The walk down to where the battle begins, is a unique and exciting start. Draigoch senses the intrusion of your group, and peers through the cracks in the tunnels leading down. If you get caught in the light from his peering eyes, you're toast... literally. This comes with no repair bill which is fortunate for me since I tend to be impatient and die an average of 3 times during this part. The first time I was one-shotted by this beast was novel and kind of fun. Most of the raid did the same thing. Since then, it's really just become annoying for me. Since Turbine isn't likely to remove this aspect, I guess I need to just get better at not getting caught!
I don't want this post to be a play-by-play or a guide, since there are plenty of those out there, but rather just a personal opinion piece by someone who has done this raid multiple times, on both easy and hard modes. So for the sake of conciseness, here it is: I think this raid is boring. Don't get me wrong, the boss himself is great, and the cavern filled with super-heated gold coins that jangles and jostles you about as Draigoch becomes increasingly irritated with your progression is pretty cool, too. What I have a hard time with is the repetition sans excitement.
From a hunter's/DPS perspective, this raid is so repetitive that I would rather grind slayer deeds than have to go in there again. For me it goes like this: DPS a paw, run to another paw, and another, and another... jump down when the body falls and stand there (sometimes DPS) while the burglars/CJ group do their thing to get challenge mode, run back in and REPEAT... ad nauseum. This is phase one and can last a very long time depending on the success and speed of the CJs. This is ALSO phase two but with the added tension of the possibility of the upper tank calling the wrong direction (except for Ceana who was amazing last week and didn't lead us wrong once!) which generally wipes the raid. So for me, phase one and phase two are the exact same thing, and very, very dull. By the time we make it to phase three, I'm tired but also nervous, cause a wipe at that point can mean 60 - 90 minutes of work wasted. Phase three is actually a pretty cool fight, it's just that after the repetitive nature of the preceding hour+, it's hard to be all like, "Yay, what a fun raid!" even if/when we win. Which, btw, looks like this...
I'm told that the upper tank and healer have more exciting roles in this fight, and that being in the CJ group gives you something else to do, too, so maybe it's just being a DPS drone that is causing my misery. Although, playing my hunter in every other raid in this game has never caused that feeling. Maybe someday I'll get my minstrel up to cap (or PUG it on my captain) and see if it makes a difference. It's just really sad to me that my main toon finds something in this game that should be my current favorite aspect (I love raiding! Did I mention that?) so agonizing. Maybe completing T2 challenge -- and therefore earning me a worn symbol for the deed -- will help raise my spirit. I'm not sure. All I know is that I am currently doing what needs to be done based solely on my love/commitment to my kinship, Trucido... and that I am already really looking forward to the next end-game content update. Until then, I'm going to show up to raid night with as positive an attitude I can muster, hoping that with more experience the whole thing goes faster and, for now -- in the words of Annoula -- plan to just, "Stay frosty!"
