The Hunter's share of WoW Forever characters fell 2.9 points, from 18.2% on September 24, 2026 to 15.3% on October 23, 2026. It is still the most played class overall and on each faction. In the October 24, 2026 snapshot, the census counts 175,909 Hunter characters, or about 176,000, out of 1,148,135 characters in total.
A smaller share, still in first place
Each day's figure in this series is the Hunter count as a share of all characters recorded up to that day. On September 24, a little more than 18 of every 100 characters were Hunters. By October 23 the share was 15.3%. No class has more characters than the Hunter, but the class makes up a smaller part of the total than it did when the series began.
First on both factions, by different margins
The Hunter ranks first on the Alliance and first on the Horde, but it is more common on the Alliance side:
| Faction | Hunter characters | Share of faction |
|---|---|---|
| Alliance | 93,486 | 16.8% |
| Horde | 82,423 | 14.0% |
| All | 175,909 | 15.3% |
The Alliance has 11,063 more Hunters than the Horde, even though the Horde is the larger faction, with 590,412 characters to the Alliance's 557,723 (51.4% to 48.6%). Hunters are close to 17% of Alliance characters and 14% of Horde characters, a gap of about 3 points.
Night Elf Hunter leads, and the pair is new in WoW Forever
Night Elf has more Hunters than any other race, with 29,983 characters. That is 17.0% of all Hunters and 30.4% of all Night Elf characters, so close to one Night Elf in three is a Hunter. Of the eight pairs in this list, it is the only one the census marks as new in WoW Forever.
Human is second with 27,259 Hunters, 2,724 fewer than Night Elf. Hunters are a smaller part of Human characters, at 15.1%. The two Skyborne races come next. Skyborne (H) has 25,423 Hunters, 23.2% of that race and the most of any Horde race. Skyborne (A) has 22,254 Hunters, or 21.3% of the race.
The rest of the Horde races are close together. Orc has 21,354 Hunters (19.3% of Orcs), Troll has 17,888 (22.0% of Trolls) and Tauren has 17,758 (20.0% of Tauren). Dwarf is last of the eight with 13,990 Hunters, which is 15.5% of Dwarves and 8.0% of all Hunters.
Three of the top four Hunter races are Alliance races, which matches the class's higher share on that side.
What these numbers measure
These figures count characters, not players, and one player can have several characters. The census includes every character its in-game scans have recorded since the beta opened, at every level. So 175,909 is the number of Hunter characters recorded up to October 24, 2026, not the number of people playing a Hunter today. The share series is built from the same records. Each day's value is Hunter characters as a share of all characters recorded up to that day, so the move from 18.2% to 15.3% shows how that share changed. It doesn't explain why players chose one class over another.