What's the most common class in GW2?

Title says it all.

Based on your opinion and experience: what's the most common class / elite spec you see in GW2?

Lacking any "scientific" data to base my vote on, I'm going to guess it the Ranger profession -only because I see very many Rangers in open world PvE.

There have been polls over the years on this subject and I suspect (even if they were reliable) there has been some great shifts in the "most played" profession slot.

For example, Necromancers have become much more popular than they were in the first two years after release.

If you look at the Official GW2 Profession Forum discussion participation numbers:

Profession: Discussions:Necromancer 15.1kMesmer 12.4kRanger 8.4k....

The top three most active forums do indicate some things BUT not necessarily or specifically their popularity in the game right now.

Trailblazer Scourge, obviously. This poll is actually meaningless without specifying game mode.

Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statisticsInteresting how most of the classes are very close. But that statistics come from the players who registered to the website: most of them are experienced players (you can see that only the 1,5% are vanilla players. Among all of the free users, there are for sure many user-friendly professions, like rangers, as far as I can tell from wandering in Central Tyria.

In all gamemodes the most common played is warrior, guard, ranger than ele. Regarding playtime and overall percentages per account.Its more or less evidence based what i say here, all information is on gw2 efficiency.

I took warrior because i think it scored first in both playtime and number of warriors on all registered accounts. (could be mistaken here, its what i have on my mind atleast).

Edit: My bad, its guard not warr.

@Urud.4925 said:

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

Interesting how most of the classes are very close. But that statistics come from the players who registered to the website: most of them are experienced players (you can see that only the 1,5% are vanilla players. Among all of the free users, there are for sure many user-friendly professions, like rangers, as far as I can tell from wandering in Central Tyria.

And how do you think the statistic will turn out on the forum? The player-pool that participates in the survey is waaaaay smaller and most likely contains an even higher percentage of veteran players. For a good statistic you would have to count professions on every map at different days and day-times.

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:And how do you think the statistic will turn out on the forum? The player-pool that participates in the survey is waaaaay smaller and most likely contains an even higher percentage of veteran players. For a good statistic you would have to count professions on every map at different days and day-times.

Now, that would be an interesting research project. Use map chat to ask what everyone's profession is across a two week sample? I wonder if there would be variation in the results if polled on core, HoT, and PoF maps. Of course I'm referring to professions and not elites. Although, polling for both could be done simultaneously, obviously.

Warrior. Always. Warrior.

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

@Urud.4925 said:

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

Interesting how most of the classes are very close. But that statistics come from the players who registered to the website: most of them are experienced players (you can see that only the 1,5% are vanilla players. Among all of the free users, there are for sure many user-friendly professions, like rangers, as far as I can tell from wandering in Central Tyria.

It would be more or less the same of the one you see on efficiency, you're right. But the OP didn't ask what class we play, but which one is the most played based on our experience. I said ranger (but there are also a lot of warriors) because I see a lot of them in Central Tyria, but I don't play a ranger. If I had to say in total, what's the class that I see the most, I'd say necro, because this is what I usually find in pvp. So yeah, it also depends in which game mode, as Dawdler said.

EDIT: Maybe ArenaNet could evaluate if it's the case to grant the access to the forum also to free-to-play users, at least after some time, like 3-6 months. I understand the limitations in-game, but being able to post on the forum, ask questions etc, would be probably positive to let them feel closer and closer with the game/community. But this is another topic.

A survey of 1602 players on Reddit a few weeks back had Elementalists as the most played class by a large margin.

So I voted Ele.

Guardian, based on the playtime presented in the stats linked above.

I play an engineer mainly, and I know for certain it's not engineer, nor is it rev. We're the two least-played classes, underrepresented in nearly all game modes.

@Urud.4925 said:

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

@Urud.4925 said:

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

Interesting how most of the classes are very close. But that statistics come from the players who registered to the website: most of them are experienced players (you can see that only the 1,5% are vanilla players. Among all of the free users, there are for sure many user-friendly professions, like rangers, as far as I can tell from wandering in Central Tyria.

Dont underestinate PvP and especially WvW population. Even if you dont see some professions in open World they are popular in other modes. And guard and Warr happen to be very popular in every mode. Ranger too but not in such an extent as the other too.

I'd guess at either Necro (Scourge), Warrior (SB) or Guardian (FB) overall.

In the pro tier I am in you see more scourge than anything

Why is this a poll?

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:Guardian. Both in number of characters and time played.You can get better statistics with a way bigger player-pool here:https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statisticsThis is it, you got your answer.

Didn’t Anet release a load of stats about the game before PoF released?

If I remember correctly the most played class combo being Human Female Ele. Least played being Charr Female Rev.

I’d bet that if we added all the other races and genders into 1 big pool to simply show Profession based on popularity, Ele or Guard would win hands down.

From my own observations in OW-PvE:

ElementalistGuardianRangerWarriorNecroMesmerThiefEngineerRevenant

In WvW I see necromancers with scourge elite spec dominating the numbers in the current state of the game.

Warrior because it's noob friendly with highest base HP and def.

According to https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statisticsprofessions by play time:guardian 15.67 %warrior 14.86 %elementalist 14.04 %ranger 13.23 %necromancer 11.60 %mesmer 10.97 %thief 10.38 %engineer 5.82 %revenant 3.46 %

GW2efficiency has large enough player database to make statistically relevant results. Note: this is all game modes: pve, spvp and WvWvW.

It is not surprising that revenant is the bottom one, as it requires HoT expansion. What is quite striking that the difference between the most popular core profession (guardian) and least popular core profession (engineer) is so huge. Nearly 3x difference. In WvWvW game mode, which is my main game mode, the difference seems even bigger.

that is not a fair question/ poll to ask becouse it changes so mutch. i see about as meany mes war and guardions everyday with my ranger but when i go ele i see more eles. it all comes down to what class you play and were you are in the world like if you do dailys its mostly a lot of mes or if in wvw you have a mes train going on becouse they brocken right now.

For every one of each of the professions I see, aside from guardian and warrior, I see 3 rangers.

@Belishine.7493 said:that is not a fair question/ poll to ask becouse it changes so mutch. i see about as meany mes war and guardions everyday with my ranger but when i go ele i see more eles. it all comes down to what class you play and were you are in the world like if you do dailys its mostly a lot of mes or if in wvw you have a mes train going on becouse they brocken right now.

People have linked some more objective measurements in this thread -- by playtime, guard and ele are some of the most played classes, and engineer and rev the least.

@"Deniara Devious.3948" said:According to https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statisticsprofessions by play time:guardian 15.67 %warrior 14.86 %elementalist 14.04 %ranger 13.23 %necromancer 11.60 %mesmer 10.97 %thief 10.38 %engineer 5.82 %revenant 3.46 %

GW2efficiency has large enough player database to make statistically relevant results. Note: this is all game modes: pve, spvp and WvWvW.

It is not surprising that revenant is the bottom one, as it requires HoT expansion. What is quite striking that the difference between the most popular core profession (guardian) and least popular core profession (engineer) is so huge. Nearly 3x difference. In WvWvW game mode, which is my main game mode, the difference seems even bigger.

What's even more striking is the difference between engineer and thief (the next highest core prof). Thief has nearly double the playtime of engineer, despite only being one step up.

We got a lot of noobs recently so it's only logical to say Ranger because it's a noob class.

@Cynder.2509 said:We got a lot of noobs recently so it's only logical to say Ranger because it's a noob class.

Easy to start with anyway. Mastering it is another thing entirely. Ironically I started with Mesmer lol...