I have liked survivalist, animist, hunter, and savage all better than beastmaster. I've played probably 6 beastmasters in hero range, 2 at level 51.

Predators stance is good for gnome killing, I'll give it that.

Serpent kin is more likely to get you killed than to contribute in killing someone else.

Wolf kinship, great skill, worth the level you get it at.

Wasps, ok, ridiculously hard to land, awesome in 30s, super duper easy to manage once a hero though (either by gold, spells, preps, whatever).

Bear kinship? They have more health since the change, that's the only thing I've noticed. They don't do anything else though, no bash, bearcharge, dirt kick, swipe, claw, nada. Different terrain bears should do different things.

Tame? Let me help some people out on all the mobs that cannot be charmed:

spiderhaunt creatures
siege encampment creatures (jaguar, boar, lizard, etc)
dire wolves and other animals (bear, moose, deer, etc)
cavefisher and juvenile
basilisks
different serpents
arctic bear or yeti
moss, obliviax, or other assorted ysigrath creatures
heck, i even tried charming shrine mobs just to see (thought i might get lucky with baer's jaguar!)

What does that leave you? In order of ok-ness you can charm
snow leopard, crocodile from swamp, and wooly mammoth. yes there are others but they're all low level or worthless

Anyway, wasps and wolfkin are good, the latter more so, but I've found call lightning is a better killer/sealer than the other two combined.

Not only that but there are some terrains where you can't even use some of the beastmaster skills (water, cold, desert).

Now, ideas on how to improve beastmaster

Bird kinship - allows a ranger to call a bird and whisper it a name of a visible opponent. if that person is outdoor it will report back the location or general direction.

Serpent kinship - allow different serpents to be called that are tailored to the effects. Add neurological poisoning as one, confuse as another, + the current muddle, bleeding, hold person, poison. Increase the success rate. Or at least address the hold person effect, it makes no sense why it only last 4 rounds on a pc but 3 ticks on an npc (is it broken?).

Bear kinship - make them stronger in damage + additional effects

Tame - make some current mobs tame-able

Wolf kinship - let the mob be tamed and charmed if the rangers wants

Predator's stance - add some active skills to where if a ranger is fighting like that, they can do some additional in-combat skills, maybe make it terrain based. It'd be great if one of those was a way to lag someone (you're already giving up parry/shield block if so).