D&D 5E Merlin and Arthur or Batman and zatana

[GMforPowergamers]

Most recent data I can find (Dec 2020) has 8% playing wizards, same as barbarians and clerics and tied for 4-6th place behind fighters (13%), rogues (11%), and warlocks (9%). Still higher than bard, sorcerors, rangers, paladins (all at 7%), and druids (the least popular class at 6%).

D&D: And The Most Popular Class Is...

We're looking at the most popular classes according to the latest data and seeing how your favorites stack up. But one class stands a cut above the rest.

www.belloflostsouls.net

So warlocks are more popular, but it's not quite accurate to say nobody wants to play a wizard, and in fact it's one of the more popular full casters.

this data is faulty because it leans heavily on accounts that signed in made a character then walked away never to log in again, and people who make theory build. There is also an issue with fighters being the ONLY non magic warrior (maybe you can include barbarian for some subclasses) but wizard, warlock, and sorcerer are all eating from the same group of players wanting casters (maybe include bard here like barbarian above)

so lets do arcane casters vs martial weapon users
arcane full casters (Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard) ~24%
martial weapon users (Barbarian and Fighter) ~21%

if you throw bard in to the arcane you get ~31%

so no arcane casters are NOT less represented then martial characters...

lets throw rogue into the fighter/barbarian camp, and monk too that is now ~39% lets round that up to 40%

so 60% of characters are casters... (and again I don't think this is still perfect)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

As I said, I find players simply don't want to play wizards. If wizards where weaker and fighters stronger, I don't think anyone would play wizards at all.

yeah... in 4e when all the classes were balanced I saw less wizards then any other edition... I saw LOTS of fighters rangers and warlords though... in fact 2 warlord then fighter was the 2 most popular classes (followed by swordmage so that is kind of a type of wizard, a defender arcane)

If your players feel someone HAS to play a wizard, then wouldn't it help your players if no one HAD to play one?

 

[Garthanos]

So warlocks are more popular, but it's not quite accurate to say nobody wants to play a wizard, and in fact it's one of the more popular full casters.

Add up the percentage who are playing casters total?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Add up the percentage who are playing casters total?

I did

so lets do arcane casters vs martial weapon users
arcane full casters (Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard) ~24%
martial weapon users (Barbarian and Fighter) ~21%

if you throw bard in to the arcane you get ~31%

I even did just warrior with weapon/other

lets throw rogue into the fighter/barbarian camp, and monk too that is now ~39% lets round that up to 40%

so 60% of characters are casters... (and again I don't think this is still perfect)

edit: these are statistics so to be fair we can make them say what ever we want... "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" are the 3 types of lies

 

[Garthanos]

this data is faulty because it leans heavily on accounts that signed in made a character then walked away never to log in again, and people who make theory build. There is also an issue with fighters being the ONLY non magic warrior (maybe you can include barbarian for some subclasses) but wizard, warlock, and sorcerer are all eating from the same group of players wanting casters (maybe include bard here like barbarian above)

so lets do arcane casters vs martial weapon users
arcane full casters (Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard) ~24%
martial weapon users (Barbarian and Fighter) ~21%

if you throw bard in to the arcane you get ~31%

so no arcane casters are NOT less represented then martial characters...

lets throw rogue into the fighter/barbarian camp, and monk too that is now ~39% lets round that up to 40%

so 60% of characters are casters... (and again I don't think this is still perfect)

Yeh "nobody wants to play casters" is just obvious falsehood they just have a huge variety of them to play.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeh "nobody wants to play casters" is just obvious falsehood they just have a huge variety of them to play.

again if you added even 1 more non spell caster you would see it change drastically, but almost every class is a caster (full or half)

 

[Garthanos]

again if you added even 1 more non spell caster you would see it change drastically, but almost every class is a caster (full or half)

Not clear what you mean ... say they add a real warlord... people who want that archetype might currently be playing battlemaster and taking the feats or similar the total caster and non-caster is not necessarily going to change much (unless the implementation is tempting more people)

 

[Garthanos]

edit: these are statistics so to be fair we can make them say what ever we want... "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" are the 3 types of lies

Ki is presented as magic so its debate worthy whether they belong in the group.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not clear what you mean ... say they add a real warlord... people who want that archetype might currently be playing battlemaster and taking the feats or similar the total caster and non-caster is not necessarily going to change much (unless the implementation is tempting more people)

a warlord a warblade a sword sage any class that play on par with say a hexblade warlock for options both at level up and at table plus the power of game changing 'not spells'

my choice would be a warlord to take some of the bard and cleric players, but just another option (yes it would knock down fighter too)

 

[Oofta]

this data is faulty because it leans heavily on accounts that signed in made a character then walked away never to log in again, and people who make theory build. There is also an issue with fighters being the ONLY non magic warrior (maybe you can include barbarian for some subclasses) but wizard, warlock, and sorcerer are all eating from the same group of players wanting casters (maybe include bard here like barbarian above)

What are you basing this on? Because according to the folks at DndBeyond that's not the case, they've filtered out one-shot PCs. If you have a dataset with a history log (a simple "changed on" is enough) it's a simple filter to tell if a record is active or not.