THE GAME
What the community wants to play
Two public votes say which race and which class people want for November 4. That is declared intent, not a census: nobody yet knows what is actually being played in the beta.
SNAPSHOT TAKEN 20 Sept 2026
What this actually measures
These are declared intentions: people saying what they would like to play. Not created characters, not hours played, not a beta head-count.
Nobody has that head-count. There is no armory and no public data interface for Forever, and no census addon works on this client yet. So when you see these same figures published as “most played”, the headline is wrong: they are votes, not playtime.
The people voting are the people who visit a WoW Forever voting site in the weeks before launch: the deeply invested ones. They are not a sample of everyone who will open the game on November 4.
All 56 combos, from most wanted to least
Forever Mains shows you two race and class combos and asks which one you would main. Across 408,611 voted duels from 8,035 people, this is the order. The percentage is how many of its own duels each combo wins: 50% is the midpoint, not a score.
| Rank | Combo | Elo | Duels won | Duels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undead (Forsaken) Paladin | 1,352 | 67.9 % | 21,140 |
| 2 | Orc Shaman | 1,304 | 61.7 % | 17,464 |
| 3 | Dwarf Shaman | 1,293 | 61.4 % | 18,260 |
| 4 | Night Elf Druid | 1,275 | 59.0 % | 16,729 |
| 5 | Tauren Shaman | 1,272 | 58.3 % | 16,195 |
| 6 | Undead (Forsaken) Warlock | 1,270 | 58.1 % | 16,254 |
| 7 | Human Paladin | 1,269 | 58.4 % | 17,053 |
| 8 | Tauren Druid | 1,265 | 57.7 % | 15,899 |
| 9 | Orc Warrior | 1,259 | 56.4 % | 15,627 |
| 10 | Orc Warlock | 1,250 | 54.7 % | 15,459 |
| 11 | Undead (Forsaken) Rogue | 1,249 | 55.3 % | 15,713 |
| 12 | Undead (Forsaken) Priest | 1,247 | 55.4 % | 15,573 |
| 13 | Troll Shaman | 1,242 | 54.4 % | 15,362 |
| 14 | Troll Warlock | 1,241 | 54.8 % | 16,467 |
| 15 | Human Warrior | 1,233 | 53.6 % | 15,925 |
| 16 | Tauren Warrior | 1,232 | 53.5 % | 14,797 |
| 17 | Dwarf Paladin | 1,226 | 52.4 % | 15,285 |
| 18 | Night Elf Hunter | 1,222 | 52.1 % | 15,261 |
| 19 | Undead (Forsaken) Mage | 1,219 | 51.2 % | 14,802 |
| 20 | Gnome Warlock | 1,214 | 51.0 % | 14,007 |
| 21 | Gnome Mage | 1,211 | 50.5 % | 14,037 |
| 22 | Orc Hunter | 1,211 | 50.0 % | 14,686 |
| 23 | Human Priest | 1,209 | 50.4 % | 14,880 |
| 24 | Human Warlock | 1,205 | 50.1 % | 15,129 |
| 25 | Human Rogue | 1,202 | 49.9 % | 15,014 |
| 26 | Skyborne (Windshapers) Druid | 1,202 | 50.1 % | 15,949 |
| 27 | Skyborne (High Order) Druid | 1,198 | 49.4 % | 15,552 |
| 28 | Skyborne (Windshapers) Shaman | 1,198 | 49.3 % | 15,425 |
| 29 | Night Elf Rogue | 1,197 | 49.2 % | 14,419 |
| 30 | Undead (Forsaken) Warrior | 1,197 | 48.8 % | 14,787 |
| 31 | Gnome Priest | 1,196 | 49.3 % | 14,803 |
| 32 | Orc Rogue | 1,194 | 48.4 % | 14,012 |
| 33 | Troll Hunter | 1,187 | 47.5 % | 13,763 |
| 34 | Orc Mage | 1,184 | 47.1 % | 14,633 |
| 35 | Dwarf Priest | 1,180 | 46.6 % | 14,045 |
| 36 | Human Mage | 1,178 | 46.6 % | 14,406 |
| 37 | Night Elf Priest | 1,178 | 47.1 % | 14,072 |
| 38 | Human Hunter | 1,176 | 47.1 % | 14,865 |
| 39 | Dwarf Warrior | 1,175 | 45.9 % | 14,111 |
| 40 | Dwarf Hunter | 1,173 | 45.4 % | 13,746 |
| 41 | Night Elf Warrior | 1,167 | 45.9 % | 13,760 |
| 42 | Gnome Rogue | 1,166 | 44.6 % | 12,968 |
| 43 | Troll Priest | 1,164 | 44.7 % | 13,219 |
| 44 | Troll Mage | 1,163 | 43.9 % | 12,788 |
| 45 | Skyborne (High Order) Mage | 1,154 | 43.3 % | 13,887 |
| 46 | Troll Warrior | 1,152 | 43.3 % | 12,872 |
| 47 | Tauren Hunter | 1,146 | 42.4 % | 12,733 |
| 48 | Troll Rogue | 1,142 | 41.6 % | 12,429 |
| 49 | Skyborne (Windshapers) Hunter | 1,135 | 40.5 % | 12,216 |
| 50 | Skyborne (High Order) Hunter | 1,133 | 40.4 % | 12,222 |
| 51 | Gnome Warrior | 1,131 | 40.8 % | 12,392 |
| 52 | Dwarf Rogue | 1,127 | 40.0 % | 12,801 |
| 53 | Skyborne (Windshapers) Warrior | 1,119 | 39.0 % | 12,093 |
| 54 | Skyborne (Windshapers) Rogue | 1,117 | 38.1 % | 11,849 |
| 55 | Skyborne (High Order) Warrior | 1,103 | 37.0 % | 11,793 |
| 56 | Skyborne (High Order) Rogue | 1,095 | 35.7 % | 11,590 |
The order is Forever Mains’ own, which uses Elo: each duel counts for more or less depending on how wanted the combo it faced is. That is why the win rate does not fall in perfect order — winning 50% of your duels against the most wanted combos is worth more than winning 50% against the last ones.
Figures from 20 Sept 2026, pulled from the public interface of Forever Mains.
Which class people plan to play
A separate vote, 23,602 votes and one per connection, asks about the class alone. Paladin and Shaman lead — the two that were faction-locked in Classic and belong to both sides in Forever. Mage comes last.
Paladin15.4 %3,627 votes
Shaman15.2 %3,580 votes
Druid12.7 %2,990 votes
Priest11.3 %2,665 votes
Warlock11.2 %2,648 votes
Warrior10.6 %2,502 votes
Hunter8.9 %2,099 votes
Rogue8.0 %1,898 votes
Mage6.7 %1,593 votes
Votes from 14 Sept 2026 to 20 Sept 2026, pulled from the public interface of the class poll on StrawPoll.
And the race?
There is a race poll too, but it only has 542 votes: forty times fewer than the class one. At that size thirty votes reorder it, so it goes here as a note and without a chart. Undead leads it for now.
- Undead (Forsaken)110 votes
- Dwarf67 votes
- Human63 votes
- Night Elf54 votes
- Gnome53 votes
- Skyborne (High Order)45 votes
- Tauren42 votes
- Skyborne (Windshapers)41 votes
- Orc37 votes
- Troll30 votes
Votes up to the day of the snapshot, pulled from the race poll on StrawPoll.
Why there is no real census today
There is nothing to read it from. Blizzard has published no armory and no data interface for Forever, so there is no official way to count characters by race, class or faction.
And there is no addon. Classic censuses come from addons that sweep the online-player list and tally what they see. Forever runs on a different client (build 1.60.1) and those addons have no working release for it yet.
The one announced project has no data. WoW Forever News has its census page up, but its own status panel says the addon is “in development” and the data “pending” until the realms open.
The day a real head-count exists we will bring it here, and we will keep saying which is which: what people wanted to play and what they ended up playing are almost never the same thing.