# of players over 2k based on loot district as of 2/26/21
2s / 3s:
DPS:
Arms: 1173 / 971
Fury: 94 / 42
Ret: 508 / 429
Marks: 196 / 143
BM: 71 / 50
Surv: 92 / 62
Subt: 589 / 461
Assn: 38 / 28
Outlaw: 45 / 19
Shad P: 549 / 479
Frost DK: 222 / 215
Unholy DK: 62 / 40
Ele Sham: 368 / 309
Enh Sham: 92 / 101
Fire Mage: 753 / 608
Frost Mage: 53 / 46
Arcane Mage: 22 / 17
Aff Lock: 211 / 203
Demo Lock: 17 / 13
Destro Lock: 96 / 94
WW Monk: 776 / 473
Balance D: 428 / 403
Feral D: 221 / 170
Havoc DH: 123 / 90
Healers:
Holy Pal: 1456 / 1045
Disc Priest: 928 / 775
Holy Priest: 306 / 205
Resto Sham: 534 / 309
MW Monk: 41 / 25
Resto Druid: 347 / 161
Tanks:
Prot War: 15 / 11
Prot Pal: 177 / 90
Blood DK: 9 / 6
BM Monk: 34 / 12
Guardian D: 17 / 16
Veng DH: 32 / 13
I would be interested to see the breakdown further into % based on number of active lvl 60 of each spec as well as % based number of active arena players at lvl 60 of each spec.
People get wrapped around representation of classes in these brackets, whether it is arena, m+, raiding without considering a class or specs representation as a whole may be skewing its numbers.
For example if 10% play fire mage and only 5% play Ele (completely made up numbers) then it would stand to reason that significantly more fire mages would have higher ratings/scores/representation than ele from a pure numbers advantage.
Same.
After all you could have 1000 people play fire mage, but only 100 have 2k+ ratings. Meanwhile Ele has 300 people playing, and only 30 have 2k+ ratings.
Both specs in this example have a success rate of 10% of the playerbase being able to achieve 2k+ rating.
In theory this means that you’re just as likely to reach 2k+ as ele as you are a fire mage when playing well, and it would also mean that bias’ about it being far easier to climb as Fire than Ele would be a falsehood. Ofc only as far as the example goes I don’t have the real numbers.
I think you would need to look at why there are 1000 people playing fire mages, and only 300 people playing elemental. And i think the reason is elemental just isnt as good so there is no incentive to level one except for the die hards who play elemental through anything.
whatever the reason is, IF elemental was stronger, more people would play it. IF it was the best spec for something, people would roll alts for that purpose like crazy. its not so they dont.
I’d like to start by saying I am not implying anything is easier, better designed, better defensives.
I am merely saying when you speak to these numbers you have to take a lot of things into consideratio that pure representation doesn’t cover.
As far as why are more people playing x than y. Was trying to use fire mage and ele as an example but do not want it to become about those 2 specs against each other.
Is it easier?
Is it more forgiving?
Does one have a poor community opinion?
Has one historically been significantly less represented at max level even when over performing?
Look at all the games by Blizz that have tags like: Easy, Medium, Hard. Could it be that shaman just isn’t easy mode?
I think it shows you what specs are dominating the top end of the ladder. Which strongly suggests that these specs are better in pvp.
This is all consistent with widespread perception of what is performing best in arena as well as what is showing up in the tournaments.
Arms and WW are the strongest melee cleave specs by a wide margin
Subtlety the dominant best performing rogue spec
Ret the best hybrid melee
Shadow priest, fire mage, and balance druid the dominant caster dps with ele somewhat trialing
Holy and disc the dominant healer spec with resto a distant third
This is all consistent with my experience in arena. The highly represented specs just seem to have stronger pvp kits at the moment. So if blizzard is looking to address this with 9.05, these are the specs that could be brought down a peg.
In terms of why these specs dominate:
Arms - really strong utility w/strong damage
WW - oppressively strong sustained damage, great mobility & utility, difficult to kite
Subtlety - maybe partly due to fire - rogue/mage has really strong setup kill damge
Ret - divine toll which thankfully is getting nerfed, burst is maybe too high, WoG is endless spammable
Fire mage - Combust burst is really strong. Triune ward makes combust hard to counter. Lots of cc/mobility/cheat death.
Druid - Convoke
Shadow Priest - Dunno exactly. Strong damage/healing kit with mind games perhaps tipping it into having overly strong kill windows.
Ele - Stormkeeper kill windows are really strong
Holy Pally - lots of instant cast healing that can’t be interrupted. mana lasts longer due to no mana healing from WoG. Hammer/offensive pressure to secure kills.
Disc Priest - Instant cast kit, strong utility, mind games/offensive pressure for securing kills.
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okay but the answer to your questions is pretty much always “ele is just less effective”
people go down the path of least resistance, and there is SO MUCH RESISTANCE to playing elemental effectively at high end content. It doesnt matter if its RBGs or 3v3 or Mythic+ or World First Mythic Raiding, elemental is just not as honed as boomkins or mages or shadow priests or warlocks. I was watching MDI a bit yesterday i didnt see elemental shamans. I’m watching AWC and i see Zeepeye (on a team, but rarely used). And you cannot blame class representation on that. They have access to max level max geared characters of any spec or convenant… and they are choosing not to play elemental. Why? well…
This is skewed because half of those enhance are only on the ladder because of WW/Arms partners
At least we’re not hunters or demon hunters 