I thought I was going to skate through Duriel on Nightmare with players set to 8 because I assumed he would attack my Merc and I could wail away on him.
Oops.
For the entirety of the very, very protracted battle which ensued, he never once attacked my Merc, in spite of my best efforts. All he did was chill me and then chase me around the room like some demonic bull, nipping at my heels. So my initial plan was shot, because my Fire Ball does not do the kind of damage needed to dispose of him in any kind of reasonable time with just hit and run techniques, and I certainly can’t go toe to toe with him. So what the hell do I do?
Well, maybe I’ll try Meteor. Nope, meteor does even less damage than Fire Ball since I haven’t pumped points into it yet, and it’s difficult to lure him into the blast zone without getting close to him.
Glacial Spike to slow him down and then Fire Ball? Nope. GS affects him little, and only for a very brief time. He’s (practically?) immune to cold damage, so Blizzard, which is by far my strongest skill at the moment, is all but worthless against him.
In the end I wound up using Teleport and Fire Ball. I run to one corner of the room and let him chase me, then immediately double TP to the opposite corner and unleash flurries of FB as he barrels across the room towards me. Rinse and repeat for uh, quite a while, and he’s dead.
Thankfully I have a good run speed and a fair amount of Faster Cast Rate. But that was by far the most brutal fight I’ve had to this point.