Best class to face off against duriel

[Mr.Freel]

I've had difficulty facing him as practically every melee character I've ever created, but found that he was insanely easy as a summoner necro. I actually felt that in hell, with max smelly mastery and raise skeleton in combination with revive, that he was easier. Does anyone else feel this way about facing him with any other characters?

 

[pharphis]

NM and hell bosses are usually much easier for chars because not only do you have more mobility or leech if caster (or melee) but you have all of your spells available.

WRT summoners... bosses in hell barely if ever kill your minions because they have enough life and regen and enough of them that they can regen before being hit enough.

If you're struggling with duriel as melee (presumably in normal) try chugging a handful of thawing potions in advance as it boosts your cold res and a large enough portion of his dmg is cold in normal

 

[japanzaman]

As a summoner you also have those nice little curses like Decrepify to counter Duriel's holy freeze aura. If your Merc is using Reaper's Toll and Holy Freeze, most bosses are rather harmless for a decently outfitted character.

 

[Loot Skywalker]

Much agree with pharphis. Duriel only poses a problem for me in normal, and I can usually counter it stacking thawing potions for both me and merc.

 

[krischan]

Duriel from normal mode might be a bit painful for ranged characters because minions like valk usually aren't available at that point (assumming character level 15-20). It can be particularly annoying for zons, as sorcs still have static field (which can bring monsters down to a sliver in normal mode), so they can apply a hit and run tactics (or static-die-TP-static-die one).

Try putting on Sigon's gloves and helm (or as much as possible from that set) and 2 Angelic rings plus the amulet and perhaps the sabre as well (although I prefer Civerb's Cudgel or Cleglaw's sword) and enter melee. Two items from the Death Set are probably even better, preferable the sash and the gloves.

Thawing potions and "can't be frozen" (from the sash of the Death set, for example) help versus slowing from Duriel's cold attack, but it won't help against his holy frost aura. Only attack speed does.

Edit: Typos.

 

[mogar]

For all my barbs that fight duriel, a 1 point concentrate works wonders. You may swing slower than you like, but he can't interrupt your attack so he goes down pretty quick for me. All my melee chars in normal tend to use the same gear too (3-piece sigons, 2-piece angelics, cleglaw sword/shield, and twitchthroe) so they get a nice IAS boost. With zons, charged strike takes him down plenty fast on any difficulty.

 

[Dazliare]

I use the following strategy on every one of my characters, and it makes Duriel a piece of cake.

Equip a high blocking shield. Steelclash is my go to. Sigon's would work too. Last resort you can buy a sturdy bone shield of deflecting from Drognan
Use twitchtrow if you have it. If not, any armor with extra life will help.
Give you and your merc a thawing potion.
You tank Duriel. Attack if you can, but the goal is to let your mercenary deal as much uninterrupted damage as possible without dying.

Drink potions as you need them, and just let the mercenary do the work.

Mercenaries aren't a high enough level, and good enough gear isn't available yet, so they can't tank Duriel. Having the player tank makes things a lot easier.

 

[krischan]

I forgot: If your strategy involves dying a couple of times or just bears the risk of that, drop your gold in town, else you would lose a part of it with each death... and you might need a bit gold to buy new potions, TP scrolls, arrows or so.

 

[Mr.Freel]

yeah, what I usually do as melee is run behind him while my merc distracts him, whale on him, and run when the merc dies. When he is near death, we slug it out face to face. The easy thing about duriel as necro is that while his melee damage is high, he doesn't actually do a lot of cold damage, so he has to kill your guys one at a time, which is impossible for him if your'e using cold immune revives, or if he decides he has a bone to pick with your Golem

 

[BobCox2]

What's Easy?
Play smart and any type can beat him easy.

Let George Do it or the other way

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

Yeah, I just played NM Duriel with my Frost Zealot yesterday and I probably could have done it without a single potion. (I think I used 1 or 2 just to be safe. I always die because of being cocky.) Holy Freeze + Life Leech + Max Block + 82 CR makes it pretty easy to just go toe-to-toe with him. We’ll see if it’s so easy on Hell mode, though.

 

[RealmOftheWolf]

Melee - I always preferred using merc as a distraction while I circle round and take him up the rear.

Caster - Same as above except fire from afar.

EDIT
Noticed......something dodgy about my post.....have not corrected it but law enforcement are now keeping watch.......