TBL -- Let's get this over with.

What server are you on? and actually out of curiosity what class are you?

No one was saying TBL smoke trials were EASY when TBL launched. As guilds and some players progressed into TBL and geared up, Smoke trials became easier.

When you look at the casual crowd, they are way behind the gear and AA curve, and thus are struggling in the same manner many were when TBL was new. Please remember, that just because a task is 'easy' to you does not make it so for all.

Your definition of "no one" is very loose...some might say Highly Questionable, or Borderline Nonsense. Nothing has changed about the trials - Ways, Three, and Cyclone have been from the beginning, as they are now, easy. Easy such that any group that is a group can beat them with one or fewer discovery runs to see what's up. Amphitheater isn't much harder, but does take A Plan to beat, that's a bit of a step up. Ashes is legitimately challenging for folks jumping out of Frontier Mountains with a suit of Conflagrant, but 1/5 ain't bad. And as must be repeated it seems, the challenge is heavily weighted toward a more strenuous play requirement than a strenuous gear requirement.

Sorry no... but Ashes is still the block for many even in TBL TS or GMM. If you are not in raid gear and mostly done with old achievements then this trial is horrible and nearly impossible. This "its so easy you can do it in conflagrant" is the same I heared before and it is always the same brag. And mostly it is said by a raider or somebody who got dragged through that crap by raid geared people. You can do that naked for sure too as long as a raider holds your wet hands! I remember the help of ONE raider in RoS Cacticii - he could do the dps nearly solo which the whole group could do on their limits.

There is a big difference if you are in group gear and only have your basic AA even at 20k+ or if you have played all other expansions and finished the most achievements. Always in beta there is the chance to prove all the people wrong who claim how easy it is. Come back to the ground, Mayor Tom. Play WITHOUT your nice raid toon - one time in your life a complete new one with basic gear (like your conflagrant gear) then you would wake up. Yes you can drag them through in conflagrant gear - sure - but not without a beefy tank and appropriate healing. And DPS in raid gear is hell difference.

I have done all in group gear except Ashes and honestly I don't want to go back. This was an experience I don't need in a game. But paying an expansion without the chance to play at least a minimum amount of it sucks. Even now Plane of Smoke lacks progression/is missing - a T1 zone - which is beyond any logic and use. Having done all the trials means that the gear is so sweet that all drops will be rotting. I have now tested some of that stuff again with a new SK. Done it with an old maxed out SK, a Pally and Warrior. The fresh SK gets eaten alive. The Warrior is dead without a good cleric. The maxed SK looks not good but can do it but Ashes need a perfect group behind him with his group gear.

"Ways, Cyclone and Three" were never easy in RoS group gear. Despite the riddles in "Three" are idiotic to put on a timer, a beefy tank makes everything smooth. I remember how hard it was to stand the damage output at our first tries. Now I can say - yes - "Ways" is easy in TBL TS/GMM gear - but for sure not with a fresh RoS-Group. But "Three" sucks still if you get the riddles wrong - if you are right then - yes - meanwhile in GMM/TBL TS it is much easier and the healers are not nearly OOM anymore. But Cyclone still sucks.

From time to time people should play a REAL lowlevel toon and test their abilities instead of bragging how cool they are. Now the beta is near and everybody who is not raider can test how extreme this difference REALLY is and vice versa instead of reading or writing "fake news". Perhaps some can give then real help instead of patting their shoulders...

P.S.:
Thanks to the guys like Tucoh helping here in the forum from time to time to give ideas, how a grouper can get forward in some of the messy parts of this "game".

I have been trying to progress my alts in TBL content.

Before I dipped back into raiding when I came back to EQ in 2013 / 2014 - I spent a lot of time three boxing through CotF and subsequent expansions - all were "challenging" but not impossible. Some missions were harder to box than others.

In TBL... I am stuck in stratos. With Conflagrant + GMM + a few muhbis gear, I am finding it very hard to box pass the Smoke Trials. even the straightforward kills in the Wending Ways trial trip me up (pun intended).

Fight Fire is fine - I have ways to do this with enchanter alt, but I'm also very conscious that the other hero missions (which would allow bypassing with the lamp clicky) will not be possible.

I feel that if this was a casual group, with similar quality raid gear and AAs, they would struggle - The work is more forgiving thanks to being a raid cleric with full gear and AAs - allowing me to tank pretty well.

Raid gear has varying benefits for different classes/roles/archetypes, but this is hyperbolic. There is no reason a raid geared player should "do the dps nearly solo which the whole group could do on their limits."

I apped to Valhallah during RoS on a conflagrant geared Mage with 18k AA and base level TDS-era augs (also all Rk 2 spells and other basics). Week 1 I topped a couple raid parses, was often top 5, and won plenty of group content parses. VH was #7 to beat RoS and #3 to beat TBL; their DPS is competent. Would I have done more DPS on my RoI Mage? Yeah, 10-12% more. But if a raid geared player is nearly out-DPSing an entire group it is fundamentally a player related issue, not a gear issue.

I would say it's two issues that are not mutually exclusive - how to max out your character for the gear and AA you have, and the fact that gear and AA are vital to some class' performance within some areas of expansion content.

I see it simple: don't compare only player abilities. If it comes to discussion about how strong

a) raid gear
b) group gear
c) AA
d) Achievements through all the progression of the expansions

are then simply test it yourself in the betas. It may not be thought for this but I have done that because I don't believe much anymore except the posts which really go into detail and help others.

The result was overwhelming. You can say it is the player but if the exact same player has complete radical different results with a raid toon then everything about player ability is a cheap excuse.
Test it! I have done it and I will do it again in a couple of days!

I meanwhile assume that the curve is not near linear. If you are at the edge or only slightly above or below then the playing/success experience is completely different.

btw I am missing info about the schedule. Shouldn't beta start tomorrow?

It looks like the expansion sale ends tomorrow, so possibly beta starts after that?
Let everyone know they have 1 day left for 50% expansion upgrades~

I think you are comparing apples and oranges. I'm no expert on melee classes but I know that a warrior I play sometimes had his dps go WAY up when I got him a good GMM weapon. I mean, it was very noticeable dps difference in the group. I can only imagine what kind of dps difference there is for an actual melee dps class going up to a raid level weapon. A caster, however, is just going to pick up a nice, but hardly earth shattering, boost thanks to focuses, rk3, etc. Maybe more for a mage since your pet's dps is going up also thanks to better foci. Again, no expert on any of this... maybe I'm over looking something.

a few things you're missing
* You're responding to a post from October
* Warrior's DPS is actually the most weapon-dependent class since almost all their DPS is from auto-attack damage. Berserkers, for example, get most of their damage from skill attacks that aren't modified by their weapon damage.
* Even if Sancus was referring to warriors instead of mages, a raid geared warrior is not going to do double the DPS of a group geared warrior, much less exceed the DPS of his entire group

DPS in EQ is primarily buff, ability timing and ability usage driven. Gear has increasingly less to do with it. That level 115 group-geared DPS character that comes in and puts out a consistent 100k DPS doesn't know how to play their class and raid gear won't move the needle much.

A lot of people still play EQ like it's 1999 where you autoattack and then watch your guy flail his little noodle arms at the caiman until it's dead, but basically every class has to spam abilities to perform now

I could be wrong but I don't think they meant the raider was doing all of the dps. Just that they were doing so much that they ended up doing most of the dps compared to others in the group.

As for mages doing a lot of dps... my main is a mage. I used to get near the top of parses also when I raided. However, that is a lot different. Those are very long fights where a nice chunk of your dps (pet, swarms, RS pets, etc) aren't building you any real agro. You also have other benefits like a mix of melee (using pets) and nukes. On top of that you have the advantage of VERY long range if needed.

That doesn't mean any mage can just walk in and make the parse. You still need to know how to play the class. You also need to fixate on getting the best pet and nuke focuses you can get. Mana management is important also.

ANYWAY, when it comes to these group missions a dps melee class with raid gear will do an INSANE amount of damage compared to a mage for most fights that don't last a super long time. I'm not trying to take anything away from the mage class, it is a very strong class. However, most group missions benefit from burst dps and there are other classes with MUCH better burst dps than mages... especially if those classes are raid geared. Or, maybe I just don't play the mage class right? lol