With The Eclipse, the latest expansion of Destiny 2, a new raid has also arrived which sees the guardians face a historical enemy from the universe of Bungie's space MMO: Nezarec. An interstellar deity of pain, this disciple of the Witness has made his way through Destiny 2's mythology from a vague mention in the narrative of an exotic sorcerer's helm to a pivotal role in the Season of Treasures and then becoming a threat to the entire solar system.
La story of Nezarec is truly fascinating despite its minor impact on the main narrative. His resurrection is as much the work of the Witness and the forces of darkness, as of the Traveler, herald of light, who with his terraforming ray inadvertently pierced the amber prison in which he was kept. Now six light-bearers will have to make their way into the destroyed Pyramid that the Witness left behind to prevent Nezarec from infecting the minds and dreams of the inhabitants of the Solar System.
In this guide to the Root of Nightmares, the new raid in Destiny 2: The Eclipse we will explain how to face each battle that awaits you and which weapons are the most effective for each situation. This raid has been both praised and criticized for its simplicity and accessibility because it has very easy to understand mechanics and bosses with relatively little health. This makes it perfect as a first experience in Destiny 2's endgame, but a challenge that could be all too easy after a few months.
Prola d'ordine pulizia
For the first step of Nightmare Root you need weapons and skills to get rid of many enemies quickly. As in all other Bungie raids, the first phase serves to familiarize players with the main mechanics of the rest of the experience which in this case is a race from one plate to another to bring a buff from the beginning to the end of the arena. It will be a timed undertaking because almost every thirty seconds a tormentor will appear, the new enemies of Destiny 2, which you will have to take down quickly to give your runner more time to finish his race.
Here the team will have to be made up like this: a runner and five guardians dedicated to cleaning up the many enemies that will arrive. All the runner has to do is go from plate to plate transferring a light buff from the beginning to the end of the arena. To do so, however, his companions will first have to find two psykers protected by a shield (like those who were on the Leviathan in the season of the tormented) and kill them a few seconds apart from each other. This will cause a Tormentor to appear whose kill serves to delay the mechanic that kills all the guardians present because they have not reached the objective, the so-called wipe. To get the light buff, just shoot the white ball above the first plate, a process that the runner will repeat every time, and to find out which one is next, just follow the beam of light that originates as soon as a plate is activated.
You will have to repeat this process three times on three sets of plates so don't get mad at your runner if he gets lost sometimes. Then, as soon as the psykers are spotted, get closer and shoot them down only when the runner tells you to. Here anyone who goes from plate to plate can work miracles with the canvas, especially if he is a hunter, to overcome differences in height thanks to the grappling hook. Warlocks need to equip a source of radiance to keep everyone alive when you need to take down the tormentor quickly, and even titans would do well to equip sunhammers or darkwebs to take down the many Cabal that will come looking for you. The best weapons are undoubtedly the Barren Nest Egg with its area damage and a heavy machine gun to do a lot of damage and have a lot of ammunition. A machine gun like the Channeling Net, the new Ikelos or the Calus Mini Tool, are perfect for when you run out of shots or there are few enemies left to finish off.
Watch out for catapults
The second phase of the Root of Nightmares received a lot of criticism by veteran players due to its movement mechanics that revolve around catapults. In this fight your arena is divided in two by a chasm with three floors on each side. To get from one side to the other there are catapults but, unfortunately, these are very unpredictable in their behavior and have often thrown our teammates towards certain death. Here the ability to control your character in flight is fundamental because in this phase there are two runners and they have a long way to go. The main mechanic of this moment is identical to the first but doubled, in addition to a light buff, in fact, there is a darkness buff with as many plates and the two runners will have to move from one side of the arena to the other in order to complete their paths.
The other four players, divided into two groups, will have to clean up the many enemies present but will soon realize that some powerful cabals cannot be damaged by their weapons. This is because they too, when the runners are close to the last step of their race, will have to take the light or dark buff to be able to take them down. Until all the enemies with this particular shield have been killed, the switch to access the next floor will not appear, so coordination is key. On the top floor, then, two mini-bosses await you in the form of two Cabal lieutenants who, however, are not that tough to take down. Here both runners and cleaners can keep the same loadout as in the previous arena because the goal remains to clear quickly so that runners don't have to worry about incoming fire.
Let's take back the planets
The third phase of the Root of Nightmares is perhaps one of the most beautiful, visually and mechanically, in the history of Destiny 2. It is set in the place where the Witness keeps the planets he has kidnapped from the fabric of spacetime and your mission, to be able to damage the big and fat Cabal that you will find before you, it will be align these planets according to a pattern linked to light and darkness. This fight, strangely, has none of the mechanics seen previously and has several steps that could make it complex. The arena is made up of four triangular platforms located two on the right side and two on the left side of the room with the three vertices of each surmounted by a planet. In the center you will see three other planets on three plates from which you can then do damage to the boss in a similar way to the second encounter of the Disciple's Promise.
The team will be divided like this: one player for each of the four plates plus two in the center with the task of cleaning. To complete a damage phase, several events must occur in sequence: First the two players in the center must eliminate the four Cabal centurions protected by a sun shield that appear at the beginning of the fight. This will cause a large Cabal lieutenant to appear on each triangular platform, which the player present must kill as quickly as possible. Once done, whoever dealt the final blow will receive a buff with which he will be able to see the nature of the planets on his platform. The right side of the arena is considered the dark side while the left is considered the light side. Of the three planets suspended above each plate, the player with the buff will have to understand which one is different from the other two and communicate it to his counterpart on the opposite side of the map. After collecting the respective planetary alignment (a white ball located under each of the three planets) the two players in the lower and upper part of the map will have to switch places and deposit their alignment where their colleague has indicated it. This will move the planets from one side of the room to the other leading to the formation of trios, all dark and all light.
Once you have completed this step you will have to repeat all the steps until you obtain the buff to understand which planetary alignment must be deposited in each of the three plates in the center of the map in order to do damage to the boss. Once the lieutenant has been killed, look at the center: of the three planets present, two will shine with light and one with darkness (or vice versa) this means that two planetary alignments on the light side must be deposited on the respective plates and one on the dark side must be deposited on that remaining. Once done, the boss can be damaged but pay attention to his aura, if it shines white it means you can only hit him from a light plate, if it shines orange you can only hit him from the darkness one. As for weapons, the pair Izanaghi's burden and rocket launcher (with at least one Gjallahorn) works well but we were better off with five Thunder Lords plus a Divinity. Once the damage phase is over, repeat the process until the boss dies.
Confronting Nezarec
The final boss of the Root of Nightmares is without a doubt the easiest of those available among the many raids of Destiny 2. The strategy for starting its damage phase is identical to that of the second phase (with one runner making the six plates of light and one making the six plates of darkness), the his wipe mechanic is very simple to avoid and has very little health so you can get rid of him in two phases simply by using the same loadout as the previous boss. Here the only addition is that of Nezarec's Hatred for which the boss will start hitting a random member of your team with incessant void explosions and it is the task of two players to shoot at his weak points (the same as a tormentor therefore shoulders and chest) to gain the hatred of the boss and prevent one of the runners from being penalised.
When you break Nezarec's last weak point, the boss will emit an aura, white or orange, indicating the buff that the whole team will have to acquire from one of the runner plates in order to survive his elimination mechanic. The flow of the game it will therefore be the following: while the two runners make their sets of plates, two players try to take Nezarec's hatred to save the runner and the other two will have to clean up the many Cabal that appear. Once you have acquired the hatred, organize yourself with the runners to identify a safe plate, survive the wipe mechanic and then head to the last plate on the left from which you will damage the boss. All you need is a Source of Radiance and five Lords of Thunder plus, possibly, the other damage supers you know like the titan's slam or the new hunter's bow staff. The last things to watch out for are that the damage phase begins only after a large orange beam hits Nezarec once the two sets of plates are finished and that this boss has a tendency to throw guardians off the map with his gigantic scythe so better be careful not to get hit.
This is everything you need to know to beat the new raid The Root of Nightmares. It will be enough for you to be at the 1780 level, have a good machine gun (like the Chain of Command, the ritual weapon of the season of the Tormented) a rocket launcher like the Hothead, the Izanaghi's Burden, the Dry Nest Egg and some good machine guns for cleaning. The sources of radiance are useful but not essential and if you decide to use all the dark canvas you will not only have fun but you will also take home a triumph which will increase the chances of obtaining the exotic of this raid, Conditional Purpose, a sawn-off shotgun that fires a freezing projectile and a solar projectile that explodes targets.
