Last night I did the Normal Raid for the first time. Going in I was a little tense, I couldn’t admit I’d never been to the Raid before. There was no need to chance if the Fireteam was not accepting raid noobs. Looking back I think 90% of my team was in the same boat. Keeping silent I let the Fireteam leader give the directions. Who as it happened sounded about 14 over the mic. I was able to figure out that we were heading into stage three of the raid (Summon and defeat Atheon). As the gate opened I chose a player at random and followed him. I picked up the game plan fairly quickly, Kill all the Vex and avoid the gatekeeper. We never really died at this point although we did have a few individual deaths due to the Hobgoblin snipers, but never a team wipe. After that it was simple to down the Gatekeeper who appeared to be -Senrion, Nexus Mind- without the rotating shield. Our six man team just chewed through him. As we were fighting the Gatekeeper some goblins spawned but nothing to worry about. Then, as soon as the Gatekeeper went down everyone ran back to the rear left corner of the map. I was standing in the middle with my thumb up my ass killing the goblin spawns I spoke of earlier but apparently we now had to hold open a portal by standing inside a king of the hill marker. It didn’t take long for the portal to open; at that point two member of our team went through the portal to gather a relic. They both died shortly after entering. I volunteered to go in and revive them. Upon entering the portal I was teleported to another zone containing more than a few Praetorians (Minotaurs) as well as another Gatekeeper. I died while trying to revive my fallen teammates and our entire team wiped. Outside the portal the “Hill” was being assaulted by Vex goblins and an occasional Praetorian. I wasn’t all that much help with the Praetorians because my secondary and heavy weapons were both Arc. After we lost the Hill and our team wiped twice I switch to a rare Fusion Rifle and LMG that had Void damage on them, by far not my best weapons but they were Void. That made a word of difference and we didn’t have much trouble with Praetorians after that. On re-spawn I offered to assist inside the portal. Again we flew through the early stage and killing the Gatekeeper without issue. This time I followed our away team through the portal. The fire team leader got frustrated that 3 people were inside the portal so I bailed out rather quickly and assisted outside again. The two people inside the portal failed two or three more times starting us over. Finally we were able to get the 1st relic out of the portal. The relic carrier called out for help in the middle of the map and I ran to assist while the rest of our team opened the 2nd portal by retaining control of a similar king of the hill marker. At the center we (me and the relic holder) fended off a constant stream of Praetorians as well as the occasional goblin. Then we all died… again. We got about this far two or three more times before I understood that we needed to keep an eye out for something called Oracles. These little bastards appear over the gates randomly and will kill the entire team if allowed to live for more than a few seconds. Our team got better at calling out Oracles after this and easily avoided them from this point forward. We still had a few problems though. One of the two relic carriers was assisting me in the middle and he kept dying and whenever a relic carrier dies you get a timer on your screen indicating that you only have a few seconds for someone else to pick the relic back up. So I had to pick up the relic, in most cases I felt much less powerful without my guns/super and holding the relic felt like a nuisance. But, our main issue was that the team inside the second portal was taking way too long. Someone in our group had an excellent Idea at this point. He suggested that we clear the mobs inside the left portal and bring the boss down to a fraction of health, then abandon the portal and finish the portal on the right completely. This would allow us to come back and grab the relic out of the left portal at lightning speed, much reducing the time we needed to defend the center zone. Well, we accidently killed the boss inside the first portal a few times, but we decided to continue on. I started defending the center area by myself because in one round we lost a man forever inside the first portal we did. I actually found it easier by myself. Playing as a Defender with the Saint-14 helm I dropped my bubble shield just outside of the Praetorians spawn zone so they all entered the area blinded. This worked really well and with all the kills I was getting I didn’t have much down time between shields during which I used my heavy. Finally we executed the plan of not fully completing the first portal. I assisted opening portals until we had the first relic out. Then when our team had to re-enter the left portal to quick grab the relic, I soloed the middle area because I told the team that I felt comfortable with it. When we hand both relics out, we all converged on the center of the map to defend it as a stream of Praetorians from every direction until finally the event ended. For my troubles I received Kabr’s Wrath raid armor. I would have liked to say for the boss fight but my girlfriend was getting home and already annoyed that I spent the last two and a half hours doing nothing lol. Anyway, thank you guys for letting me share my experience and may the RNGenie smile upon you.