This guide will be a quick yet detailed run-down on what you need to know to fight the Nightmare of Ashihama.
Basic rundown of the fight:
- The Nightmare has a huge overshield that will recharge every phase.
- Once her shield is drained to 0 her health bar will appear and pillars with come online in each corner of the room.
- Charge these pillars to full by damaging them.
- It is recommended to switch to mage to damage the pillars as mage hits them very hard.
- When all four pillars are charged she will be hit for 800 damage and the next phase will begin.
- Sleepwalkers spawn along the outer walls of the room they need to be killed immediately before they can walk to the Nightmare. Use your chins or blood barrage for this if you brought them.
- Rinse and repeat.
The Nightmare has a few attacks that will always hit, but damage can be significantly reduced or fully negated by using the correct prayer:
- If you currently have aggro, pray melee.
- If she starts doing weird possession-like contortions, pray range immediately.
- If the screen gets pinkish and she starts charging up a pink glowing attack, pray mage immediately.
- If you are bad at prayer swapping it is feasible to just sit on mage prayer as you will take a lot less damage from range wearing gear like Bandos which has very high range defense.
- These attacks have audio queues that make it a lot easier to notice quickly. I highly recommend turning your game sound on, especially while learning the fight.
Special attacks and other mechanics:
- When Parasites or Husks spawn, kill them immediately.
- When you are infected by a Parasite take a sip of your Sanfew’s Serum to significantly reduce the damage it will deal to you upon emerging.
- When the Nightmare puts her hands through a black portal on the ground and little black portals pop up all over the area move out of the way of any portals immediately or you will take high damage.
- When the room is divided into 4 quadrants immediately run to the quadrant surrounded by green. You will take very rapid damage when outside the green borders.
How tanking works:
- Basically, The Nightmare is more likely to attack the person with the highest defensive stats.
- Your designated tank should always be wearing a higher total defense bonus than everyone else.
- One easy way to do it is for everyone to wear a Bandos Chestplate with Ancestral Robe Bottoms while the tank wears Bandos Tassets.
- The most foolproof way would be to have your tank wear Justiciar Armour.
Notes:
- The fight is instanced but you do not lose your gear if you die. You can collect your gear from the NPC outside the instance. If you do not collect this gear and die again before collection it the gear WILL BE LOST FOREVER.
- The Nightmare is scaled for 5 players by default and cannot go lower so 5 player teams are the most efficient option. Anything above 5 players will scale the boss’s health and damage accordingly.
Nightmare of Ashihama Notable Drops / Rewards
“With each kill, The Nightmare has a chance to roll two unique drop tables, one containing the armour, mace, and staff, and one containing the orbs; both table rolls can be successful with each kill. The armour, mace, and staff drop table has a 1/120 chance to roll, and the orb drop table has a 1/600 chance to roll.
Additionally, there is a chance that both are rolled a second time (independent of the first rolls), with this chance being {\displaystyle (partySize-5)\%}, clamped between 0 and 75 percent (meaning that with a full party, the armour, mace, and staff drop table has a 1/68.6 chance to roll and the orb drop table has a 1/343 chance to roll).” – OSRS Wiki
- Nightmare Staff 1/400 – 1/229
- Inquisitor’s Great Helm 1/600 – 1/343
- Inquisitor’s Hauberk 1/600 – 1/343
- Inquisitor’s Plateskirt 1/600 – 1/343
- Inquisitor’s Mace 1/1200 – 1/686
- Eldritch Orb 1/1800 – 1/1029
- Harmonised Orb 1/1800 – 1/1029
- Volatile Orb 1/1800 – 1/1029
