The Most Popular Classes In Dungeons & Dragons

We’ve been talking about superheroes a lot today, so now it’s time to pivot over to something different. It’s Dungeons & Dragons time, folks. Tabletop isn’t the most on-brand topic for us at Prima Games, but we do have an innate interest in gaming stats. So when we came across some intriguing player data from the game’s official online platform D&D Beyond, we had to drop in for a quick minute. D&D Beyond often runs developer update streams on Twitch, and shares its various findings about its userbase in addition to work and upcoming changes to the platform. So if you’ve ever wondered how popular each different class and subclass is in the Dungeons & Dragons community, we have that data to share with you!

The Most Popular Classes in Dungeons and Dragons

The information we saw is technically broken down by subclass, but it still provides a rundown of what percentages of the D&D Beyond userbase choose which starting class. You can check out the full infographic further down this article, but it’s also worth noting this is data based on regular players who have unlocked all possible player options. So this data presumably doesn’t include players who are newer, and don’t have all the choices in front of them yet.

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We’ve listed the classes below in the order of popularity. After that, we’ll talk about the subclasses:

• Warlock (13%)
• Fighter (12%)
• Cleric (11%)
• Sorcerer (10%)
• Rogue (9%)
• Wizard (8%)
• Barbarian (6%)
• Bard (6%)
• Paladin (6%)
• Monk (6%)
• Druid (5%)
• Ranger(5%)

The data is probably what you might expect, even as an outsider. Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game, so it makes sense that the top of the charts reflect the classic RPG party you’ll always think of. But there’s one major exception, and that’s with Warlock at the number one spot. The playerbase of Dungeons & Dragons must be really into forging pacts with unknowable, cosmic entities.

If you take a look at the back half of the list, it makes as much sense as most of the top half. You have the more standard, straightforward classes on top, then the more specialized, harder to define options at the bottom. You would think Warlock would also be down there with the Wizard and Druid, and definitely not above Sorcerer. But yet, there it is. We suspect there are metagame reasons for this, but considering how unconventional the Warlock is in D&D, perhaps it’s a simple matter of raw appeal.

If you take a look at the subclass percentages, it looks like there’s a clear winner for each class, with one subclass being the clear popular choice while the other two sit around a similar, low range. Each popular subclass also seems to be the more textbook options, such as with Path of the Berserker for Barbarians, and Life Domain for Clerics.

We also need to give a special shout-out to the Artificer players, comprising only 1% of the playerbase. Of that small margin of players, is a much more even split of subclass choices compared to everything else on the board, which is a strange result to be sure.

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Do you play a favored class in Dungeons & Dragons, or do you prefer to roll new kinds of characters whenever you start a new game? Do you like any of the classic D&D games, or are you looking forward to new ones such as Baldur’s Gate 3? Let us know over on the Prima Games Facebook and Twitter channels!