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If you've found a glowing Angel Comb, but it's sealed shut, and there's some nasty-looking purple and white infection crawling all over everything nearby. That's Bloom, and here's how you sort it.
This guide will briefly explain what it is and how to deal with it.
This is your starting point.
You Need the Sonic Resonator
There's no punching your way through this one, so you need to prepare. Bloom Biofilm and Bloom Cankers can only be cleared with the Sonic Resonator, a tool that uses charged soundwaves to shatter deposits and cleanse viral parasites.
You'll need to craft it, which means scanning two degraded fragments out in the world. Tip: Check near Anita's Blackbox signal and the Old Habitat colony ruin to find them both.
Follow the Purple Roots
For the Wander Blackbox, the roots are very easy, but the purple roots are an important landmark for later clears.
Once you've got your Resonator, head to the infected Angel Comb. The first of these you will likely find is the Wander Blackbox quest.
From here, break through the initial Bloom (the ones that look like spider webs) to enter the main corruption. Each infestation has Bloom Nodes, and you can find them both by following the winding purple roots outward from the Comb. The roots visually connect the two Nodes, so you're not hunting completely blind. They will also light up, though some reveal as you take out previous blooms. Destroy them all to heal the Angel Comb.
Blast the White Buds
You'll need to take out these buds so that the Angel Comb is able to open up.
Hold right-click (or RT on controller) to charge up a blast, wait for the meter to fill, then release while aiming at a white bud. One charged blast destroys a bud, and you need to take out every bud in the area to cleanse a Node.
Don't waste time fighting the Bloom fish darting around you either; they die automatically once all the buds are gone.
Pro Tip: Throw a flair to distract them or dodge them.
Do that for all Nodes, and the Angel Comb opens up, giving you a new Adaptation.
You'll know you've done it once the Angel Comb opens up and the area starts to clear up.
What If the Cankers Won't Open?
Some cankers look sealed shut and won't respond to your blasts. These feed off the virus in the water, so you need to clear all the open cankers in the area first. Once those are gone, the armoured ones become vulnerable. Later in the game, you'll also need the Feedback Resonator upgrade for the toughest shielded variants.
Pro Tip: Attack the Bloom Saps with the Sonic Resonator to create an infinite oxygen source.
First Angel Comb
Wander's Blackbox is part one of the first Angel Comb. If you follow the purple veins, you will eventually find the main Angel Comb, which reveals the reward.
From the Lifepod, you need to head just over 200 meters northwest (about 300 degrees on the compass). You'll find a huge cave, which will have the main Angel Comb with sealed Cankers.
For the second one, you need to head northeast into the open water, where you will find the next of the open Cankers. Destroy these and then head back to the Angel Comb.
Here, destroy the Cankers and finally reveal the reward. Crucially, you will get the Heat Tolerance adaptation, which is required to continue to progress the story after this quest.
You will find more of these as you travel, and the process is the same each time.
