And as a source of g12 and (currently other than buying packs, the only source of g12+) gear the raid will remain a very real thing for the foreseeable future.
Will it become more of casual thing as (and this is already happening) power creep/new toons makes the raid easier, less RNG dependent, and ever more accessible to the “everyman” guild? Absolutely.
I’d also expect that for whatever and wheneverthe next raid may be, the developers will continue to ‘force’ gear and toon upgrades on the player base via the raid mechanics - and that isn’t a complaint, mind, just a fact of business, they have to find ways to keep the revenue stream flowing or the game will wither and die - I’m already expecting a Boss ability something along the lines of ‘shrouded in mystery - this character is immune to Expose and Death Mark’ to reduce the effectiveness of some of the teams we had to develop for this raid.
That means that they will have to make factions that are currently mostly unused in previous raids to be the most effective in the new raid, and there aren’t a whole lot left that people aren’t working on or widely have already developed, but Sith (expect some raid specific boost to the generics), Ewoks, Jawas, Droids, Scoundrels, Tuskens, First Order and maybe Clone Troopers (they had their niche moment in the early days of HAAT, but BB8 quickly rendered them obsolete, so there are probably more undeveloped than there are built and maxed) all immediately come to mind. Those last couple teams also dovetail nicely with The Clone Wars revival and the release of Episode 9 next year, which also makes sense from a marketing standpoint.
