Diablo 4 has knocked it out of the park with its compelling story and interesting bosses. As players reach the final moments of the game, the stakes keep getting higher. While fighting their way through Caldeum, players will get separated from Neyrelle, Lorath, and Donan. To catch up, you'll need to go through the sewers - where you'll encounter Duriel.
Duriel is the last major boss before players enter Hell, and boy is he a doozy. You can expect high damage, difficult terrain, and several disabling mechanics from this boss. However, knowledge is power - here's what you need to know.
Duriel, Lord Of Pain Explained
There are three phases to the Duriel fight. While Duriel doesn't appear to gain new attacks in subsequent phases, the combination of higher damage numbers and the increasingly difficult terrain from his burrowing will make the fight more difficult as it goes on. To keep the number of craters in the arena low, players should try to push through the first two phases as quickly as possible.
Duriel has a stagger bar that, if filled, gives you 12 seconds to unleash on him. Fill the bar by hitting him with abilities that have a crowd-control effect.
To see your current progress toward staggering a boss, look at the bar just under the health bar on the top of your screen.
Preparing For The Fight
As with most boss fights, it pays to upgrade your armor and repair your gear if you are having trouble beating Duriel. However, there are a couple more things you might be overlooking.
Timing
Keep in mind that Duriel is one of the last big bosses before you fight Lilith. Even though level-syncing is a big part of Diablo 4, it isn't perfect. Overleveling for main story content can make things much harder than intended, while going too soon can have a similar effect (due to not having all your ability points). This effect seems to be most noticeable during the Caldeum and Hell portions of the game.
To stay somewhat on par with developer intentions, your character should be somewhere between levels 45 and 50 during this fight. If you are lower than this, try running a couple of side quests to bring yourself up to speed. If you are over-leveled, you can compensate for the higher difficulty of the fight by upgrading all your gear as high as possible.
Consumables
Another tip that many players overlook is using elixirs for boss fights. These elixirs can give you a substantial edge, especially resistance elixirs (+15% resistance at the lowest tier). They're also dirt cheap, available from the Alchemist.
When fighting Duriel, poison damage is the main threat. Use an Elixir of Poison Resistance to combat this. If you find that your health potions just aren't doing enough to help you sustain, you might also check that you have them upgraded as high as possible. You should have just recently become a high enough level for moderate healing potions, which is a big jump from the previous tier.
Best Strategy
Fighting Duriel takes place in a small circular room while the boss himself takes up most of the space. That being said, Duriel has a very short range. Generally, melee characters have a more difficult time, as they are always at risk of being eaten.
Because of the fight's high difficulty, players will need to be aware of when a good time to take a potion or unleash powerful attacks is. Wasting key abilities can make this fight go south very quickly. Here is a list of all Duriel's abilities from most to least important, so that you can plan accordingly.
Eater of Worlds
Duriel's most devastating attack by far is Eater of Worlds. Just before this attack, Duriel will stomp his foot. Then, he will attempt to devour the player for massive poison damage.
Theoretically, you can dodge this attack by going behind him when the stomp occurs, although this is very difficult for immobile builds to pull off. A much easier answer to this attack is instead to take a health potion when you see the stomp and heal through Duriel's devour. This ability has a significant cooldown, so you should have ample potions to use for this purpose.
Burrow
Duriel will occasionally burrow underground and become immune to attacks. When he resurfaces, he will choose a location next to the player for maximum damage. To avoid the damage from resurfacing, evade when you see the ground shift under you.
However, the biggest risk from this ability isn't the damage it deals - it is the potential for you to activate key abilities only for Duriel to avoid most of the damage. Luckily, Burrow appears to have a significant cooldown. To ensure your most powerful attacks land, wait until just after Duriel has burrowed to unleash them.
When Duriel Burrows, he creates craters in the arena which become non-navigable terrain. This can start to become an issue over time, as there will be less and less space for you to move through. However, it seems that Duriel is programmed to avoid placing craters too close together (probably to prevent players from becoming trapped).
Belly Belch
As a part of his normal attack rotation, Duriel will expel a pool of poisonous vomit onto the ground which does high damage to players who stand on it. Before vomiting, Duriel will bring his head back while pushing his belly forward, giving you time to dodge.
These pools persist for quite a long time, opening up the potential for 3-6 of them to be active at once. Whenever possible, kite Duriel around the arena to prevent him from creating puddles all around himself. This makes maneuvering to hit him much easier, as well as dodging his future attacks.
Maggots
Similar to his poison ability, Duriel can also expel maggots from his stomach. These are not difficult to kill, nor do they do high damage. However, they do make moving around the already crowded arena more difficult. When you see him do this ability, use AoE attacks to quickly remove the maggots from the arena.
Claw
The most basic of Duriel's attacks is a melee claw attack. He does a big windup before using it, meaning you have plenty of time to dodge sideways. It also doesn't do that much damage. Overall, try to avoid being hit by this, so you aren't blowing through health potions, but it is not the end of the world if you are hit.