I keep losing the upgrades from wiping at the boss haha I do know it's doable as I've cleared a it two or three times without a problem but these last three attempts I've wiped so I was trying to see if there's a strat I could employ if my team isn't up to snuff.
Pomander of Steel will cut down what the attack does--it's like 2k base damage, and Steel cuts that down a lot. You should also get a ton of potions in PotD and the cooldowns are fairly short--those things are lifesavers and if I do a PotD run I usually bind them to a hotbar somewhere. But yeah, the AOE hits semi-hard and taking that hit + an add cast while you're stunned will usually be death, and healing up in between is important.
I'm not sure if you are on PS4 and if not, perhaps someone else can answer but if the Item window in Palace of the Dead gets dismissed, how do you bring it back up?
PC but I'm on controller so UI is the same. The PotD Pomander inventory highjacks your character window, so hit start and pick Character from the list to bring the PotD window back up.