Guessing - Most and least played classes

[Oofta]

Just goes to show that everyone's game is different. In my current AL game we have a cleric, 2 paladins, ranger, wizard (2 occasionally) and a monk.

Hard to get a good sample size with any of the options we have now.

 

[Jester David]

It was a tweet. Rereading the tweet by Jeremy Crawford. I actually got it wrong. It just states that Ranger isn't one of the bottom 3. Though if it was top half then that probably would have been mentioned. He states that the Ranger isn't in the bottom third. So probably #7-9.

I assumed that as well, assuming if the ranger was #8 he would have said bottom third rather than bottom quarter.
But people often don't edit or plan tweets that well to be too particular about their language. He might not have wanted to check its exact position and played it safe. Or he was thinking that the bottom three classes would be the ones you might want to revise the most.

Yeah, it is a sampling for sure. The only thing is that the players who use D&D Beyond may be very different than the sorts of players in the player base as a whole.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It was also only a small slice of time as well, which is likely much more relevant a factor than the sampling of people who use D&D Beyond.
But it's the data we have, so dismissing it because it doesn't conform to our personal biases is a bad idea.

At any rate looks like I am way off about the Wizard.

Yeah. Wizards are one of the iconic big four classes. They'd always been in the top 4-6 most played.


I'd actually put the monk at the bottom, given it has unusual eastern martial arts flavour that doesn't mesh with the world. And the warlock at the at second to last. It has some funky flavour that can throw some people off.
But that's influenced by my biases.

 

[Vymair]

In my group, we've had around 80 characters who were played for 5+ sessions over many campaigns since 5e started.

Popular classes - Clerics, Fighters, Paladins
Played Regularly - Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Wizard
Played Infrequently - Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Sorcerer

 

[toucanbuzz]

Audit of our breakdown for D&D only, no prior edition play, with 4-5 adult players. My players tend to diversify, but Rogue appears least favorite amongst my players because only once has anyone talked about playing one.

Druid 3 (2 moon, 1 land)
Wizard 3 (2 evoker, 1 abjurer)
Fighter 2 (battlemaster, other died early)
Cleric 2 (War both)
Barbarian 2 (berserker, other died at 2nd level)
Sorcerer 2 (both wild)
Warlock 2 (fiend, hexblade)
Monk 1 (shadow)
Bard 1 (valor)
Ranger 1 (monster hunter)
Paladin 1 (ancients)
Rogue 1 (arcane trickster)

 

[TerraDave]

The wizard thing is funny. Probably the single most popular character I have seen over my years of play.

In terms of D&D beyond, paladin and bard seem low, I wonder if they would have gone up over the last year. And monk too high, both due to the niche and mechanics. Druid is just under appreciated, but I am guessing that hasn't changed.

Ranger has always been popular as a concept. Its just that with 5E it has dropped a few spots in popularity.

 

[corwyn77]

So my completely anecdotal list for the 4 campaigns I've been involved with post-playtest and not counting one-and-done drop-ins:

Rogue 7
Fighter 5
Cleric 4
Paladin 4
Barbarian 3
Warlock 2
Bard 1
Ranger 1
Sorceror 1
Monk 1
Druid .5
Wizard .5

So rogues ftw (at one point we had 3 in a 5 player game - one suicided to bring in a Paladin after the current one died and I, um, transmogrified mine into a warlock while maintaining the same character back-story). the fighters were all Champions, obviously all the Barbarians were totem, the rogues were a good mix including a swashbuckler.

 

[akr71]

Since 5E, I have DM'd for 3 groups of mostly new players and played in one. One of those groups is nearing the end of the campaign & has already created their characters for the next. Here is what I have seen:

There has been a Ranger in 4 of the 5 parties.
There has always been a Rogue.
There is usually a Cleric & and a Fighter.
I have only seen one Paladin, one Barbarian and one Sorcerer.
I have only seen 2 Druids and neither of them were Moon Druids.
The rest (Wizards, Warlocks & Monks) I have seen 2 or three times each.

So at my games, Rangers are quite popular. This is ignoring one-shots, because that's where we try new classes we have never played.

Edited for completion.

 

[Akhelos]

They really need to rename Cleric to Healer so more people play them again.

My experience from 5 years of DMing (yeah I know it's not a lot compared to you guys) is that Fighter is by far the most popular class. Like almost every third plays a fighter.

For some reasons, I never encountered a single person wanting to play Barbarian, Sorcerer or Ranger yet.

I'm actually a little surprised that Fighters/Barbarian/Rogues are so high up in the statistics, because I feel like playing a spellcaster is much more interesting.

Amusingly, my Clerics (who are my most often played class since over 20 years) and if i play Pathfinder Inquisitors most often heal, by smashing the enemy in with righteous might. *g*

 

[Ashrym]

All y'all might want to keep anecdotal vs statistical evidence in mind. Personal experience does put clerics, fighters, paladins, and rangers high. ;-)

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Well, this thread is basically the opposite of the thread title anyway. Nobody guesses, people just bring in anecdotal and statistical evidence.

On topic: My initial thought before reading any statistics was that Fighter is most common and Ranger is least common. So that would have been my wild guess.