I like the idea of the Anniversary Raid going back into game. We farmed it pretty hard and still did not get everything we wanted from it. It's such a treat to get bonus content, its a shame to make it limited time only and have the gear age out by next years anniversary.
On the flip side if it had been staying in game it would have had a standard lockout and you would not have been able to farm it as much and would have gotten fewer items up to this point. Sure you could keep farming it but at that point it just becomes a standard raid.
Never said they couldn't change but why would they let people farm the raid faster for a short period and then reduce the speed with which they can farm it? The reduced lockouts should have been a big clue that the raid wasn't going to stay in the game.
I understand your POV. And if they decide to bring it back on a permanent basis, so be it. It was a shorter lockout timer, so you could raid it more if you wanted. And it dropped more loot than a standard TOL raid. And there were four slots (primary, neck, ring, legs) you could get which is fewer slots than what a TOL raid can provide. Towards the end, at least in our guild, half or more of the items were going to alts. IMHO once a guild raid drops are going mostly to alts, the guild has moved on from the gear. Outside of ores and spells nowadays, nearly everything else is looted by an alt or an app who didn't get the gear in their previous guild. I have always said- not everyone can have every BIS item. I don't. Overwhelming majority don't. A guild doesn't need every slot on every member to be BIS. Continuing the anniversary raid on would be nothing more than Magelo padding- myself, for example, never got the SD neck from the raid. I will be OK. And so will everyone else who did not get anniversary loot.
Seems a shame to toss it although after having done it 2-3 times per week while it was live I'm not sad to see it go. If there were rewards that made it still useful next year it would be of interest. I don't believe there are any this year though. 17th was still interesting a year later due to augs and some interesting clicks. This years will be a write off other than for casual teams next year (and depending on new raid content may not be worth the time even then).
I think for the length of time available, the dificulty and the time it took to complete and the amount of loot it was dropping it was good for a short time. Need to remember both Plane of War and GMM were much harder in era.
I heard no such chatter myself and it's likely 'wishful' thinking that went viral. It is 100% an Anniversary Event (the Achievements are also thusly named '23rd'), unlike the others you mention that were 'new bonus' content that may have happened to be added during the Anniversary season. As for the Armor Stands... not the first time this has been suggested. My suggestion is / was along the lines for them to sell Armor Stands in the Marketplace that are technically 8-slot combine containers. Put the 8 visibles of the same set (no augs) inside it (i.e. the Velium Empowered Exarch set), combine and you get a placeable Armor Stand (i.e. 'Velium Empowered Exarch Armor Stand') that looks like the related armor, as if it were being worn by a Shadowman, perhaps. Like the Heroic Armor Suits, you can reclaim the items if you want to, but the Marketplace Armor Stand is lost in the original combine (you don't get it back). I am 100% for that idea, as: -It will save Player storage space on their old nostalgic / trophy armor sets; -It removes 8 Items from server inventory and replaces them with 1 item; -Provides DP an additional source of revenue.
The time they spent building that raid seems wasted by taking it out. The gear they designed for the event will be wasted too. Almost no one will raid it next year I suspect.
Maybe next time put a lil extra raid coin specific to anniversary raid(s) drop in the events, then maybe we can buy some of the stuff we missed when events end with the coin we earned like every other raid?
Would guess a lot of people ended up doing the raid multiple times a week while it was up and I don't think that people would continue doing it after the next expansion drops. In the end I don't think people are going to miss out on a lot of loot from it even if it was just on a normal lockout schedule and kept up all year.
If you are already raiding ToL there will not be a reason to revisit this raid next expansion, we already know the new gear will be better. The legs for example were best in slot by something like 10 AC and 100 HME. The neck was 4 ac and a little over 100 HME...so they could change the lockout and keep it in game. Stats might have been better for non tank classes. The tier they put it on was (20) 100%, (19) 50% (maybe 67%) or (18) 0% luck, so there is now no way to upgrade the luck on those items. I didn't pay that much attention luck wise and didn't notice any pieces with 19 luck it felt like it was all or no luck on these.
There isn't any reason to not make this raid permanent. The gear will be outdated by next expansion, and then no one is going to want to run it. If the raid dropped augs, or clickies, then sure, I could see why the raid would be temporary. (this would have been solved if the legs had clickies, like Kunark armor did!)
