It's been years since I bothered to play a beastmaster but they've been in a bad place since predator's stance got tweaked downward with no discernible buffs.

Bears were always a liability, serpent kinship was too random to be useful (and the helpfile for it too vague on the effects) and wolf kinship was basically enhanced beastcall, but if you were already winning you were probably more likely to win just bearcharging again, and if you were losing you were wasting time trying to dump a tracking mob on people who had movement to walk away from it. Most people already fighting you were already fully capable of tanking you at hero.

Most of what was cited above was what turned me off of them after the first time. I wanted to play more with predator's stance but the lack of defensive benefit of doing so makes it nonsensical to use. It's a risky ironhands (and ironhands is already mediocre after being toned down from essentially erasing the opponent's ability to parry completely)