Popular as in most played, or most desired?
Rogues will be most played (folk love to sneaky stab stuff), clerics most desired (everyone wants a just-in-time heal, or an oops-not-in-time rez).
Vandraad said:If you want to be guaranteed a slot in a group, Enchanter is at the top of your list
That statement would be true if class population were balanced - thanks to abundance of enchanters, some actually may struggle with finding a party.
FlushingToiletScreamingShower said: I disagree. After launch (and if kiting is viable) it's going to be wizards...
Kiting will be pretty hard I belive, due to different mob dispositions - keeping mobs together or finding good spot with guaranteed constant supply of same "type" monsters may prove difficult - I hope I'm wrong though.
Average of all polls and even with the recent polls, Enchanter. Not something I'm happy about as I plan to play one but overall as an archetype the numbers seem to level out and Support/Control seems to be closest to the required 16.67% for a full group.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q06ZAC0Aqd7gAN3m4vXc7CkEIjU-F0N_gzQqVRfShMM/edit?usp=sharing
Retsof said:Most popular - I don't know. Most wanted in groups? Shaman. As a cleric, I'd rather have shammy debuffs and slow than an enchanter's cc's. Let the tank and dps go nuts aoe'ing if we got slows and a second healer.
You'd rather a Shaman's Debuffs and Slow more than the Enchanter Debuffs, Slow, Mana Regen, Mana Replenishment and Spell Haste? Not to mention, when you're tanking multiple mobs at once with one or more tanks, you effectively lose a ton of mana in the process reducing your overall efficiency, sustain and extention by a sizable metric. I can understand wanting one over the other for a change of playstyle but in terms of efficiency, you're taking a massive hit there as a Cleric or Healer in general.
As for most popular, it may be best to assign most popular per archetype. Considering a full group typically has a Tank, Healer, Support/Control and DPS, I think for this post, it's probably better to ask which class within each archetype will be the most popular.
You mention AoEing but let's hope that isn't as effective as it was in EQ. Enchanters have the PBAE stun line in Pantheon too and we could effectively keep dozens to a hundred mobs stunned for 3-5 minutes in what we called AE groups. Said group comprised of 2-3 Enchanters, 2-3 Wizards (Or mages if well geared) and a Cleric. I don't see a good AoE lineup in Pantheon in terms of damage and given how content is lined up, the mob health, and dispositions, we likely won't see AoE groups again thankfully.
In the early streams we saw rogues CC'ing just as well with smoke bombs and something else I forgot.
I am thinking popular as meaning, not as what is being chosen to play by the player but rather, what players will want in game.
With all these casters around I am sure the most popular and sought after classes will be fighters and healers. One figher and one healer LFG, and the other four will have to figure out what to do. 2 casters LFG? are waiting for a healer to use as bait to tempt a fighter, maybe a rogue or convincing a fighter a healer really wont be needed because we can kill them fast enough....
"Everybody so serious with charts and all"
Yeah, I tend to do that, sorry. However, it comes down to actual findings or what people hope to see or simply guess.
If we were going by class within the entirety of classes I'd say Enchanter.
If going by Archetype, that's DPS at 32% (you need to be at 50%+ for them though).
In terms of per group spot showing, Healers are the most common.
Then if you get to within archetypes.
Most popular Healer = Druid
Most popular Tank = Warrior (followed closely by Paladin)
Most popular Support/Control = Enchanter
Most popular DPS = Necromancer (Rogue if Necro isn't released at live)
Two of the most common group makeups look to be...
1 - Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter, Druid, Rogue, Ranger
2 - Warrior, Druid, Enchanter, Paladin, Rogue, Ranger.
If Necro releases at live, replace Rogue with Necro and Ranger with Rogue.
The most interesting thing with the second group is how it works functionally. I see Druid and Paladin playing off each other very well in a group setting.
My guess would be Enchanter.
Why? Because it's a CC class and today's games just dont have the style of gameplay that requires CC. A lot of older gamers miss having CC as a viable option.
This will change shortly after release when there is a glut of Enchanters and players will be tired of looking for groups and reroll.
