How to Complete the All Hands Raid Challenge | Destiny 2

Learn how to complete the All Hands Raid Challenge for Destiny 2's Root of Nightmares Raid in this quick and easy guide. The final Raid Challenge for Root of Nightmares asks you and your team to tackle the Final God of Pain in a new way, with the promise of some additional loot or an Adept weapon should you manage to overcome it.

How to Complete the All Hands Raid Challenge | Destiny 2

The fourth and final Raid Challenge for the Root of Nightmares Raid in Destiny 2 Lightfall has launched. In Destiny 2, Raid Challenges are special tests and modifiers that are applied to specific encounters in Raids, changing how they play and how you need to approach them. These can be incredibly drastic, capable of changing entire encounters. Should you and your fireteam be worthy enough, you’ll earn a bunch of exclusive rewards for completing, from Adept weapons, upgrade materials, high stat armour and more. 

The final Raid Challenge you’ll be tackling is All Hands. In this climactic finale, you’ll be going up against the Final God of Pain himself, Nezarec. How you’ll be fighting this Disciple of the Witness is going to be a pretty big change from how you’re used to handling him, so be prepared for a long fight. 

Here’s how to complete the All Hands Raid Challenge for Destiny 2’s Root of Nightmares Raid Challenge. If you want to know about the other Raid Challenges for this Raid, you can find our guides on Illuminated Torment, Crossfire and Cosmic Equilibrium here.

  1. Root of Nightmares Red Border Chest Guide (Guaranteed Deepsight Raid Weapon) | Destiny 2: Lightfall
  2. Destiny 2: Lightfall | Mods and Armor Charge Explained
  3. Destiny 2: Lightfall | All Neomuna Weapon God Rolls and Best Perks
  4. How to Get the Final Warning Exotic Sidearm | Destiny 2: Lightfall
  5. How to Get the Winterbite Exotic Heavy Glaive | Destiny 2: Lightfall

How Do Raid Challenges Work?

If you’re new to the game or don’t know how Raid Challenges work, here’s a quick rundown to inform you of everything you need to know. 

Once Raid Challenges go live, one encounter per week (beginning with the first encounter) will add an optional challenge. These Raid Challenges often impose some form of restriction or tricky requirement that must be fulfilled to be completed, awarding additional loot and rewards if your fireteam can do so. 

Each Raid has several Raid Challenges equal to the number of major encounters for that Raid. For Root Nightmares, there are 4 Raid Challenges which correspond to the major encounters of the Raid: Cataclysm, Scission, Macrocosm and Nezarec. The Raid Challenges are on a weekly rotation starting with encounter one and rolling over to the next encounter at the start of each weekly reset. 

The main reason to complete Raid Challenges is the additional loot. In Normal Mode, these offer an additional pinnacle reward or an additional chance at a God Roll. In Master Mode, the reward is a bit sweeter with the chance to acquire an Adept weapon. 

Now that we’re all caught up on how the Raid Challenges work, how do you beat the All Hands Raid Challenge in Destiny 2?

Raid Challenges

Raid Challenges

Root of Nightmares Raid Challenge: All Hands

All Hands is the final Raid Challenge in the Destiny 2 Root of Nightmares Raid, obviously focusing on the Raid’s big baddie, Nezarec. This encounter combines the Field of Light and Flux of Dark mechanics with an aggressive, mobile boss.

Ordinarily, you only need two runners for this encounter, while the other players do add-clear or try to grab Nezarec’s hatred. The challenge switches things up, though. For All Hands, each player in your fireteam must trigger one node on each side before the damage phase begins. 

Nodes are the small orbs which transform into either a Light or Dark orb based on what buff you have when you shoot them: having Field of Light will generate a Light orb, whereas Flux of Darkness will generate a Dark orb. Usually, only the runner needs to be aware of these nodes and their locations, as completing each set of six is required to progress each encounter.

This challenge makes it so that every player needs to trigger one node on each side, meaning that each person needs to shoot one Light node and one Dark node. This breaks up the mechanics far more than a usual run, meaning that each player needs to both understand the mechanics and be able to fulfil them while swapping positions.

Quick Node Clarification

Quick Node Clarification

How to Complete All Hands

To complete the Raid Challenge, break your fireteam up into two teams of three. Within these teams, assign each player a number between 1 to 3: this number will determine the order in which you shoot the nodes, so remember your number well. You’ll still need to figure out who is grabbing Nezarec’s attention, so make sure to clear that up before beginning the run. 

One team will start on the Light side, while the other starts on the Dark. When the encounter begins, both players who have been assigned number 1 will do the first node on each side. Then, both players with 2 will trigger the next node, and the players assigned 3 will do the node after that. Remember that, after activating the node, the Light or Dark orb which has the field surrounding it needs to be shot to spawn the next node. 

At some point, someone will need to grab Nezarec’s Hatred so that the run can go smoother. Your best bet is to have either of the first runners do this, as their job will be completed much quicker than anybody else. These players (as well as any players not currently running) should also destroy Nezarec’s shoulders to reveal which Refuge buff is needed. 

Final God of Pain

Final God of Pain

Once both teams have triggered their third node, you need to create the Refuge point. This will allow you to survive Nezarec’s wipe mechanic, which is especially important when most teams won’t be able to brute force the encounter. Your team should know which Refuge is required before the third node is triggered, so have a player on each side ready to grab the buff and make the Refuge point on the opposing side.

Make the Refuge point, have all players grab it and wait for Nezarec to use his wipe mechanic. Afterwards, the boss will return to his perch and your teams need to get ready for the next wave of nodes. To do this, have your teams switch sides (so the team who did Light nodes will move to the Dark side and vice-versa). Your runners will remain in the same order, only you’ll be running between the nodes at the back of the arena this time (marked on the map below as nodes 4, 5 and 6). 

Complete the nodes on each side without running out of time and you can begin DPS on Nezarec. If don’t manage to one-phase Nezarec, simply return to your original positions and get ready to do it all again. Rinse and repeat this process until the Final God of Pain falls.

Nezarec Encounter Map

Nezarec Encounter Map

Step-by-Step Guide

There’s a lot to remember in this Raid Challenge for Destiny 2. If you want a quick step-by-step guide for the All Hands Challenge:

  1. Split up into two teams of three, with one team on the Light side and one on the Dark. Also, assign each player within each team a number between 1 to 3.
  2. Start the encounter and have each team activate the nodes on their side, with the order based on your numbers. 
  3. Idle players should shoot Nezarec’s shoulders to reveal whether you need Light or Dark Refuge.
  4. Once the third node on both the Light and Dark sides have been activated, have someone create the appropriate Refuge point to survive Nezarec’s wipe mechanic.
  5. When the wipe mechanic concludes, teams should switch sides (with the Light team going to the Dark side, and the Dark team going to the Light side).
  6. Repeat the node activation on the final three nodes on each side. The order you go in will remain the same as the first set. 
  7. Complete both sets of nodes on each side to start the DPS phase. 
  8. Rinse and repeat the above steps until Nezarec goes down. 
The Final Fight Looms

The Final Fight Looms

Additional Loot

All Hands is a very intense challenge, but what do you get for beating it? If you complete All Hands on the Normal mode version of Root of Nightmares, a second bonus chest will spawn upon defeating Nezarec. This chest contains an additional loot drop from the Nezarec encounter. Like Oryx, Nezarec can drop any of the Root of Nightmares weapons and a few pieces of armour. Completing this encounter also gives you a chance at the Conditional Finality Exotic Shotgun, but the additional chest doesn’t increase your odds. 

From Nezarec, you can obtain: 

  • Mykel’s Reverence Strand Sidearm
  • Rufus’s Fury Strand Auto Rifle
  • Nessa’s Obligation Void Shotgun
  • Acasia’s Dejection Solar Trace Rifle
  • Koraxis’s Distress Strand Heavy Grenade Launcher
  • Briar’s Contempt Solar Linear Fusion Rifle
  • Legendary Helmet (Helm of Agony, Mask of Trepidation or Mask of Detestation
  • Legendary Chest (Plate of Agony, Vest of Trepidation or Robes of Detestation)
  • Legendary Class Item (Mark of Agony, Cloak of Trepidation or Bonds of Detestation)

Your reward will be slightly different if you can overcome All Hands on Master mode difficulty. Manage that and, instead of a random piece of additional loot, you’ll acquire a guaranteed Adept Root of Nightmares weapon. Adept weapons are special variants of the regular RoN weapons. They can slot exclusive Adept mods and gain bonus stats when Masterworked.

The Adept weapons from Root of Nightmares are also the first weapons to access the new Enhance Weapon feature. This feature is now live with the release of All Hands and allows you to transform your Adept weapon into a pseudo-crafted one. This will allow you to turn your perks into Enhanced variants, slot Mementos and level the weapon up like a crafted one. There are some limitations, but this should help you bring your Adept weapons up to speed. 

Adept Weapons

Adept Weapons

That was how to complete the final Root of Nightmares Raid Challenge, All Hands, in Destiny 2. Check out our other RoN Raid Challenge guides if you want to know how to complete the previous three Challenges. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

×