Root of Nightmares Raid Guide – Destiny 2
The long-awaited release of a new raid has occurred, where Guardians visit The Witness’s ship for the first time. They met an ancient entity from old legends, which everyone considered a children’s fairy tale. However, the Guardians discovered the truth behind the myths as they confronted yet another forgotten deity of this world.
In this Root of Nightmares overview, we’ll take a closer look at what’s in store for you in the first Lightfall’s Raid: the lore, Loot Table, encounters, rewards, guns, armor, a new exotic shotgun, and more. Sit back, dear reader, because it’s time to break into the heart of our enemy!
LORE AND STORY
We’ll assume that you’ve watched the first cutscene in Lightfall. Remember how the Traveler shot the Witness’s Pyramid with its beam of pure light? This power spread throughout the ship, giving new life to everything in its path. As expected, this power landed on the body of the lifeless Disciple, which turned out to be Nezarec, the Final God of Pain. Returning to life, he felt the delicious and attractive power of the Guardians, who at that time were on Neptune with The Veil.
By using psionic abilities, he began to contact them, constantly speaking with them and nagging them in every possible way. Guardians track where this signal comes from and head into the battle to learn the secrets of the mysterious Nezarec.
WEAPONS AND ARMOR
As always, the most interesting types of weapons and armor await you in Raids, and Root of Nightmares is no exception. Many players have already agreed that this is the best Raid visually. Thus the equipment is equally glamorous in terms of how it looks.
ROOT OF NIGHTMARES WEAPONS
This time arsenal came out rich and quite diverse. In addition to the usual Auto Rifle with Machine Gun and Grenade Launcher, you can get completely new Solar Trace and Linear Fusion Rifle and an extraordinary Sidearm. Bungie also decided to please Shotguns fans by adding a legendary and an exotic too!
As usual for the Raid, each weapon is quite powerful and is already preparing to take place in the meta. So far, however, the attention of the players is riveted on another thing.
NEW RAID EXOTIC WEAPON
Meet the Conditional Finality, a new Root of Nightmares Exotic Shotgun made famous by its ugly hacker leak. You can get it for beating the final encounter, but only with a certain chance and once a week per character. It sounds terrible, but you can increase the possibilities by completing particular triumphs.
The shotgun itself goes into the second slot, and its unique feature is the dual element. Yes, a weapon that can shoot Stasis and Solar with module switching. In addition, the Paracausal Pellets perk gives you an instant freeze or ignites enemies when you hit them. While PvE players have yet to discover a practical use for Conditional Finality, its impact in PvP is already evident as the first Guardians to wield it effortlessly crushed opposing teams.
ROOT OF NIGHTMARES ARMOR
The armor has become an enchanting success for Bungie. The Root of Nightmares focuses entirely on the life that the Traveler created. Therefore new armor is wholly organic and consists of different living parts. For example, Warlocks got a new pair of hands on their back, Titans grew a leaf on their heads, and Hunters got a varicolored living cloak for any shader. So unique Armor for Bungie made players talk about how the studio was inspired by the style of Souls-like games and ancient Greek mythology when creating them.
ROOT OF NIGHTMARES LOOT TABLE
Let’s move on to one of the most exciting parts of this article. We know how interested you are to find out what loot awaits you on each encounter. So, we have prepared a convenient list for your reference.
FIRST ENCOUNTER
- Briar’s Contempt (Solar Linear Fusion Rifle)
- Nessa’s Oblation (Void Shotgun)
- Koraxis’s Distress (Strand Grenade Launcher)
- Helmet
- Arms
- Chest
SECOND ENCOUNTER
- Mykel’s Reverence(Strand Sidearm)
- Acasia’s Rejection (Solar Trace Rifle )
- Nessa’s Oblation (Void Shotgun)
- Koraxis’s Distress (Strand Grenade Launcher)
- Arms
- Chest
- Legs
THIRD ENCOUNTER
- Mykel’s Reverence (Strand Sidearm)
- Acasia’s Rejection (Solar Trace Rifle )
- Rufus’s Fury (Strand Auto Rifle)
- Koraxis’s Distress (Strand Grenade Launcher)
- Chest
- Legs
- Class Item
FOURTH ENCOUNTER
- Conditional Finality (Exotic Stasis Shotgun)
- Any Legendary Weapon from the Raid
- Helmet
- Legs
- Class Item
And that’s the whole Root of Nightmares Loot List for now. Maybe Bungie will change something in the future, but this is unlikely. What definitely won’t change is the Raid itself and its mechanics, so let’s move on to it.
ROOT OF NIGHTMARES: RAID TIPS AND ENCOUNTERS
There have been rumors for a long time that it will be a long Raid with five stages. Regardless, as it became known during the race, Root of Nightmares has four encounters with very clear mechanics and average length. For this reason, we have prepared a whole Root of Nightmares Raid strategy so you can complete this Raid without any difficulties.
And without touching the spoilers, one of the main mechanics of the Raid is the Field of Light and Flux of Darkness. You will need each of them to activate special Orbs in the form of the Traveler with blue and dark-orange energy. They are required to obtain special dark orbs named Nodes to complete the stages.
CATACLYSM ENCOUNTER
The first stage is called Cataclysm, and in it, Guardians are in a massive arena with small buildings on the sides and a giant tower in the center.
The encounter’s goal: simultaneous activation of all the Nodes before the wipe happens. To do this, one team should deal with activating these Nodes while others defeat Tormentors to replenish the Sweeping Terror buff, causing the wipe. Moreover, Tormentors appear only after destroying Psions, so the second team needs to constantly look for them in the arena. Guardians can activate those Nodes by using the Field of Light buff, which players can obtain from orbs that look like the Traveler and shows the direction of the next Nodes activation.
At one point, a note in chat will appear that says, “His hatred halts.” After this, the fireteam will need to find the New Light orb from the beginning and repeat what they have already done three more times to fully complete the encounter.
SCISSION ENCOUNTER
Scission is the second stage, and the Flux of Darkness finally comes into play. Now we have Runners that must move between the two teams, spreading the buffs they need.
In short, one team eliminates mobs while the second one gains needed energy buffs and instantly flies to the opposite side to activate their orb that has the line of their color.
At one point, both teams will have to move up a level and repeat the same actions until they move to the third final level to repeat everything again. A little tip: don’t forget to band together when a Runner plans to get a Light or Darkness buff, as these buffs protect some enemies, or you can use The Colony, Exotic Grenade Launcher, because it easily destroys them despite the shield.
PUZZLE SEGMENT
Next comes a mini-stage in the form of a jumping puzzle. It has a unique mechanic in the form of Darkness’s Refuge buff. It has the ability to save you and your teammates from the yellow one-shot wave energy. This buff can be obtained by shooting Flux of Darkness with a Light buff. It’s important to use it at the right time, as a bad-timed usage can result in losing Darkness’s Refuge.
THIRD ENCOUNTER AND FIRST BOSS
The third encounter and one of the first Root of Nightmares Bosses: Zo’Aurc, Explicator of Planets. As you might guess, the Light and Dark mechanic is here again, but to defeat the boss, you must move the planets for the correct configuration to damage the boss. As in the Scission stage, we have two teams and Runners, but with some changes. The left side is Light, and the right side is Dark. We have also included a helpful hint map that outlines the locations and provides instructions on how to move the planets. You can thank Fallout_Plays and Cosmic_Irony for it.
At the beginning of the stage, you need to exterminate small mobs. After defeating two Centurions, four powerful Colossus will appear. Once the Runners destroy them, they earn the Planetary Insight buff and see Light and Dark planets. Depending on the chosen side, they run under the appropriate one and pick up Planetary Attunement power, and return back, bringing the celestial sphere they need for their side. It sounds complicated, but you can navigate using the map below, which indicates the location of each planet and its corresponding number.
If you did everything right, you must move to the center. There will be three planets with Dark or Light colors (again). Runners must run to the corresponding color, pick up the required buff and bring it to one of the three in the center. Have you done everything? If so, the planets will sparkle, and a black crystal will appear in the top center where the fireteam must shoot. The damage phase finally begins, and the boss lights up with Light or Dark energy. All you have to do is stand on his color’s plate to deal damage. Remember, you only have three attempts to annihilate the boss.
FINAL ENCOUNTER AND BOSS
Finally, you have reached the end. All that’s left is to defeat the last opponent, namely (spoiler) Nezareс!
Guardians are divided into three teams, and the Light and Dark have changed places from the last stage. For convenience, you can see another map below, which shows the Nodes’ plates. The first team is Runners, and like in the first stage, they sprint after the necessary Node. The second team is clearing mobs to prevent wipes. The third team, the Nezarec Bullies, distracts the villain as he periodically descends into the arena and looks for a victim. Their task is to direct Nezarec’s hatred from their teammates on them. Other than that, Nezarec Bullies should remember to shoot at the boss himself for crit spots on the shoulders and chest. When the Runners finish racing, the DPS phase begins, and everybody’s task is to bring him to one group point (L3 on the map is recommended).
The final tip in our Destiny 2 new Raid guide for Nezarec’s boss fight: if somebody breaks Nezarec’s weak points, he will make a small wave of energy with a particular color. And like in the puzzle step, the fireteam needs to get either Darkness’s Refuge if it was the orange wave or Light’s Refuge if it was the blue wave. Players can obtain the buff, and if they have a Light or Darkness buff, shoot at the opposite Node in the dome with the Traveler. After the first Damage phase, we recommend using this tip to avoid wipes.
Now you are fully prepared for this Raid. We hope our Root of Nightmares guide was helpful and you will share it with your clan or friends. The Root of Nightmares is not a simple Raid, but knowing all these details from the guide will make it much easier for you. By the way, you can read our guide about the best Raid weapons if you have problems during the passage. And if you can’t get through because of the random bad teammates, then you can use WowVendor Root of Nightmares Carry with a pro-team help service.
Thanks for reading. Owl is flying away!
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