Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks I think I'm going to skip the The Consulate quests

There are very few games that have such tedious and frustrating sections where I feel it's simply not worth the aggravation to complete. This is one such section.

As far as I can tell, there's no skill or strategy involved; it's just a massive pain in the ass.

I won't take The Red Prince in my next playthrough.

There is strategy involved, just not a fun one. For the consulate, you need to extinguish all the necrofire within 40m or so of their deaths, otherwise they respawn in it.

Inside the portal, you need to destroy the six or so mirrors, otherwise the enemies will again respawn, similarly to the tedious busy-work of getting into the dream. So not only can it be experienced as annoying, but it's twice or even thrice over the same mechanic, making it drag out a bit too long, even if you somehow do enjoy the mechanic.

I found it particularly annoying that magic spells wouldn't damage the mirrors, nor would attacking them in melee with a staff. The only attacks actually dealing damage to the mirrors was right-click "Attack" wearing anything but a staff, or ranged bow attacks. Which is an odd thing even on it's own.

So I'm inclined to agree, definitely not one of the game's stronger design points. Particularly also because it becomes a bit too overused in a consecutive manner.

It's actually not that bad with the right skill setup. The first few rooms are empty, so you can use a combination of two skills to clear the Necrofire from them without incident.

Polymorph 1 + Aero 1 = Vaporize - This converts the permanent Necrofire surfaces to permanent clouds.
Aero 2 = Pressure Spike - This converts the permanent clouds into temporary, 2-turn Necrofire surfaces. You can afford to wait these out outside of combat, and you can get fairly close to some snemies to cast them without getting spotted.

In combat, you have two choices: Bless + something to kill a normal fire surface,
or Tornado (Aero 3). Aero 3 is a tougher requirement, but with Aero 2 for Teleport and a piece of +1 Aero gear you can cast it. There's also a unique staff you can find without combat in which has Tornado on it. I put that on my 2H Warrior for 1 AP to clear out a pesky surface.

Between my Aero/Hydro mage, my Aero Scoundrel with a +1 Aero amulet, and my Warrior with a +Tornado staff, I was able to clear the surfaces with little problems.

Doesn't eliminate the fact that it's a very tedious and tricky for the sake of being tricky unless you have a very specific toolset as you mention though. Point is, there's a thin line between tough and blatant annoying/tedious. Unfortunately, this particular area leans heavily towards one of those in most cases.

Divinity games shine at their brightest when a problem has multiple solutions or ways to approach something.

Fair points, I jut thought I would mention that I didn't have a terrible time with it.