I'm in a similar boat. I Wanted to wait until I turned 32 last Tuesday to try the hard raid and its a week and no clear. Tried for about 7 hours over 3 nights and have come extremely close a few times. First group couldn't evern down Crota correctly so that's on me for staying in that group for so long but the other two groups got so Close. Someone dies on the way to or from the ogre room. I was never the one who died either. Sword bearer hides in the ogre room so when we get to Crota He starts moving as we fire our rockets for the second down on the third sword. Crota is laughing at me.