iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Hm, do you think it would help if the beast simply went on the same turn as the master?
Possibly. As I recall, the PHB beast master companion shares actions with the ranger, so it's less things to manage or resolve per combat round than the UA ranger. That alone is going to contribute to taking up a larger portion of the spotlight. It's not the end of the world, but I'm sensitive to spotlight and I noticed it.
Yeah, the beastmaster is still positioning two characters and taking more actions, but since he's doing it all at once, it's not much worse than a caster trying to puzzle out what spell to cast and where to target it, is it?
I don't have that experience with spellcasters at my table. People are ready to GO when their turn is called. The puzzling happens off-turn.