To be honest I never really cared how bad the end game grind was I always just had fun leveling characters. Kinda sucks that Rise ruined that a bit because all of those old nostalgic bosses like blood prince and shit may as well not even exist.
I swear to god I played through the northern ruins, hoarfrost hollow, and ainle parts of season 1 so many god damn times and there's really no way to get that feeling back anymore. And those old raids I remember grinding out dailies on every day like ingkells, keaghan, and ahglan on my main girl fiona. Season 1 was just peak for me, I never got that same feeling again with any of the stuff that came after.