Since the No Time to Explain quest made us do the vault of glass as part of the quest it reminded me how good that raid actually was and I think that was their poor attempt at making the raid relevant somehow as a forced step to do another quest... I'd like to make VoG and all the other [b]raids relevant[/b] for real and not just as some lame quest step, but a real challenge and here's how I would do it without a high cost on their part. Okay, obviously for vault I would set it as a taken combatants refreshed raid. [b]Setting and lore:[/b] as we all know the vault of glass is immensely important to the vex and everything they do including but not limited to changing the course of history and altering time as we know it. So as the vex have been driven out with atheon's defeat and the taken invading earth all over taking vex and any other non light infused creatures they run into, the vex would want to change that [i] (as they live only to ensure their success even of they do also worship the darkness).[/i] So the vex would want to try and take the vault back from our hands killing dozens of our stationed guardians there in their assault and as the taken take vex they gain some insight to the sites importance to their own success as well as their enemies such as the vex and ourselves so they take as many major vex as possible to gain as much knowledge about the vault as possible but only manage to gain it's level of importance and location [i](due to the Vex's quantum biomechanics and their computerized memory they would likely dump all the info of the most important info as soon as they begin being taken).[/i] So the taken vex, and maybe some taken fallen support, invade the vault forcing their way through the vex that were there in hopes to discover it's secrets and activate it to use however they see fit; Such as traveling back to our golden age and taking our war minds or whatever they'd like to reap destruction across our solar system with little to no effort at all asserting their dominance and power via sword logic. [i][b][u]Spire:[/u][/b][/i] We arrive as the taken have finished off all normal vex in the area. The door is smashed down only to replaced by a taken relic barrier to maintain their defenses. We must grab the relic from the bottom and run it up through heavy enemy numbers of taken vex and taken fallen on the left side hill all the way to the door to bring down the barrier. Effects of the relic remain as slow movement and little damage doing on holders part so it's up to their fireteam to protect them because if they die the relic returns to the start and disappears in let's say five returns and taken vex begin spawning again. [i][b][u]The Templar:[/u][/b][/i] replace Templar with a boss taken vex hydra of whole we'll call the oracle guard. Oracles have been replaced with 5 waves of Blights in their place that spawn taken versions of the vex found within the normal Templar area. (Hobs, fanatics that when they explode cause darkness to take your screen for seven seconds and slow you, goblins, minotaurs, and of course harpies that instead of hanging out shooting at you they move around and drop little ghost sized harpies that shoot you as the main harpy teleports around so it's kind of a game of hide and seek while being swarmed for five rounds while also destroying the blights to keep more from spawning. The ledge "cheese" would have to actually be resolved via an easy peasy rejoin allies prompt or a simple spawn some invulnerable enemies there like in other cAses. To bring down the oracle guards shield you can smash taken relics with a sword and kill enemies as they spawn as well and do damage until his death. The oracle guard would fire his blackness crap we all love so much and the regular hydra shots alternating or something like that because with enemies spawning all over that blackness would suck and be tough enough for a boss battle. [b][i][u]Gorgons:[/u][/i][/b] so for the labyrinth the maze would be the same as to not create extra work but the Gorgons are now, you guessed it, taken. They not only fry you on sight but they've amped it up by spawning the taken harpies I've spoken of. So now you have to make it through this maze most people know without being spotted but while fighting off harpies as well so be prepared to be engaging in guerrilla warfare quite a bit as firing at the harpies killing you will draw the Gorgons in and once they get close you'll have to bail out to not get spotted and killed by themes well. Situational awareness will definitely be a key to survival here. [b][i][u]Jumping puzzle:[/u][/i][/b] no biggie, just got watch for the taken hobgoblins firing at you while you try and make the jumps. Shouldn't be much more difficult. [i][b][u]Atheon:[/u][/b][/i] just as you arrived at atheon's lair, you see Xylar the timeless as a an echo of oryx destroys it and xylar falls to the abyss below (nod to trolls all over). There's an extremely powerful echo of oryx as the boss (because who else oversees such a task as claiming the vault and absorbing all of its power and knowledge) that's shielded and opens the two vex gates as he wields this new power. Inside the gates are two relics, but instead of grabbing them and bringing them back you have 1 minute to smash through the blighted fallen He has summoned inside to get to a relic that's spawned in one of three far side places with in each gate. Once both taken relics have been smashed with swords and you get back to the main arena oryx lets out a cry of rage that sounds out a wave across all ground levels that if it hits any one person causes you to wipe via plague of darkness or something like that. Then if you survive that he begins to spawn powerful blights randomly around the arena with one giant one behind him in the center large gate that constantly pours out fallen and vex yellow bars with a maximum of 7 out at a time from this giant blight. To kill this blight, all other blights must be destroyed within 45 seconds (time can be altered to fit better) or they begin to respawn and the large blight is invincible once more. To keep them from te spawning the large blight must be being damaged. [b]Note:[/b] oryx will be sending out his rage wave of destruction every time a blight is destroyed so be careful. Once the large blight has been destroyed the echo of oryx's shield drops and the real fight begins. With no relic to shield you and enemies spawning in via their new random enemy spawn system.(keeps you guessing from where and which enemies as long as they're planetary natives that were taken). The echo of Oryx's weapons/attacks consist of the different exotic melee attacks such as a void wave in all directions, lightning disc/ electric storm, and I'm not really sure how to do the solar one as it's normally and uppercut but I guess you could extend the range and have it for people that get too close for his comfort as oryx prefers his swords and the spawning of enemies as well. [b][i][u]Rewards:[/u][/i][/b] at the end of each checkpoint you could receive a blight shard, or catalyst component,or something of the sort to enable a player to give their old vault gear the ability to be infused and therefore bring them into year two!!! That or taken versions of the existing vault armor and such with modified perks such as the vex buffs being removed or perks being modded to bring balance(in case that was the excuse not to bring old raid gear into the new year). Other rewards could be Hadium flakes, moldering shards, strange coins, legendary/ exotic engrams with a guaranteed 290+ light level and those sorts of goodies people actually look for and a couple new things to bring in people that don't care about the old gear even if it's brought forwards to year two. The same goes for Crota's end and even Skola's revenge, but I don't plan to do those unless requested as it is rather time consuming. [spoiler]I know this wouldn't be very time consuming or difficult for bungie to do as all of the game mechanics exist other than a couple and for the most part 95% of it is just copy and paste. The only difficult parts would be modifying the spire arena and creating the new taken enemies and their skill sets, but still.. This raid at the least needs to be refreshed and recant again and I don't mean as a lvl 26 side step of a lvl 40 quest. [/spoiler]