I've said it before and I'll say it again - I really like the direction Blizzard has taken regarding raiding. Sure, we're clearing this stuff right after the nerf wave, riding comfortably along while the 'top guilds' do everything in hard mode - but in general I get the feeling encounters are much more scripted - meaning everyone has to know their job, and do their job, without that flask or purple making a lot of difference.
Our adventures in SSC started with The Lurker Below, mainly due to a lack of res gear for Hydross (resistance fights? come on, Blizz, you are on the right path with most of these bosses, stop putting in resistance gear check encounters - no one likes ' em!). The fact that you have to lure this boss by fishing is great - though I've heard horror stories of people fishing for 17 minutes without getting the boss to spawn, but what pleased me the most personally was the concept of a Kraken boss. Hiding in the water, or running around in front of his spout, trying to nuke him while cramped together on a platform - it's a classic RPG encounter. I felt like I was playing Shining Force 2 again. I have to give props to Blizz for yet another fun, well-designed encounter - long as it might be.
The trash leading up to the Lurker was enjoyable - easy enough to do without deaths, hard enough to wipe on when everyone plays like they just leveled to 70. And lots of random epic drops to make you feel like you're not totally wasting your time. Can I just say that being able to use polymorph in raiding makes the Quartz mage population extremely happy. Now we're not only the undefeated kings of dps (yes we are! shut it!) but we also get to use more than just our main nuke button. Like I said before, Blizzard seems to be going more the way of everyone having a specific job, interrupting spells, being on the ball, crowd controlling, rather than just 'mob crits you for 20k, you die' type encounters, and that goes for trash as well. The Lurker fight itself is not a dps fight, nor is it (really) a heavy tank-healing fight - I'd say it's 100% about people being awake, paying attention, and healers guzzling down mana pots and spamming short heals like there's no tomorrow. Oh, and sheeping. Next up, anything that involves AE. Innervate meh!