The Macrocosm encounter in Destiny 2’s Root of Nightmare raid can be a challenging task to complete. You’ll be working with your team to move the various planets throughout the stage and then attempting to set them up in the middle to do enough damage against the boss and take them out. Coordination and communication will be key to accomplishing this part of the raid, and it might take you a few tries. Here’s what you need to know about how to complete the Macrocosm encounter in Destiny 2’s Root of Nightmares raid.
All Macrocosm encounter steps in the Root of Nightmares raid
Before the encounter starts, we recommend that your team split up into groups of three on either side of the arena. When you’re ready to start, get close to Zo’Aurc, or you can choose to shoot one of the Psions. The Psions will scatter throughout the arena, and more enemies will spawn, with a handful of Psions appearing from behind you.
Related: How to complete the Scission encounter in the Root of Nightmares raid in Destiny 2
Multiple enemies will cover the middle of the room, and Zo’Aurc will be immune the entire time. Do not worry about him as you clear the room, making sure the enemies are not too difficult to handle. Eventually, on both sides of the arena, Honored Centurians will appear. Make sure to take out these opponents, causing Lieutenants to spawn on that side’s platforms. There should be two lieutenants, one on each of platform. Make sure a different player takes out each of them, which should grant them a buff called Planetary Insight. When the first Lieutenant goes down, a timer will go off called Planetary Shift.
While you have Planetary Insight, you’ll see the three planets on that platform, which will glow white or black. What is happening is you need to swap the planets from your platform to the ones on the opposite side of you. You do this by interacting with the icon underneath the planet called Planetary Attunement, going to the other side of the room to the opposite platform, and interacting with the planet that the other player is moving.
You will need to communicate with your teammate on the other side about which planet they need to interact with, and they need to tell you which one you need. There are multiple ways to call this out, but this is what our team did.
This requires the opposite partners to know who they are swapping with and to know their voices while on a call with each other. After the planets have been successfully swapped, they should switch places, and the notification of “The indexed planets reveal themselves” to you and your party.
The next phase is similar to the previous ones, where you remove the Centurious and eliminate the Lieutenant. The player who eliminates the Lieutenant will receive another buff where they can see the planets, and there are now three in the middle. Now, all planets on either side of the room will be white or black, and there will be two white and one black planet, or one white and two black over the plates at the center of the room.
You need to match these center planets with their respective colors, so if there are two white planets, the side with white planets will need to pick any on that side of the room to go to the ones at the center, and the same for the black planet. The same goes if there are two black planets and one white planet. After you’ve successfully matched those planets, survive to the next phase, where the planets you picked will be in front of the planets at the center, and they should merge to be over the top of the plates at the center of the room, and then the boss damage phase begins.
During the boss damage phase, Zo’Aurc will have a distinctly glowing shield, glowing dark red or white. If he’s dark red, stand underneath the black planet; if he’s glowing white, stand underneath any white planets with your team to damage him. You need to match his shields with the plates associated with those colors. You can continue to damage him during this phase until he becomes immune and then go to the next plate.
You need to repeat this process until you reach the final bit of health on his bar, and then you’ll end the Last Stand against Zo’Aurc. You have three phases until he Enrages and then wipes out your team, forcing you to try again.
The Last Stand will be similar to the other phases, where you need to bounce between plates to deal damage against him successfully. After defeating him, you can move on to the next and final phase of the Root of Nightmares dungeon.
