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The real question is what do you want out of the character? It looks like you chose a lore oracle for a reason. Without knowing what those reasons are it is hard to give any real advice. Knowing what you value out of the class and mystery will help in figuring out what you are willing to give up to improve the character.

"Divine fullcasting skill-monkey" (of the Bard variety, so face/knowledge-monkey, rather than Rogue's sneaking and lockpicking) was the original idea, preferably an Oracle because I like it's flavour best amongst the divine casters. In combat I was leaning towards a mix of debuffing/bad-touch and support, though I'm open to other options except for melee (I wanted a primary caster) and summoning (it's a pain to manage). Initially I went with the Psychic Searcher, but I started worrying that I might be spending too many resources on out-of-combat utility and that maybe it would be better to "diversify" a little.

Instead of dual-cursed, have you looked at spirit guide?

Alternately, depending on the concept and expected levels of play, divine numerologist (Calculate the Odds on attack rolls) might also make sense.

I did look at the Spirit Guide, as another option to boost my offensive casting by grabbing the right spirit. It costs more Revelations that I am comfortable giving up, though. I can buy them back with Extra Revelations of course, but then I'm short on feats instead. Still, it's in the back of my head, as a fallback option.

An alternative archetype I was thinking of was actually the Psychic Searcher. Inspiration can be used to help land hits, similarly to Calculate the Odds. Also, I like the theme of a sort of reverse Arcane Trickster, a "divine detective" instead of an "arcane thief", and it does synergize with Lore. A little bit too much actually, to the point where it starts feeling like an overkill. Which is why I went looking for an alternative that would help with offensive casting instead, and grabbing Dual-Cursed to help land debuffs seemed like an obvious starting point. That said, Psychic Searcher is also still on the table.

hmmm, you are aware of the issues...

I'd suggest;
1) human Paladin 2 Oracle(war) X-2 for a oracle melee build with the extra HP & SklPt per Lvl. You can choose a different mystery.
2) human Wiz-Dvnr 1 Oracle X-1 to snag the arcane spell list and know skills freeing up your mystery & traits.

Arcanist requires 2 Lvls and Witch is not appealing(debuffer & familiar). Bard may be an option depending on your desire for performance.

Ability scores are going to be general(not focused with 16 a high before racial) due to paladin or wizard if you also want melee...

Traits:+1 Fort, +1 Rflx hard to beat. Magical Knack Wizard will help.

I wasn't really planning on fighting in melee, so I would probably want to avoid multiclassing (although now that I think about it, Wizard 1 / Lore Oracle X-1 would be able to scribe their own spellbooks for use with Arcane Archivist. Of course the ability to cast a Wizard spell once per day that you'd only get at level 12 probably isn't worth the dip). If the loss of class skills proves a dealbreaker then I'd simply skip the archetype.

What two curses did you plan to take? The way the oracles curse works is that you get all the negative aspects at 1st level gain benefits as you level up. Being one of the curses does not gain abilities as you level up means you get double the negatives without gaining anymore abilities. Depending on the curse that could be a steep price to pay.

The Archetype changes your mystery spells, but two of the spells (Oracles Burden and Bestow Curse) are on the oracle spell list, so can be chosen using your normal spells known. Ill Omen is the only thing you are really gaining that cannot be easily added. If your race grants you extra spells known that makes the alternate spells less valuable.

The extra revelations are nice, but the lore mystery has only two offensive revelations. If you really want those extra revelations, you can always spend a feat on Extra Revelations.

The lore mystery has several revelations that boost knowledge skills. But unless you are trained in the knowledge skill you cannot even attempt a roll unless the DC higher than 10. So, in order to take advantage of the revelations you need to put at least a point into any knowledge skills you think you might use. In all honesty you will want at least a point into each knowledge skill eventually. If you plan to take lore keeper that means that point will probably be giving you at least a +8 bonus before any bonus from other sources assuming it is a class skill.

Focused Trance allows you to gain a +20-circumstance bonus to a single INT based skill (any knowledge skill) a number of times per day equal to you CHA modifier. Assuming you are trained in the knowledge skill that is way better than gaining ranks equal to you character level and treating the knowledge skill as a class skill once per day.

Combining Lore Master and Focused trance you should easily be able to make any knowledge skill you are trained in. If it is a class skill that gives you an additional +3.

I would not bother with the archetype for an oracle of...

I intended to go with either Haunted or Possessed for the advancing curse, and then Tongues for the non-advancing one. I would be taking both Misfortune and Fortune revelations from the archetype, rather than using the extra slots for more Lore revelations, Misfortune is basically the main reason I'm looking at the Dual-Cursed in the first place (although like I mentioned, there's Fate's Shears as an alternative). And of course I would be putting one rank in each Knowledge skill I'm not focusing on (in addition to full ranks in those that I do focus on), so that they're all trained.

As the title sugests, I am debating whether to take the Dual-Cursed archetype on a Lore Oracle (to boost my offensive capabilities on an otherwise mostly utility focused mystery), or if it would be better to pick something else (and possibly stock up on Fate's Shears to get "Misfortune" that way).

My issue mostly comes down to the fact that the Dual-Cursed strips me of my Mystery skills (all Knowledge skills except for History, Planes and Religion. I guess I also lose Appraise, but I don't really care about it), which seems like a bit of a problem for a Mystery that focuses on knowledge skills and divination. I was going to mitigate this problem by a) using one of my traits to buy back either Knowledge(Nature) or Knowledge(Arcana), and b) getting the Spirit Ridden feat (to be clear, the main reason I'm grabbing the feat is obviously for the floating maxed out skill, since Oracles don't get that many skill ranks. That it also helps with the class skill issue is more of a nice-to-have). Still, the fact that my mystery and my archetype are working against each other is giving me second thoughts and I was hoping for a second opinion.

All in all low BAB classes aren't that good at melee combat. They just don't get the proficiencies, feats, and such that martials do.

To be more precise - by "pull their weight in a fight" I meant "be useful in a combat encounter" rather than "be decent at punching people". I apologize for the confusion - english isn't my first language so every now and then I end up missing some nuance or implying something I didn't intend to.

It can be done, but as Firebug notes those are particularly sub-optimal class choices. You can standard action summons with Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Arcanist, or Summoner (possibly a couple other ways). Those all have access to the next higher Summon spell at odd levels, where Oracle/Sorcerer are a level behind (at odd levels). And it doesn’t seem to play to their strengths; as spontaneous casters, their special special is being able to dump all their slots in one direction one day and a different direction the next, without needing to prepare. If you plan to go with Summons every combat, might as well be a prepared caster (needing to select multiple levels of Summon spells kind of chews up your limited Spells Known as well).

I guess mostly, why would you choose one of those classes?

As I've said earlier, the reason I was looking into using summoning as Sorcerer/Oracle is because I was looking for a way to provide a character that focuses a lot on out of combat utility with a way to pull their weight in a fight(specifically, a Lore Oracle). So in my particular case the class was chosen first for it's other features, and summoning was a later addition.

Well, my original "use-case" that caused me to look into this subject was a build that was mostly focused on out of combat utility (namely a Lore Oracle). So in that case the "point" of going with summoning was to make that character actually useful in combat. Though I definitely noticed that having to keep the highest available level SM spell at all times (and probably one level before that in case you run out) significantly delayed everything else, as you've noted in the last paragraph.

So, I've been receiving some mixed signal in regards to the efficacy of summoning as a Sorcerer/Oracle (full caster progression but stuck casting as a full round action). I've seen opinions ranging from "amazing" to "basically useless". So, I figured I'll just come out here and ask: what are your opinions on the subject? Do you think Oracles and Sorcerers are "good enough" at summoning to use it as their primary tactic in combat? Or do you think such a character would not be making a good contribution to a fight? Anything in between?

How are Sunsouls/Solar Ifrits viewed in Qadira (and Katapesh in general)? Are they mistreated like the other Geniekin races? Does their connection to the sun, and thus Sarenrae, give them a free pass? Or are they so uncommon noone can even tell they're not just an Aasimar?

*Kelesh, not Katapesh, obviously :)

How are Sunsouls/Solar Ifrits viewed in Qadira (and Katapesh in general)? Are they mistreated like the other Geniekin races? Does their connection to the sun, and thus Sarenrae, give them a free pass? Or are they so uncommon noone can even tell they're not just an Aasimar?

Hello James and thank you for your time! Here's something I've been wondering about. All signs on earth and sky (as far as they are visible to the fans at least) point to the Oracle becoming essentially a Sorcerer class option. Now, that in and of itself raises a lot of questions (Are we going to see bloodlines modeling mysteries? What's happening with Curses? Archetypes? Part of the "mysterious bloodlines"? Ahhhh!), but my guess would be that you're not at liberty to reveal that information at the moment :) . So, here's my actual question: how does Oracle becoming part of the Sorcerer class going to affect Golarion lore? Are Oracles still considered a seperate thing? Or are they being retconned into literal "divine sorcerers"?

Here's something I can't seem to find an answer to - what the lifespan of the Geniekin races is supposed to be on Golarion? Most people I ask seem to think it's the same as post-errata Aasimars and Tieflings. Except of course that Ifrits, Undines, Oreads and Sylphs were not mentioned in the ARG errata. The matter is further confused by Sulis, who in the ARG have a different lifespan than both the Aasimars/Tieflings and the rest of the elemental planetouched.

A related question - if the Geniekin really do live for hundreds of years, how does that interact with the "Mostly Human" alternate racial trait? It's kind of hard not to realize you're not human if it took you four times as long as your supposed peers to reach adulthood.