"one of the most popular classes in the game (alongside the other archetypes like warrior and rogue)" Not counting Monks which are new, Rogue is the least play

"one of the most popular classes in the game (alongside the other archetypes like warrior and rogue)" Not counting Monks which are new, Rogue is the least played main class by a good margin, after which are Locks and Shaman and then the other classes are pretty clustered now. http://cynwise.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/class-distribution-data-for-patch-5-3/ http://cynwise.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/class-distribution-d... One thing mages have going for them is a large number of viable race combinations. Druids and Paladins only have 2 choices and one optimal one for any spec (per faction). As an alt mages are popular because melee/tanks/healers often want to get the furthest away from that playstyle and mages are the purest dps caster with the fewest moving parts. They've also always been a top tier pve and pvp class that has drawn in a lot of original players.