EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Taking things from a different direction, that is, thematics rather than mechanics per seLack of competition. If we look only at the officially published stuff:
Which means that the two officially published subclasses that are thematic and don't have a base that really dislike them are Divine Soul and Shadow Soul (which are the top two). And maybe Dragon which I can't call remotely good but it's merely irritating.
- Wild's ... wild. And sucks
- Dragon's very very bland for a dragon. It's just kinda there at best (Draconic Resilience is dull and amounts to Mage Armour plus half a weak feat), a little extra damage at 6th level and fly way after it's truly useful at 14th.
- Storm's outright Berserker level "If you actively use these abilities it will get you killed" - a sorcerer that wants to be near melee with too little defensive tech.
- Aberrant Mind is a psion by another name - but the tentacles annoy a lot of psion fans so there's a core of people hating it
- Clockwork Soul's signature ability is about no-selling and this annoys people.
- The rest are not core and thus have been played by far fewer people. Which means they will get fewer upvotes and fewer people looking to kick them out.
Dragons are awesome, so there will always be people into it. Not everyone thinks dragons are awesome, but a lot do.
Sea Sorcery evokes pirate themes. Pirates are, likewise, awesome and thus attract attention.
Shadow is obvious: ninjas. Ninjas are awesome, so being a magic ninja must be even better.
Divine Soul lets you have that "touched by an angel" theme. I prefer other methods for that, but I can see the appeal.
"Oncoming storm"/"ride the lightning" is solid gold themeing, particularly due to the many (often PoC) electricity-powered superheroes.
By comparison, Pyromancer comes across thematically as pigeonholed (fire and ONLY fire), Wild Magic has the implication of being unhinged and dangerous to others, and Clockwork seems a contradictory thing (the heady in-the-blood rush of...perfect lawfulness...?)
Giants and Phoenixes don't have massive fanbases like dragons, ninjas, and pirates, but they've got fans, so they're holding on. Lunar is somewhat obscure, but a connection to cosmic cycles isn't too weird (I actually quite liked the concept of the Cosmic Sorcerer in 4e), and it may be picking up secondary vibes from Shadow due to moon -> night -> darkness.
So, from a purely thematic standpoint, the front-runners and middle-grounders are pretty much what we would expect, and the ones that have been eliminated or are lagging behind likewise fit into the less-popular/not-well-received themes.
In truth, mechanics, thematics, and experience-in-play all factor in here, so there's a lot of noise in these signals.