The root of Nightmares, the new Lightfall raid for Destiny 2, was cleared for the first time just 2.5 hours after it went live.
Bungie has acknowledged (opens in new tab) Twitter reports of the first completion, but at the time of this writing, it is still validating the results. But Twitch clips don’t lie, and as many players have pointed out, a fireteam from the group Hard In The Paint led by RoenXD seems to have been the first to beat the final boss. It didn’t look like there was any cheating, so we have a winner. (Update: Bungie has made it official.)
If these reports are accurate, the raid race for Root of Nightmares has been one of the shortest in Destiny 2. Destiny Raid Report says that the Vow of the Disciple raid in the last expansion, The Witch Queen, took just over seven hours (opens in new tab). Deep Stone Crypt in Beyond Light took about five and a half hours, and Garden of Salvation in Shadowkeep took just over six hours.
The 18-hour race for Forsaken’s Last Wish raid is unmatched by anything else. And at two hours and a half, the Root of Nightmares is more like the Scourge of the Past and the Eater of Worlds raid lair, which took teams about an hour and a half to clear.
Why did this raid race last so much less time? It has something to do with how encounters are set up. For example, the main challenges in the notoriously long Last Wish race were hard puzzles, while the actual fighting was mild. This kind of roadblock doesn’t seem to be in Root of Nightmares.
Raiders are also getting better at understanding Bungie’s design language, and since the last raid, Guardians have gotten exponentially stronger. Even though mods have been nerfed, we are more vital than ever thanks to 3.0 subclasses, Strand, and the new Exotics. This means that even the hardest bosses will be easier to kill. Still, finishing a raid on day one is a big deal, so well done to everyone who did it.
