Flibble, a rising star on the Paladin forums drawing attention to the class's dilemma, has posted data from WarcraftRealms showing the population trends for various classes for over a year. His thread can be viewed here. A direct link to the website with the data is available here.
Would be so much fun to see guilds desperately competing of someone who can do to them their precious BoS on them and they could not find any since every player would feel they got better things to do than to play paladin class.
I thought your drawing a straight line really drove the decline home. Here is a chart with a straight line for all the classes to show where they were a year ago and where they are now. Interestingly, rogues are the only other class that have dropped, and that may be due to Blizzard banning thousands of botters and cheaters/farmers.
Well, in fairness, the Rogue had so many people roll one at launch that they had to drop off sometime. That, and TBH they have their share of issues these days. I also have to wonder how much of the Paladin drop-off (and Shaman drop, which if anything is even more pronounced) is due to the reality of end-game roles for all hybrid classes.
I'd love to see some official figures of the hours played per class (per account), figures which no doubt Blizz has but would refuse to release. This data would also be quite handy for analysing the potential effectiveness of Cross-Server BG's, more details of which we will have 'soon'.
I hadn't glanced at the horde side, but you're right that shaman have a decrease as well. Their decline isn't as pronounced as the paladin, but very comparable to the alliance decline in rogues.
I don't know that I buy the hybrid line as the only "true" hybrid, druids, have stayed steady. I think it is more of a support class issue than a hybrid issue. It's not a coincidence that healers are the least played classes in the game. It makes since that the "support only" classes would drop the most, especially if people initially approached those classes expecting to do more than support.
All the people I've healed have been very respectful. I don't know what server you play on, but everyone I play with are pretty well mannered. Besides, you're the one that's in control. They being dickheads? Leave the group. It's THEIR loss. Remember that.
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Would be so much fun to see guilds desperately competing of someone who can do to them their precious BoS on them and they could not find any since every player would feel they got better things to do than to play paladin class.
I thought your drawing a straight line really drove the decline home. Here is a chart with a straight line for all the classes to show where they were a year ago and where they are now. Interestingly, rogues are the only other class that have dropped, and that may be due to Blizzard banning thousands of botters and cheaters/farmers.
straight line chart
Well, in fairness, the Rogue had so many people roll one at launch that they had to drop off sometime. That, and TBH they have their share of issues these days. I also have to wonder how much of the Paladin drop-off (and Shaman drop, which if anything is even more pronounced) is due to the reality of end-game roles for all hybrid classes.
I'd love to see some official figures of the hours played per class (per account), figures which no doubt Blizz has but would refuse to release. This data would also be quite handy for analysing the potential effectiveness of Cross-Server BG's, more details of which we will have 'soon'.
I hadn't glanced at the horde side, but you're right that shaman have a decrease as well. Their decline isn't as pronounced as the paladin, but very comparable to the alliance decline in rogues.
alliance plus Shaman
I don't know that I buy the hybrid line as the only "true" hybrid, druids, have stayed steady. I think it is more of a support class issue than a hybrid issue. It's not a coincidence that healers are the least played classes in the game. It makes since that the "support only" classes would drop the most, especially if people initially approached those classes expecting to do more than support.
Unless people start to respecting healers they better become very good in bandaging.
All the people I've healed have been very respectful. I don't know what server you play on, but everyone I play with are pretty well mannered. Besides, you're the one that's in control. They being dickheads? Leave the group. It's THEIR loss. Remember that.
". Blizzard lied about no support classes."
I remember them saying that. Funny for them to justify the state of the paladin by calling them a support class.
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