Oracle

Nerif the Oracle is a ranged intelligence hero who alters the fate of allies and enemies. Best known by his ultimate, False Promise, Oracle can temporarily render allies invisible and suspended from healing and harm by this unreliable but potentially highly-rewarding prophecy. Oracle can also deal large amounts of damage and healing since his skillset has such a versatile range of combinations. One instance is that of greatly damaging enemies with Purifying Flames and then preventing these healing flames from regenerating HP by the purge effect of Fortune's End. Another way involves rendering enemies' weapons useless by the judgement of Fate's Edict while simultaneously boosting the physical and pure damage that they receive. Knowledge of Oracle's skills is key to use him at his full potential; one mistake can potentially seal the fate of your allies.

Recommended items
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Starting :
 * As with most heroes, the starting regeneration items Tango and Healing Salve provide a way to sustain health in lane without having to return to base early.
 * Because Oracle has a low starting health, he can benefit from an early {Gauntlets of Strength or even a Ring of Protection.
 * As with most supports, always be sure to buy Animal Courier to help your team.
 * Any extra gold can go towards buying Observer Ward or Iron Branch.

Early:
 * A Magic Stick can provide extra sustain in lane versus heroes who cast a lot of spells
 * Boots of Speed are needed to make sure Oracle can start keeping up with other heroes. If you have extra gold, you could buy Boots early to give some early lane harass
 * If you still find yourself dying often, you can upgrade your early Gauntlets of Strength into a Bracer to provide more health and durability

Core:
 * Arcane Boots Should also be considered as Oracle's main combo costs a great amount of mana, with a relatively low cooldown, and it is also an excellent support item for your whole team.
 * Urn of Shadows is a good pickup on Oracle, the extra health and mana regen is very much needed, and it can heal up an ally or self for 800 hp if used after {{Ability ID|False Promise|Oracle}} with only one charge. However, even though damage will not be dealt to the target of {{Ability ID|False Promise|Oracle}}, the healing will be dispelled from the target when attacked. The pure damage from an offensive urn can also be amplified by Fate's edict.
 * Mekansm is great with Oracle, as the active not only provides his entire team armor and healing, but the healing is doubled by his ultimate. When used in conjunction with his other spells, Oracle can heal his allies for a great amount
 * Observer Ward are a great item that provide vision for your team. When playing a support such as Oracle, one should always make sure to have wards set up around the map, because it gives greater map vision and control
 * Having a Town Portal Scroll will allow Oracle to rotate early and potentially prevent a teammate from dying via his healing spells

Situational }}
 * A Blink Dagger can give Oracle both mobility and initiation potential. With a Blink Dagger, Oracle can stay away from danger and blink in to save allies, or potentially initiate with his large nuke damage. When used in conjunction with {{Ability ID|False Promise|Oracle}} Blink Dagger provides an extremely powerful escape mechanism as no damage is taken during the duration of False Promise.
 * Boots of Travel give Oracle more mobility around the map, allowing his healing presence to be felt wherever
 * Scythe of Vyse provides Oracle both good mana sustain and a reliable disable, which gives him more time to abuse his low cooldown spells
 * Dagon gives Oracle more burst magic damage, allowing him to potentially burst down heroes by himself in conjunction with Purifying Flames
 * Eul's Scepter of Divinity provides Oracle mana sustain and movement speed. In addition, the 2.5 second disable allows Oracle to channel {{Ability ID|Fortune's End|Oracle}} while keeping the enemy within attack range.

Equipment

 * Oracle has no equipments currently.

Tips

 * All of Oracle's spells have great direct synergy with each other.
 * The initial damage from is fully blocked by the 100% magic resistance from, turning it into a strong heal for allies. But don't forget that other damage types will do increased damage and it also disarms your target, so it can backfire if timed poorly.
 * is purgeable, so can remove the healing effect of it, turning it into a strong instant nuke with no heal for enemies.
 * doubles all healing received during it, including the healing of, making it heal a total of 198/216/324/432 health if the spell's damage is taken into account.
 * , and  together on one ally effectively makes it heal for 198/396/594/792 health once the ultimate expires, since the damage is blocked by the 100% magic resistance and the heal doubled by the ultimate.
 * Considering the base magic resistance (25%) and no other sources of it, it takes 6.14 seconds for the heal of to cancel the damage, which is 67.5/135/202.5/270 health. After that, it effectively heals 31.5/63/94.5/126 health. Since the spell heals in intervals, it starts healing more than the damage from the 7th second.
 * A powerful healing combination is to cast Oracle's and  with Winter Wyvern's  on a target ally/self. The result will give full physical and magical damage immunity as well as healing for 64 + 6% per second at maximum level for 4 seconds and 44 health per second for 5 seconds thereafter. Total heal is equal to 476 + 24%. Using this combination on an ally effected by  will result in a heal of 952 + 48%, causing a hero with 2000 maximum health to heal 1912 health at the end of 9 seconds. Extremely useful if your carry is nuked or to save an ally from any form of damage.
 * in combination with, or  can grant a hero 100% magic resistance and 100% resistance against physical damage, so only pure damage is able to harm them.
 * Owing to the fact that Oracle has the lowest natural base attack time in the game (surpassed only by a level 2 ), one is inclined to think that Oracle can deal a lot of damage with basic attacks hero but playing him as such is hardly advisable because he is far greater as a support or nuker.
 * Keep in mind that while Oracle's healing potential is great with the right items, as seen above, he needs to pull off various spell combos to be truly effective. Although the mana costs of his abilities are moderate, with their low cooldown all of his combos are almost spammable. Without cost-effective easy build-up mana regen items like, , you will find yourself with no mana and not being useful very often in the mid-game.
 * can purge the healing from, and since the cyclone lasts for 2.5s, you can effectively cast it twice on the enemy, purging it again with.
 * Note that has a slow projectile, while ' effect is instant. This means you can cast  first, and before the projectile hits, use . This will prevent the target from healing at all by the  buff.
 * is not purgeable, except by his own . This makes a great skill versus heroes lke,  and . Don't forget though that spell immunity can dispel it, making it great against heroes who usually don't want to buy an.
 * Before a fight is about to happen, especially when pushing or defending your base, keep casting on your carry. Since it has a short cooldown, you can ensure he will start the fight with at least 2 instances of healing (the healing is stackable).
 * removes most negative buffs from the target, like does. Try to save it for when your target gets stunned. This way not only you will save him, but also mitigate the disable cast on him.
 * can also utilized offensively due to the unbreakable invisibility and long duration. For example, it can be used on heroes which requires positioning into middle of enemy group like,  , or  during early game.

Trivia

 * Oracle made his first official Dota 2 appearance in the comic The Contract, revealed on the 14th of November 2014 in the official Dota2 blog. On day 2, his spells and model were revealed.
 * Mike Shapiro (Oracle's voice actor) is also well-known for voicing Barney Calhoun and G-Man, two prominent characters in the Half-Life series
 * His lines Orac randomprophecies 10.mp3 "Prepare for unforeseen consequences.", and Orac respawn 10.mp3 "Is it really that time again?" are referring to lines spoken by G-man in Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and Half-Life 2 respectively.
 * The line Orac move 11.mp3 Orac move 19.mp3  Orac death 15.mp3 "So it goes." is a reference to the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. In the novel, it is a phrase used by the aliens, known as Tralfamadorians, who perceive all time simultaneously.
 * The line Orac firstblood 01.mp3 "First blood! Out of fifty possibilities, that was my preferred." is because there actually are 50 possible first bloods (each of 10 heroes can be killed by any of the 5 opposing heroes).
 * Oracle's spell and his phrase Orac purifyingflames 02.mp3 "I must harm to heal." are a direct play on the medical principle "Primum non nocere", which is latin and translates into "First, do no harm".
 * The line Orac kill 08.mp3 "Ask again later." is a reference to an answer of the Magic 8-ball, a toy used for fortune-telling.

Prophecies

 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 051.mp3 "Fear neither witch, nor wardrobe. Tis a demon beast that fingers your demise." is a reference to the second book in The Chronicles of Narnia book series by C.S. Lewis, titled The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 035.mp3 "You ought to read Chronosphere of a Death Foretold. It's a prophetic book." is a reference to the book called Chronicle of a Death Foretold, written by Gabriel García Márquez.
 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 104.mp3 "V is not for visions of victory, but for a victim of a vicious viper." is a reference to the quote of V for Vendetta.
 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 017.mp3 "Beware the knight who commandingly demands: do you even rift?" is a reference to the internet meme "Do you even lift?"
 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 036.mp3 "I foresee four flames." may be a reference, both in content and length, to the fact that most of Ember Spirit's spoken lines are four words long, or to the four of "him" – the real one and three remnants.
 * The prophecy line for Orac prophecies 059.mp3 "No empathy test can save you from the watery replicant." is a reference to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, where human-like androids called replicants can only be distinguished from human beings through an empathy test called the Voight-Kampff test.