The difficulty of the Root of Nightmares Raid has been a fairly controversial component of Destiny 2’s recent Lightfall expansion. Due to encounters with mechanics that can be completed with very few fireteam members, the Root of Nightmares has been dubbed the easiest Raid in Destiny 2 by the community. A majority of players attempting the new Raid can complete a run of the Raid just by handling the rank-and-file enemies while leaving the required mechanics to a small portion of the fireteam’s members.
Many players in the Destiny 2 community are frustrated by how underwhelming the difficulty in the new Raid is since Raids are endgame content. The complaints about the Raids' difficulty are all sound arguments, especially since some of Lightfall’s content is harder than the Master Raid, like the legendary Campaign, and particularly, the infamous Neomuna patrol destination. The extreme difficulty in some of these other activities is inappropriately high, which only adds to the community's frustrated expectations for the Raid.
The Difficulty of Destiny 2's Root of Nightmares Raid
Ultimately, the Root of Nightmares Raid's simplified difficulty is a compromise that means that other aspects of the Lightfall expansion could shine. The new subclass, Strand is great for Root Of Nightmares for a number of reasons. Compared to the rest of the Lightfall expansion's content so far, the new Raid has been a redeeming quality that helps to hold other components in place. Without the accessibility that the Root of Nightmares Raid’s difficulty enables, a lot of the features from the Lightfall era would suffer from gatekeeping and minimal variety.
The Root of Nightmares Raid is a great source for weapons infused with the Strand elemental damage. Aside from the Raid, the only other reliable sources for the Strand weapons at the moment are rewards from around the Neomuna destination’s activities, and weapons from the current seasonal content, Season of the Defiance. In proportion, the Strand weapons that come from the Root of Nightmares make up close to a third of the total Strand weapons at the moment.
Buildcrafting with the New Strand Subclass in Lightfall
Why the Raid being a reliable source for Strand weapons matters is because the Strand subclass builds severely benefit from, as well as rely on, Strand weapons. Not to mention, the Raid's Strand weapons are some of the best of the current Strand weapons available. If the Root of Nightmares Raid’s difficulty was on par with the hardest Raids, it would hurt a lot of players who plan on creating Strand builds in Destiny 2's current Season of the Defiance.
One of the major selling points of the Lightfall expansions and what helps to distinguish the “Lightfall era” in the game's ongoing history is the accessibility in Destiny 2's buildcrafting. Mods, Loadouts, Engram focusing, seasonal artifact mods, and champion counters all got tuned up and/or reworked in the Lightfall era of Destiny 2. These would all be hindered and even gatekept if the expansion’s Raid was as difficult as some players had hoped for.
What the community's disappointment comes down to is that Lightfall's content is too dependent on itself at the moment. Missing out on the Raid during the expansion's first Season makes for a very limited experience with the Strand subclass. Root of Nightmares' low difficulty encouraged a significant amount of Destiny 2 players to complete the Raid, but this means that it won't hold up as it currently exists when future content and Seasons are released.
Only a fraction of Destiny 2 players engage in Raid content, so locking a third of the Strand weapons behind completing the Root of Nightmares might have been an oversight. The Raid having a softened difficulty helps bridge the gap and include more players, but it hasn't sat well with the community. Considering the alternatives, putting more Strand weapons in the hands of more players was ultimately for the best, even though it meant simplifying the Raid.
Destiny 2 is currently available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
