Or we could put in some low flying defense drones or these guys :)

that would be cool, and scary as hell the first playthrough. Instead of dying, you pop into 3rd person view, and your guardian is out of your control. You're like "WTF if happening" as your warlock Nova Bombs a teammate. in order to rez you, your teammates would need to kill you with the Relic (iron lords Ax). In hard mode, they would just kill you and you'd stay dead.

What if charging an iron lords' ax with fire was the wipe prevention mechanic? as a siva swarm comes towards your fireteam, you smash down the trail of fire and it parts the SIVA swarm like Moses parting the Red Sea?

I'm afraid of seeing evidence that AI Kermit is better than real Kermit. Seriously, if Destiny had bots or even non-alien AI that did more than walk around the Tower, this might have been a realistic possibility. Cool idea.

What if charging an iron lords' ax with fire was the wipe prevention mechanic? as a siva swarm comes towards your fireteam, you smash down the trail of fire and it parts the SIVA swarm like Moses parting the Red Sea?

In the previous raids the big bad IS the big bad (and even then, they don't directly wipe you).

Crota doesn't, the other two definitely do.

How is Oryx's and Atheon's different than Crota's? Crota calls his Oversoul, Oryx uses King's Grasp, and Atheon you're lost to time. If you're saying they directly wipe you and Crota and Aksis don't, that's purely semantics. If that were true then they could make Aksis scarier by just saying "Aksis glowers at you until you die" instead of the current "SIVA Overload Detected" or whatever it says.

I actually find the look of Aksis much creepier than any of the previous end bosses in Raids.

I understand your opinion.

Good, I'm just trying to understand yours (and I'm getting there) :)

Right but even in your list your major points on most of them is they look scary or that they cause a wipe. The whole point of the Aksis fight is that SIVA is the threat, Aksis is just the focal point, hence the main mechanic behind dying is the inevitable SIVA overload if you fail that kills you all.

Right.

In the previous raids the big bad IS the big bad (and even then, they don't directly wipe you).

Crota doesn't, the other two definitely do.

I actually find the look of Aksis much creepier than any of the previous end bosses in Raids.

I understand your opinion.

I actually find the look of Aksis much creepier than any of the previous end bosses in Raids. Atheon is just a guy, Crota is just big knight, Oryx is intimidating, but not exactly scary. And I very rarely died from ANY of them with the exception of Crota when I was the swordbearer. For 99% of my final encounters in raids the bad guy is not the least bit scary. He may cause a wipe, but it's almost always because of some wipe mechanic, and not because of them being directly threatening.

This is an area Bungie has always had trouble with, excepting probably Pathways into Darkness, but I don't think any of the guys are still around from those days.

Just Jason Jones :-)

From a character perspective, a giant robotized fallen archon who replaced his legs with a spider body, teleports around and shoots SIVA swarms that would consume you and return your body under their control al la the fallen Iron lords is a terrifying encounter.

They could have amped things up with evidence of just what SIVA could do to you, in the forms of mutated/altered fallen abominations or something, and making the raid entrance have a more interesting mechanic or have the boss show up there in patrol like the CoO intro where "Something's coming out".

This is an area Bungie has always had trouble with, excepting probably Pathways into Darkness, but I don't think any of the guys are still around from those days.