>Let me preface this with this big statement: I don't believe
>I've played a beastmaster at hero, though I've toyed around
>with them in the mid ranks. I have fought some as a few
>different characters.
>
>Really, it looks to me like this comes down to playstyle
>difference. If you want the big ambush followed by a
>potential snare and second ambush or call lightning,
>beastmaster is definitely not for you. You should be playing
>a savage.

Agreed. I don't think that anybody is saying here that *every*
ranger build should have the potential to be a powerhouse.
Some builds are offense oriented, some (animist) are defensive
powerhouses, others excel at exploring specific areas. This is all well
and good.

>
>The big advantage in my mind with something like wasps is that
>it doesn't allow them to rest and causes decent, continual
>damage (similar in manner to immolate, if not the same
>amount). If you can land a few entangles then land it and
>they flee and recall, there is a good chance they are still
>there sitting at their recall spot healing their health and
>moves. That leaves potential for planning for someone to sit
>there and be ready to bash. It really can be quite dangerous
>if landed late in a close fight right before someone flees.

Agreed. There are many situations that make wasps shine.
Having spent 1000+ hrs on beastmasters alone, all I can say
is that these sort of situations do not arise in practice very often.

You could spend a lot of time trying to engineer them of course,
but it just doesn't feel right. The same goes for serpent kinship.
On paper it looks good, even unchanged, with its random effects.
In practice, it ends up being mostly useless.

I have no problem with wasps as they are. I even agree that they
are very strong at midlevels, maybe even OP with the edge.
Look at Gmrrst PBF, most of the kills there are wasp kills from me
running around and trying to land them on everything that I saw.

Serpent kinship however just doesn't fit, it feels like a wasted
skill. It'd be better for it to be removed, and another skill
that ends up being *frequently* used take its place. Bird kinship
as described by Dallevian would be awesome.

>I still think you are underestimating wolf kinship, more when
>paired with something like beast call. Tracking mobs that
>cause people to flee is excellent, especially in random mazes
> Like outside outlander of HToS).
>

Wolf is good, I used it a lot at hero. Again it's not something
that you will use in every fight (contrast that with most savage abilities)
and there were tracking bugs with it, but at least it provides results.

Again, I'm not trying to make beastmasters have the killing potential
of savages. I'm trying to make them more fun to play by having abilities
that end up being used in many situations, instead of being situational.

>
>I wouldn't mind seeing the other abilities touched up, but as
>it is I still consider this one of the three best expertises.
>As much as ambush onslaught, prot vs metal, and mace are
>nice.. I hate having to give up metal and it can make gearing
>a lot less enjoyable - especially if you don't have any druid
>friends. That isn't to say savage is bad, it and survivalist
>are both good.

The metal thing is just an annoyance. Yes, no druids means
you're crippled. But how often does that happen?

>I find the idea of hunter being better as funny, as there have
>been two I've seen that are scary. I really can't speak to
>animist as I've never played nor faced one, but from all
>accounts they don't seem deadly either.

My next ranger will be a hunter

>
>Really, if someone has the time go through the rangers based
>on pk record and determine their terrain/expertise it could
>provide some more numbers to actually fuel this argument. As
>it is, I don't see it as beasmasters are bad.. they just
>aren't savage good.

This is not very useful I find, see my other post.

All in all, I think ranger in general is a class that asks for a stalking/trapping/predicting opponent play style, if you're
talking offense. The builds that fit with that, feel awesome to play.

The builds that don't fit with that and require 'runtime finesse', luck,
and the right situations (which beastmaster is a perfect example of)
feel kind of gimped and definitely not as fun as the other ones.