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.
It’s time once again to look at the latest data released from D&D Beyond, which gathers stats from more than 30 million different characters to give you a snapshot of what the community is like. While it’s not the only player population, it’s still a significant enough sample size to give you insight into what the community is doing and what the big trends are. Today we’re taking a look at what the most popular classes are, with some newly updated data on single-classed characters.
While slightly more than half of the playerbase typically multiclasses, there’s still a sizable chunk that don’t. Especially if you’re just starting off. And from the data, which we’ll get to in a second, we can learn a ton of interesting things–not only do we now the most popular class, we get a look at how traditional party composition has shifted. But you don’t have to take my word for it, look at the numbers:
Let’s start with the most obvious stuff. Fighters are the most popular class in all of D&D, and Champion Fighters are the most popular Fighter. By a lot. This is something that D&D has said is true internally, it’s something that D&D Beyond has correlated, and it remains true–for single classed characters. If you take multiclassing into account, then it’s Warlocks for days (but that’s because Warlock/Fighter is a popular combo). We’ll compare the two another time. But for now, let’s look at another interesting trend. Warlocks are more popular than both Wizards and Sorcerers, so they’re sort of stepping into that Mage role. Looking at the top classes, it looks like your average (single-classed) adventuring party is Fighter, Rogue, Warlock, and then either Cleric, Barbarian, or Wizard. This is a change from a year ago, when Wizards and Sorcerers were competing for popular positions in parties.
The other thing worth looking at is which subclasses are getting the most play here. Many of these aren’t surprising, in fact if you look at all the single-classed characters, the subclass option that’s included in the SRD is the most common, likely because more people play D&D than own the PHB on D&D Beyond. But looking at the distribution you see just how popular that gets. For comparison’s sake, here’s last year’s subclass data (w/o multiclass):
And here’s this year’s data again:
Now, it’s worth noting that one has all player options unlocked, and this compares all player data in general, but even with free-only classes, you still see some interesting emerging subclasses. Clerics have seen Tempest overtake the Forge Domain, meanwhile Circle of Shepherd Druids are quickly rising in popularity. Fighters look pretty much as they always have, with the Champion Fighter by far and away the most popular character/class combo. I’m glad to see the Way of the Drunken Master showing up for Monks.
The biggest takeaway is that, as the new options trickle out, people are using them, and while there’s no competing with free, the basic picture of many of the classes is slowly shifting. It’ll be interesting to see where we are a year from now, when whatever player option book is coming has released.
What do you think of the data? How does your favorite class stack up? Do you play something common, or rare? Let us know in the comments!
