The Ranked Meta (MMH)
It seems very clear by now that for ranked play, the ideal setup is two mediums and a heavy with a pretty narrow scope of equipment choices.
The heavy is the most limited in terms of meta variety. Mesh shield is definitely the most valuable ability. It's good for so many uses including closing distances for use with short range weapons, covering a teammate stealing a cashout, covering a revive, and most importantly, recovering from a revive. Any time a heavy goes down and gets defibbed, they can throw up their mesh shield while the medium heals them and everyone comes out with full HP. RPG and C4 are clear picks both for destruction capability and their mere deadliness. And dome shield is perfect for getting revives and steals yourself, which covers the main weakness of the mesh shield. That just leaves a weapon choice. Which, to be fair, may be the most balanced of all the weapon pools. M60, Lewis gun, the shotgun, and even the flamethrower are all viable picks.
As for medium, having access to the most important item in the entire game immediately restricts your choices for equipment from 3 to 2. The power of the defib cannot be understated, and the best way to make it even more powerful is to combine it with the heal beam. The heal beam is better than the turret because of how much better it makes your defib, and the ability to double-pocket a heavy playing close range, (especially against flamethrower) comes in clutch a lot of the time. Forgoing mobility and access to high places (especially on suspended structures) is not an option, so you need at least one jumppad or a zipline. Most mediums are going to prefer to have one of their own, though. This leaves two, or maybe 3 equipment slots left, and one of those should really be the sensor nade. It can stop you from getting jumped, and can give you valuable information about who is on which team and its existence makes the recon ability unnecessary, allowing you to still have scans, double-pockets, heals for the healers, and even stronger revive potential.
Light is extremely fun to play and they can absolutely be deadly, but they don't offer enough to their team, especially when it comes to holding objectives. The best they have to offer is speed for clutch last-second moves, a weaker version of the C4, and the glitch grenade. Glitch grenade is the only counter to a number of strategies in this meta, but I still feel like it falls short. Often literally: it just doesn't go far enough. It also needs a bigger AoE or a faster travel time, since it's quite difficult to use it to deny a rez, although if you can, it's an incredible tool. Its other main use is to remove shields and stop you from getting one-tapped by RPGs. This is a lot more consistent, since heavies are slower and shields are more stationary than a rushing medic. As the MMH meta takes over more, glitch grenade will become more important, but it's still not enough to justify running a character with 150hp, no heals, and no shields. The silenced pistol is still busted even after last beta's nerfs and is the obvious choice if you are going to go against the meta.
To be clear, I'm not saying that other strategies are not viable, but the MMH definitely seems to be the most viable and the best well-rounded. What are your thoughts?