Need advice for the Oracle of Wael fight

[dejavu619]

Party composition: Eder (Fighter), Me (Ranged Rogue), Aloth (Wizard), Fassina (Conjurer), Xoti (Priest). Playing on normal difficulty.

1. The beams don't seem to ever stop, even if I interrupt the Oracle or knock it prone

2. The Soul Mirrors cast very dangerous spells (Tayn's Chaotic Orb, meteor shower). To what extent can I control when / where they spawn? It's easy to interrupt them using insect swarms if they spawn at the same place but not if they spawn all over the place

3. Should I spend any time destroying the arcane devices around the Oracle?

4. How do I keep the Oracle paralyzed for as long as possible? I have 4 'Gaze of the Adragan' scrolls. Aloth & I can cast it too.

[Shai Hulud]

9 hours ago, dejavu619 said:

Party composition: Eder (Fighter), Me (Ranged Rogue), Aloth (Wizard), Fassina (Conjurer), Xoti (Priest). Playing on normal difficulty.

1. The beams don't seem to ever stop, even if I interrupt the Oracle or knock it prone

2. The Soul Mirrors cast very dangerous spells (Tayn's Chaotic Orb, meteor shower). To what extent can I control when / where they spawn? It's easy to interrupt them using insect swarms if they spawn at the same place but not if they spawn all over the place

3. Should I spend any time destroying the arcane devices around the Oracle?

4. How do I keep the Oracle paralyzed for as long as possible? I have 4 'Gaze of the Adragan' scrolls. Aloth & I can cast it too.

What level are you? I don't know this fight as well as some others, maybe I will try it again later. I've always been L20 when fighting it and didn't have problems. There are a lot of ways you could win this fight, but follow this strategy and you should definitely be fine.

The oracle is immune to interrupts and int/res/per afflictions, and resistant to mig/dex/con. So yes you can use gaze of the adragan which is downgraded to paralyze, but really this kind of fight is more about stacking buffs and defenses and then physically attacking, vs trying to put afflictions on him. Also keep in mind the oracle can target your will instead of deflection if it is lower (his abomination power), so watch for characters with low will.

I wouldn't bother destroying the devices. I mean you can, but to get frequent stuns you need to destroy all four.  The oracle has low deflection and fortitude, so you want to hit it and cast spells targeting fortitude. It is particularly weak to pierce damage I believe.

You have two wizards. Are they both configured as casters? Wizards actually make excellent fighters.

I'd consider making Aloth a fighter. Give him Llengrath's Martial Mysteries or Katrenn's Grimoire plus Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries. You should start throwing down a wall of draining that hits the oracle and as many henchmen as possible, then cast every fast cast in Llengrath/Katrenn grimoire when the fight starts (Infuse with vital essence, spirit shield, deleterious alacrity of motion, llengrath's displaced image, ironskin, Arcane Reflection or llengrath's reflection, and llengrath's superior elemental bulwark), you can cast all of these in a couple seconds, follow with citzal's spirit lance and llengrath's safeguard, switch to arkemyr's grimoire, and cast arcane veil. Wall of Draining will build up these defensive buffs making Aloth quite hard to kill. You can use Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure if you need to escape or want to confuse things.  The oracle is weak to pierce so Aloth would then just attack it repeatedly with the spirit lance. Throw up another wall of draining if your buffs are running out. 

I'm not very familiar with fassina as a caster. But I'd have her cast Arcane Veil, Arcane Reflection, Caedebald's Blackbow, and then summon Essential and Substantial Phantoms (Essential is better), and the phantoms will attack with the powerful bow. Also the spell Pull of Eora is really useful for grouping enemies, it will pull Scavengers of Visions to it, just don't cast it on top of your guys unless they are immune to push/pull (hold the line talent, upright captain's belt). Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst will do a lot of damage also.

Give Eder a couple of high quality sabres (or your weapon of choice, lots of good choices) and have him fight the Oracle head on. You should have Unbending and its upgrades. This ability is far more powerful than it appears if the character is getting hit a lot, because each hit stacks with itself. 

For your rogue, I'd just shoot the thing repeatedly with The Red Hand or Essence Interrupter with the hunting bow modal on. These weapons have extremely high DPS and do pierce. 

And lastly Xoti should focus on buffing your party members. First summon the spiritual ally, it has unlimited heals and can let xoti focus on buffing and debuffing. Start with Devotions for the Faithful, spark the souls of the righteous, throw down a consecrated ground, use salvation of time to extend Aloth's buffs if necessary. Continue throwing down buffs like crowns for the faithful, Shields for the faithful, dire blessing, champion's boon. You can try to debuff the oracle's deflection with divine mark but the oracle has high will defense so I wouldn't bother. When there are no more buffs, cast damage spells like cleansing flame or storm of holy fire. Try to keep the spiritual ally as long as possible. Use withdraw as emergency cast on party members being shredded by lasers. You can also cast wall of thorns which targets fortitude and should sicken the oracle and weaken scavengers who hit it.

The soul mirrors can be really dangerous and depend how you've configured your characters, control them with maybe a pull of eora and a slicken or two, I'd ignore them and just focus down the oracle, then clean them up after he's down.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[abot]

I have a trick for the Oracle rays, get the reflecting small shield in the Xaur Tuk Tuk cave if you can, there is an enchantment with high reflection probability, he does not like his rays reflected

Edited March 27, 2023 by abot

[Shai Hulud]

4 minutes ago, abot said:

I have a trick for the Oracle rays, get the reflecting small shield in the Xaur Tuk Tuk cave if you can, there is an enchantment with high reflection probability, he does not like his rays reflected

Ah yes, Shimmer Scale. Never actually used it. I guess you could give it to Eder and have him fight weapon and shield? Or give it to Xoti, or your rogue if using a pistol. 

You don't really need it but it could well make things easier. 

[dejavu619]

7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

What level are you? I don't know this fight as well as some others, maybe I will try it again later. I've always been L20 when fighting it and didn't have problems. There are a lot of ways you could win this fight, but follow this strategy and you should definitely be fine.

The oracle is immune to interrupts and int/res/per afflictions, and resistant to mig/dex/con. So yes you can use gaze of the adragan which is downgraded to paralyze, but really this kind of fight is more about stacking buffs and defenses and then physically attacking, vs trying to put afflictions on him. Also keep in mind the oracle can target your will instead of deflection if it is lower (his abomination power), so watch for characters with low will.

I wouldn't bother destroying the devices. I mean you can, but to get frequent stuns you need to destroy all four.  The oracle has low deflection and fortitude, so you want to hit it and cast spells targeting fortitude. It is particularly weak to pierce damage I believe.

You have two wizards. Are they both configured as casters? Wizards actually make excellent fighters.

I'd consider making Aloth a fighter. Give him Llengrath's Martial Mysteries or Katrenn's Grimoire plus Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries. You should start throwing down a wall of draining that hits the oracle and as many henchmen as possible, then cast every fast cast in Llengrath/Katrenn grimoire when the fight starts (Infuse with vital essence, spirit shield, deleterious alacrity of motion, llengrath's displaced image, ironskin, Arcane Reflection or llengrath's reflection, and llengrath's superior elemental bulwark), you can cast all of these in a couple seconds, follow with citzal's spirit lance and llengrath's safeguard, switch to arkemyr's grimoire, and cast arcane veil. Wall of Draining will build up these defensive buffs making Aloth quite hard to kill. You can use Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure if you need to escape or want to confuse things.  The oracle is weak to pierce so Aloth would then just attack it repeatedly with the spirit lance. Throw up another wall of draining if your buffs are running out. 

I'm not very familiar with fassina as a caster. But I'd have her cast Arcane Veil, Arcane Reflection, Caedebald's Blackbow, and then summon Essential and Substantial Phantoms (Essential is better), and the phantoms will attack with the powerful bow. Also the spell Pull of Eora is really useful for grouping enemies, it will pull Scavengers of Visions to it, just don't cast it on top of your guys unless they are immune to push/pull (hold the line talent, upright captain's belt). Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst will do a lot of damage also.

Give Eder a couple of high quality sabres (or your weapon of choice, lots of good choices) and have him fight the Oracle head on. You should have Unbending and its upgrades. This ability is far more powerful than it appears if the character is getting hit a lot, because each hit stacks with itself. 

For your rogue, I'd just shoot the thing repeatedly with The Red Hand or Essence Interrupter with the hunting bow modal on. These weapons have extremely high DPS and do pierce. 

And lastly Xoti should focus on buffing your party members. First summon the spiritual ally, it has unlimited heals and can let xoti focus on buffing and debuffing. Start with Devotions for the Faithful, spark the souls of the righteous, throw down a consecrated ground, use salvation of time to extend Aloth's buffs if necessary. Continue throwing down buffs like crowns for the faithful, Shields for the faithful, dire blessing, champion's boon. You can try to debuff the oracle's deflection with divine mark but the oracle has high will defense so I wouldn't bother. When there are no more buffs, cast damage spells like cleansing flame or storm of holy fire. Try to keep the spiritual ally as long as possible. Use withdraw as emergency cast on party members being shredded by lasers. You can also cast wall of thorns which targets fortitude and should sicken the oracle and weaken scavengers who hit it.

The soul mirrors can be really dangerous and depend how you've configured your characters, control them with maybe a pull of eora and a slicken or two, I'd ignore them and just focus down the oracle, then clean them up after he's down.

Thanks for this thoroughly written strategy. I also had a couple of more questions:

1. Can I summon BOTH phantoms at the same time?

2. Do invisible and withdrawn characters not take AOE damage (from spells like meteor showers) ?

3. Am I correct in understanding that spamming insect swarms will prevent the soul mirrors from ever getting an ability in?

4. It's difficult to focus on the Oracle entirely when the Soul Mirrors are the ones dealing the most damage to my party. Keeping them occupied using summons is hard too since they just default to using huge AOE spells that demolish my party as well as the summons.

[Boeroer]

Iirc it has an enchantment upgrade that takes away the reflection but makes you completely immune to gazes (100% miss). Would a Monk's Soul Mirror reflect those rays then?

Never tried...

[Shai Hulud]

6 hours ago, dejavu619 said:

Thanks for this thoroughly written strategy. I also had a couple of more questions:

1. Can I summon BOTH phantoms at the same time?

2. Do invisible and withdrawn characters not take AOE damage (from spells like meteor showers) ?

3. Am I correct in understanding that spamming insect swarms will prevent the soul mirrors from ever getting an ability in?

4. It's difficult to focus on the Oracle entirely when the Soul Mirrors are the ones dealing the most damage to my party. Keeping them occupied using summons is hard too since they just default to using huge AOE spells that demolish my party as well as the summons.

1. Not from the same caster. Limit is one summon spell per caster, though that summon can be multiple things (like animated weapons for chanter).  I would prioritize Essential Phantoms, since they do weapon attacks where Substantial Phantoms throw in low level spells that may or may not be effective. What you want to do with phantoms is summon a good weapon then make the phantom, and they'll have the weapon. For instance you can cast Concelhaut's Draining Touch, which is normally good for one attack, but if you cast Essential/Substantial Phantom before using it then the phantom has the Draining Touch for the duration, which is one of the most damaging attacks in the game (only beaten by forbidden fist I think). It does target will though, which normally is one of the lower defenses but not in Oracle's case. Probably good vs the soul mirrors though. Caedelbald's Blackbow is also a really good weapon for phantoms, and Citzal's spirit lance as well. Kalakoth's Minor Blights for things vulnerable to elemental damage. So basically at one time you could have up a phantom from Fassina, a phantom from Aloth (or tentacles if you prefer), and a spiritual ally from xoti. 
    
2. Withdrawn characters do not take damage. They are untargetable, stunned and invisible and AOEs will miss. Invisible characters are also untargetable and shouldn't take damage from AOEs, but you have to be careful because as soon as that character does something construed as an attack, they lose their invisibility, though sometimes the graphics make them still appear invisible. And this isn't limited to just attacks, could be something as innocuous as a flame shield or using blood sacrifice. 
    
3. No, insect swarm just removes their stacks of concentration and does raw damage over time. The DOT doesn't interrupt them though. Unless they have a lot of concentration stacks I wouldn't bother with insect swarm. You would have to be casting something else to interrupt them (check spell description to see if something interrupts on graze/hit/crit or nothing), or using abilities like a fighter's mule kick (interrupts on graze). Arcane Reflection does a lot to protect you from their nasty spells. Personally I'd focus the Oracle first but whatever works for you. One way to kill everything at once is make sure Eder has Hold the Line, give Aloth Upright Captain's Belt, and have those two fight the Oracle up close, Eder with his weapons and Aloth with Citzal's Spirit Lance, which hits in a fairly large AOE. Fassina can throw down a pull of eora on top of or near the oracle, and it will pull the oracle as well as any scavengers of vision and soul mirrors who get close by. This groups them close enough together that Citzal's Spirit Lance attacks will hit five or six at once. Another spell you may find useful here is Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, it targets fortitude, does decent damage on a small AOE, so pull of eora helps, and it drains them. Have Fassina cast Combusting Wounds as well, that damage can rack up really fast with hazard spells like Wall of Thorns or spells that hit a lot like Minoletta's Minor Missiles, pulsing spells like Chill Fog, etc. Concelhaut's Draining Missiles is also really useful in this fight. It is like Minoletta's Minor Missiles but does raw damage vs fortitude and restores as health to the caster. It's in the Ironclasped grimoire. 
    
4. This is where stacking defenses will help. Like if you cast all those spells I listed for Aloth he will be very hard to hit, and some of the soul mirror's spells will be reflected (not AOEs though). They cast Meteor Shower which seems nasty but it targets reflex, and reflex is usually very high. One's approach to a fight depends on the capabilities of your party. I don't know what level you are, how items are distributed, abilities picked and so forth, so it's hard to say exactly what's optimal for *your* party. When I've fought the Oracle I always had enough defenses to just blitzkrieg the thing, by the time the soul mirrors are hassling me he's already dead. But if that doesn't work for whatever reason, use some CC spells. Have Fassina cast Slicken. Aloth can cast it too if you want. It's great for interrupting groups of enemies and has a fairly long duration, and Slickens from multiple sources stack. If you had a chanter or cipher you'd have some more CC options, like various charm, mental binding, thunder rolled like waves on black seas etc. Pull of Eora isn't hard CC but it does disrupt their movements and interrupt them sometimes and make landing attacks easier. You can also try hard CC like Gaze of the Adragan, but my experience with this is the duration is usually not long enough to bother, and it rolls vs fortitude which is normally pretty high. You can also try the 2nd level spell Fetid Caress. It paralyzes the target for about twice as long as Gaze of the Adragan, but it is single target (much lower spell level though). Also you could try Maura's Writhing Tentacles, they don't last as long as Phantoms but the tentacles immobilize things they hit. Rynrgim's Enervating Terror is an AOE weakened/terrified (if they're terrified they can't use abilities). Wall of Many Colors is really really good but it's an Illusion spell so Fassina can't cast it. Aloth can, but he can only have one wall up at once so it would take down a wall of draining. If you have Ninagauth's grimoire, there are some good CC spells in that also. It has slicken, Ninagauth's Shadowflame (ice fireball that paralyzes), Ningauth's Freezing Pillar. Death Ring will kill things Near Death in a very large AOE. 
   
   You might also try using Temporal Cocoon on the oracle or soul mirrors. It doesn't do damage but it takes them out of the fight for a decent duration. And if any of your guys have arcana you can use scrolls. Great Maelstrom does a LOT of damage in a big area, Tornado is a large AOE that does damage plus long knock up interrupt. I haven't tried it but Scrolls of Great Abjuration should theoretically destroy the soul mirrors so long as they are below your level, which I think they would be if you're on normal difficulty and L20. They're a little expensive to craft and require a lot of arcana but scrolls of great maelstrom and tornado can really turn around fights. If you have The Left Hand of The Obscured gloves (from memory hoarder) that gives like +3 arcana in addition to the chance to terrify, would be great gloves for a fighter/mage like how I'm envisioning Aloth. 

TLDR -- try scrolls of tornado and great maelstrom! And maybe scrolls of great abjuration. And to get an idea of what I'm envisioning for Aloth, watch my buff routine and how I use pull of eora to group enemies for the lance to hit them. Granted this was an ultimate run and I had procced a bunch of things that make me like Super Aloth, but maybe it will help? When you stack enough buffs the lasers just bounce right off of you. In retrospect I misplaced the Pull of Eora slightly, should have cast it in front of the Oracle instead of on top of him, but you can see when he dies how the soul mirrors instantly get sucked in, losing concentration and being interrupted. It's a really fantastic spell and the only one I memorized in this run. 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Iirc it has an enchantment upgrade that takes away the reflection but makes you completely immune to gazes (100% miss). Would a Monk's Soul Mirror reflect those rays then?

Never tried...

Oh you are right. You can pick 50h reflect gaze or "immunity to gaze attacks". My guess is the immunity works like spell resistance and the log says you're immune or resisted it, whereas reflections first show as misses i think.

I'm actually not sure how gazes are treated. I'll test this out later but I don't have any convenient saves near this fight so will have to go through whole DLC.

Does Arcane Reflection reflect gazes? I would think soul mirror would. It reflects all kinds of things including instant attacks like thorny roots. I definitely feel like Arcane Reflection is immensely helpful in this fight though. Even if it doesn't help with the gazes it blocks a bunch of crap from the soul mirrors. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Shai Hulud
Clarification

[Shai Hulud]

Okay I finally got through Forgotten Sanctum and have run through Oracle of Wael fight a few times using my solo transcendent. Although the advice I gave before was good, it was too complex I think. All you really need to know is this:

1. Use Shimmer Scale - it doesn't seem to affect the Oracle himself, I guess his "eye of ninagauth" etc. attacks are "ray" attacks. But it does work on the scavengers of vision and they will kill themselves pretty fast due to high damage and relatively low health.
2. Potions of Arcane Reflection are your friend. Brew as many as you can, of the best quality you can, and distribute them to party members who can't cast Llengrath's Reflection or Arcane Reflection, have them drink them periodically. Points in alchemy will make the effect last longer but the base duration is quite good (45s). With Arcane reflection potions up, the Scavengers of Vision kill themselves even faster, and if your party stands near Wael, the Soul Mirrors' AOE spells will hit enemies near you and the Oracle. They'll also hit you if your defenses are low, but that's what healing is for, AND
3. Have a stack of tornadoes (or several) and cast one if the battle is getting hairy. AOE is large and modified by arcana I think. And it targets fortitude, which all these guys are low in, interrupts on graze, doing a truckload of damage and buying your party precious time to heal and regroup (or just cast more tornadoes). I collected seven of these scrolls in the Forgotten Sanctum and they aren't hard to craft either but do require 15 arcana to cast. You can also easily take out the arcane channels with tornadoes, while still hitting the oracle and friends, and once gone the oracle is stunned periodically. Honestly I think one could solo this battle taking a character with high fortitude and arcana and just casting tornado over and over. I'm going to test this...yes, you can in fact, quite easily. I did literally nothing but cast borrowed instinct every 40s and tornadoes the rest of the time. Used like 17. Took very little damage.
4. Keep in mind the soul mirrors wear The Mask of The Weyc which gives them Veiling Hood on spawning (basically arcane veil + concentration), so while the veil is up you can attack them with veil-piercing attacks or attacks that target something besides deflection (fortitude and reflex are lowest), like slicken!

EDIT: Hmm, I'm using the Balance Polishing Mod, which makes some changs to the tornado spell like double radius and range, so...might not work quite as well in vanilla. I shall find out. On the other hand the Great Maelstrom scrolls would be better in vanilla. 

Yeah there's no knock up effect in vanilla so although it does reliably interrupt things, it doesn't for long. You would need more than one caster using tornado scrolls to interrupt things. Probably 3 to lock down things completely. They also have meh penetration so won't damage the oracle himself that much (not on potd upscaled anyway). It may be feasible to use tornado scrolls to interrupt oracle and soul mirrors while a couple more characters damage him, but it's not as simple as in the photo below. In BPM these things are kind of busted.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Shai Hulud
correction

[dejavu619]

Thank you for the help. I finally beat this boss yesterday using most of your tactics. Turning combat speed down to the slowest helped more than I thought it would (I was earlier playing on the second-slowest speed).

[Shai Hulud]

On 4/1/2023 at 9:52 PM, dejavu619 said:

Thank you for the help. I finally beat this boss yesterday using most of your tactics. Turning combat speed down to the slowest helped more than I thought it would (I was earlier playing on the second-slowest speed).

Nice, congrats! And yes the harder fights are much easier on slow mode, especially if managing a full party. Also pausing a lot can help. The fight will take longer, but not as long as reloading a dozen times

[voplafaro]

On 3/28/2023 at 11:51 AM, Shai Hulud said:

1. Not from the same caster. Limit is one summon spell per caster, though that summon can be multiple things (like animated weapons for chanter).  I would prioritize Essential Phantoms, since they do weapon attacks where Substantial Phantoms throw in low level spells that may or may not be effective. What you want to do with phantoms is summon a good weapon then make the phantom, and they'll have the weapon. For instance you can cast Concelhaut's Draining Touch, which is normally good for one attack, but if you cast Essential/Substantial Phantom before using it then the phantom has the Draining Touch for the duration, which is one of the most damaging attacks in the game (only beaten by forbidden fist I think). It does target will though, which normally is one of the lower defenses but not in Oracle's case. Probably good vs the soul mirrors though. Caedelbald's Blackbow is also a really good weapon for phantoms, and Citzal's spirit lance as well. Kalakoth's Minor Blights for things vulnerable to elemental damage. So basically at one time you could have up a phantom from Fassina, a phantom from Aloth (or tentacles if you prefer), and a spiritual ally from xoti. 
    
2. Withdrawn characters do not take damage. They are untargetable, stunned and invisible and AOEs will miss. Invisible characters are also untargetable and shouldn't take damage from AOEs, but you have to be careful because as soon as that character does something construed as an attack, they lose their invisibility, though sometimes the graphics make them still appear invisible. And this isn't limited to just attacks, could be something as innocuous as a flame shield or using blood sacrifice. 
    
3. No, insect swarm just removes their stacks of concentration and does raw damage over time. The DOT doesn't interrupt them though. Unless they have a lot of concentration stacks I wouldn't bother with insect swarm. You would have to be casting something else to interrupt them (check spell description to see if something interrupts on graze/hit/crit or nothing), or using abilities like a fighter's mule kick (interrupts on graze). Arcane Reflection does a lot to protect you from their nasty spells. Personally I'd focus the Oracle first but whatever works for you. One way to kill everything at once is make sure Eder has Hold the Line, give Aloth Upright Captain's Belt, and have those two fight the Oracle up close, Eder with his weapons and Aloth with Citzal's Spirit Lance, which hits in a fairly large AOE. Fassina can throw down a pull of eora on top of or near the oracle, and it will pull the oracle as well as any scavengers of vision and soul mirrors who get close by. This groups them close enough together that Citzal's Spirit Lance attacks will hit five or six at once. Another spell you may find useful here is Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, it targets fortitude, does decent damage on a small AOE, so pull of eora helps, and it drains them. Have Fassina cast Combusting Wounds as well, that damage can rack up really fast with hazard spells like Wall of Thorns or spells that hit a lot like Minoletta's Minor Missiles, pulsing spells like Chill Fog, etc. Concelhaut's Draining Missiles is also really useful in this fight. It is like Minoletta's Minor Missiles but does raw damage vs fortitude and restores as health to the caster. It's in the Ironclasped grimoire. 
    
4. This is where stacking defenses will help. Like if you cast all those spells I listed for Aloth he will be very hard to hit, and some of the soul mirror's spells will be reflected (not AOEs though). They cast Meteor Shower which seems nasty but it targets reflex, and reflex is usually very high. One's approach to a fight depends on the capabilities of your party. I don't know what level you are, how items are distributed, abilities picked and so forth, so it's hard to say exactly what's optimal for *your* party. When I've fought the Oracle I always had enough defenses to just blitzkrieg the thing, by the time the soul mirrors are hassling me he's already dead. But if that doesn't work for whatever reason, use some CC spells. Have Fassina cast Slicken. Aloth can cast it too if you want. It's great for interrupting groups of enemies and has a fairly long duration, and Slickens from multiple sources stack. If you had a chanter or cipher you'd have some more CC options, like various charm, mental binding, thunder rolled like waves on black seas etc. Pull of Eora isn't hard CC but it does disrupt their movements and interrupt them sometimes and make landing attacks easier. You can also try hard CC like Gaze of the Adragan, but my experience with this is the duration is usually not long enough to bother, and it rolls vs fortitude which is normally pretty high. You can also try the 2nd level spell Fetid Caress. It paralyzes the target for about twice as long as Gaze of the Adragan, but it is single target (much lower spell level though). Also you could try Maura's Writhing Tentacles, they don't last as long as Phantoms but the tentacles immobilize things they hit. Rynrgim's Enervating Terror is an AOE weakened/terrified (if they're terrified they can't use abilities). Wall of Many Colors is really really good but it's an Illusion spell so Fassina can't cast it. Aloth can, but he can only have one wall up at once so it would take down a wall of draining. If you have Ninagauth's grimoire, there are some good CC spells in that also. It has slicken, Ninagauth's Shadowflame (ice fireball that paralyzes), Ningauth's Freezing Pillar. Death Ring will kill things Near Death in a very large AOE. 
   
   You might also try using Temporal Cocoon on the oracle or soul mirrors. It doesn't do damage but it takes them out of the fight for a decent duration. And if any of your guys have arcana you can use scrolls. Great Maelstrom does a LOT of damage in a big area, Tornado is a large AOE that does damage plus long knock up interrupt. I haven't tried it but Scrolls of Great Abjuration should theoretically destroy the soul mirrors so long as they are below your level, which I think they would be if you're on normal difficulty and L20. They're a little expensive to craft and require a lot of arcana but scrolls of great maelstrom and tornado can really turn around fights. If you have The Left Hand of The Obscured gloves (from memory hoarder) that gives like +3 arcana in addition to the chance to terrify, would be great gloves for a fighter/mage like how I'm envisioning Aloth. 

TLDR -- try scrolls of tornado and great maelstrom! And maybe scrolls of great abjuration. And to get an idea of what I'm envisioning for Aloth, watch my buff routine and how I use pull of eora to group enemies for the lance to hit them. Granted this was an ultimate run and I had procced a bunch of things that make me like Super Aloth, but maybe it will help? When you stack enough buffs the lasers just bounce right off of you. In retrospect I misplaced the Pull of Eora slightly, should have cast it in front of the Oracle instead of on top of him, but you can see when he dies how the soul mirrors instantly get sucked in, losing concentration and being interrupted. It's a really fantastic spell and the only one I memorized in this run. 

Oh you are right. You can pick 50h reflect gaze or "immunity to gaze attacks". My guess is the immunity works like spell resistance and the log says you're immune or resisted it, whereas reflections first show as misses i think.

I'm actually not sure how gazes are treated. I'll test this out later but I don't have any convenient saves near this fight so will have to go through whole DLC.

Does Arcane Reflection reflect gazes? I would think soul mirror would. It reflects all kinds of things including instant attacks like thorny roots. I definitely feel like Arcane Reflection is immensely helpful in this fight though. Even if it doesn't help with the gazes it blocks a bunch of crap from the soul mirrors. 

Well, I'm not really immune to anything. 

[thelee]

Just chiming in late here to say that the arcane devices are basically a win-more aspect to the fight. They are surprisingly tough, and will soak up a lot of damage. If you’re already doing well you’ll have excess capacity to take down the devices which will stun the oracle and help you there.

 

so I wouldn’t go out of my way to take them down, but if you already are tuned enough to have the spare capacity to take them out, they’ll help you out.