Learn in detail how to complete the Root of Nightmares raid, added in Lightfall expansion. What are the mechanics, and power requirements, rewards and loot table, where to find the secret chests and more without having to break your head over the puzzles with our complete guide.
The Lightfall’s raid, the Root of Nightmares, launched on March 10, taking place aboard the Witness’ terraformed ship. Fight the ancient evil to find two secret chests, obtain awesome weapons and get guaranteed Deepsight weapon one per week. Check out our Loot Table below.
Root of Nightmares Loot Table
Image from Blueberries.gg
Passing The Root of Nightmares raid will give you a pinnacle experience reward, as well as other awesome loot. You can get new armor sets (Agony armor set for Titans, Trepidation armor set for Hunter, and Detestation armor set for Warlocks), six Legendary weapons, and the new Exotic Shotgun – Conditional Finality, as well as some cosmetics.
All of the items in loot table you get from the secret chests, except new Exotic weapon, Conditional Finality Exotic Shotgun. If you want to dive more into the weapons feature, read our article “The Root of Nightmares Weapons”. About the chests we’ll tell you right away.
Deepsight Resonance chest and hidden chests
If you want Deepsight Resonance chest, also known as red border chest, guaranteed to spawn after defeating Nezarec, you need to perform certain actions from the beginning of the raid.
You will need to activate Light and Dark Seeds in the correct order in three rooms:
As soon as you spawn in the raid, walk forward, holding to the left wall.
Reach the building and behind it find the small display with the three seeds inside.
Memorize the order of the Light and Dark seeds from left to right.
The first room: it is located before the first encounter, just after the legend in the room with the light ribbons. Don’t jump down, in the far wall find the door to the hidden room.
Now you need to activate the right seed. If successful, you will see the message, “Your actions take root….”. The mechanics of activation are described in the firs encounter.
The second room: it is located between the second and third encounter. After passing the jumping puzzle, turn left and on the floating platform you will find the room.
Activate the right seed and go to the next encounter.
The third room: it is located just before the final encounter. In the jumping puzzle, walk down the bottom ribbon and land on the small platform. Look up and there you’ll see the door to the third room.
If you’ve done everything right, after activating the last seed, you’ll see the message, “A great harvest awaits…” .
You are now guaranteed to get a Deepsight weapon when you complete the last encounter. For one account you can do this once a week (as with other raids with this mechanic).
Deepsight Weapons
“Unlocking Deepsight will awaken Resonant red-bordered weapons and activate latent features of others across the system. These weapons can be acquired by completing various activities and through world drop rewards. Only craftable weapons will drop with Deepsight Resonance to unlock Patterns.”
Bungie.net
Hidden Chests location
Hidden Chest #1
Towards the end of the jumping puzzle after the first encounter, Cataclysm, you will begin to be sniped by Psions on the three sniper points to your right. Kill them and jump to the highest square hole in the wall. Find the door leading to the inside of the pyramid and turn right once you get inside. At the end of the corridor will be the Tormentor and several Shadow Legion. Defeat all enemies to open the chest.
Hidden Chest #2
The second chest can be found by going through the jumping puzzle Nuclear Blast between the second and third encounters, Scissons and Macrocosm, right after your team opens the door to a series of stairs. You need to climb the right stairs. If you look straight down by walking forward and peeking over the edge of the structure, you’ll see a Darkness crux. Shoot it to unlock the hidden room right behind you. Inside you will find the chest.
Master Difficulty
You can complete the Root of Nightmares raid in two versions of difficulty: Regular and Master.
The mechanics of the raid will not change, only the difficulty, indeed, as always. Enemies are stronger, better shielded, and your Power Level is restricted by 20%.
But you’ll also get Surges and Overcharge modifiers that boost certain elements and weapon archetypes:
Surges affect your subclass abilities and weapons, allowing you to deal 25% more damage, stacked with damage buffs and armor modifiers;
Weapons matching the Overcharge modifier also deal 25% more damage;
Surge and Overcharge do not add up;
Seasonal Artifact gives 25% damage buff via Anti-Champion properties regardless of modifiers.
Regular
Master
Power Level
1,770
+0 Power Delta
1,840
-20 Power Delta
Enemies
Barrier Champions
Barrier Champions and Colossi, Unstoppable Incendiors
Completing the weekly Root of Nightmares quest on Master difficulty for the first time will increase the chance of dropping a Conditional Finality Exotic Shotgun. In addition, it guarantees an Adept weapon drop with the Adept mod socket and additional bonuses to stats after Masterworking.
However, Adept weapons can be converted to Deepsight versions with the Upgrade option on the Inspection screen.
You can customize the barrel and magazine of the Adept’s weapon and enhance the traits present in your roll after conversion to the Deepsight variant.
You can’t change the characteristics to other ones.
Masterwork bonuses are also locked and cannot be changed with Deepsight.
Root of Nightmares Loadouts
In general, the bosses in Root of Nightmares have small health totals, so you can use any weapon what you like, even on Master difficulty.
Knowing the mechanics of the game and what enemies you will face, consider bringing in Grenade Launchers with Disorienting Grenades to blind enemies, Submachine Guns for clearing, and something to deal with long-range enemies like a Pulse Rifle or Scout Rifle.
At this point, we are sure that you will definitely need some of these Exotic weapons:
Divinity
Gjallarhorn
Outbreak Perfected
Arbalest
Izanagi’s Burden
When choosing subclasses, the following are worth paying attention to:
Hunter
Titan
Warlock
Nightstalker
Sunbreaker
Dawnblade
Threadrunner
Berserker
Shadebinder
About the builds, we can definitely say that the Starfire Protocol has proven to be very great for this raid. If you want to know more about the changes in subclasses, read the article “Destiny 2: The Lightfall overview.”
How to start Root of Nightmares raid
In the Root of Nightmares, there is no opening encounter as such, unlike in the Vow of the Disciple. There’s a small cutscene, a few platforms, and Shadow Legion enemies, get through them, and you’ll approach the beginning of the first encounter.
To start the encounter, the Guardians will need to shoot a small glowing orb directly in front of them and be sure to remember its location – it’s important! There will be Barrier Champions in the first encounter, so be prepared to deal with them.
Sweeping Terror debuff
The mechanics of the first encounter is that all players get a 30-second Sweeping Terror debuff; when it expires, they will wipe if they don’t manage to kill the Tormentors, who only spawn after killing both Psions in bubbles. It’s worth selecting a part of the team to control this wipe mechanic and kill the Tormentors in time. There will be no other bosses besides Barrier Champions and Tormentors in this encounter.
First Encounter The Cataclysm
Now it’s important to understand the other part of the mechanics. It will be in other encounters as well, so it’s a good chance to practice and strategize team allocation.
While part of the team kills Tormentors and Champions, the other part should turn their attention to the large white circles scattered around the arena, with a spinning helix in the center. These are the nodes the Guardians will use to advance through the encounter, starting with the node shot at the beginning of the encounter.
When the first node is shot, a beam of light will point in the direction of the next. Whoever is in the aura around the node when it is shot receives a 20-second Field of Light buff.
After passing through the beam of light, the person with the buff must shoot at the dark figure in the center of the spiral. The dark figure will then turn into a glowing white orb that points the way to the next node.
Remember that when the node is activated, the buff will expire, and you have to return to the initial node and shoot again into the orb to get the Field of Light buff. Before activating the next orb, you have to kill the Tormentor.
Remember the location of the last activated node, return to the initial orb, kill Tormentor, and repeat the action until you see the message: “His Hatred Halts…”. After that Sweeping Terror will disappear, and you will have time to clear the location and collect ammo.
Sweeping Terror will be repeated a total of three times, and each time the initial orb will be in a different location. The task of the team is to find it quickly and start activating the nodes.
At the end of the encounter, a chest will appear, and by crossing the bridge, your team can go to the second encounter in the Root of Nightmares.
Second Encounter The Scission
Having practiced the mechanics in the first, in fact, tutorial encounter, players must demonstrate a confident understanding of the mechanics of knots and buffs in the second. This time it will be more difficult because we have two different types of nodes in the Scission encounter.
Learn more about the second encounter The Scission
As in the first encounter of the raid, you need to activate the nodes using the buff received from the initial node, but this time we have two kinds of nodes and two kinds of buffs – Light and Dark. For the Light nodes, is the Field of Light buff, and for the Dark nodes is the Flux of Darkness buff.
The encounter arena is divided into two sides by a giant hole in between, so the team must split into two as well.
Each team will have one Guardian in charge of picking up the buff and activating the nodes and the other two in charge of clearing the area:
Be prepared to fight the Barrier Champions;
Before they begin, players in charge of nodes and buffs must decide whether they will focus on one type of node or rotate both.
Once the encounter starts, all players get a debuff for 2 minutes, and to avoid a wipe when it expires, you must activate all nodes on both sides of the arena.
Light and Dark nodes are located on both sides of the arena, and the Guardians will have to cross the giant hole in the center, using jumping platforms:
You can’t cross the chasm using normal jumps without them;
You will have to try to accurately calculate the moment of jumping so as not to fall or fly into the wall;
To succeed, stand directly in front of the jumping platform, find the floating object in the chasm, shoot it, and the platform will send you to the other side.
Players doing the clearing should join the players activating the nodes while they get the buff:
It will come in handy for the clearers to kill shielded enemies;
You can only kill shielded enemies if you are getting one of the buffs.
The debuff will stop as soon as all nodes are activated. After that, two mini-bosses will appear; you can kill them only if you have the buff.
After killing the two mini-bosses, the team will be able to move up to the next floor and do the same thing again. There are a total of three floors in this encounter, after which it will be possible to go to the next The Root of Nightmares raid encounter.
Third Encounter The Macrocosm
The third meeting might be the most beautiful. The task is to place the odd planets on the other side of the room, which means that the left side should become completely with the Light planets, and the right side should become completely the Dark planets.
Then the three planets in the center with their glow (dark or white) will indicate which planets outside should be aligned in the center.
To deal damage to the boss, you must stand on the correct plate that corresponds to the color of his shield. The plate in turn corresponds to the position of the middle planets.
Learn more about the third encounter The Macrocosm
This time the team has to divide into three parts, with two players in each. Two of them clear enemies, two planet movers swap Light and Dark planets on the near side of the arena, and two on the far side.
To figure out which planet is odd, you must defeat Colossus, go below that planet and interact with it, and then move to another part of the room:
Tell your partner which position was on your side of the room and switch places;
You can talk over or look at your partner, but either way, nothing will work without clear communication.
When both pairs of Guardians have interacted with the four planets, the planets will switch positions, and the message “Planets Indexed” will appear. Next, there will be a clearing stage until a new Colossus pair will spawn.
Defeating them will reveal three planets in the middle, such as two white and one dark:
The Guardians must collect the planets and take them to the corresponding plate. For example, if the right planet is dark, collect it and take it to the right side and then interact with the right plate;
Once all three are done, clear the enemies and prepare for the damage phase.
To deal damage to the boss, Zo’Aurc, Explicator of Planets, you must keep an eye on the color of his shield and stand on the correct plate:
Once you are sure that you have dealt enough damage and reached the mark on his health scale and the boss is immune, change your position to the right plate according to the color of the boss’s shield.
Once all three plates are used, the progress will reset, and you must do it all over again. If you do not achieve to hit the notch in the boss’ health bar, you will not be able to fully use a damage plate.
After defeating Zo’Aurc, your team can go to the final encounter and the final boss of the raid.
Final Encounter Nezarec Final God of Pain
The goal of the encounter with Nezarec, Final God of Pain, is to create two node connections, one full connection on the left and one on the right. These nodes are called Field of Light and Flux of Darkness, just like the buffs in the previous encounters.
Learn more about the final Encounter Nezarec Final God of Pain
First, select one player to create the Field of Light connections on the left and one player to create the Flux of Darkness connections on the right;
Two players will be traditionally responsible for clearing enemies on the left and right;
The last two players will shoot at Nezarec’s weak points, shooting at his chest and clearing all enemies around him.
Once both nodes are created, the damage phase will begin:
While the connections are being created, Nezarec will stand on his platform and then move around the battlefield;
He should be stunned by shooting him in the chest;
If you fail to stun him, Nezarec will wipe out the entire team. This wipe can only be survived by being in a Darkness’s Refuge or Light’s Refuge, which can be created with Field of Light to a dark node or a Flux of Darkness to a light node.
When both connections are completed, group up on one of the platforms on the left or right of your choice and shoot at Nezarec’s chest:
Once Nezarec’s chest is stunned, he will be hit by a beam of light, and the damage phase will begin;
Once Nezarec is immune, change position and repeat the process.
In subsequent rounds, the time between activation and closing the chest shortens, so you’ll have to crack Nezarec’s chest even faster. To avoid a wipe at this point, you should create a Refuge.
To create a Refuge, you must pay attention to the color of Nezarec’s shoulder when it breaks. Once it breaks, it will glow either white or dark. This indicates what kind of protection you need:
If its shoulder is dark, you need Darkness’s Refuge: take a Field of Light buff to a Flux of Darkness node;
If his shoulder is Light, you need Light’s Refuge: take a Flux of Darkness buff to a Field of the Light node.
By doing so, you will create a safe zone similar to the one you used to pass the jump puzzle right before the fight:
Standing in this aura will give players a 15-second buff;
This buff will protect you from Nezarec’s wipe, but not from his attacks or those of other enemies;
When you use this buff, Nezarec will jump back onto his platform, and you will have to crack his weak points again.
Be careful, and don’t get excited about winning early, because Nezarec also has a final stand. Try to save some heavy ammo for this or even for the super hit; otherwise, you won’t have enough damage to reduce his health, and he’ll wipe you out.
Root of Nightmares Weapons
Here are six awesome weapons you can get in this raid from the last but not least to the best one.
The Conditional Finality is a Stasis Exotic Shotgun that features the following Exotic perks:
Paracausal Pellets: Landing nearly all Stasis pellets will freeze targets; landing nearly all Solar pellets will ignite targets.
Split Decision: Dual Barrels split into Stasis and Solar damage.
As you can see, it’s notable and fascinating because when dealing Solar damage, its shot is split into a solar circle, and in Stasis, it’s split into a triangle, repeating the image of the subclasses.
Koraxis’s Distress Grenade Launcher
The Koraxis’s Distress is a Rapid-fire Frame Strand Grenade Launcher that can roll with the following perks:
We’ll tell you more about the six Legendary weapons and their godrolls and armor in the next article, which will be coming soon.
Hopefully, this raid won’t cause you any problems now, and Overgear will keep you company as always! Please, don’t forget to rate this article if this information was helpful to you.
