Which raid should work on?

I'd like people's opinions on what raid you think the group should be tackling at the moment. I've deliberately left the turtle and helegrod out of consideration because these aren't really proper raids, while they might be fun they're just quick DPS-fests in the case of the turtle and faceroll romps through trash in the case of helegrod. For the purposes of this poll I'm focussing on raids which will require quite a bit of learning, strategising and wiping to get the hang of - Vile Maw (watcher), Dar Narbugud (DN), Barad Guldur (BG) and Ost Dunhoth.

Here's some pros and cons of the various options:

Ost Dunhoth

Pros:

• This is the current end-game raid and by all accounts is the best designed raid that Turbine has made in this game, at least since the Rift and possibly ever.
  
• Two tiers of difficulty (and a challenge tier on top of that) means that we can cut our teeth on T1, which is designed for "casual raiders and PUGs", to learn the fight while we work towards T2. This means we have a defined progression path.
  
• Many new features designed to make the raid fun and cut out the boring bits - class skills reset on each boss attempt (so no waiting for fellowship's heart etc), minimal running between fights and after wipes, small number of (difficult) trash pulls, instant teleportation of some of the group back to the entrance on failure, auto target marking of trash.
  
• Both tiers of the raid have a chance to drop the new crafting item for L65 first age weapons (although the chance is low on tier 1).
  
• Tier 2 loot and armour sets have many upgrades and good set bonuses for most classes.

Cons:

• Tier 2 is by all accounts brutally difficult and will require a significant degree of learning and coordination.
  
• Tier 1 loot and armour sets is generally underwhelming with the exception of the L65 first age crafting symbol.
  
• It's a long, multi-boss fight and a clear will require at least a couple of nights in a week at the best case.

Barad Guldur

Pros:

• No radiance requirement now so it's possible for anyone to get into this raid and some of the challenge modes have been made easier compared to previously, if you previously had less than 180 radiance (apparently without radiance, the Durchest and Lieutenant "hard" modes are actually easier than the non-challenge modes as much of the challenge was related to increased levels of gloom).
  
• The trash is generally minimal and challenging, although some of it is on a relatively short respawn timer.
  
• The gauntlet is by most accounts one of the most fun parts of any raid in the game.
  
• The L65 armour set is good for some classes.

Cons:

• Brutally difficult (despite being out since Dec 2009, some raiding kins still haven't beaten it in HM) and little real difference in difficulty between challenge and non-challenge mode . Most groups peg the difficulty of this at or above T2 Ost Dunhoth, but below Ost Dunhoth T2 challenge.
  
• With the removal of radiance, the armour set is worse stat-wise than even the level 60 moria teal set for most classes and many of the set bonuses are underwhelming.
  
• The poor quality of random loot drops has also been a major source of complaints about this raid since it was introduced.
  
• Durchest is a fight that's notoriously succeptible to failure by random number generator - he can dev crit for 8k on the tank and there's basically nothing you can do about it if he gets lucky and crits back to back.
  
• It's a long, multi-boss fight and a clear will require at least a couple of nights in a week at the best case.

Dar Narbugud

Pros:

• It's a level 60 raid, so gear/stat levels will be much less of a contributor to the difficulty. Also radiance has been removed, altough the gloom levels were low enough that it wasn't much of an issue pre-update 2 anyway. Most of the difficulty will relate to coordination and strategy and the fights should definitely be beatable (although the Blind One will give us a real challenge).
  
• The L60 armour set is still good for some classes.
  
• There are some excellent random loot drops for many classes.

Cons:

• There are a significant number of trash pulls and they're really pretty boring, with little if any learning involved. There's also pretty long runs back to the boss rooms after each wipe.
  
• Multiple crowd control classes are a necessity for particularly the blind one and mistress fights so if we can't get at least two lore-masters/burgs we can't run it.
  
• It's a long, multi-boss fight and a clear will require at least a couple of nights in a week at the best case.
  
• The Mistress is really, really ugly .

Vile Maw

Pros:

• It's a single boss fight which, once it's on farm, can be taken down in about half an hour.
  
• There's some excellent random loot drops (black pearl, treasury stone etc.)
  
• The 6 Moria piece set bonuses are still good for some classes.

Cons:

• There is a very significant learning curve and a lot of pressure, in particular, on the main tank (if the MT gets his positioning and timing even slightly wrong at the start of phase 3 it's basically a guaranteed wipe) and the two hunter tentacle tanks. There will be a lot of wiping while these players learn their roles.
  
• The fight is much, much more difficult without a captain or two, particularly while we're learning it. No captain means there is just no margin for error at the phase 2/3 transition and at the time when the watcher pops his head up.

Personally I'm a fan of continuing on Ost Dunhoth to see if we can learn it. If it turns out that it's just too difficult while we're still sorting out our raid group, I'm very open for switching over to DN or the Watcher.

I say we give Ost Dunhoth a go for now. Some of the jewellery drops, etc look pretty nice and even if the amount of tokens needed for the new armour is just out of the question, you can turn them in for some rather nice LI scrolls.

Other then that, my next choice would be Vile Maw, which I'm just as likely to want to try with my RK at some point in the future.

in all honesty ost is not a good intro to raiding- while the disease/wound wings aren't that bad (wound being the harder of those two), the difficulty ramps up a fair bit with the following wings. even on tier 1 db/ivar/gortheron can all be difficult fights. while a (fair) bit more tedious, dn is a lot more forgiving due to it being below cap so it's probably a better choice for getting raid experience.