And? If you are bleeding heavily from three wounds, do you decide not to bandage the worst of them because the second worst would then be the worst? Of course not. You bandage because it helps improve the situation.
But if you're bleeding heavily, you don't just bandage the worst one. You start there and bandage all the wounds.
Which is part of the issue. If you "improve" one class, will there suddenly be pressure to make changes to other classes or problems in the game.
This also assumes that introducing a second version of the ranger will "fix" things and not cause more confusion at tables. Or tension in games when DMs don't allow it. Are the problems it creates greater than the problems it solves?
There are two variant rangers by WotC already out there. There are dozens on the DMsGuild. If someone isn't happy they can easily "fix" things on their own, picking and choosing elements.
I think your assumption that new players are not optimizers is a bit hilarious given my experience. Some definitely are. I would not say the percentages have changed with the introduction of new players.
Oh, there absolutely are.
But is there the same percentage as older fans? I think so. The fans who got into the game via streaming are a lot more focused on roleplaying, character, and story. There's a lot more interest in those aspects of D&D than the crunchy building.
And, most importantly, are the waves of new fans as vocal about their dislike of the ranger? And has the percentage of dissatisfied fans stayed the same or decreased?
But the above is irrelevant. As Crawford points out, despite the ranger being the "worst" class it is NOT the least played class. So many, many people are happy with the class. And changing the class risks making them unhappy or causing issues at their table.
So when you poll the entire audience, the ranger comes out at the bottom. But when people actually make characters, the optimizers don't just avoid the ranger, they avoid all the bottom tier classes, while the remaining 2/3rds or 3/4s of the audience is happy to consider the ranger.
The class is getting played, which means the problem is not a
real issue so much as a
theoretical issue. Which is the key difference and distinction between something that is a problem in white room design and message board theorycraft and something that is a problem in the real world. Here, on ENWorld, the ranger is broken. Out in actual games,
four other classes are more of a problem as they're the ones that aren't seeing play.
1.) Having it be played does not mean it is not going to benefit from an improvement to the mechanics.
Yes... but you could say that about all the classes.
Way of the Four Elements could be fixed. Fighter subclasses could be revised for flavour. The barbarian's exhaustion mechanic could be revisited. The wild mage is unpopular. Plus several feats are seen as problematic, several spells are too strong or weak.
2.) While an improvement to the mechanics is not necessary to have fun playing the class, the balance of the class would still benefit from it.
Again, this could be said about many features and options in the game.
It's almost like perfect balance is impossible and they could spend years revising and tweaking mechanics to make things more balanced and again to make things more fun.
Only to have none of that matter at all because the same number of players will say "Imma gonna play Strider," and roll a ranger irregardless of the mechanics and changes.
I'd be interested to see someone post what they consider to be an overpowered revised ranger.... I have yet to see one.
Halfling on a riding dog two-weapon fighting with lances. Two to three attacks dealing 1d12 damage plus
hunter's mark with 40 foot movement.
And at 7th level it can move 20 feet, you can attack, and then it can Disengage and move back 20 feet.
