The following Data is from:
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=-1&factionid=-1&minlevel=70&maxlevel=70&serve
rtypeid=-1

Taken a couple of days ago, when I ran these numbers.

Sure, it doesn’t count every single character, it doesn’t count those inactive, and it only counts those on North American Servers…. But that’s Just what we WANT.

The sample size is large, making the data accurate, but we don’t need to count every last, the issue is class balance, which means relative population, not overall.

We don’t want to count abandoned 70s, or inactive ones. We don’t want to count those un-related geographic areas.

Class….%….#
Rogue………….13.6 …………….378283
Mage……………12.5 …………….348895
Warrior…………11.9 …………….331128
Hunter………….11.6 …………….323798
Warlock……….10.6 …………….294073
Pally…………….10.5 …………….293015
Priest…………..10.3…………….. 286743
Druid…………….10.1……………. 280102
Shaman……….08.8…………….. 246217

2,782,254 total characters

Now, lets say that the recent decimation of Hunters by all the nerfs causes half to quit, and 9 of 10 of those who stay to re-roll.

So, out of 323798 Hunters, 161899 quit, 145709 re-roll, 16190 remain. ( BTW, that’s a lost
$2.2M per month, $27M a year. That’s alot of Dev Time. )

Now I contend that those who re-roll, 9 of 10 will go to the most currently powerful class, which is obviously Rogues.

If you re-roll because of weakness, you’ll go to strength. If you re-roll from the nerf bat, you’ll go to the class that rarely if ever gets it.

Hunters won’t Wait, they can see what’s coming and will start to re-roll NOW. DK’s are not yet an
option, so they’ll mainly go for Rogues.

So, 145709 re-roll, and 131138 will become rogues, the remaining more or less spread evenly to
the other seven classes, or 2081 each.

Sure, its a simplictic model, based on assumptions, but its certainly a possiblility, with the current state of Rogues and Hunters.

The above changes alone would change the class demographics to:

Rogue…378283 + 131138 = 509421
Mage….348895 + 2085 = 350980 ( 4 extra for the round off error )
Warrior.331128 + 2081 = 333209
Hunter..323798 – ( 161899 + 145709 ) = 16190
Warlock.294073 + 2081 = 296154
Pally…293015 + 2081 = 295096
Priest..286743 + 2081 = 288824
Druid…280102 + 2081 = 282183
Shaman..246217 + 2081 = 248298

2,782,254 – 161899 = 2620355 total characters

So, the pie is smaller, at the same time the Rogue slice is much larger.

So the percentages would look like:

Rogue…19.4%
Mage….13.4%
Warrior.12.7%
Warlock.11.3%
Pally…11.3%
Priest..11.0%
Druid…10.8%
Shaman..09.5%
Hunter..00.6%

2620355 total characters

The Demographic shift of driving one class from the game is HUGE.

This is without the loss in total number of those who don’t buy wotRG. Nor does it include the shift caused by players switching to DKs.

You see, the real problem is, with Rogues so silly OP, and Hunter nerf’d to Hell,

Wow is a game set on Retain Rogues,

let others go to Warhammer or where ever.

For the most part, the Rogues won’t quit, but some of every other class will. So, the Rogue percentage grows rapidly.

What a wonderful World of RogueCraft it will be….