As one of the most uniquely themed instances in LOTRO, the Halls of Night is a three-person dungeon that centers around an ancient tomb in Angmar only recently rediscovered. The leader of nearby Aughaire has called for adventurers to explore the tomb even though there are clear indications that danger awaits inside. Players who heed this call will make a metaphysical journey to an astral plane where the demon Nightmare and its thralls Terror and Panic make their home. And if this instance is 3spooky5u, remember that it’s all a dream and listen to some of the best music in the game.
The Hillmen of Angmar have discovered an ancient barrow hidden away for centuries. The leaders of Aughaire have called for adventurers willing to brave the tomb rumored to be filled with wealth and riches. Markings surrounding its entrance bear an ominous warning; twisted creatures and slumbering warriors at the foot of a powerful sorcerer…
—Instance introduction
Before you’re able to enter the instance, you must first discover the instance entrance. From Aughaire in Angmar, head out the north exit and immediately follow the mountains to the right till you come across the tomb. Your character must be at least level 40 for this to count which is, coincidentally, the lowest level at which you can run the instance. A standard, tank-healer-dps group should work fine here, but if you’re confident in your abilities, almost any combination of classes will persevere, at least on tier 1.
We start with the transmutation of your avatars into ethereal versions of themselves as they transport to the dimension where countless many have met their fears before. Each player is assigned a color – red, green or blue – which correspond to the tomb-spirits spawned by tombs. Land a killing blow on a spirit of your own color and you’ll receive a 10% bonus to damage and defense for a little bit. This buff tiers up to 5 for a maximum of +50% damage and defense.
The aforementioned tombs are guarded by tomb guards. So long a tomb guard is active, the tombs take no damage, so naturally, take them out first. Hungry spirits have an induction attack which gives players +50% incoming damage, -50% movement speed and causes them not to be able to gain a bonus from killing same-color spirits for the duration of battle.
Blast through the trash mobs and soon you’ll be in the main chamber where Nightmare awaits. There’s lots of dialog so I won’t spoil the story, but after greeting Nightmare, you have a choice of which boss to face first: Terror on the right (west) or Panic on the left (east).
Panic
Simply put, burn through the two tomb-guards then work at Panic. Sometimes he’ll force attack players of a certain color, but you needn’t worry much about that or the audience of spirits lining the upside-down room.
Terror
On the other side of Nightmare is Terror who begins as a tiny shade. Three separate times he will disappear and move to another spot around the room and spawn two copies of himself. With adequate healing, you can ignore the copies and focus on Terror. Keep track by giving him a raid marker at the beginning of the fight. Either right-click his portrait and navigate the menus or assign keys to your raid markers through the Options panel if you haven’t already. Also, it’s always a good idea to stay out of the swirling vortexes.
Nightmare
Head back to the main room and watch the transformation of Nightmare into an otherworldly rogmul, but he really isn’t as scary as he looks. At certain morale levels, he’ll summon tomb-guards. It’s your choice if you want to take care of the adds but if you focus on Nightmare, the adds will disappear when the boss is gone.
Nightmare has the same induction attack as hungry spirits that lasts until players are out of combat, but killing a tortured spirit will remove that debuff. For the cap-level challenge, you have to leave all the tortured spirits alive, so interrupt Nightmare as often as you can.
Succeed and be rewarded with a boss chest, a challenge chest, if run at the level cap on tier 2, and if the Halls of Night is the featured instance of the week, a Grey (level 100-104) or Marigold (level 105) box of ancient spoils. The challenge chest and marigold box can contain armor from the featured instance gear pool which have two essence slots each. The ancient spoils boxes contain long-lost coins, bartered in Minas Tirith or Bree for essence recipes, level 105 rare (purple) essences and scrolls of empowerment. The boss and challenge chests have a selection of heritage runes, sealed relics, star-lit crystals, crystals of remembrance, stat tomes, relic removal scrolls as well as rare and incomparable (blue) gear (item level 217 at level 105).
Department of Strategery 