A warning up front: this is a dangerous activity for Hardcore Ironman players. If you die, you will lose your hardcore status! This warning will also appear when entering the lair.
Also a huge thank you to @Empty, who already made a video guide along with an entry in our wiki!
The boss can be reached through the "Monsters" teleport in your spellbook. Donators can enter for free, while non-donators have to pay a one-time fee of 50M coins to unlock the boss. Once unlocked (or if you are a donator), you are free to fight the boss and you will not lose any items on death. However, if you die, you will need to pay 1 million coins to Shura before you can fight again. You can deposit a number of coins at Shura of which she will subtract 1M each time you die. You can withdraw these coins at any time.
The Nightmare is a group boss with a twist. Both Ironman and regular players work together to defeat it and share the drops. Its hitpoints depend on the amount of players and the chance to receive a drop scales with the amount of damage you dealt. Its droprates also scale with group size, so the individual chance to receive an item is always the same regardless of group size.
There is currently only one single Nightmare and there are no separate (or solo) instances yet, these are planned for one of the next updates.
Its mechanics work pretty much the same as in OSRS. There are three phases; during each phase, you first have to destroy its shield, after which four totems in each corner of the room activate. These need to be attacked in order to charge them. Once all four totems are charged, the next phase begins. This exact process is repeated three times. After all totems have been charged a third time, the Nightmare is killed and drops its items. The person who dealt most damage receives big bones as drop and has 5% bonus drop rate.
At the beginning of the fight, the player with the highest melee (slash) defense stats is focused, who will be the tank during the entire fight.
The Nightmare has three basic attacks:
- Melee, which hits all players standing under her and anyone standing next to the targeted player (the tank).
- Ranged, which hits all players in the area.
- Magic, which hits all players in the area.
- Grasping Claws: Numerous black holes (portals) appear in the area with arms shooting out after a short delay. If a player stands on any portal, they will take up to 50 damage. Simply move onto a tile free of a black portal to avoid damage. The Nightmare uses this attack during all three phases.
- Sleepwalkers: At the start of the second and final phases, the Nightmare will summon sleepwalkers that walk toward her, the number of which is dependent upon the number of players, ranging from 1 to 24. They have just 1 HP. At the end of this attack, she will charge up a powerful blast that hits all players in the room for a minimum of 5 damage and a maximum of 96 damage, depending on how many sleepwalkers she absorbed. This damage is unavoidable, so kill as many sleepwalkers as possible before they reach the Nightmare.
- Husks: The Nightmare spawns two husks around random players (a ranger and a mager). The targeted players will be frozen in place until the husks are killed. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 1.
- Flower Power: The Nightmare will divide the room into four equal quadrants with lines of flowers. One quadrant will be safe as indicated with white nightmare flowers, while the remaining quadrants are unsafe as indicated with red nightmare berries. If players are in the incorrect quadrant, they will take rapid damage. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 1.
- Curse: A pink glow fills the player's screen and protection prayers are shuffled. Clicking on Protect from Magic activates Protect from Missiles, Protect from Missiles activates Protect from Melee and Protect from Melee activates Protect from Magic. An easy way to remember this is that the Prayers are shifted over by one to the left. After 5 attacks, the curse is lifted. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 2.
- Parasites: The Nightmare throws a parasite onto random players. After it has grown, it will burst out of the player and deal damage to them, and will then begin healing the Nightmare and the totems until killed, or attack the players if the Nightmare and totems are both at full health. Drinking a dose of Sanfew serum or Relicym's balm before it emerges will weaken the parasite and greatly reduce the damage taken when the parasite bursts out. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 2.
- Surge: The Nightmare will teleport to one of the four edges of the room, then immediately surge across to the opposite side dealing up to 60 damage to anyone caught in her path. Move out of the way to avoid taking damage. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 3.
- Spores: Puffshroom like objects spawn around the arena. Standing within 1 tile of one will cause it to explode, causing the player to become weary; their run is disabled and their attack speed is lowered by 1 tick for a short duration. The Nightmare only uses this attack during phase 3.
- Nightmare staff: a one-handed staff that requires 65 magic and 50 hitpoints to wield and grants +15% magic damage.
- Harmonised orb: combine with a nightmare staff to create a harmonised nightmare staff, which requires 75 magic and 50 hitpoints to wield. This staff increases the attack speed of spells on the standard (modern) spellbook with 1 tick, allowing you to (auto)cast standard spells every 4 ticks (2.4 seconds) instead of every 5 ticks (3.0 seconds). This does not apply to ancient magicks.
- Volatile orb: combine with a nightmare staff to create a volatile nightmare staff, which requires 75 magic and 50 hitpoints to wield. This staff has a special attack that consumes 55% of the player's special attack energy to hit the target with 50% increased accuracy, dealing up to 50 damage at level 75 and up to 66 at level 99 (can be increased with damage boosting items).
- Eldritch orb: combine with a nightmare staff to create an eldritch nightmare staff, which requires 75 magic and 50 hitpoints to wield. This staff has a special attack that consumes 55% of the player's special attack energy, dealing up to 39 damage at level 75 and up to 66 at level 99 (can be increased with damage boosting items) and restoring your prayer points with 50% of the damage dealt. This can boost the caster's prayer up to 21 points above their prayer level.
- Inquisitor's mace: a one-handed crush weapon which requires 75 attack to wield.
- Inquisitor's great helm, hauberk and plateskirt: each item requires 70 strength and 30 defence to equip and boosts damage and accuracy by 0.5% when using the crush attack style. When using all three inquisitor pieces, this bonus increased to a total of 2.5% (instead of 1.5%).
- And of course, a little nightmare pet.
- The herblore store now sells noted and unnoted snake weed for 4K coins each, nail beast nails for 4K coins each and rogue's purse for 20K coins each. The unfinished potion maker can turn the rogue's purse into relicym's balm (unf) for 50K coins each.
- You can now create Relicym's balm by mixing rogue's purse and snake weed in a vial of water, giving 750 herblore experience. This requires level 8 herblore. Although we do not have the concept of disease in PkHonor, the potion can be used to weaken parasites at the Nightmare in the exact same way as a Sanfew serum does.
- You can now create Sanfew serums by adding, in order, unicorn horn dust, snake weed and nail beast nails to a super restore. This requires a herblore level of 65 and yields 1,200 herblore XP (400 XP for each step). Sanfew serum acts as a combination of a super restore and prayer potion (restoring 30% + 4 of your levels instead of 25% + 8) and a super antipoison potion (granting 6 minutes immunity against poison instead of 5 minutes).
- The effects of the prayer cape and ring of the gods (i) no longer stack with each other, but now also restore an additional 2% prayer point when drinking a super restore or Sanfew serum.
- When unpacking an item set at the item set exchange clerk, you now need one less inventory slot to do so - after all, the item set itself will be removed, making room for one extra unpacked item.
the next couple of updates will focus on game improvements once again.
