Oversoul one hit kill information

Does anyone know exactly what all the different attacks the Oversoul makes actually are?

I ask this because for Normal to Ruthless levels (1-3) the only attack which one-hit-killed me was the Blue Lazer thing. (I used only ranged and so have no experience of it's Melee attributes other than I know it has a mean ass punch).

On Merciless practically every attack one-hit-killed me and all the attacks seemed quicker and more relentless both in speed and quantity - I even got hit by the lazer while running past it (not directly away or towards).

The Rocks seemed brutal, as did the red darts and the blue circles and even the ice seemed more sticky than previously.

Understandable as it's the climax, but how is one supposed to 'prepare' for this?

Since all these spells seem totally unique to the Oversoul there's no reference material in game (and I did even do a quick search of the forums) but I did notice different posters got one-hit-killed by different spells, suggesting it is actually possible to buff yourself correctly - if you know what's going on.

Eventually I cheesed the guy by nibbling away at him over the course of 20-30 deaths (dying so quick the maps in the pyramid didn't reset, thank god as I doubt I ever would have defeated him otherwise).


My character has approximately 1200 Energy Shield and approximately 800 life but scant little in the way of resistances and other defensive buffs.

I tried the flask that gives you 10,000 armour for 4.6 seconds but still died instantly within that 4.6 seconds.

It seems awfully imbalanced in that I can cream the entire Pyramid without barely losing 100 hit points for the entire 4 levels and then just be one-hit-killed by a big swirly thing, but then, on this point, people will undoubtedly just say 'it's supposed to be THAT hard'.

So what is the player's potential options here?

I already have a few Life Passives and I'm not really keen on changing an otherwise good build, but if it's just a matter of 'more life' needed then this is an option.

However, if the guy is hitting for 3-4 thousand then this is going to be a fairly pointless exercise.

Would any of the resistance flasks help? Or is it mainly physical and chaos damage?


I have beaten the guy on lower levels with two different witches - one summoner, one cold critical, and never even needed a potion.

Basically, what's the deal with the Merciless Oversoul?

Mace-Smash Attack is 50% fire, 50% physical
Lightning Cannon is pure lightning damage that always crit (or just always inflicts shock, not sure which); I'm pretty sure no matter how tanky you build yoruself, you can't live three of those in a row, the shock status shocking will obliterate you, weaker builds can't live two.

I've lived the mace-smash attack at various difficulties, but it requires you pop a ruby and granite flask when you see it coming. It also requires substantial max life. If you have 800 life and 1200 ES on Merciless, that's probably not enough to endure the attack, even with granite and ruby in effect. Your best bet is to fight him at range, or if you must fight him in melee, KEEP MOVING AROUND HIM, don't get comfortable in one place, you have to move INTO him when he does that attack. You can't run away when he raises his arm up, you won't make it out of its range, move to the left or right of him at an angle and attack him while he brings his hand down.

I've been oneshot by the lightning cannon before, you need 75% lightning resist if your max life isn't that high.

I know on merciless difficulty, you probably shouldn't attempt oversoul if you're an HP user, unless you have 3k hp and max fire/lightning resist. He can OHKO you otherwise.

If you're having trouble against oversoul even when you think your character is prepared, please post the passive build and items of the character that is losing to him.

What I do with many of my characters if I overlevel them before fighting oversoul, mainly because I'm very sluggish to react to his mace-smash-of-death. If I don't do that, I twink them hard or make them use a bow (even if they're melee).

I have some advice for you. I died a lot on Vaal when I was learning the fight, but I can now do it safely. Firstly, keeping Temporal Chains on him makes it much easier to learn as he will do everything slower.

He always starts the fight by summoning adds. These are the blue orbs that turn into constructs and skeletons. The orbs do no damage to you, the monsters will do. He summons them in an arc and after he summons them all he goes underground for about 5 seconds. Use this time to kill all but 1 of the monsters. If you kill them all he is more likely to immediately summon more.

He will then likely rotate until his long thing arm is facing you. This can be either lightning or ice. The ice does very little damage but snares you. The lightning can kill you, so when the thin arm faces you, always assume lightning is coming. To avoid the lightning you need to run in a circle around vaal. Circling just a few degrees is enough, but at first just keep circling until he has fired 3 bolts. He always fires them in groups of 3, but it is possible that he fires 2 groups back to back (6 in total).

If he is in melee range and he turns the arm with the ball on towards you then he is going for the big slow melee attack. just circle 45 degrees or so and it will miss you.

To summarise: dont get hit. This is much easier if he is slowed with temporal chains.

Yes, curses are a big help. Even something like the enfeeble curse could save your life, if you don't have temporal chains.

I've also found great success in using totems or other summons. It distracts his targeting pretty well. A totem with summon skeletons attached will spam him so hard he'll seldom target you.

The circling method is exactly the method I was using on lower difficulties, but it certainly didn't work for merciless - however, I wasn't using any curses and I wasn't using any lightning resist, I shall have to experiment with these!

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Never_nou wrote:

Eventually I cheesed the guy by nibbling away at him over the course of 20-30 deaths (dying so quick the maps in the pyramid didn't reset, thank god as I doubt I ever would have defeated him otherwise).

This is pretty lol, you should be using portals.

Other than that, yeah I agree the oversoul seems disproportionately deadly compared to the rest of the game right now. Maybe that's by intent, or maybe they will modify when act 3 opens ... who knows.

If you get one hit killed by anything other than the smash, you need to respec your build, it simply is not good enough to handle endgame damage output.

I don't actually know if the resistance penalties arrived before or after my earlier lower level victories, lol.

Yes, I can't get the hang of Portals in battle, either I'm good enough or I'm not. Bit of a traditionalist here, but I suspect I aught to start using them.

anubite - how to I go about 'posting a build'?

i really don't feel that build is much of an issue against bosses like vaal in the game. all you need in a build to survive a boss encounter is enough hp nodes. the rest depends on gear to get the resists u need and your playstyle in being able to predict the next move and make your moves/flask uses accordingly

what build does is allow you to proceed through the game faster and smoother if you can get one that synergises with your choice of gear.

against bosses like vaal though, it really all is just resists and hp gear, and patience to whittle him down bit by bit

Edit: Never, to post a build, click on the character name below, click on passive skill tree, copy the link shown and paste it in the reply box