I know this is a matter of taste and preference, but I'm straying off my normal path of verse chorus verse beats and trying to make one long epic beat along the lines of Dreams and Nightmares and First Day out:

I guess I could copy their arrangement, but I'm looking for more ideas. Right now the beat is sounding like First Day out.

I have an intro of 8 bars of just chords, then I bring in the melody, I keep the melody going and after 8 bars bring in a choir playing the main chords. But I'm kind of stuck here. If I bring in all the drums it kind of kills the epic-ness the beat was building up to. I messed around with bringing in hi-hats and then the claps and kicks, which sounds alright. I'm thinking of possibly changing up the melody a bit to keep it from becoming to repetitive.

If anyone is good at arranging beats like these or has some tips on what instruments they would bring in at certain bars to keep the beat sounding exciting, I'd love to hear how you'd go about it.