Guild Wars: Costume Frequency

Here's what you're likeliest to run into at the Costume Ball. Keeping in mind that this is just based off of my own observations and impression but certainly not any kind of empirical data, there are certain professions which show up more often than others. Those are the ones that are popular, effective, and you should understand how to beat if you want to excel.

The most common classes, as you might expect, are the flashy high damaging ones.

Sins, Elementalists, and Rangers abound. Those are the classes that are reasonably self-sufficient, do the killing work easily, and are also fairly easy to pick up and use without understanding the deep mechanics of the class.

They're followed by the two healing professions the Monk and the Ritualist. I say healer, but those are the classes that are most support based, best at making the rest of your team better if not exactly keeping them alive consistently.

Next you get the melee classes, the Warriors and Dervishers (Which seem to be increasingly popular. It's all because of Melandru's, of course.) who aren't as easy to master or quick to kill as the Sin and who are much easier to shut down.

Then you get the other casters, Necromancers and Mesmers who require you to be good before you become a pain and, even then, just aren't the best. I thought Necros would be amazing and, in the right team, they can be but I'm pretty disappointed in how they play out, actually.

Bringing up the rear is the Paragon who'll show up infrequently and be a laughingstock when she does (Yes, female skins seem to be more popular than male ones. Tombraider principle in action, I guess.). Just not working as hard as it could. It's really just an awful build for a character that's awful on the split and splitting is what the Ball is all about.

From most common to least.

1. Assassin
2. Elemenatlist
3. Ranger
4. Monk
5. Ritualist
6. Warrior
7. Dervish
8. Necromancer
9. Mesmer
10. Paragon

That's not exactly how I'd rank them, in terms of which would be the best to play, of course, but that's about how often they show up - although there's been a definite trend away from the Sins towards Eles and Rangers.