What tier or tiers did you play?
3, 4, 5
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
80k
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
P1: Thrawn Magma
P2: FO
P3: ChexMix
P4: Whatever else
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
Motivate: nothing.
Demotivate: The grind. It's a lot of work to participate in the raid, and the rewards hardly feel worth it.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I enjoy the overall look and thematics for the raid. However, the difficulty and low payout really take a toll on it. A large portion of the group doesn't even attempt to try the raid anymore, leaving it to just the top heavy hitters. Since we cannot possibly do Heroic, that means the raid just stretches out for days upon days.
As said above, the major problems of the raid mostly come from Nihilus and Traya's Isolate. I don't have a problem with the RNG nature of Annihilate being used (it almost always seems to go off when ready); the buff eating, cooldown increasing, and protection regeneration part get me. There isn't much worse than knowing a character MIGHT gain a buff from one of their abilities, and, if Nihilus chooses to attack exactly that character, Annihilate will go off cool down. At that point, using the protection shield isn't worth it, since he might not hit the buff anyway, but failing to use it is fatal. If the shield is used, he definitely won't hit the buff (unless it's on the person with it already), which means he'll have it ready next turn instead.
Additionally, the Enrage mechanic is particularly frustrating, at least in the lower ranks. Most phases are basically a dance around tricky mechanics (annihilate and isolate) until enrage triggers. That's about it--no strategy, no feelings of success, just a slow wait for enrage to hit.
This is somewhat off topic, but I feel that the raids themselves have changed from the original outlined goal. Their intentions are to be places where guilds can pool resources to defeat enemies much stronger than a single player. However, over time, they've become more bureaucratic, where several members can defeat most or the entire raid on their own, requiring rules and enforcement in the guild to protect those who cannot. I feel the Sith Raid was a hypercorrection on this, an attempt to create a raid which can definitely not be soloed or unfairly monopolized.
Personally, I'd like to see a system in place more like the Territory system, where the guild accumulates points for stars, and the more stars earned, the more rewards shared among the the guild. In this way, raids could be simplified a bit (remove enrage and mechanics designed specifically to keep the raid stretching out), allowing each member to face off against their own instance of the raid. To help weaker members of the guild who specialize in exactly one or two phases, make the starting phase optional, increasing the choices available based on the number of stars earned (ex: the Pit starts in P1, but after X number of starts have been earned, someone who has yet to participate in the Pit can start in P2, then P3 after X+, and P4 after X++).
I'm sure there are unseen problems with this model, but I think it would solve a large number of issues with the raids (management, enforcement, and even placement and ties).
Capital Games Team
