Macrocosm is the third encounter in the newest Root of Nightmares Raid in Destiny 2. In this encounter, players will have to work together to align the planets in their proper attunement while fighting against the Cabal forces.
Read ahead as we go through the mechanics and strategies for the Root of Nightmares Macrocosm encounter in Destiny 2.
See previous Destiny 2 Root of Nightmares Second Encounter: Scission
Root of Nightmares: Macrocosm Mechanics
The main mechanic of Macrocosm is Planetary Alignment. In the ship’s Planetarium, you will see projections of planets all across the rooms. Underneath these planets are four triangular platforms. There are planets directly aligned on top of each of the corners of these triangular platforms. There are also three more planets in the center of the room, each of which are connected to the three circles on the floor. The boss also sits in the far middle part of the room, but it will not interfere until the DPS phase starts.
Two of these planets will glow with the Light aura and Dark aura (facing the boss, left and right, respectively). This makes two of the platforms on the left as the Light side, while the other platforms are on the Dark side.
The objective of this mechanic is to align all the planets based on their Light or Dark attunement. At first, all of these planets won’t show their auras until you get the Planetary Insight effect.
To get the Planetary Insight effect, you must first head over to the platform you choose to look at, then kill ads and defeat Centurions to make the Terrestrial Lieutenant spawn. Upon killing the lieutenant, you will gain the effect, allowing you to see the attunement of the three planets above your platform. Only the person who gets the final blow on the lieutenant gets the effect, so other players that are assigned to another platform should also kill their own lieutenant.
Once you have seen the attunement of your planets, you must then select the planet that does not belong on your side, i.e: if you are standing on one of the platforms on the Light side (left), pick the dark planet. At this point, a teammate on the opposite side of the room should also do the same, albeit with the opposite attunement.
Once you have found the planet that doesn’t belong, interact with the glowing orb underneath to gain the Planetary Attunement effect. This effect will then switch to Planetary Shift which only lasts for a few seconds. During these moments, you and your partner on the other side should switch platforms and interact with the correct glowing orb to switch each others’ planets.
The tricky part here is that you will not see the attunement of the planets on each other’s platform, so you will have to call out the planets that you’ve chosen. The most effective call out to use is be positioning in reference to the middle section of the room and if it is closer or farther to the boss which are two points that are fixed. Once all planets on the platforms match the attunement on the side they are on, you will see a wisp of light in the middle of the platform.
After aligning all of the planets on top of the platforms, you then have to alight the three remaining planets in the middle of the room. In order to do that, have three of your team kill another lieutenant to gain Planetary Insight again and see the attunements of the remaining planets. Then, select which one you are going for, usually the one that matches which side you are currently on, and interact with any of the glowing orbs on the platform. Head over to the circle that matches the planet that you are aiming for and interact with the orb on top of it. The circles and the positions of the planets are a bit shifted, so make sure that you are aiming for the right circle.
Finally, after getting all of the planets aligned, you will proceed to fight the boss.
Root of Nightmares: Macrocosm Strategy
The strategy for this mechanic is simply to divide your fireteam equally to cover all platforms and have the players that are on opposite platforms partner up, while the two remaining members are assigned for add clear. Add clearers should remember to avoid killing the lieutenant to not get the effect.
How to beat Zo’Aurc, Explicator of Planets Boss Fight
After the Planetary Alignment phase, the boss will start its attacks on you. It will gain either a Light shield or a Dark shield. Once you see which shield it has, immediately head over to the circle in the middle that has the matching attunement. This will allow your attacks to go through the boss’ shield and deal damage to it.
Pay attention to the activity section on the lower left. Once it says “The Explicator shifts focus”, prepare to move to another circle that has the attunement opposite to where you are currently standing as the boss will shift to a different shield attunement. All members of the fireteam should be careful not to accidentally step on the wrong circle, or it will waste a window for attack.
The boss will keep switching shields until its health goes down to 50%, during which you will have to do another round of Planetary Alignment. After that, it’s another DPS round against the boss until it is defeated.
Check out this video by KackisHD showing how to complete Root of Nightmare’s Macrocosm encounter in Destiny 2:
