I won’t talk about story in this post, but I can’t promise there won’t be mild spoilers.

The Pandaemonium raids released last week, and a small group from our FC finished them up on Thursday night. I honestly didn’t expect to push through all the fights in one night, but that’s what ended up happening.

While most of you who read my blog knows that I am not much of a raider, I was curious about the story of the new raids, which tie directly into Elpis. In fact, you get a little sneak peek about the raid once you finish up the entire 6.0 MSQ.

While Yoshi-P noted that 6.0 was the end of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn story arc, it’s clear that there are still threads of story that come from that foundation and spread out in their own ways. So while Pandaemonium isn’t a continuation of the 6.0 story arc, it does spin off from it.

In terms of difficulty, I went into each fight having watched a video guide. I don’t like going into raids blind because that just leaves me feeling frustrated and inadequate. Sometimes, even if do watch a video, it doesn’t mean I can do or remember all the mechanics I see in the guide anyhow.

I found the first and last fights of Pandaemonium as the easiest of the run. In fact, we ran the first fight twice because we had a FC member who logged in after we’d cleared it once, and it was no sweat either time.

The second fight gave us the most trouble – especially since a number of folks outside our group were also new and blind. I believe that’s the only run that we had a complete wipe on, and is not a fight that I want to repeat if I don’t have to.

The third fight was also challenging with a lot of overlapping mechanics. Thankfully, it felt as if the team we joined had people who already knew how to do the fight. All the things that I thought were going to be difficult were executed well, and we got through it the first shot. However, a team of new players who come in blind to that fight… I could see that being a challenge.

The final fight might be the easiest of the raid, IMHO. I memorized most of it quickly between the video and giving it a try. I’m thankful for this because I might actually attempt working on the weapon this time – maybe.

I was also lucky enough to score the minion drop from the fight on the first run!

Now, if only the snake minion I’ve been farming on Amon will drop like this…