Guild Wars 2

With the perpetual nerfs to supports, bunkers, and survivability in general we have reached a point where at least as far as solo-queue is concerned roamers are the only relevant classes.

Just playing in platinum, I’ve noticed that the only Warriors, Necros, Eles, and Revenants that you see in plat are the absolute crème of the crop for their classes. Meanwhile platinum is choked full of mesmers, thieves, and druids most of whom are nowhere near playing optimally.

The only non-roamers that seem to have any real success this season are scrapper and DH, which is because those are the only two classes that can hold for any length of time against roamers.

Why should I bother playing a warrior, ele, or necro when I can play a roamer half as good and get twice the rating?

I don’t think this is something new. I pvp (100% Solo Q) with the closest builds possible to my wvw solo roaming builds since season 1 and I’ve made it to plat in a few days in every season I played (haven’t played the last two seasons).

With this kind of build you are able to fulfill multiple roles when your team is lacking stuff. You can hold close in a 1v1, you have an impact in the mid teamfight. You have a good combination of damage and sustain. You have decent mobility to decap or kite while your wiped team is regrouping.

The Metabattle team focused builds (e.g. literally every necro build on this site) have always been trash in Solo Q.

What times are you playing? I’ve noticed(high play, NA): All the revs I’ve seen are either running vent, or just end up being eaten by thieves. The only revs I’ve seen make any impact this season are the usual suspects. I’ve only seen a handful of good eles, and they were never solo. Good thieves are a dime a dozen on NA, mesmers arn’t quite as abundant. I’ve only seen 3 good engis. Most druids play druid incorrectly, the good druids (See; Kraalle) are an absolute pain to play against.(No but pugs, don’t 1v3 kraallee on home.) I’ve seen a bunch of good warriors, I think a lot of people play that to try and counter condi theif. I’ve seen more bad condi thieves than anything else though. The necros I do see have all been around for a long time. (rendys, tabar, frost etc) This might not just be the meta though. Some classes (See; Thief, Rev, Guard, Ranger) Are much better at carrying bad teammates than other classes so players tend to gravitate to those roles in hopes of increasing chance for success.

I play around midday est on NA. I’ll sometimes do evening matches but not often.

I totally understand there being a slight bias towards roamers simply because roamers offer a high level of active control and agency, which are traits that high level players desire.

However the current meta is so far pushed in favor of roamers it’s not even funny.
Thief is certainly a popular class, but Necromancer is also enormously popular, yet the number of necromancers in plat are poor compared to how many there should be based on the class’s popularity. All of the necros (and warriors) I’ve seen this season are either doing placements or are Golds that the MM is dragging up to fill matches.

It’s one thing for there to be lots of high-level players playing roamers. It’s another thing for a roamer that clearly isn’t playing his class anywhere near optimally to still have a larger effect on the match than necro/war/eles that are playing their class far better.

If thieves are so popular jjst queue on their natural counters

Azukas.1426:

If thieves are so popular jjst queue on their natural counters

They don’t have any because all of their counters have been nerfed in every single patch for the last year.

The word roamer may be a bit misleading, it’s definitely a DPS meta. If you’re a player who’s able to clown 2+ average solo queuers on occasion, you need to be playing a class that can snowball the map. Necro, Revenant, DH, Thief, Mesmer.

If you’re vs. players who you feel are either much more coordinated or skilled than you, switch to a tanky build and nullify that weakness in fighting strength by pressuring side nodes with Druid, Scrapper, Warrior. Tempest is situational, can carry hard if you have a team that will likely get into teamfights.

Chaith.8256:

The word roamer may be a bit misleading, it’s definitely a DPS meta.

What I mean is that in the current meta nobody except scrappers can survive for any length of time while outnumbered, which means that fights almost always come down to which team gets the +1 first. Since roamers like thief, and Mesmer can get those +1s the fastest they have become enormously dominant.

Crinn.7864:

Azukas.1426:

If thieves are so popular jjst queue on their natural counters

They don’t have any because all of their counters have been nerfed in every single patch for the last year.

You play necro and you’re not that good at it which would make sense as to why you hate those 3 classes, also thief is hard countered by everything except necro and rev.

It is universal truth. Mobility is superior to everything else.
It’s better to run away than tank damage, show up in tight situations to rescue someone and stuff like that. This is why we see so many mesmers, thieves and droods in top tier play. Pretty much anything in any competitive game has something to do with mobility if you seek to be playing solo and wish to carry somehow.

Chaith.8256:

Tempest is situational, can carry hard if you have a team that will likely get into teamfights.

That is not carrying. A good support is nothing if the team doesn’t know how to focus or instead of fighting the focused target, runs around trying to get killed which pretty much gets them killed. Everyone carries everyone more or less. And if someone really carries, it’s pretty much a burst of luck or just plain incompetence of the enemy - which is also hardly carrying.
I get the feeling that we tend to overuse the word "carry". It’s pretty much a rare thing that happens from time to time when your enemy makes a mistake and you manage to exploit it. A "carrying" player is just contributing a bit more to the game, but he/she would do nothing if the team wasn’t capable of at least not dying in a teamfight in mere seconds. It all comes down to what people you get in your team and who you fight against. Maybe it’s just me, that "carry" is a bit strong word for what happens in most of current games. I would rather just call it better contribution.