I do not know if it is "best" but my all time favorite is Coirnav in Plane of Water. Having such a short time window to complete the event put everyone on their toes and expected everyone to give 100% all the time. Otherwise any down time could mean failure with timer going off.
The Defense of Thurgadin, the final event for the Coldain ring. No other raid in Everquest has matched the scale of that event. The entire zone depops, giants and Coldain spawn andspread across the whole area. You can control the Coldain, and get rewards if specific individuals survive. You lose if a single giant passes through the raid and into the city. And if you lose, the entire city of Thurgadin is depopped and corpses of dwarves litter the city. No one can bank, train, or vendor there for a few hours. Nothing else in the game has ever come close to the scope of that event.
Waking the Sleeper affected even more zones. And could be done only once per server. It was the most epic event although it wasn't a raid as such (until the folks on RZ made it one; but they missed a lot by actually defeating the Sleeper).
True there - that is definitely wider in scope, no doubt about it. At least you can repeat the Coldain ring quests. Waking the Sleeper causes him to rampage to the exit of the tomb, across East Wastes, and then he spawns in Skyshrine to kill Yelinak. I don't think he spawns anywhere else, even though its implied he pretty much causes a trail of destruction across the continent of Velious. Dzarn, like the hero he is, posted an awesome list of dragons all across Norrath that react to his awakening (its now archived in the lore forum somewhere.) Vox, Nagafen, Wuoshi, Yelinak, Klandicar, Phara Dar, Vulak, other dragons in Temple of Veeshan, and most importantly, Jaled`Dar, who laughs and calls you complete fools because you played right into his hands. You had to actually be in the zone each dragon was in to have heard what they shouted, back on each server, and you only ever heard it once. It would have been very cool to be in SolB or Permafrost, because Vox and Nagafen shout about finally being able to complete their nuptials. e: The post is here, it should be saved in case it ever gets deleted. Its too cool of an info dump to lose.
I would go the other way and say: Lord Brekt is the worst disappointment of a raid. I mean, it was supposed to be end of mob of an expansion, and it was wussy. I remember us, going to it, start to kill it, and win it directly first time, and reaction in guild channel: Huh, was that it? I think thats the only raid, I ever gave a 1 on a scale going from 1 to 10. 01 is: Dam, we gotta do this again in 7 days 10 is: Play it again Sam.
Coldain Ring War - Awesome epic scale and at the time as a non raider still leveling up it was great when big guilds like Afterlife would buff you up and let you follow their MA round hitting mobs for faction. It was the event that really made me WANT to raid. RZTW-Nothing cooler than being a paladin at the moment Tallon chargest the raid and you gotta get aggro fast and tank him making sure he never turns round to AE everyone. Then of course the chaos in the pit that was epic! Coirnav - I liked all the EP bosses but Fennin they were really challenging and IMO the hardest part of planes of power. Coirnav or Rathe was gonna win it for me and Coirnav was probably the hardest to execute because of the sheer pressure to get it right being a blowable spawn and having to get such focus out of everyone. One of the best DPS races in EQ history. Inktu'ta - Very cool zone in all. OMM- Possibly the coolest raid mob in EQ. What a badass and if only we had known you needed so few masks! This mob really felt like an epic horrible boss. Total truck and you really got the feeling you were taking down someone important. Demiplane of blood - Im gonna list this whole zone as it was totally awesome. So many cool fights and trash that would eat you alive. Special mention to Performer - Utter madness and chaos and so much fun to learn. Solteris - Giving props to the whole zone too! Awesome stuff! After that dont really care too much!
Avatar of War - Just one of the first memorable events for me, and gives me tons of nostalgia just thinking about it. The Defense of Thurgadin - Same reasons as kellaer. Solteris- I mean, it's Solteris. ToV- Was just a fun raid dungeon, and I got to smash dragons. Cornaiv/ Rathe Council - Both were very challenging and felt great to beat. PoT - Started a new era in EQ and was really challenging. PoW before nerf - Was one of the hardest events I've ever done in EQ (hardest?). A lot was going on, and the add, because the event was broken, were insane. Everyone had a job they needed to execute, and it was an absolute blast to beat it before they neutered it. Time and Tides - Cause the forum drama. Pillars or Triunity - I didn't get to do them when it was current, sadly, but I've heard it was awesome and saw footage (not even close to being there) of them; looked like they were awesome.
Most of the ones posted are amazing, but looks like noone remember Odeen pre-nerf... this one was awesome also
I three boxed that just so I could flag myself for Frostcrypt a year ago and I never ever ever ever want to do that again. I'm afraid to ask, but what was it like before the nerf?
Demiplane was great (except sisters.....they were horrid) with my favorite being Hatchet Solteris was fun except event 3 I liked Medrath and all of Crystalos even bashing our heads against the Air boss for what seemed like forever
King Odeen Raid Updated Last night [01/25/2007] we updated the King Odeen raid. The following changes were implemented. Please let me know if you experience any further issues, and thanks for your patience. The issue that could cause the King to remain non-combatable while on the bridge MAY have been fixed. We were unable to reproduce the bug, but introduced changes that might have fixed the problem. King Odeen should no longer warp from his location at the Hot Springs to the Bridge and from the back of the castle to the Hot Springs. Note the he will teleport beyond the front gate and the castle gate, and run from there (that's intentional). Removed some of the basepop in the throne room. Fixed the script that modified the King's resistances as he moved from area to area. At each area he will now be amazingly resistant to a specific type of magic (or two). The King will remove all spells on him each time he changes locations. Reduced the number of adds that the King calls while fighting at the hot springs. Note: we were not able to reproduce the reported swarming issue. This change should reduce the problem and may eliminate it. The Wraithguard that protect the King on the bridge no longer summon. The Wraithguard that protect the King on the bridge will give up the fight when the King surrenders. Absor, EQ Designer
Most memorable for me were Breaking into Plane of Fear Don't remember the exact event, but it involved the Zek Brothers in PoP Coirnav
Uqua was my favorite. I never fully understood why my guild hated it. As an enchanter, I loved the crowd control in the final event.
As a monk uqua sucked big ones. Piles of ghosts that can eat you for lunch, dot you to the moon, root you, you're already snared (at 1st). Was a bear pulling that mess. Inktu`ta was the best of the best of the best IMO. After that nothing really compared to the awe and wonder of going into PoFear for Veeshan's Peak for the 1st time. (nothing's ever like the 1st time right?)
Probably because they got to bang their heads against the wall in that zone before it was fixed. The version of the zone that went live with GoD was completely broken and extremely frustrating.
From the perspective of something that I looked forward to, enjoyed and would go back and do again today... the Tenth Ring War. Everything else, no matter how good the first win or three was, just devolved into a rote farm that at some point I began to dread even before the farming started because I knew it was coming.
