Guild Wars 2

After playing Solo queue for a while in between the 80th percentile and top 1K, here’s my list of the top solo queue classes and why:

1. Warrior: Warriors in almost any current meta incarnation are tanky and able to hold a point. Stun warriors are an instant counter to necros and engineers. Warriors are able to bring good survival tools while retaining large amounts of sustain and stunlock burst. They can also bring valuable team support like warbanner and resurrections while invulnerable to conditions and damage. Warriors also have no real hard counter unlock some other classes.

2. Guardian: Although no one really think of Guardian as being overpowered, they take up a place on every single good team in the game currently. In solo queue, Guardian is always great to have for a number of different maps: holding mid on Khylo, carrying orb on Spirit Watch, holding hammer on Skyhammer, and team support in the mid fight on TotSS. Guardians bring AoE stability and condition cleanses while also having the best ability to resurrect allies.

3. Ranger: Specifically, Spirit Ranger. I considered putting necro in this spot, but now necros have been weakened by the prevalence of Stunlock warriors who can literally 100-0 them. Rangers have a large amount of vigor, protection, and evades which can help them deal with this and also bring more team support.

4. Necromancer: Although it now has hard counters, necromancer still brings a ton of burst to every encounter and isn’t very difficult to use. Even though necromancer is still extremely strong in both 1v1 and mid fights, it is a priority target and is one of the only classes that you can almost always land hits on due to its lack of evade spam and invulnerability. The main problem with necromancer in Solo queue right now is simply the fact that it is common to see 5-6 warriors in every game.

5. Engineer: Engineer is the class I know least about, but they seem to have very good mobility and condition application as well as burst when specced for it. Engineers are usually weak to stun warriors as well but do have access to vigor.

6. Thief: The main problem with thief in solo queue is that it simply cannot effectively hold points for any length of time. Thief has mediocre burst compared to some other classes and is not renowned for team support. It is a good class for back capping quickly, but other than that it can struggle taking down warriors and other classes in 1v1 fights. Shortbow is decent in team fights, but for solo queue, it is usually better to have a necromancer or engineer raining down condition death on the enemy from 1200 range instead of being extremely squishy at 900.

7. Mesmer: Mesmer has some crazy burst and can be tricky to find but they usually falter in team fights and also are generally running duelist specs which don’t bring much support. Portal is good for backcapping and mobility on maps like Khylo for repairing treb, but it isn’t nearly as good as it is in organized team play. Mesmers suffer from a lack of decent condition removal, and once locked down are an extremely easy kill.

8. Elementalist: Although I don’t believe elementalists are as weak as people say they are, their main problem now is that they don’t do anything as well as another class can do it. They can tank, they can DPS, they can support. But for a tank, I’d rather have a guardian, for DPS I’d rather have engineer or necromancer, and for support I’d rather have a spirit ranger. Elementalists are a jack of all trades with selfish utility skills on very long cooldowns and bring burst DPS with a general lack of sustain.

I would agree with you, but based on my experience for yoloq, I would go

1. Warrior
2. Engineer
3. Guardian
4. Necromancer
5. Ranger
6. Thief
7. Elementalist
8. Mesmer

I’ll add that in yoloq, currently, there is an over representation of warriors and engineers, with every match having at least one of each on both teams, and bad necromancers…there are so many bad necromancers in yoloq

currently necro is on top couse of being imballanced

Urejt.5648:

currently necro is on top couse of being imballanced

While you are correct in general, the class isn’t as crazy in solo queue.

In solo queue, there is not a ton of team strategy. Everyone is random. That means a player than can bunker a point is way more valuable than someone who can dps or roam.

So essentially the top 3 solo queue classes are : warrior, guardian, and engi. Spirit ranger used to be on this list, but with the recent nerf, they are not as valuable anymore.

Seriously guardian rated over necromancer??? do you know how long it takes to kill them with my necro? 15~ seconds. and that is without losing any hp at all if they are bunker.

tom.7468:

Seriously guardian rated over necromancer??? do you know how long it takes to kill them with my necro? 15~ seconds. and that is without losing any hp at all if they are bunker.

You’re lying.
You need at least 2 people to kill a good guardian, a Necro alone will just die to attrition.

No, a good Necro destroys a good Guardian.

Necros are designed to kill Guardians.

A Guardian built for survival with Cleric’s Amulet isn’t able to kill anything 1v1, unless you just stand and die. How could a Necro possibly die to a bunker Guardian through attrition.

Ezrael.6859:

No, a good Necro destroys a good Guardian.

Necros are designed to kill Guardians.

A Guardian built for survival with Cleric’s Amulet isn’t able to kill anything 1v1, unless you just stand and die. How could a Necro possibly die to a bunker Guardian through attrition.

Retaliation and burning. Greatsword works amazingly against Necros.
Conditions are cleansed over and over and corrupt boon can’t match the boon application.

To kill a good guardian you need at least two people. A good necro isn’t enough at all.

tom.7468:

Seriously guardian rated over necromancer??? do you know how long it takes to kill them with my necro? 15~ seconds. and that is without losing any hp at all if they are bunker.

Then you are fighting awful guardians.

Fact is: Guardian is a staple in team fighting in this game. In EVERY part: PvP, WvW and PvE. That’s due to shouts and condition removal and AoE stability. Bunker guardians have all sorts of tools at their disposal to stay alive. A full burst necro will have trouble killing a guardian in a realistic length of time, especially on a capped point in a tournament where the guardian is bunkering.

It never ceases to amaze me how people always underestimate support compared to 1v1 potential in tournaments.

Please stay on topic. This is specific to solo queue. What is needed there is different than hot join, tpvp, wvw, or pve

Engineer’s aren’t as weak to stun warriors as necros are, due to protection on stun and -20% damage while stunned. Prot on stun lasts for 3 seconds base, 5 second icd. -20% damage has no icd.

Necros, on the other hand, just have to eat the damage, though they do have a higher hp pool.

I don´t recommend necromancer, you can´t fight on point, you can´t roam, you are easy to kill if outnumbered since you cant avoid much damage. You rely on a teamfight forced around the necro and you can´t coordinate this in a solo q.
Due to all this necro is not overpowered, it´s a l2p issue. Only strenght of a necro are the numbers it creates.

K U T M.4539:

Engineer’s aren’t as weak to stun warriors as necros are, due to protection on stun and -20% damage while stunned. Prot on stun lasts for 3 seconds base, 5 second icd. -20% damage has no icd.

Necros, on the other hand, just have to eat the damage, though they do have a higher hp pool.

It’s definitely true, honestly Engi might be better for solo queue now than necromancer but I’m pretty sure it has a higher learning curve and more room for error still.

Its best to play several profession and switch depending on the team composition before match starts. This will increase your chances of winning.

tom.7468:

Seriously guardian rated over necromancer??? do you know how long it takes to kill them with my necro? 15~ seconds. and that is without losing any hp at all if they are bunker.

A support guardian won’t kill a necro, but thats not where they shine.

In team fights they provide so much support. They can hold points, ensure stomps, heal/cleanse/peel the group. The little things that addup, goes un-noticed, but when you don’t have a guardian its sorely missed. Not alot of people play guardian so to have one ready to go swap to is nice.

These lists don’t really tell a full story. Why? Because they are based off meta builds, and not the class.

For example, Power Necros are definitely not rank 4, they’d be ranked just a bit above staff Eles. Same thing is true of most of these, they only speak true for the currently used meta builds, meaning this list only speaks of the top-ranking builds, and then have a long trail behind (and in front in maybe rare cases) of builds that aren’t meta.

Just saying, it should always be specified what build gives them that rank (like you did for Ranger), so people don’t start thinking that they can build celestial spirit weapon guardians and be one of the best soloQ builds.

I agree with your list.

It’s rare but if there are no condi dmg dealers on their team and they have warrior spam, I’ve found that old school D/D Ele with 0/10/0/30/30 can handle anybody and not give up the point. Stun lock Warrior doesn’t really take it down with that massive sustain, protection, and using Shocking Aura when their stab is down.

Mesmer/Ele/Thief tend to shine a lot more in organized play than in solo queue though

The list goes like this;

Warrior
Ranger
Thief
Necros
Engi
Mesmer
-hell-
-7th hell-
elementalists

Granted, not that bad for eles, so I will correct it:

mesmer
-hell-
elementalist.

Jokes asides, I think people really understimate the strenght of a perma stealth D/D 10k backstab 5k HS thief, or a Sword/Dagger with perma dodges is given how they can get away from pretty much everything and kill pretty much everything, specially if they use boons. As for engi/ranger/necros, conditions are too strong in general, they ned to be brought down or be affected by toughness, unless you have to put aother stat like “armor penetration” to get a percentage off. A zerker gear has 3 stats, for offense, no defense, do or die, yet most of the condition ones have only condition damage as offensive stat, rest is healing or toughness or vitality, which is totally unfair and make them tanky as well as bursty (dont tell me 15-20 stack of bleed each hitting 120 a second x15 or 20 isnt bursty, constantly reapplying, with added 2-3 conditions so that you cant get rid of it easily)

My suggestion is to bring eles up to par with everyone else, it seems to be the best way to use the elast resources. I mean, whats easier, bring down 7 classes to ele’s state and have 87% (only 13% play ele as far as the graph says, but apparently 0 in MLG in “pro” scene) of the population raging, or bring eles up to par with everyone and have 13% very happy.

Undo all the bu11sh1ttery nerfs on ele back to around April. Problem solved.

thieves have s/d and everything else kinda sucks in this meta. Even tho i think s/d lacks a lot like AOE, condition… They dont really teamfight super well

Thing that makes Necromancer kind of OP is Signet of Spite. Unless hou run full cleanse skill, things like 14 second weakness and multiple other conditions applied by one button…It should have been elite skill.

Fortus.6175:

The list goes like this;

Warrior
Ranger
Thief
Necros
Engi
Mesmer
-hell-
-7th hell-
elementalists

Granted, not that bad for eles, so I will correct it:

mesmer
-hell-
elementalist.

Jokes asides, I think people really understimate the strenght of a perma stealth D/D 10k backstab 5k HS thief, or a Sword/Dagger with perma dodges is given how they can get away from pretty much everything and kill pretty much everything, specially if they use boons. As for engi/ranger/necros, conditions are too strong in general, they ned to be brought down or be affected by toughness, unless you have to put aother stat like “armor penetration” to get a percentage off. A zerker gear has 3 stats, for offense, no defense, do or die, yet most of the condition ones have only condition damage as offensive stat, rest is healing or toughness or vitality, which is totally unfair and make them tanky as well as bursty (dont tell me 15-20 stack of bleed each hitting 120 a second x15 or 20 isnt bursty, constantly reapplying, with added 2-3 conditions so that you cant get rid of it easily)

My suggestion is to bring eles up to par with everyone else, it seems to be the best way to use the elast resources. I mean, whats easier, bring down 7 classes to ele’s state and have 87% (only 13% play ele as far as the graph says, but apparently 0 in MLG in “pro” scene) of the population raging, or bring eles up to par with everyone and have 13% very happy.

how can a d/d thief be perma stealth without a blind field? Unless you let them CnD you 24/7, but you were 2k rating in wow so you dodge that right?

Troll thief build is OP n more rife in YoloQ than wars are , everyone forgetting this or ?

kirito.4138:

Its best to play several profession and switch depending on the team composition before match starts. This will increase your chances of winning.

tom.7468:

Seriously guardian rated over necromancer??? do you know how long it takes to kill them with my necro? 15~ seconds. and that is without losing any hp at all if they are bunker.

A support guardian won’t kill a necro, but thats not where they shine.

In team fights they provide so much support. They can hold points, ensure stomps, heal/cleanse/peel the group. The little things that addup, goes un-noticed, but when you don’t have a guardian its sorely missed. Not alot of people play guardian so to have one ready to go swap to is nice.

The problem with this is that people play so kitten in solo q. Support guardians are great but people do all sorts of crazy things in solo q and you are basically only as good as your team-mates when what you provide is team support and the ability to hold out against multiple people for a couple minutes. If the calvary doesn’t come you are screwed. Sadly its the classes that can kill people the most efficeintly while still having some kind of durability whether though high hits and toughess, self healing, or dodges and blocks that are the kings in solo q. Guardian is middle of the road class in solo q and if you count spirit ranger as a class lol I would rank them behind Warrior, Nerco, Thief, and Ranger just because of the nature of the beast.

Demonts.4593:

thieves have s/d and everything else kinda sucks in this meta. Even tho i think s/d lacks a lot like AOE, condition… They dont really teamfight super well

S/D Thief sucks vs. a Warrior using any number of builds. Their pressure is bouncing off a 2.9k armor wall that is hitting them back with the same level of damage against 1.9 to 2.1k armor

6. Thief: The main problem with thief in solo queue is that it simply cannot effectively hold points for any length of time. Thief has mediocre burst compared to some other classes and is not renowned for team support. It is a good class for back capping quickly, but other than that it can struggle taking down warriors and other classes in 1v1 fights. Shortbow is decent in team fights, but for solo queue, it is usually better to have a necromancer or engineer raining down condition death on the enemy from 1200 range instead of being extremely squishy at 900.

Mediocre burst?!

I don’t know which thiefs you’ve been fighting but they definitely are the highest burst class on my necro. I’ve been crit multiple times by 6-8k hits (just one hit, not like thousand blades or etc.) I agree they’re not the best class to defend at ALL but they are by far the best roaming class in my opinion. Seems if I am fighting 2v1 on a point and a good thief shows up, it can turn the tide of the battle in a matter of 2-3 seconds.

Agreed on the rest of the list.

Warrior counter = any decent Mesmer.

Apparently some dude played power ranger and is now top 3.

Eurantien.4632:

Apparently some dude played power ranger and is now top 3.

are you pertaining to yourself?

i ran power build too. it was awesome. you can get a lot of kills running it. i only used it in hotjoin though. i dont feel like running that build in tpvp because i want to bring support to my team so i just run a spirit build.

So I think I’m amending my original post to engineer in spot 4, necro in spot 5 now.

tichorum.2415:

Warrior counter = any decent Mesmer.

This list is not about 1v1 capability. Mesmers just lack the ability to stay on a point and also can get blown up in team fights in an instant. Especially in solo queue where they can’t rely on reses or a guardian to clear their conditions

In TPvP, Condi Necros easily wreck Bunker Guards. Speaking as a pretty decent bunker Guard, I can confirm that much based on my own experience. Minion master Necros, however, are a much easier task, but Necros pretty much beat Guardians imo. Any condi spam can make it hard to survive as a Guardian. That said, Necros are really good against bunkers, but that seems to be it. I’m learning more classes and builds to see how they play, but I really just play Guardian. So far, though, it seems like Necros just fall short against everything else. If the enemy is mobile AND has condi removal…. gg Necro.

Demonts.4593:

thieves have s/d and everything else kinda sucks in this meta. Even tho i think s/d lacks a lot like AOE, condition… They dont really teamfight super well

Well aren’t you a little unexperienced thief.

While I agree that Guardians and Warriors are the top professions for yoloq, thief should be way higher on the list than most players here have it. It has either great burst with d/p, or great teamfighting potential with s/d and of course with shortbow is an amazing roamer that can capture undefended points (or even points with 1 defender) very quickly.

I don’t necessarily agree with a guardian as a necessity for solo queue. [I’m talking about clerics 0-0-10-30-30 guard]

The problem is that people view guard as a point bunker. In most matches your team will be content with having a guard going afk on middle, however there are quite a bunch of other specs that are harder to kill, can actually win 1v1’s and have less risk of getting decapped.
Soldier hambows or condi bunker specs (rangers, engis) are examples.

Guardian is an amazing class, but it shines in teams that can rotate him properly to the teamfights. An afk bunker is a waste, whereas might stacks, healing, safe stomps, sanctuary res, condi removal etc. decide fights.

For solo queue i argue that a soldiers meditation guard is a better choice in most scenarios. On the list i would put it below ranger.

Monkeymonger.9235:

I don’t necessarily agree with a guardian as a necessity for solo queue. [I’m talking about clerics 0-0-10-30-30 guard]

The problem is that people view guard as a point bunker. In most matches your team will be content with having a guard going afk on middle, however there are quite a bunch of other specs that are harder to kill, can actually win 1v1’s and have less risk of getting decapped.
Soldier hambows or condi bunker specs (rangers, engis) are examples.

Guardian is an amazing class, but it shines in teams that can rotate him properly to the teamfights. An afk bunker is a waste, whereas might stacks, healing, safe stomps, sanctuary res, condi removal etc. decide fights.

For solo queue i argue that a soldiers meditation guard is a better choice in most scenarios. On the list i would put it below ranger.

I run a 0/5/30/30/5 shout-guardian with greatsword/sword/focus and berzerker amulet for soloqueue and it’s an amazing teamfighter with shouts and aoe condition removal, and also has a lot of dps and 1v1 potential through the weapons. Haven’t found a single spec or class that can turn the tides of fights more than that one.

I agree with OP list, some classes might be not as extremely strong (bunker guardians in particular) but have huge influence on outcome of the game due to mechanics of the class and game mode

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

I run a 0/5/30/30/5 shout-guardian with greatsword/sword/focus and berzerker amulet for soloqueue and it’s an amazing teamfighter with shouts and aoe condition removal, and also has a lot of dps and 1v1 potential through the weapons. Haven’t found a single spec or class that can turn the tides of fights more than that one.

I’d love to see the link to this build. It sounds interesting and fun.

This thread is from October last year, I’d say Mesmer is definitely top-tier now.