Disclaimer: By no means is pure solo-queing Engi a carry. Engi PvP very stable class that can fill many roles. That's why I thought it would be a good test.

Prelim

Started around 1650+/-ish Rating with 50 games with a ~60% win rate at the first 2 weeks of the season. Games were close and the quality of matches (despite the off-meta yolo-queuing going on) was pretty good. It felt like a real stable rating and don't think a solo queue Engi can really go any higher without getting demolished by the top duos.

Testing

From the Week of September 10th, a few threads started popping up. Not talking about the skill-clickers posting a 0-10 streak and raging at Anet. Ones discussing the quality of matches.

I started counting the the really inconsistent matchmaking (huge rating gaps, no matter the time of day), as many pointed out on the week of the 17th. I had time to play all through out the day and queue times were reasonable. I played every match with the intention to win and try to play my best to hopefully enable the team to make some big plays. Sometimes, I did get regretfully toxic (somethings are just beyond baffling in Solo Queue).

Results

After 201 games, I was 86-115 (excluded the 50 games already played). That's a 42.78% Win Rate.

My rating definitely tanked from mid-plat, my overall win-rate was lowered. While I did go back up several times, none of the matches really felt "good". There wasn't much toxicity in the games, it seemed like everyone was actually playing (some better than others of course). I focused on my own gameplay more often than not.

Notes

This season definitely felt the worst out of every season before it. It feels very "grindy" rather than fun. I'm not really one to care about rewards, but it seems like that's all everyone is doing now. There have been many threads saying the quality of matchmaking has dropped and even in many streams where people are solo'ing, it definitely doesn't seem like only a "git gud" thing...like I said there's a difference between the skill-clickers crying about a 0-10 streak and this.

I'd test Duo, but I imagine since everyone above mid-plat duos regularly...it's safe to say that's the best option to have an above average win rate. In an ideal solo queue system (there are ones out there), 50-55% is usually what people would see. I think there still needs to be some tuning on the algorithm if PvP is even cared about anymore.

It finally clicked for me that ranked queue really requires you to know how to play several classes. I'm at around 60% win rate this season swapping between 5 or so classes depending on the enemy matchup. That's not to say I'm doing excellent, or that single class solo queue can't work, I just find this a lot more desirable in terms of match quality.

Oh and I only played Necromancer before.

Realistically speaking, there isn't much one person can do to carry a match. It's always relative, and a team effort.

I think of it this way: you are one person out of ten. How much can you honestly expect to accomplish? To win you need to hold at least two points most of the time and/or get more kills. Now, I'm certain top skilled players, being able to wreck everyone and giving their team a temporary advantage, have an impact on the final score... but how much? They are still no more and no less than 10% of that particular matchup. I'm certain there are many situations in which one person feels they carried the match and someone else on that teams feels they carried the match also. Bottomline is it's always relative: you can make a difference, but only so much; if you consider this dual point holding necessity and realize that you can't be in two places at once, you'd know you're never truly carrying.

I would say, first, that any game that goes above a 60-40 deaths to kills ratio should be something that the balance team should seek to avoid. If that happens, matching was too poorly done. Queues times will only be lengethened if people feel the quality of matches deteriorate, as more and more people simply give up on GW2 PvP. That's the first point. Second is that there needs to be some measure of individual performance that impacts rating mostly so that people feel they are competing with themselves, striving to get better, win or lose, as that is a battle they can never win and that will keep them hooked... provided, of course, the quality of matchups doesn't deteriorate so much PvP stops being fun altogether, and we're dangerously close to that already.

@kKagari.6804 said:It finally clicked for me that ranked queue really requires you to know how to play several classes. I'm at around 60% win rate this season swapping between 5 or so classes depending on the enemy matchup. That's not to say I'm doing excellent, or that single class solo queue can't work, I just find this a lot more desirable in terms of match quality.

Oh and I only played Necromancer before.

Well for someone who hasnt bought the expec, so I cant play the new specs, Its pretty hard to go into pvp without knowing other classesI can read it online but its not the same as practicing

@kKagari.6804 said:It finally clicked for me that ranked queue really requires you to know how to play several classes. I'm at around 60% win rate this season swapping between 5 or so classes depending on the enemy matchup. That's not to say I'm doing excellent, or that single class solo queue can't work, I just find this a lot more desirable in terms of match quality.

Oh and I only played Necromancer before.

Honestly, it's easiest to just play the currently OP meta classes. It takes ANet forever to do balance passes, so you're good for months if you use one of the OP builds. Then you just update when the next ones come around.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:It finally clicked for me that ranked queue really requires you to know how to play several classes. I'm at around 60% win rate this season swapping between 5 or so classes depending on the enemy matchup. That's not to say I'm doing excellent, or that single class solo queue can't work, I just find this a lot more desirable in terms of match quality.

Oh and I only played Necromancer before.

A lot of the meta builds get scrubbed pretty hard by some counterpick matchups though.

This season I've been playing only power rev and have been doing well...for me. +50% winrate. I guess it's versatile enough to fill in multiple roles, but I wouldn't consider it a carry class like thief, mesmer, or ele.

yeah it's rough. im having a horrible time. thing started off well enough in mid-plat. I experimented with some builds for a while and dropped a bit. the last ~30 games have been mostly losses due to people standing in Scourge aoe's and feeding, over and over again. I seem to be stuck in that place. i started with 60% winrate, down to about 40% right now.