First Published March 28, 2023, 12:32

You’ve finally made it to the big bad raid boss at the end of the rainbow road! The Nezarec encounter is fairly straightforward: do the same thing as the first encounter with both the Field of Light and the Flux of Darkness buff on either side of the room and then damage the boss. While it might take a couple of tries to get to the damage phase, you’ll get it down in no time. 

How To Beat Nezarec In Root Of Nightmares

To start, split the group up into three teams of two. One team will take the Light side of the arena on the left this time, just to mix things up, and the Darkness side on the right. The first team will be add clear and boss agro. The other two teams will leap-frog their buff between plates on their sides of the battlefield until both sides are complete, but there’s a catch. 

During the encounter, Nezarec will begin randomly giving players the Nezarec’s Hatred debuff. This debuff will launch players into the sky over and over again until the two add clear players in the middle shoot his chest while it glows. Doing this will move the debuff to the player that breaks his chest. The two players in the middle will trade this debuff back and forth by continuing to shoot Nezarec’s chest when it starts to glow. This will send Nezarec into a frenzy and he’ll jump off of his platform in the center of the room to chase players around the arena. 

Once the boss has made his way off of his podium, he will begin to chase players around and attack them with the typical slam attacks, as well as the Tormentor’s Void projectile blasts. The two add clear players will need to shoot him to keep his agro until damage starts. Ignoring him will allow him to go after the players dealing with the plates mechanic and potentially lead to a wipe. 

While he’s doing all of this, he will also ignite a wipe mechanic. To keep this from happening, the two add clear players will need to break his shoulder pads after he lets off a blast of either blue or orange energy before he jumps off the podium. If it’s blue for Light, someone from the Darkness side of the room will need to make their way to one of the completed Light seeds while they have the Flux of Darkness buff. After all players have made it to that specific plate, the player with the Flux of Darkness buff needs to shoot the Light Seed to give everyone the Sheltered buff. Having this will prevent players from dying to Nezarec’s wipe attack. If he glows orange instead, flip the sides. Continue on as normal after the wipe attack and get ready for damage. 

Once both sides are done with their plates, everyone will meet on one of the raised platforms scattered throughout the room to get ready for damage. Shortly after both sides are done with their plates, Nezarec will be hit with an orange and blue beam that will make him vulnerable. This will begin the damage phase. Note that while he is in this state, he will still do all of his usual attacks and occasionally hit players with his Hatred debuff, sending you into the air. This is important to note in case people are using rocket launchers for damage, so look out just in case your teammates get sent up in front of you. The last thing you want is to die by firing off a rocket at your friend’s back. 

After a few rotations of this, you will have defeated Nezarec. Congratulations! You’ve just taken down another of the Witness’ disciples! Don’t forget to collect your loot, give your teammates a commendation, and check the damage screen for ultimate bragging rights.

That’s everything you need to know about how to beat the Root of Nightmares raid in Destiny 2! 

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Written by Austin Ford

Austin is a freelance writer, theatre nerd, and lapsed stand-up comedian. His love for writing and dissection of video games brought him to the games journalism space where he’s written for outlets like The Outerhaven and XboxEra. When not working on Destiny 2 YouTube videos or streaming on Twitch, he helps to build out our Destiny 2 coverage with his deep knowledge of the game and its systems. With multiple Day One Raid completions, Austin likes to think of himself as an expert not only in Destiny but Bungie’s entire catalog of games. When not actively obsessing over The Traveler, Austin is also a fan of indie titles and JRPGs. If you ask him what his favorite game of all time is, he’d say Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and will not rest until a sequel or Reboot is in his hands.

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