Old School RuneScape The Nightmare of Ashihama Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Old School RuneScape just received its first ever group boss fight, the Nightmare of Ashihama. It challenges up to 80 players to team up and bring it down in exchange for some sweet loot. It also features brand new combat mechanics, which means that a guide is in order.

That’s where we come in. We’re going to provide you with a full guide to the experience, explaining how it works, providing tips, and a full breakdown of rewards and more.

Old School RuneScape The Nightmare of Ashihama Guide

What is the Nightmare of Ashihama?

The Nightmare of Ashihama is a brand new type of content in Old School RuneScape: a group boss event with support for up to 80 players. It challenges players to battle a monster known as The Nightmare, which is located in Morytania.

In an interesting move by Jagex, The Nightmare’s health and combat stats scale depending on the number of players in the fight. This means that a group of 5 players stands just as much of a chance as a mob of 80.

The fight takes place in an instance, and only one group of players can battle The Nightmare at once – though Ironmen get their own separate instance. To initiate the fight, a player has to simply approach The Nightmare’s body, select Disturb, and you’ll head straight into the instance.

The initiation is slightly different for Ironmen though. Instead, these tough cookies have to drink from the Pool of Nightmares to initiate the battle. Either way, only one group can fight The Nightmare at once, with all other players having to wait until the instance is finished before getting their chance.

If the players defeat The Nightmare or every single player gets defeated, the fight is over. You’ll known another group is fighting The Nightmare if she’s floating above the ground when you reach her, rather than lying on the ground.

How do I Get to The Nightmare of Ashihama?

The Nightmare of Ashihama is located in Morytania, so you’ll need to be able to access this location to participate. That’s the only restriction though.

Her specific location is in the Sisterhood Sanctuary, which is right beneath the town of Slepe. You won’t actually fight her here though – not really. You actually fight her within her dreams.

You can either run to Slepe or take one of the following fast methods to get there:

• Teleport to Ver Sinhaza using a Drakan’s Medallian, then run to Slepe.
• Teleport to Ectofuntus using an Ectophial and pay Andras 10,000 coins to row you to Slepe. Andras is located to the north of Ectofuntus.

The Nightmare Combat Strategy

Though there are no requirements (aside from access to Morytania), having all combat stats above level 85 is recommended so you don’t get decimated in one hit. We’d also recommend you have a high Prayer level, as you’ll need protection prayers to mitigate the damage.

Naturally, having decent high level gear is important too. You may well get by without all of this though, so don’t let it put you off if you want to try.

Once in the fight, there are a variety of regular and special attacks that you’ll need to watch out for so you can successfully mitigate them. Regular attacks are mitigated with the right prayers, which considerably reduce the damage they deal, though special attacks will require a different approach.

Regular Attacks

Here’s how to spot the regular attacks:

• Magic: The Nightmare will spin and shoot pink flower petals at a player.
• Ranged: The Nightmare starts twitching, with spikes appearing on her body, before flinging the spikes at a nearby player.
• Melee: The Nightmare will fling her arms behind her head and hit a nearby player in front of here.

So here’s the deal: experienced players recommend keeping Protect from Magic up at all times in the fight and switching to Protect from Missiles as soon as The Nightmare starts readying a Ranged attack before switching back.

Why not Protect from Melee? Well, you can just back up as soon as you see it coming, as it can only hit in melee range. You’re also safe if The Nightmare isn’t facing you – basically, you can mitigate melee damage with solid positioning.

Special Attacks

Here’s how to spot the special attacks and how to avoid them:

• Husks: Husks are basically small versions of The Nightmare that deal melee damage to the nearest player. These spawn at random, and freeze the player being attacked in place until destroyed.
• Flower Power: The arena is divided into four quadrants, with only one being safe as indicated by flowers. If you’re not standing in the safe quadrant, you’ll take damage over time and your attacks will heal The Nightmare instead of damage her.
• Grasping Claws: The Nightmare spawns black portals around the arena and will damage any player standing on them.
• Sleepwalkers: The Nightmare summons Sleepwalkers who shuffle towards her. She will deal huge damage to all players in the arena, with the number growing depending on the number of Sleepwalkers left by the time the attack hits.
• Curse: The Nightmare shuffles your protection prayers by one to the right.
• Parasites: The Nightmare occasionally chucks out a parasite at a random player, and will grow over time and before bursting out of the player, dealing damage and healing The Nightmare until killed. You can weaken the parasite with a Sanfew Serum or Relicym’s Balm before it bursts out.
• Teleport Charge: The Nightmare teleports to one corner or the room then charges to the opposite, dealing damage to anyone caught in her path.
• Spores: Spores spawn around the arena, exploding if a player gets near it. It disables your run and reduces your attack speed temporarily.

Attack Phases

The Nightmare combat encounter is made up of three different phases, during which she will use different special attacks and you’ll have to focus on various different goals to win.

Here’s a breakdown of the different phases:

• First: Attack The Nightmare until its shield dissipates then charge up the four totems by attacking them. The Nightmare will use her melee, magic, and ranged attacks as well as Flower Power, Grasping Claws, and Husks during this phase.
• Second: Destroy as many Sleepwalkers as you can during the beginning of this phase to mitigate damage from the blast then attack The Nightmare until its shield is down. Charge the totems as before to deal damage to The Nightmare. Her special attacks this round include Parasites, Curse, Grasping Claws.
• Third: This round is the same as the second. Attack the Sleepwalkers, take down the shield, and charge the totems. The Nightmare will use Spores, Teleport Charge, and Grasping Claws.

The Nightmare Drops and Rewards

The Nightmare will drop Big Bones, a wide variety of Runes, ammunition, resources, consumables, and gold, and the following rare rewards:

• Nightmare Staff
• Eldritch Orb
• Harmonised Orb
• Volatile Orb
• Inquisitor’s Mace
• Inquisitor’s Great Helm
• Inquisitor’s Hauberk
• Inquisitor’s Plateskirt
• Clue Scroll (hard and elite)
• Jar of Dreams
• Little Nightmare

Special thanks to the official wiki for the sheer amount of useful information that went into the making of this guide.

Glen Fox

Head of Editorial

Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.