Hello I am kind of new to Diablo, played a little bit of D3 10 years ago but I recently bought D2R and its been pretty fun but for some reason Duriel just feels like a massive jump in difficulty for me. The dungeons in the magi valley were tough but doable but it almost feels as though as soon as I step into the room he just about 1 shots my follower and then I try to train him around the room or open a portal but he just destroys me. I’m really not sure what to do and I feel stuck. I have a sorceress with ice magic and I try to slow him but it does not seem to do much. Should I try to find better gear?
Duriel
Duriel is quite strong melee fighter with Holy freeze aura. If you want to increase your chances of surviving focus on Defense, High block chance and cold resistance. Cold resistance can be increased by drinking few Thawing potions. Before you go to Duriel Lair, drink thawing potions, prepare equip, mana/health/rejuvenation potions, hire and equip mercenary, then spam him with static field and finish him off with Ice Blast. Good tip for using Static field against boss is to buy staff or find orb with +Static Field skill so range of Static fild allows you to be out of boss melee range. Skill shrines do the trick also.
Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Duriel:
Duriel Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube
From my HC guide, might help
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What level are you? Yes, Duriel can be a nightmare for noobs. First off with a Sorc, please familiarize yourself with Static Field, it will be your main ability to take down chunks of life from any boss no matter what element you decide to go… you should also have a point in teleport so you can keep your distance…
Most people cheese him by using many pots, thawing potions can help, lots of TPs, lots of healing/reviving your a2 merc and most importantly kiting duriel. It will take a while to bring him down either way, you’re not going to find a way to take him out quickly…
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I would ask a frind to help with that fight. Makes sure you have an active open tp.
Right now I am level 23 and I have speced almost entirely into ice which perhaps was not a good idea. I tried the TP cheese but usually something goes wrong. I’ll def try and respec when I tried him again. As for the companion I have a lvl 23 desert merc with 348 defense and a lightning scythe.
Well at that level you definitely should be able to do some damage even without Static which you really do need…you can be full cold but in this game there are MANY skills that are considered essential for either 1 or a few points…for Sorcs it is Warmth, Static, Teleport and one of the cold shields…thunderstorm/energy shield/enchant depending on build…
If you go one more level, you should be able to get blizzard… as cold sorc, your choices are going to either be blizzard or frozen orb spec, so try to decide which to go because you won’t do enough damage later on if you try to do both. All the other cold spells are really just synergies to boost those 2.
Either way, you go in, create distance between yourself and duriel, your merc should draw his aggro, shoot a few times, TP back to town right before merc dies, heal at atma, go back and repeat…
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Thanks sm for the help, I’ll def try that out. I kind of thought I was stuck with just one tree which in hindsight is a little silly. I’ll respec and and try that. Also what’s a good sorceress weapon to use? I’ve been using a bow because it had three gem slots. I used the horadric staff thing for a while but I had to give it back
Well definitely not bow 
check my video in my previous message, you can see what to equip to comfortable kill him. Preferably use Orb+shield.
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Lol you need lots of help. Well you are generally supposed to focus on one tree, but like I said there are many one point wonders. Look up some builds, blizzard build vs frozen orb or if you want to dual spec, there are frozen orb/meteor builds, etc…
At level 24, sorcs are able to use Spirit runeword, that is considered essential in leveling up a new caster… you should also be using Stealth for your armor, also extremely essential leveling gear…
Merc has Malice and at 25, Strength as good runeword weapon options…
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Well I will definitely go try to find a wand and a shield and now stealth armour if I can lmao prob try and watch the video too.
No wands, find sorc orbs then when you get to cows, you can find a crystal sword and use larzuk to make it 4 OS then make Spirit in it or you can wait until nightmare for a 4 os sword to drop…
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Not entirely sure what you mean but I have a crystal sword and a few runes saved. I need one more strength for it. Tried duriel with the blizzard and got a little further. I think I have the TP cheese down too but I’ll try again later.
Items like crystal swords can get up to 6 sockets later on in the game but early on in normal, no item will drop with 4 or more sockets, at most they will drop with 3…until you reach norm cows, there if you find a white crystal sword with zero sockets, you can bring to larzuk in act 5 and he will give it the max sockets which will be 4 in this case since you found from norm cows. If you don’t, you’re forced to wait until nightmare to find a 4 os sword that drops…
Runewords like Spirit, Stealth, Strength, Malice, etc need SPECIFIC runes placed in the right order in the EXACT amount of sockets required in the CORRECT base (ie 2 rune helm runewords need exactly 2 socket helm)
Alright, the one I found was blue but I will be sure to keep an eye out for them
Guys, the OP is new to the game and he probably doesnt have good gear and from what I understand a build also, and you advice him to build items that from solo play he is not going to be able to till he hits 50 lvl… At the least. Lets help him with the essentials first ok?
Tell me this if you may: How you spend your skill points because I believe there is a problem there. A Sorc at that level should be able to kill duriel relative easy (if I did it without problem on the first try after 15 years…) Also for the record the bow is ok for finishing Normal but not for boss fights. You use it for the trash mobs to conserve mana.
Also do you play online or solo?
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Duriel and the ancients are absolutely brutal. I’m not a veteran D2 player so I still remember my first playthrough (after D2R release) that I decided to do on all 3 difficulty levels without cookie-cutters or other forms of external help to have an authentic experience. It was very different from completing the game as an experienced D2 player. At normal Duriel I didn’t even know that things like ridiculously powerful runewords exist. I compensated with a lot of playtime (levelling fairly slowly by farming at random locations) for my lack of experience and passed most bosses with a higher character level than an experienced player.
Since you are playing a cold build, then if you get just one extra level, you’ll probably be able to take blizzard, which should make the fight way easier. It deals a lot of damage, and is an area of effect spell that remains a certain amount of time. That should let you kite Duriel a lot better.
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Thanks for the suggestions, I can’t remember off the top of my head my skills but I have a few in the second armour skill a few in the second ice ball spell. Right now I am a solo player because I could not get my friends to buy the game when it was on sale. Unfortunately I already used my respec which I learned was a one time thing, I thought it would be like borderlands. I switched to a shield and some kind of wand. I unlocked the blizzard skill as well which seems to help. I was able to do the companion bait and town portal trick but I need more money to be able to hire him over and over.
You get 1 x PER difficulty. Maybe you aren’t aware coming from d3 especially if you didn’t play d3 at launch which actually was akin to d1/d2, but this game requires you to beat all 5 acts a total of 3 times, normal, nightmare and hell, each successive difficulty being much harder. In order to be able to find the best items in the game and complete your builds, you need to reach hell asap.
So with that in mind, you get a free respec once per difficulty but starting in hell, the bosses occasionally drop essences that can be combined to give you virtually infinite respecs as long as you keep finding those essences or you can always trade for the essence or respec tokens…
Familiarize yourself with:
https://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/
https://d2r.guide/
First site was considered best resource for d2 but since d2r is a little bit different, most notably new runewords and some new mechanics, not everything will be there. But the basics that it teaches players is still very relevant.
D2r guide is updated properly but doesn’t give too much basic info for noobs, more like cheatsheet for players.
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If you play solo, but your character is online, feel free to add me (immolator#2183) so I can throw a couple items your way if you want to help ease a bit with your progress. I have some spare sorceress items around your level that are gonna help somewhat.
Your skills should be somewhat like this: 1pt in icebolt, 1pt in warmth, 1pth in telekinisis, 1 pt in teleport and the rest in the cold tree: 1pt frozen armor and 1 pt in frost nova. From then on you unlock what you need to reach blizzard and start building that up till cold mastery unlocks. I specked my self one pt in bliz one pt in cold master interchangely, but I suspect you can do it what ever way you feel comfy with. When you cant lvl up one of these due to lvl restrictions throw pts into either glacial spike icebolt or iceblast (which ever suits your play style as a secondary to blizzard) but eventually you have to max these too as they synergize with blizzard.
In case you wonder (as most of us did at the start) "why the heck should I waste points into skills I will never level up (like warmth etc), the answer is: Because when you finish your build your gear is going to provide so many +to all skills they are going to be functional.
Another advice is familiarize yourself with teleport. Its one of your most important skills. It might be daunting right now because its a mana sponge and it might seem useless at first glance, but its one of your greatest weapons. You can dodge with it, you can move in very fast in farming areas and most importantly: You can reposition your stupid merc with it and save his @ss or make him focus on the enemies you need. Or unstuck him.
On a sidenote: I know act2 merc is where its at, but again for me, up to the point of having that infinity polearm, I find more use with the bow girls from act1. The act2 mercs are the most utilitarian true, but before infinity kicks in and before you go to hell difficulty ranged support IMHO (and I cant stress this enough) is more needed to the sorc than a tank.
EDIT: In case you consider swapping mercs: Resurrect your dead one and remove his/her gear less you lose it and then swap him/her. Also in case you dont know: Ethereal items have better stats, but ofc they break overtime unless they have the autorepair enchantment. Mercs though are not gonna break them ever, so if you find something good in ethereal form, deck your merc with it. Also Sorc is good with ethereal weapons since most of the time she wont hit with them, ergo wont break them. Likewise you can get good use out of ethereal armors/shields etc because in theory you wont get hit…much…
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