Should I start over?

[Der Kunstler]

Should I start over?

I'm a newbie playing my first game as a Barb. I appeared in front of Duriel in his lair for the first time - not knowing what to expect - he was instantly in my face and froze me and then killed my merc and I immediately. I then kept trying to go back to get my body and he was always right there on me before I could even get my bearings. I'm wasn't even fast enough to run from him. There's now about six of my bodies laying around him and I have no decent weapons anymore - they are all in his lair. Should I just give up and start over? I have a level 24 barb. I got this far mainly by throwing ranged weapons - axes and javelins. That won't work with him because he runs right up in your face and there is nowhere to retreat and throw. He freezes you so you can't run anyway. Any advice from you veterans? I have bash, double swing, double throw. Howl doesn't seem to scare him at all - he just stays right in my face pounding away. I don't think I've hurt him at all. I've read the other posts on this but any info for my specific situation would be great.

 

[Luckymofo]

you need life leech( or if you got some, get more. sigons is perfect for your lvl) and better melee type weapons like swords and stuff. Also, lvl up your merc to your lvl if you can and give me a decent dmg spear with life leech. (again, sigon armor and helm will give him 10% life leech). bring lots of health pots and rejuv pots. Eventually, you will win.

Or, if you are playing on bnet, make a sorc and make her your mf char. You can get her past most acts easily.

Good luck...

 

[Der Kunstler]

you need life leech( or if you got some, get more. sigons is perfect for your lvl) and better melee type weapons like swords and stuff. Also, lvl up your merc to your lvl if you can and give me a decent dmg spear with life leech. (again, sigon armor and helm will give him 10% life leech). bring lots of health pots and rejuv pots. Eventually, you will win.

Or, if you are playing on bnet, make a sorc and make her your mf char. You can get her past most acts easily.

Good luck...

Thanks - what is "sigon"?

 

[Tarantella]

............ Howl doesn't seem to scare him at all - he just stays right in my face pounding away................

Believe me, howl wont work against Mephisto,Diablo and Baal either.

 

[BigBadBrett]

Sigons are set items. (Green) if your West Ladder or not I'll give you the set.
Whisper (type) /w *ziggystardust and leave a message.

 

[Diab]

Level up a bit more, up to level 30 at least. As with all relatively high-life opponents, like bosses, Crushing Blow is a very useful mod that could hurt him a lot.

As for skills, double swing would probably work best agaisnt him, if you can stand up to his attacks. Put at least a single point into Shout and Battle Orders. That'll help you survive much better. Have good potions ready in your belt before you face him. If you still can't stand up to him, use a shield with an attack like Bash or Concentrate, if you have that.

Here's some info and more tips about Duriel:
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-duriel.shtml

Here's the Sigon's set that Luckymofo was talking about:
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/sets3.shtml#sigons
It is indeed a very nice set for low-level characters like yourself.


Edit: One more thing, since he freezes you, you won't be able to run away too fast anyways. So, if you need to move away from him, walk. Running makes your defense drop to zero, even though it doesn't show this on the character screen, and will make him be able to hit you even more.

 

[Der Kunstler]

Level up a bit more, up to level 30 at least. As with all relatively high-life opponents, like bosses, Crushing Blow is a very useful mod that could hurt him a lot.

As for skills, double swing would probably work best agaisnt him, if you can stand up to his attacks. Put at least a single point into Shout and Battle Orders. That'll help you survive much better. Have good potions ready in your belt before you face him. If you still can't stand up to him, use a shield with an attack like Bash or Concentrate, if you have that.

Here's some info and more tips about Duriel:
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-duriel.shtml

Here's the Sigon's set that Luckymofo was talking about:
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/sets3.shtml#sigons
It is indeed a very nice set for low-level characters like yourself.


Edit: One more thing, since he freezes you, you won't be able to run away too fast anyways. So, if you need to move away from him, walk. Running makes your defense drop to zero, even though it doesn't show this on the character screen, and will make him be able to hit you even more.

Thanks - so this Sigon's set is just lying around in pieces in different places? I've never seen a piece of this set. do you have to go into secret rooms or something?

 

[logger120]

Thanks - so this Sigon's set is just lying around in pieces in different places? I've never seen a piece of this set. do you have to go into secret rooms or something?

yes it is in seperate pieces. no secert rooms necessary. what you need is a special little magic property called magic find (given in %) which increases your character's ability to find magic/rare/set/unique items. For info on magic find check out this nice guide to magic find http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-guides/magic-find.shtml#intro by flux. You could also check out http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/ which will give you a great overview of the game. As you can see people are more than willing to help the newbies out, so if you have an internet connection get on an open battlenet realm and make a couple friends, i'd be willing to bet you can get some nice hand-me-downs like sigons set. for info on bnet check the link above to the arreat summit and check out basics sidebar.

 

[Luckymofo]

if you're on useast ladder softcore, i got low lvl free stuff for ya including the
''fabled'' sigon lol...

 

[Diab]

As logger120 said, magic find (x% chance to find magical items) will help you find this set and other good items. Try putting on some magic find (MF) and killing an act boss like Andariel, or even better, Mephisto, over and over again. That should get you some useful items quickly.

Topazes give MF when placed in armors and helms, and there are a number of easily found uniques and sets which also give this mod.

 

[Der Kunstler]

Thanks for the good info - I've never tried battle.net yet and have a feeling I won't for some time - I'm just getting my toes wet with single player. I have a feeling I'd get steamrolled in multi-player - I don't understand half of what you guys are talking about! :lol:

 

[Diab]

Thanks for the good info - I've never tried battle.net yet and have a feeling I won't for some time - I'm just getting my toes wet with single player. I have a feeling I'd get steamrolled in multi-player - I don't understand half of what you guys are talking about! :lol:

If you get on battlenet, I'm sure a lot of people will be willing to help you out, with items, advice, and help doing the quests. Duriel will be much easier with several players, instead of just one.

Just so you know, there's a singleplayer forum and a singleplayer trading forum here.

 

[Elgar]

I'm a newbie playing my first game as a Barb. I appeared in front of Duriel in his lair for the first time - not knowing what to expect - he was instantly in my face and froze me and then killed my merc and I immediately. I then kept trying to go back to get my body and he was always right there on me before I could even get my bearings. I'm wasn't even fast enough to run from him. There's now about six of my bodies laying around him and I have no decent weapons anymore - they are all in his lair. Should I just give up and start over? I have a level 24 barb. I got this far mainly by throwing ranged weapons - axes and javelins. That won't work with him because he runs right up in your face and there is nowhere to retreat and throw. He freezes you so you can't run anyway. Any advice from you veterans? I have bash, double swing, double throw. Howl doesn't seem to scare him at all - he just stays right in my face pounding away. I don't think I've hurt him at all. I've read the other posts on this but any info for my specific situation would be great.

First, If you die, then exit the game, when you come back the body with the most wealth (dependant on NPC sell prices) will be in town for you to pick up.

second, gear against Duriel. Try to get these mods on your character: life leech, crushing blow, cold damage, and high % to block on your shield. crushing blow may be hard to find, but the others shouldnt.

third, potions. As a barb, the healing potions give a lot of life. You should have at least one row (i recommend 2) in your belt of the greatest you can find (greater or normal?) the other rows should be full rejuvs. You make a full rejuv by cubing 3 regular rejuvs.
Strategy with the potions is as follows: when fighting duriel when your life is about half drink a red. Red and blue potions work "in the background". basically red potions heal their stated health over 5 seconds. Often times the stated healing is greater than what you have, but if you dont hit full helath the potions will still heal. For example, you have 200/400 life and drink a 360 healing potion. then you are hit once a second for 5 seconds for 50 damage each. you will end up having 310 life after the last hit. Purples (rejuvs and full rejuvs) are instantaneous, and thus are often not as useful to barbs early in the game. However, they are very useful for emergencies because they dont heal over time. Also, before fighting duriel drink a thawing potion. This will raise your cold resistance, which will reduce the damage duriel does. It will not help with the freezing however.

fourth, fighting duriel. Immediately on entering duriels chamber, pop a town portal. Run through it when you need to refresh potions, reserect merc, etc. Then run back throught the tomb so that tp is still there. I would melee, using bash (you could use double swing) I would recommend concentrate, but it seems you are going the throw barb route, so that might be a waste of a skill point. If you use bash (or concentrate), use a 1h and a good to block shield. Howl dows not work on bosses.

fifth, at this point youd want a defience merc (hire one in act 2, defensive). HIs aura will raise your defense making it harder for duriel to hit you. He also gives you a little bit of a buffer. if you need to run away. Youll want him to have a decent level, so try running him through act 1 (again) or through some of the "untrue" tombs in act 2.

 

[GIR]

Since you're going the throwing route it seems, what you really need against Duriel is Faster Run/Walk, since the idea of being able to throw something is to do it from a distance. I'd advise making new games with your character and killing Andariel each time. If you can find some gear with Magic Find, then all the better. Most Unique boots at your level will have some Faster Run/Walk on them. Looking at the Arreat Summit, there's 4 choices I think. First, is Gorefoots, which have 20% Faster Run/Walk, and also will give your Barbarian +2 to Leap, which could also be useful for staying away from Duriel. Second are the Treads of Cthon, these have 30% Faster Run/Walk, and also give you +10 to Life. Next are Tearhaunch, which I think would be your best bet. 20% Faster Run/Walk on them, so they're a bit slower than the Tearhaunch, but they also give you +10 to all Resistances, adds 35 to Defense, along with a +5 bonus to both Strength and Dexterity. While the Tearhaunch would be my choice if I could pick, if you can find any of the mentioned ones, they'll do fine. I just took out Duriel with by Bow Amazon. It took a little bit of time and running, but he went down without killing me once. I believe I was level 22. My main equipment was two Runewords, Stealth [Armor] and Zephyr. [Bow] A charm with Cold damage will help you a good deal too, since it will slow down his movements and attacks.

Now, people have been mentioning Crushing Blow, which is good advice too, though hard to get at your level. You can get some on boots by finding the unique Goblin Toe boots, but while they have 25% Crushing Blow, they have no Faster Run/Walk, so that would be a trade-off.

Also, there's two Runewords that could help, that should be within your means to make. If you feel like it, if you decide to make new games for the purpose of killing Andariel, you might also want to kill the Countess afterwards to get yourself a few Runes. The first one is called Stealth, which you can make in a two socketed armor. The required Runes are Tal and Eth. Stats that will be useful to you on this will be 25% Faster Run/Walk, 25% Faster Hit Recovery [which means you'll be able to attack back quicker after Duriel hits you] and +6 to Dexterity, which helps increase your chance to hit him, and also will probably give you a slight boost to your Defense.

If you decide it better to stand toe to toe with Duriel, if you can find the Runes Amn and Tir, you can make the Runeword Strength, which can be made in a 2 socketed Melee weapon. Almost every mod on this will be useful for you: 35% Enhanced Damage, 25% Chance of Crushing Blow, 7% Life Stolen per Hit, +20 to Strength, and +10 to Vitality.

 

[gorash]

i dont think you can find a amn so early on in the game.

 

[Diab]

i dont think you can find a amn so early on in the game.

Low runes like those can be easily found by running the Countess a few times.

 

[gorash]

the first amn rune i ever got was from act v when i did the barb quest. Guess i dont know much when i start. Everytime when i do the countess run or quest, i always get eth, or ith runes.

 

[GIR]

i dont think you can find a amn so early on in the game.

Well, if nothing else he could potentially Cube one up from the lower Runes.