Nightmare hunts were added toDestiny 2as a part of theShadowkeep expansion. Guardians can unlock the hunts by completing all of theShadowkeep campaign missions. Once unlocked, players can choose from three different hunts per week.
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There are a total of eight nightmare hunts, which are rotated every week. Similar to strikes, nightmare hunts are relatively short activities that end in a boss fight. Each boss has a chance to drop one of the essence quests or legendary gear, which is explained in more detail below.
Weekly Nightmare Hunts
Unfortunately, gamers will no longer be able to get powerful gear from nightmare hunts. However, there are still a lot of reasons to play the mode, which features eight different ominous missions. All eight nightmare hunts are listed below:
Players can choose betweenfour different levels of difficulty, just like in Nightfall. On the way to each boss, fireteams will have to eliminate waves of enemies before the final fight.Destinyplayers may notice that the bosses are returning characters from the firstDestinytitle. Each boss will have hordes of adds to kill as well. The majority of the bosses will have to be taken down in phases. In-between each phase, guardians will have to take down all of the adds and majors before dealing damage to the boss. SeasonedDestiny 2players have experience with the boss immunity process.
There has been some criticismof the nightmare hunt boss battles, however. If guardians do too much damage before the first immune phase,the boss will become immediately immune in the next phase when damaged. This mechanic is different than most boss fights where a boss will become immune once a certain amount of damage is dealt.
Weapons And Gear
The Shadowkeep expansion introduced a number of essence quests on the moon. Players receive essences as a drop, often in boss crates after a nightmare hunt. Each essence quest has alegendary weapon or gear reward. Most of the quests are relatively simple to complete, and the rewards are impressive. One of the main reasons to play the nightmare hunts in 2021 is to collect the legendary essence quests and unlock the gear.
Each nightmare hunt correlates with a particular essence quest. For example, the Essence of Despair will usually drop in the Nightmare Hunt: Despair. Players will have the best luck if they know which essence they want and participate in the correct hunt. Although players will unlock Dreambane items in the campaign, but they can participate in the hunts for different rolls. Listed below are all of the essence drops and their rewards:
There are fourteenessence questsin total, which is a lot of content for players that have not even touched the Shadowkeep campaign. However, with the above list, players can choose which quests are worth the effort. Players that want a particular item can wait for the corresponding nightmare hunt and complete it until they receive the necessary essence. The six essences that do not have nightmare hunts named after them can be found by completing activities on the moon.
Essence Quests And The Remaining Six
The six essences that do not have a high chance of dropping during the nightmare hunts can be found by participating in the following activities:
Most of the Shadowkeep weapons and armor will drop randomly, bypassing the need for a quest. However, players that do not complete the quests will not be able to craft the weapons and armor. The best way to get all of the quests and gear is to play the nightmare hunts every week. It can be tedious, but players may have to kill a handful of bosses before they get the correct quest.
It should be noted that players can purchase the essences, but the process is time-consuming. Players must collect 20 phantasmal fragments to get a phantasmal core. Then once players have cores, they can unlock essences. For a host of reasons, players should be doing the nightmare hunts instead. Phantasmal fragments are rare, and phantasmal cores are even rarer. It will take far more effort to farm the fragments and cores than it will to just unlock the quests themselves.
