need different skill point allocation than sub-lvl30.

I still think you need to spend some time to buy a 2 socket staff that has 2-3 points of Fireball (Warmth, Static are also useful next to it, but they significantly increase the buying price, too). They cost about 25-35k gold, or up to 50-60k if they have other skills in them, so pick up all the golds and sell a lot of stuffs if this is the first character you have, plus only put gold in the shared stash, so if you die you wont loose much gold from your private stash. You can buy the staff from either Acara in Act 1 or Droghnan in Act 2. Best to go for it at lvl 11, because Fireball is a lvl12 skill so the staff will be red (indicating you cant use it yet), so instead of checking all staffs you only need to check the red ones. :slight_smile:

When you have the staff, you can make the Leaf runeword in it (google it :wink: ) that will boost your fire damage by a ton starting from lvl 19.

Keep an eye on 2 socketed, non ethereal grey armors, too, because at lvl 17 you can make the Stealth runeword in them, that will be useful even in early Hell (although if you are lucky you can change it around mid/late Nightmare).

For boots I tend to go for faster run walk (the higher the better).

Gloves/belts for usually resists and stats, plus the belt should have 4x4 slots, but it requires you to have 60 str.

For rings and amulet usually faster cast rate, mana and resists.

I tend to pick up 2 socket helms and 2 or 3 socket armors and put sapphires into them, because they give quite a lot of extra mana (2 socket helm with just 2 chipped sapphire gives you +20 mana, that is basically like getting 2 extra levels and only putting stat into Energy as 1 pt on Energy gives you +2 mana).

If you can find items (except the Stealth and Leaf slots) that give you “mana afer each kill” that is also a really good option early on, because if you can cast even 1 additional Fireball it is a huge difference.

As for gold, pick up all and feel free to fill up your inventory with mana potions. I tend to use the first belt slot for health potions, the 2nd and 3rd for mana and the 4th one for rejus, plus putting a scroll of town portal on the top of my 4th slot, so I dont have to sacrifice 1 inventory slot that I can otherwise use for adding one more small charm. :slight_smile:

Ohh, yes, charms! Pick up all and keep the ones that give you life, mana and resists. Later on, when you have the Cube, keep the cube in your inventory, because it only uses 4 inventory spaces, but gives you 12, so if you want to take a few things home for selling, you can put them into the cube.

One more important thing: dont try to “save” mana potions for later. Use them all the time, otherwise you will always find yourself empty on mana and get killed all the time. If you absolutely ran out of them, teleport home, fill up the inventory (dont mind how much they cost, because actually they are quite cheap, especially when you have “extra gold from monsters” items of charms), replace the used scroll of town portal in your belt and join back the fight. As Raxxanterax once said in a Diablo 3 video regarding how to level up fast: “Town is lava”. :smiley: Just kill the s**t out of all the mobs out there. Keep an eye on how much experience you get from killing. If not enough, then move to the next area. If the exp is good (like in Tristram around lvl 6-9, or the Countess around lvl12) keep on replaying that area. One of the easiest way to decide if the area is good is to kill an elite group and see how much your experience indicator moved, so you dont have to ask “I am at lvl X, where should I farm…?” questions.

For stat pts, I usually go for vitality and only go for the 60 str at lvl25+. Defense does not help you much, so it is pointless to go for high defense armors. A simple cloth armor is just as good as an archon plate defense-wise. To get more mana, use sapphires as I mentioned above.
In items, what you look for are stats, resists and those skills that you use. Attack rating or “monsters flee” things are not useful for you, because you are a caster. These are interesting stats for melee characters.

I hope these helps!

+1: if you are lucky and have all the items you need, but maybe did not find a good belt or gloves, or just want to upgrade, you can always spend your gold for gambling. Quite a few times you can get rare items and if you are even just a little lucky, you can get a very nice item. Yes, it might cost a lot of gold, but sometimes you dont really need much gold (especially after you bought the staff for Leaf runeword) and the extra boost from the gambled item can help you to be even more powerful, thus you can farm faster and get the gold back in no time.

1 Like
15

Add 1 pt to frost nova, try getting Stealth armor if u don’t already, try to get more fcr if you can hit a breakpoint. Cast frost nova to slow him down and use static to drain his life, usually a higher level static between 6-10 if you’re running Nova or maybe staff mods can help on weapon swap. Also act2 merc for a meat shield.

1 Like
16

Chug a bunch of thawing potions right before battling Duriel. Each potion adds +50 cold resistance and raises your max cold resist by +10% for a duration of 30 seconds. Drinking multiple thawing potions results in a stacked duration. For example: Drinking 4 thawing potions will result in a two minute duration. This trick also works with your mercenary. Doing this will wimpify Duriels damage, since a decent portion of Duriels total damage comes from the additional cold damage added from the Holy Freeze aura.

The duration stacking trick also works with antidote and stamina potions.

“There’s nothing the right potion can’t cure.” -Lysander, Lut Gholein

1 Like
17

Again, lots of good info here. Mrcnorth, you said you “died 10 -20 times” fighting Duriel. Were you able to loot your corpse successfully each time you died? Where did you set up a portal? Did you ever have to do a save and quit just before you died?

I had to laugh at your post HungryJ. And yes, I may well have to start out again with a new character a few more times before I successfully kill Duriel, but I have already learned a lot with this thread and am (cautiously) optimistic I might defeat him the next time I try.

Kuz, I do have around 500k gold saved up and am going to gamble a bit for a better belt and gloves.

TheDarkJedi, I did not know that potions stack with each one adding 30 seconds. I will definitely drink a bunch and feed my Merc too just before I enter Duriel’s chamber on my next attempt.

Thank again everyone!!

18

If you still have trouble, do a bit of farming in the various areas to collect a bunch of rejuvenation potions. No need to cube them up for full rejuves, the regular ones are fine. Fill your belt with them, keeping one column for mana potions if you need them. Feed your merc rejuve potions when they get down to 50% health or below to keep your Merc meat shield alive. Also keep another belts worth of rejuve and mana potions in your inventory, and fight Duriel with your inventory window open that way you have quick access to your additional potions. You can shift+click the potions in your inventory to move them to your belt.

Here’s another path to get regular rejuvenation potions by using the cube:
3 Health Potions + 3 Mana Potions + 1 Chipped Gem = 1 Rejuvenation Potion
Use this formula if you are in need of instant healing and/or mana. Any grade of Health/Mana Potion can be used. You can also use chipped skulls.|

19

All you really need to do is TP from the bottom left corner to the top right corner over and over, usually takes 2 teles. Keep a portal open at corner, and never go through it unless you baited him to the opposite corner. After first TP static once. Keep doing that until he’s low, go back to town to fix the pots in your belt, and when he gets low finish him with w/e.

As a sorc he really shouldn’t even hit you.

20

Duriel is a bit of a special case. The easy way is to use Blaze, all you need is a staff with +1 to Blaze.

First major tip though: Cast a Town Portal right before you go in to the room. Then you can also cast another one inside the room itself. If you do, then you can exit when you merc dies and resurrect him and then go back, stuff like that.

With an Act 2 mercenary, just run in, let the merc tank him. Get next to Duriel, spam Static Field. Feed potions to the Merc to try to keep him alive.

Use Blaze, run around. Hit him with Fireball when you get the chance, but if not just use Blaze.

But really it matters how you are playing the game. Most videos don’t really go over this.

Are you using Instant Cast? Its a setting. Its not default so you have to set it.

Do you have a gaming mouse or mouse with more than 2 buttons? Can be very helpful.

Do you have all the skills you need bound and do you use proper hotkeys for them?

You can’t scroll through the boxes, that’s not nearly efficient enough. You need to hotkey all of the skills you use, which for a Sorc should really only be about 4 or 5.

Like for a Fire Sorc at this level you could have something like Fireball on left-click, teleport on right-click. Static field hotkeyed to Z. Town Portal hotkeyed to maybe F8 or something. And that would be pretty much all you need.

You can also use teleport hotkeyed to Z, Static Field to X, Fireball on right-click, since if you spec into Frozen Orb+Fire you’ll probably want Orb on left-click and Hydra or Fireball on right click.

1 Like