I've pointed this out previously to people curious about
WoW's in-game demographics, but
Armory Data Mining is really a fantastic but underappreciated site. To be specific, there are actually two sites of interest here -- the actual
Armory Data Mining and
its related blog. Zardoz, the creator and maintainer of both, uses the former to collect and update
statistics on class, race, and sex popularity in
WoW (in addition to
reports on class battleground performance and
profession popularity), while the blog is often used to look at smaller issues or questions like the effort to
distinguish between bear and cat specs through the Armory.
Zardoz posted his newest collection of statistics this past Wednesday, all of them updated to reflect the
patch 3.3 game world. Perhaps most interesting is that paladins have
knocked death knights out of the #1 spot, with retribution being the most popular spec (and, as a druid player, I think I'm seeing a bit of decline in balance popularity here as well). If you're at all interested in in-game demographics as of patch 3.3, I highly recommend a trip over to both sites.
Tags: armory-data-mining, class-popularity, class-population, class-statistics, data-mining, datamining, death-knight, death-knights, demographics, paladin, paladins, race-popularity, wow-class-demographics, wow-class-popularity, wow-class-population, wow-class-statistics, wow-demographics, zardoz
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items
Jan 25th 2010 at 8:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Erzfiend Jan 25th 2010 8:03PM
So...where are warlocks on that list?
swimstarguy Jan 25th 2010 8:10PM
The warlocks are hiding in the corner crying and writing bad poetry.
Play some "MCR" and they'll come out.
Ichigo Jan 25th 2010 8:14PM
Class was deleted in patch 3.1 and will be reimplemented in patch 3.3
Magus Jan 25th 2010 8:56PM
Warlocks didn't make it into the top 10.
White_Wolf101 Jan 25th 2010 9:09PM
For those curious since missing from the screenshot lock stats come out as
Warlock 7.4% Affliction: 2.1% Demonology: 1.4% Destruction: 3.9%
@swimstarguy here's some poetry my lock wrote whilst in the corner.
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
My bones show
Soon yours will too.
See talented in DPS as well as the finer arts :P
Ronin Jan 25th 2010 9:21PM
They were cut out of the graphic, of course, but you can follow the link in the article and check out the actual site! It's pretty interesting.
Nathanyel Jan 25th 2010 8:06PM
I blame it on the local time (2am) that I was expecting some Lich King spoiler when I saw this in the RSS feed.
Adam Jan 25th 2010 8:09PM
I really don't understand why enhancement shamans are the least favourite class overall, it's a great hybrid class to play with so many cool talents, where's the love people??
I was only saying to someone yesterday that I thought it was weird I hardly ever see any other toons the same class/spec as mine....now I know why!
Docp Jan 25th 2010 8:16PM
Actually subtlety Rogues are the least played spec with only 0.5% of the overall playerbase. Rogues and Warlocks share the 'honor' of being the least played classes.
asharia Jan 25th 2010 8:23PM
that's not the whole list.
go to the actually site and you'll see sub rogues at a whopping .5%. followed by demo locks at 1.6%
it saddens me that the game has gone in the direction it has, where the easiest class is also the strongest and most overplayed. sometimes i miss BC when there were no lolrets and dks
oddshrub Jan 25th 2010 9:02PM
I've always wondered why enhancement shamans is one of the least played classes around, because it's frankly the melee class I've found most entertaining and involving. Might be because leveling them used to be a real PITA, with both dps specs being fairly horrible until around level 62ish (compared to other classes), might be because of their draenei requirement?
I mean I think my male draenei enhance shaman looks awesome, when he isn't moving of course, but their voices annoy me and I know I'll be turning him into a dwarf at the first chance I get.
Angus Jan 26th 2010 1:00AM
While the actual site shows sub rogues and demo locks totally about as much as enhance combined I did notice something funny.
They are wearing similar gear in shared slots, but both Sub and Ass builds have PVP gear as some of the most popular items in pretty much every slot. NONE of the shaman slots have this. In fact every build had PVP gear in at least a few slots, while the shaman had PVP gear in an elemental ring and a resto totem.
I guess the PVP tournament message where not a single team even bothered to bring a shaman was received loud and clear.
Enhance has a great play style, but after the fifth or 6th time when you crunch numbers and find that off-set 232 piece with tons of armor pen is actually a DPS loss to the 200 ring you are still wearing because you would have to regem a ton or lose too much expertise, it stops being fun.
Why they made a stat that is so utterly pointless to some specs/classes compared to others, I don't know.
Tristan Jan 26th 2010 3:17AM
@asharia I miss being one of, like, 10 ret pallies on my server. I've gone holy now as it's the least played. :-/
I always liked being the "weird one" in WoW, but now everyone plays a pally & they play ret.
Or prot.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 26th 2010 10:10AM
"saddens me that the game has gone in the direction it has, where the easiest class is also the strongest and most overplayed. sometimes i miss BC when there were no lolrets and dks"
_________________________
Out of curiosity, did you mean to include the "no" in front of lolrets because the way you shape your sentence is a little odd as lolrets did exist in BC.
Have you played either a paladin or a dk? Each has their strengths and weakness in comparison to other classes, but it's the skill to play that class that matters, not the assumption that they because they "looked to be overplayed" they are the strongest.
sprout_daddy Jan 26th 2010 11:29AM
^This
Every class has morons playing it, and while I'd certainly label many DK players as just that, I think ret pallies have started to get an undeserved bad rap. It's certainly an easy class to play - I'd be the first to admit that playing my pally is easier than any other class (I have one of each at 80, with the exception of a mage), but I see a ton of rets who can't crack 2k dps, who don't off-heal in instances when it would be beneficial, who don't buff or know what buffs need to be applied, etc. It's easy to mash a few buttons and take a lot of damage, but it's harder to actually play the class well - just as it is with other classes in the game. It took me a while to get my ret pally to the point where I knew the spec inside and out. I'm not a big fan of dissing people just because lots of other people play their class - there are some retribution paladins out there that I'd be thrilled to have in my group.
clundgren Jan 26th 2010 2:18PM
"it saddens me that the game has gone in the direction it has, where the easiest class is also the strongest and most overplayed. sometimes i miss BC when there were no lolrets and dks."
A: The term lolret, among others, is from vanilla when the class was barely viable (not even that for raids). But apparently you miss the times when ret paladins were unplayable in most end game content. How kind of you.
B: Like many other posts, you indicate that ret paladins are the "strongest" class. Many other posters concur with this assessment.
What is you evidence for this? Wow Meters Online shows both ret and DK among the weaker dps classes in raids. Both are significantly weaker than dps warriors, for example. So it can't be that.
Ret paladins in arena rankings? Near the bottom and have been dropping for 2 patches. All those paladins you see on top arena teams? 95% holy. So it can't be that.
World PvP is the only data I've seen where ret paladins are a stronger, though not the top class.
So why do so many people jump on the "ret paladins are OPed" bandwagon when there is little data to support it?
Perhaps it is because ret were dramatically underpowered for so long (3.5 freaking YEARS) that by way of contrast they now look extra good. This seems to be the problem the above poster has. Perhaps such people were permanently scarred by the 6 months that ret were one of the strongest classes, before our continual nerfing.
I played ret in vanilla, BC, and Wrath. Longtime ret players paid our dues more than any other class. We had a *brief* period in the sun, but now have been nerfed back down. Ret burst? Not even close to warrior or DK. Sustained damage? Similar to dks, much less than warriors. Survivability? Nerfed to the ground.
The constant QQing about ret does not jibe with the data and says more about the player whining than it does about my class.
Owen Jan 26th 2010 3:05PM
@clundgren:
Ahh, but you're missing the point. Those DPS meters really aren't the best representation of the current WoW community—those are highly geared and skilled players. If you drop down into the more "casual" raiding groups, you'll find that ret pallies (along with hunters and mages, I've found, for similar reasons) often top the DPS charts because they're downright easier to get acceptable dps with. Rogues, for example, are not exactly the easiest class to play do to a ton of variables. (Poisons, nasty gearing issues, positional issues.) Throw in the fact that they have multitudes of "oh crap" buttons with their bubbles, lay on hands, ranged stuns, etc, and you can see that, while they may not be OP, they're certainly easier to play casually and do pretty damn well.
clundgren Jan 26th 2010 4:46PM
I take your point, but those meters are certainly representative of what happens on raids, which increasingly *are* part of the regular WoW community. Any raider will tell you that the pure dps classes typically top the charts (as it should be); I doubt you'll find many that feel ret are OPed.
Ret may well be an easy class to get decent dps with for random instances and soloing...but do we want want to start balancing classes around those experiences? *Any* class can solo effectively now; it's more a question of whether you can solo 7 non-elite 80s or 10. But at that point, who cares, really. The same goes for random instances.
I enjoy my solo play and my instance, but they don't matter in terms of balance. They are easy for everyone, if you have a bit of gear and common sense. At the competitive end, whether you are fighting for raid spots or doing pvp, the data indicates that Ret is far from OPed.
Let me put it another way: if your definition of OPed is "can solo Chillmaw", then ret are OPed. If you definition is "can top raid DPS or arena rankings", then ret are far from OPed.
Cheers!
PS If my original response is a bit intense, keep in mind that the original poster was feeling nostalgic for a time when there were no ret paladins around...because our class sucked so badly. Those of us who stuck it out anyway feel a bit less nostalgic about the "good old days."
BioHazard Jan 25th 2010 8:23PM
Resto/Enhance is a fun combination. I'd assume that most Shaman are either Elemental because they spend a lot of time leveling like that (Enhance just isn't cool without Dual Weild or Stormstrike, and you get those at 41 - over halfway to the level cap) or Resto so they can raid and pick the other as off-spec so they can share gear. It is kind-of lame to have to carry around 2 completely separate sets of gear. (I always carry my full Resto/PvE, Resto/Furious-PvP and Enhance/PvE sets with me. Fills 2 22-slot bags. :S )
I think Enhance is a blast though. It's very active and dynamic. Lots of buttons to watch though.
Ozzard Jan 26th 2010 10:58AM
It's not specific to shammies ;-). I don't have a PvP set on my druid, but do carry full tree, full bear and about half a cat set. I'd have more of the cat set, but I only have so much play time to use to gear!