Yeah, can you please cool the rage a bit man?
Look, I get the frustration and anger, but you've pretty much just tossed around insults for the last two weeks. You obviously aren't helping the case, and it is getting to be a bit much.
Given the evidence that tens of thousands of people are able to play a Beastmaster Ranger successfully, I can only conclude that [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] lacks the skill necessary to do so, and wishes WotC to produce an easier version of the class more in line with his abilities.
First of all, unnecessary jab man.
Secondly, do you actually have evidence of "Tens of Thousands" of players who are playing the PHB Beastmaster with no houserules what so ever, and that they are completely satisfied?
All I've heard from WoTC is that people are satisfied with "The Ranger" and that is a completely different statement, considering there are so many different versions of the Ranger officially and unofficially.
- Any class can be as good as a ranger tracking outside their favored terrain and a favored enemy, some classes are better if you choose to improve the proficiency with survival and other skills, or use spells like enhance ability.
- You can sense that some creatures are within 1-6 miles using your spell slots. I think this is a bad class feature, specially if I compare it to class features as sense evil.
- Hide in plain sight, 1 min of camouflage for a good bonus to hide in front of a solid surface, at lvl 10 this for me is another bad class feature. If the class didn't have spells it would have a purpose, but it has spells, not going to point what other classes can do at this level to be more stealthy.
- Vanish... Not sure what is this for, when someone hides on our games normally it has time to do it. You can not be tracked, but you could use pass without trace since 9 levels.
- Foe slayer, at last you get a damage or attack bonus beyond lvl 3, you only need level 20 for the +5 once per round.
Don't disagree with any of these (part of the reason I like the Revised Ranger is they altered quite of few of those class features you listed) but, considering you are quoting my statement on melee rangers, none of this has to do with melee rangers. This is just generally ranger problems. Again, don't really disagree with a lot of what you are saying, just looking for context.
For melee:
- Whirlwind attack is horrible because it is situational and it's always better to concentrate attacks, it also doesn't work with two weapon fightning, welcome to another trap.
Your real damage bonuses at lvl 3:
- Giant killer, if the campaign is long you must advice the player about the level 15 options, it's also extremely situational, large+ creature that fails an attack against you.
- Horde breaker, an extra attack, good, but only when the enemies are adjacent, situational and being melee sometimes you'll need to reach the position and that can mean OAs.
- Colossus slayer, the best one, you concentrate damage, better when you have another attack, but only 1d8 per turn.
At level 11 the rest of melee classes look better, at level 12 the warlock using pact of the blade looks better.
The spell that can give the ranger more damage is Hunter's mark and it needs concentration, as you are melee you are going to be hit easily and constitution is not one of your good saving throws. It also needs bonus actions, bad for two weapon melee.
I agree whirlwind is highly situational, there are cases when being able to hit more than 3 enemies is going to be better than focusing fire on a single enemy, but they aren't going to come up often.
I agree, Giant Killer kind of sucks, though I hadn't noticed it competed with Stand Against the Tide. I will say, it is more of a choice than you make it out to be factors like is the large creature that missed you hitting harder than you do and/or is there an adjacent enemy you would rather hit instead of the one attacking you, would skew the choice between the two. But, I'd almost be tempted to rewrite Giant Killer and remove the size requirement, if I didn't know retaliation abilities were generally very high level abilities.
I actually used to dislike horde breaker as well, but I've seen it come up an awful lot. And since my tables tend to use flanking rules it is not uncommon for a melee type to be adjacent to two separate enemies. It can also mean that a Ranger in the right position can make 4 attacks by level 5, which is incredibly good. It isn't going to activate every turn, but that doesn't mean it is bad per se, and when it does activate, it usually means you are needing the extra attacks to help even the odds.
Saying "only 1d8 a turn" is a little disingenuous I think for Colossus Slayer. It essentially turns one of your attacks into a crit per turn (assuming you are using a d8 weapon) and if you actually crit you get to do x4 dice of damage. And it is a level three ability, so wouldn't expect it to be super-ultra powerful.
Hunter's Mark being concentration does mean it is going to be under threat while you are in melee, but until you get really high level, most enemies aren't going to hit for more than 20 damage in melee at a time. So, most of your saves are going to be DC 10, and you can take Warcaster to get advantage or resilience to buff those saves if you are worried about them (actually, resilience Con isn't a bad choice period) so you can counteract that weak point. Not playing nice with dual-wielding is a problem, but depending on how fast you are killing your targets, it might not matter much. Losing every other off-hand attack, but getting a d6 on two main hand attacks isn't a massive dip in DPR I'd imagine.
Depending on Builds and Situations, a level 11 fighter may not be better than the ranger. Battlemaster going nova, or Paladin doing the same are incredibly high damages, but a Champion, Eldritch Knight, or Barbarians who don't use GWM are going to be about the same I'd imagine. Blade Pact warlocks look better NOW, because they've just gotten a massive number of buffs, but they didn't used to look so good even at level 12. Plus, they've got the same concentration issues.
Overall, I can agree the Melee Ranger isn't as good as the Archer Ranger by high levels (whirlwind attack sucks) but I've seen plenty of them in action, and they are devastating before level 11 and that is a large portion of the game. Plus, most of your comments and concerns have little to do with the melee ranger, because they could be said about either ranger
