My vote went to the 1ed ranger.
I've almost always been a DM. I have seen hundreds of players throughout the years and one thing has been consistent.
In 1ed, if you could do a ranger, you would. No hesitation, no second thought. If you could, you would. The ranger class was not incrediby powerful but it was really good and its flavor was right on the spot. It was a subclass of fighters and the few limitations it had were not damaging to the class and you could have many kind of ranger. From the lightly armored archer to the heavily armored wielding two handed swords, the class had enough possibilities to accomodate a lot of play styles.
In 2ed, the ranger became a full class. Now it was a choice. The first two years, rangers were often picked up. But as time went on, players were going for better damage output. The Drizzt syndrome as I called it (and I am not the only one) made it so that now the ranger is pigeonholed in that playstyle or the archery...
3.xed did not do it better as the Drizzt syndrome was still going strong. At least, Master of the Wild did bring some nice prestige classes but still, rangers were not the first pick. But one thing was done good. Rangers were no longer forced to be good aligned. Now evil could have its own "rangers"...
4ed Did a good job. Better than the two other previous editions. But still, ranger is still a class that is looking for its niche. The power aspect of the game meant that at least the ranger could look like a spell less character but deep down, everyone always felt that powers were spell like abilities depending on the character type being played and the power used. But 4ed was much better than 2ed or 3ed but still inferior to 1ed as ranger in that edition were highly sought after.
5ed. A catastrophic design for the ranger. It barely took my old players three evening of playtesting to decided not to do one. We immediately removed the concentration mechanic from Hunter's mark and now, a few years later, the pet command is now a bonus action to make it attack, help or flee (or any other command). The command must not be reiterate every round as long as you want to pet to do something, it will keep doing it until the pet or its target is dead. On target's death, the pet will go on with its last command and might seek a random target if you don't direct your pet (generally, the pet will either go help you if you are in melee combat 50%, simply attack the nearest opponent 25% or just get back to your side 25%). These simple changes helped the ranger a lot, but still the class lacks a lot of the appeal that 1ed or 4ed had. And yet, we are using the UA ranger as the PHB version is utter BS. And Tasha's modifications are even worse than what I was dreading. WotC must hate the Ranger.
All these are from a DM's perspective. I almost never sit in the player's chair. So I consider myself pretty much impartial on these matters. This is what the cold hard fact are showing me. And it is not only in my groups that I see these effects. Even in other groups. In our Friday night D&D, many tables are now using the UA file ranger with my two mods. It works out well for them as well. They had high hopes for Tasha... guess it will be crushed hopes again.
