Class Distribution Data for Patch 5.4.2

 

 

Oh. Hey, how’s it going? Enjoying the end of Mists of Pandaria? Leveling a lot of alts, are we?

While Patch 5.4.2 wasn’t a major content patch, it marks a good point to take a look at the middle of this long end-of-expansion period and see how classes are doing in World of Warcraft. This data follows the same methodology of my previous census posts (previously, previously, previously, previously) in that it is snapshotting census data from  Realmpop and World of Wargraphs,  then analyzing that data over time.

All data is available in my Warcraft Class Distribution – Mists of Pandaria 5.4.2 Google spreadsheet. Previous versions are linked in the previous census posts.

This snapshot was collected on 1/8/14 and 1/13/13. I’m going to call it Patch 5.4.2 data even though the patch dropped on December 10th, 2013. (I got busy during the holidays, sorry.)

Go ahead and open up the spreadsheet in another window, and let’s get started.

OVERALL POPULATION TRENDS

 

The expected flow of an expansion is that players will level their main characters to endgame first, with alt characters following later on as time permits. The final content patch of an expansion allows many players to focus their attention on other characters after completing the final raid, resulting in people leveling alts. My theory is that we should see a more even distribution of classes as the expansion ages and players level those alts.

In general, I think we’re starting to see that. The 6 point disparity between Paladins/Druids and Rogues/Monks from the beginning of the expansion has lessened. Monks and Rogues have both gained a point, Paladins and Druids have lost a point, but everyone is starting coalesce around the 9.19% mean.

The one exception to this rule is Hunters; the Hunter class continues to steadily hold at 11.5%. My guess is that the Hunter class continues to be friendly to new players, Hunter mains, and folks leveling alts, so we aren’t seeing any drop off there. 

 

The chart above is the percentage of a class which has leveled to level 90, which gives us an insight into the overall health of a class through the leveling process as well as who people picked for their initial mains in Mists of Pandaria. Hybrids tend to level to 90 more frequently than Pure DPS classes, so we can evaluate them in two groups.

Hybrids (tanks, healers, DPS) tend to all be around 27-28.5%. Hybrids who can perform all three roles (Druids, Monks, Paladins) aren’t really that different from those who can perform only two roles (Death Knights, Priests, Shamans, Warlocks) in this respect, with one exception: Warriors. Warriors continue to be the least leveled-to-endgame hybrid class, and are the second least popular overall. Considering the class which overlaps them the most (Death Knights) is the second highest on this chart, that continues to be alarming.

Pure DPS tend to all be around 26%, with one exception: Rogues. Rogues are still the least leveled-to-endgame class, continuing the trends we saw in 5.4. There’s been the same slow improvement as before but it really seems to be a niche class for both mains and alts.

We’re now seeing a consistent trend throughout Mists – players are not choosing to play Warriors and Rogues at the endgame. If you look at the overall population figures you can see that Rogues are much more represented in the 10-85 pool – 8.85% – but then they fall off dramatically in the 86-90 range and never recover. Interestingly, Warriors do not have this drop in population – instead, they’re just an unpopular hybrid at all levels (compared to other hybrids). 

Without substantial changes to the class play style or a substantial carrot offered to players of these two classes, I don’t see any real substantial changes for Rogues or Warriors until the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor. 

DOING THE HARD STUFF

Class representation in Heroic PvE (6+ bosses) and Rated PvP (1800+ rating) is always a tricky thing. It’s all well and good to look at the classes to see what people are using when Doing the Hard Stuff, but the presence or absence of a class is not in and of itself a sign of a problem. Raid mechanics might favor one spec over another, PvP burst might favor one class over another, etc.. We have seen times when representation in hard mode Warcraft was absolutely fine, DPS was fine, and yet the class was seriously struggling (Warlocks in Cataclysm) – and we’ve also seen times when certain specs have been vastly underrepresented, yet people do amazing things with them. (Demonology Warlocks were abysmally represented in Rated PvP at the same time a Demolock won the World Arena title.)

So use this data cautiously. Think before you jump to any conclusions with it.

 

Here’s the total population vs endgame vs PVE vs PVP chart. The general idea behind this one is to point out areas where a class might be over or underrepresented in an area of the game relative to its overall endgame population. Paladins, for instance, are 11.1% of the endgame population and 11.7% of the heroic raiding population – relatively balanced. Priests, on the other hand, are 9.5% of the endgame population but 11.8% of heroic raiding and 12.8% of the ranked PvP data set. They are performing very well at the hard stuff.

General observations:

• Death Knights, Hunters, and Warriors are less represented than their general endgame population. For DKs and Hunters my guess is that they are excellent classes for casual players as well as experts, so they are overrepresented in the endgame pop and underrepresented in heroics. Warriors are a different matter. Mages struggle a little bit in heroics. Rogues struggle in PvP.
• Shaman and Druids seem to be doing very well in heroics. Warlocks seem to have a bit of an edge with mechanics in the current raid tier and have solid representation as well. Warriors and Priests are doing amazingly well in PvP.

The details for each class can be found on the PvE and PvP tabs. 

Digging into the specs (PvE, PvP) shows us some interesting tidbits, like Arms and Holy are doing great in PvP, Destruction Warlocks are dominating in SoO (due to raid mechanics, I assume?). But we also have a complete enough data set that we can start plotting Spec Popularity over Time, at least for heroics and rated PvP. 

POPULARITY OVER TIME

You snapshot data enough times and finally you can do some visualizations with it. I’ve divided the spec data from World of Wargraphs into 4 sections for each Hard Mode activity (PvE, PvP) and graphed them according to role and function within that activity. In theory, people familiar with each class should be able to pinpoint certain changes that were made either to the class or to the content that swung the herd into favoring certain classes over each other. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I look over these graphs, I can’t help but wonder about things like raids which favor absorb healers vs throughput healers, tiers which favor more tanks versus fewer tanks, encounters which reward cleave specs versus multi dot or single target specs. 

PvP is a different set of stories, presented in a similar fashion.

 

 

 

 

It’s amazing, looking at these graphs, to see the effects of certain changes in gameplay. Fix the bug in Spirit Shell, change how Vengeance works in PvP, and watch players switch in high end play. Arms is a roller coaster that is currently going off the tracks in PvP.  The BM/MM flip is startling to see. All of these changes are likely tied into changes in each patch. It’ll be neat to see if folks can correlate the data with the changes.

CAVEATS AND CONCLUSION

A final few caveats.

First, there appears to be a lot more spec data in here than in previous census posts, though really it’s the same data presented over time. I don’t think a popular class being popular in a hard activity is really all that unusual. A small class like Monks or Rogues are going to be a smaller piece of the hard mode pie. It’s when an unpopular spec is popular at an activity – or vice versa – that I think it’s worth standing up and taking notice. Take a look at the spreadsheet and see where there’s huge deltas between the general endgame population and a given activity – that’s where there’s something going on, something good or bad.

Second, take these numbers with a grain of salt. They represent the movement of the masses, and while they might help shed light in to why people are playing – or not playing – a class, they’re not a determiner of your own personal performance or enjoyment. If you’re not chasing heroic mode achievements or 2200+ ratings, the spec data shouldn’t make you feel bad about your choices. 

But there’s a flip side, as I found out in Cataclysm – sometimes it’s reassuring to know when you’re struggling with a class that it’s not just you. If you’re not feeling your Warrior right now, or are suddenly really digging your Shaman – well, other people are too. Really like your Priest? There’s a reason for it. You’re not alone, there are reasons why people are making these kinds of decisions en masse. 

I’ll leave it up to you to level those alts and figure out which ones you enjoy the most.

Class Distribution Data for Patch 5.4

World of Warcraft’s Patch 5.4 was released on September 10th, 2013. This is the latest entry in my series on population data snapshots. All data is contained in the Google Docs Spreadsheet for 5.4. The methodology is unchanged from the previous entries:

• Class Distribution Data in Patch 5.3 (spreadsheet)
• Class Distribution Data in Patch 5.2 (spreadsheet)
• The Decline and Fall of Warlocks in Cataclysm (spreadsheet)

As before, the patch dates are handy labels for each snapshot, but they mark the beginning of a period, not the end.

My hands are still in a lot of pain and I haven’t played in any real capacity since before 5.3, so my commentary is mostly about interesting facts in the numbers I find. I’ll leave it to current players to propose solutions.

CHARTS AND GRAPHS AND DATA, OH MY

First tab is relative class popularity over time at the endgame of a given patch or expansion. Some changes to note:

• Hunters are now the number one class at endgame, Paladins are now number two.
• Death Knights surpassed Druids for the number three spot.
• Warriors fell past Mages into seventh position. If we normalized their numbers for the addition of Monks they’d be worse off than at any point since Wrath.
• Shamans, Warlocks, Rogues and Monks all gained ground (but maintained relative positions.)

The next tab, Mists 5.4, is a data collection sheet, just like in 5.3.

Rogues are probably the most interesting story here, since they continue to have more toons at all levels than at 90. Last patch Ghostcrawler confirmed that people roll Rogues, they just don’t finish leveling them, and we continue to see that here. This probably won’t change until changes are made to how the class levels, which is typically an expansion revamp.

Monks, Death Knights, Paladins, Druids, Shamans: they all get leveled to 90. That seems to be a hybrid class trait. Pure DPS struggle more. Warriors struggle as well, but we’ll talk more about them later.

The data set shrunk slightly between June and September of this year – 31.1 million toons as opposed to 31.3 million toons. I think this is the effect of characters aging off of the Armory after several months of inactivity, but it could also be a relic of the RealmPop database getting cleaned out periodically.

Next tab is patch-by-patch breakdown of class populations in Mists. You can see the drop in the populations between 5.3 and 5.4, which might be part of the overall drop in subs – or it might not.

I want to zoom in on my new favorite chart, the Percent of Total Class at 90:

There we go. Nice and big. Notice anything there?

Hybrids are around 22-23%. Pure DPS classes have caught up a bit at 20-21%.

And then there are Warriors and Rogues.

The reason I like this data so much is because it functions like a health check – what are people bringing all the way to endgame? In the first patch, it was primarily mains, but now we’ve had a chance for people to level up their stables of alts. Hybrids are still a little easier to get to endgame than pures, though that gap is decreasing. The low percentages for Warriors (19.4%) and Rogues (15.4%) puts them at the absolute bottom of the pack. Warriors, as hybrid tank/melee DPS, should by rights be up at around 22%. Rogues should be around 20%, though even 19% would look okay at this point.

There are problems with those two classes. Everyone else looks pretty good.

DOING HARD STUFF

The next few tabs are, as before, the data sets from World of Wargraphs, which uses a different data collection methodology than RealmPop. The general population numbers match, however, so while there might be some statistical variation it’s slight.

This class looks at the relative popularity of classes within Heroic raiding (2+ bosses) and rated PvP (1800+ rating).

Priests, Pallys, Shamans, Druids, yep. I have no idea what’s gone on with raiding this tier so I’ll let other bloggers cut loose on this data set. Here’s the breakdown by specialization.

Ready for the PvP? Of course you are.

In case you were wondering, Priests are really, really overrepresented in PvP right now.

The Discipline Priest numbers are … way out of control. I don’t know what’s actually gone down this season, but they are probably going to get some heavy PvP nerfs. The last time we saw deltas like this was with Arms Warriors at the beginning of Mists, and they were nerfed into the ground.

THERE IS TOO MUCH, LET ME SUM UP

• Hunters: How’s it feel to go from one of the smallest classes in Wrath to the biggest class population in Mists?
• Paladins: It’s okay, you’re still doing just great.
• Rogues: Still hurting to get to 90.
• Warriors: Having a long, slow decline throughout this expansion. Rogues have the obvious problem; Warriors have a subtle one.
• Death Knights: No, you can’t change your name to “Way Better Than Warriors.” Be nice, former servants of Arthas. Suffer well, but suffer politely.
• Priests: Yowza.
• Druids: You still have instant flight.
• Shamans: I worried about Shamans in Wrath and Cataclysm, I’m not worried about them anymore.
• Monks: surprisingly healthy for a new class, need time to mature and catch up to other populations.
• Mages: Wait, you want me to say something nice about Mages here? REALLY?
• Warlocks: you should probably roll a Warlock alt, I hear they’re lots of fun.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Enjoy patch 5.4 for me!

Class Distribution Data for Patch 5.3

World of Warcraft’s Patch 5.3 was released on May 21st, 2013, so as with previous patches I’ve taken a snapshot of population data to provide historical analysis of class popularity trends. The methodology is unchanged from my 5.2 population analysis, so the same caveats and cautions apply here. The patch dates serve as handy labels for each snapshot, but it’s important to remember that they effectively mark the beginning of a period, not the end. The 5.2 snapshot represents data at the beginning of 5.2 – or the end of 5.1.

Like previous versions, I’ve constructed a separate spreadsheet for this patch’s data. There is one new sheet looking at the realmpop population data (instead of just popularity data) which is finally giving us a view into how players are leveling through Mists of Pandaria.

INTEREXPANSION VERSUS INTRAEXPANSION DATA

The data on the first tab is relative class popularity over time at the endgame of an expansion. There are 11 classes available in Mists, so median popularity sits at 9.09% (down from 10% from Wrath). That 9% isn’t so much a target as it is a line to keep in mind – just because Mages are currently ranked #7 with 9.15% doesn’t mean they’re unpopular – but neither are they wildly popular, either.

I think it’s important to note with this graph that it’s mixing apples and oranges a bit. The Wrath and Cataclysm data is from late in those respective expansions, when people had had time to level alts in addition to mains. Starting with the third snapshot (Mists Pre-Release) the environment shifts to those characters who received priority in leveling. Nearly a year out we’re starting to see player stables fill out a bit more, until eventually it will be an apples to apples comparison.

This intraexpansion data is interesting because I think it shows in very broad strokes a picture of which classes got leveled first, and which got leveled later. My hunch is that changes in popularity percentages here, now, are more likely to be from players leveling secondary characters/alts than from new players joining or huge flaws within a class. There are no doubt exceptions and rerolls – the Warrior spike in the 5.1 snapshot was almost definitely due to PvP dominance – but I think we are seeing more alt activity than before.

CONSUMING MISTS CONTENT

Above is the 5.3 snapshot for all levels, 86-90, and 90.

Quick comparison to the equivalent one for 5.2:

Monks have continued to take a little more of the overall pie, but the overall numbers are fairly steady. Rogues have improved a bit at level 90.

The popularity data is well and interesting, but I think there’s a more interesting way to look at the question of how players are engaging Pandaria – using population figures instead of popularity figures.

These population figures come from Realmpop, and are just the class totals for the US and EU regions added together. I’ve talked with Erorus a bit about how he gets his population sample and it reaches pretty deep. The important thing is that the methodology hasn’t changed over the course of the expansion, so by looking at the sample set of 17 million toons we can extrapolate out to general class trends. (I’d like it better if the data wasn’t missing Korea and China, but we have to work with what we have.)

Keep in mind this isn’t the total population of the game for these regions, but rather a consistent subset we can use for analysis.

I’ve been adding these population figures in since 5.1 – they’re in the hidden columns on the 5.3/5.2/5.1 base tabs – but I wanted to sit on them for a bit until we had enough data points to look at trends. So this is new, and it’s pretty neat! It’s on tab 3 in the spreadsheet.

The data is laid out in three blocks – all population, 86-89, and 90 – each showing population growth  by class across the expansion.

For All Levels, we can see a few interesting things about class growth and stagnancy. Over a period of time where subs have dropped by ~1.6 million subscribers, character populations have remained stable in the US/EU. Monks continue to be created, and I expect we’ll see them level off somewhere in the 2 million range by the beginning of the next expansion. Warlocks, Warriors, and Hunters have all seen some growth over the course of the expansion, while the rest of the classes are mostly stagnant.

Rogues are the only class to have a drop in figures between patches (5.2 to 5.3) and I’m not sure why.

Let’s move on to the Mists levels.

About twice as many characters are out of Cataclysm and into Mists of Pandaria right now than at the start of 5.1. Okay, it’s a little less than twice for almost everyone but Monks – 1.74x Paladins, 1.98x Warlocks, 2.56x Monks – but the population of characters in Mists content has basically doubled in 6 months.

Since the general population didn’t double, a lot of this movement has to be attributed to existing characters moving up from pre-Mists levels into Mists. How about at level 90, the endgame?

This is probably my favorite bit of data to look at. There are two components – the population increase over time, like we did before, and the percent of a class which is level 90. The first block is very similar to what we saw before at 86-90, though most classes have more than doubled their number of 90s in the sample. Druids are the furthest behind at 1.94x, everyone else has a factor of 2.1x or greater. There’s something going on there, but I’m not sure what. I think we need more data points, and someone who can evaluate how each class does in current content, to look at that – definitely not me.

The second block is amazing, though. I love it. It’s the number of 90s versus the total population of a class over time. With one exception, classes started out in a fairly predictable spread and have coalesced into one of two packs, either at 16-17% or 18-19%.  Monks started out amazingly strong – people who rolled Monks at the very beginning were motivated to get them to the endgame – but have come in line with Paladins, Death Knights, Priests, Shamans and Druids in the top pack. Mages, Hunters, and Warlocks are in a second pack a percent or two behind, which might be a result of their pure DPS roles? More incentive to level a hybrid alt, perhaps?

Warriors are stuck back with the pure DPS for reasons that I can only attribute to their being perceived as poor tanks in current Mists content. I’m speculating there, but I think it’s notable that they’re behaving like all the other hybrids.

And then there are Rogues.

At all levels, there are more Rogues than Monks, Warlocks or Shaman. There are almost as many Rogues as there are Priests! But Rogues are not making it to level 90. The 5.14% in 5.1 could be assumed to be the Rogue mains with a job to do, but even with a healthy influx of level 90s after that, they are not playing in the endgame. That 12.42% outlier result is amazing. It’s terrible, but it’s amazing.

Some of this might be due to Rogue populations swelling in late Cataclysm for the legendary daggers. A large number of leveling PvP rogues might also account for it? I’m sure that the Rogue community will have much greater insight than I over it.

But right now, Warriors are behind the other hybrids by a little, and Rogues are behind the other pure DPS classes by a lot.

ENDGAME ACTIVITIES

The last bit of data I want to talk about is the PvE/PvP representation data from World of Wargraphs. The basic idea behind this is that if a class is more or less represented in high-end play in one sphere or another compared to their general population trends, they may be over- or under-powered for that activity.

Some general observations:

• Monks: Very underrepresented in PvP. Brewmaster FCs seem to be the only decent spec?
• Hunters: Underrepresented in PvE, dramatically underrepresented in PvP.
• Priests: Mind-bogglingly good at high-end PvE and PvP.
• Paladins: Really strong in PvE (I assume from both Prot and Holy right now).
• Warriors: Have dropped from completely dominant in PvP to underrepresented in both PvP and PvE.
• Shaman, Rogues, Warlocks – doing pretty well, all things considered!

There are detail tabs for each spec in the spreadsheet if you want to dive into this data a bit further.

I’m not sure what to say about Hunters, to be honest. They’re a hugely popular class – more Hunters overall than Paladins, and soon to be more level 90 Hunters too – but they don’t have the same popularity in high end PvE or PvP. Is it that Hunters are fine in high end play, but simply have a larger population of casual players? Or are the problems with the class such that Hunters face problems in high end play above and beyond other classes?

I think there’s evidence to support both theories, and they are not mutually exclusive.

THE PROBLEM CHILDREN

Warriors were the PvP darlings of 5.1 – no more. They are struggling in both PvP and PvE and it’s showing.

Monks, as the new class on the block, have done a great job catching up to the population numbers of the other classes. They may never be as popular as the big 4 (Pally, Druid, Hunter, DK) but they are likely going to carve out a niche for themselves. They are leveling well, and the only real area of concern seems to be their PvP viability. As someone who’s been leveling a Monk, I expect to see some much-needed cleanup to the class in the next expansion to make it a smoother, more coherent experience.

Hunters are the dominant class in World of Warcraft, yet they are underrepresented in high-end play. There are more Hunters than Paladins at all levels, and soon Paladins will be ever so slightly less popular than Hunters at level 90. The question of Hunter’s role in endgame play is an important one – are these population discrepancies indicating real problems in high-level rated play, or is it due to the overwhelming popularity of the class? Is it due to their pure DPS role versus the popularity of hybrids? There’s a serious discussion that needs to happen there.

Rogues are more popular than they seem but are struggling to make it to the endgame. Those Rogues who make it to the endgame can do well, but so few of them do compared to everyone else that there’s something abnormal with them. Rogues are less likely to experience Pandaria than any other class, and that is worth investigating.

Update June 5, 2013: Svelte Kumquat @ The Red Hatted Rogue has taken this data and is running with it for Rogues. He’s pulled some additional data from Realmpop about our sneaky friends.