I've played a lot of beastmasters and have posted a couple of times
about their shortcomings. Ekaerok asked which build would you consider
better than beastmaster at the moment?

Well this is easy to answer. Savage is still a lot better, savage blow changes
notwithstanding, I haven't played one after the tweaks but:

* I don't think Nep crippled it, even if it works 50% at best now, it's still useful.
* Near guaranteed ambush onslaught + lightning will kill a lot of people.
* Warpaint is very good and extremely reliable. Should fire in every fight.
* Mud is good and extremely reliable. Situational but extremely useful when needed.
* Protection from metals is huge, I'd pick this over barkskin any day.
* Mace the icing on the cake.

These are very reliable skills that will be useful in pretty much every fight.

What does beastmaster have?

Serpent kinship is just lagging yourself, unreliable to the point where it's a mistake
if one uses it. I'd rather do 2 serpent strikes.

Wasps is very very strong at mid levels (especially with apiarist) but arguably useless
at hero. I haven't killed a single competent person at hero due to wasps, others
may have had better luck. That's also assuming one will land it, given that it's
2 rounds lag, it's not uncommon to waste 10+ rounds trying to land wasps at hero.

Wolf is OK, hopefully all the bugs have been ironed out by now. It still isn't 100%
reliable even perfected which leads to time wasted.

Bears were completely useless, one couldn't even use them in raids. They were
tweaked recently and I haven't played one since so maybe they're OK now.

Predator's stance was good and I think was tweaked for more damage recently,
no comment on that.

Tame is just bad re: mobs that can be used and also nerfs waylay (this needs to be fixed). Kinship wolf can not be tamed.

Looks pretty much a no contest no?

I'd also pick survivalist over beastmaster, just for control weather/lightning.
Call lightning with the edge is better than any skill beastmaster has, including wasps.