I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I disagree but I appreciate your perspective.
It was fun, don’t get me wrong. But fun like using all the cheat codes fun.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
I am not sure what you mean?
They do not get more than one extra attack...unless you are counting their subclass damage?
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
i assume you mean bonus action stuff via feats or dual wielding. if that were the case the fighter would get one more as well.
There are many ways Rangers could be improved, and one way it's impossible to cover briefly would be improving their shoddy spell list. Tasha's already put some effort into that. It's tempting to give them a non-spell way to consume their slots, like how Paladins can smite, but I'm not convinced that's better than just giving them better spells. For example, if Hail of Thorns worked like Divine Smite - i.e. not concentration, and you can pop it after hitting - it would be much better at earning its keep, as it would consume spell slots much more efficiently, and not collide with genuine concentration spells. The Ranger spell list really doesn't feel like it was designed around how Rangers work, knowing very few spells, powering them with very few spell slots, and usually being unable to combine spellcasting with Extra Attack, meaning they have to choose between two attacks or a spell most of the time.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
I am not sure what you mean?
They do not get more than one extra attack...unless you are counting their subclass damage?
They get two. Some get a situational third. BM get more.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
i assume you mean bonus action stuff via feats or dual wielding. if that were the case the fighter would get one more as well.
No. I'm talking about their subclass features. The only Ranger not to get a third attack is the Swarmkeeper.
-Hunters get Horde Breaker at 3rd-level, which is a third attack if multitargeting. Then they get Multiattack at 11th, which has the potential to give them the most attacks out of any martial, depending on the amount of targets in range.
-PHB Beast Masters get three attacks by 11th-level (one from you; two from the beast) and includes the beast's riders. Depending on how you interpret the Tasha Beast Master's rules, they would get either three or four attacks, plus again, the beast's riders.
-Gloomstalkers get three attacks in the first round of combat (plus a D8) and can reroll a miss at 11th (which is huge and insanely understated by the community.)
-Horizon Walkers get three attacks if multitargeting at 11th and also get access to Haste. And then they also get teleportation riders in addition.
-Monster Slayers get a reaction attack at 15th that lets them auto-succeed on save effects they're the target of. By 15th, save effects are extremely common and effectively gives them a third attack per round.
-Fey Wanderers get a third attack from their Summoned Fey at minimum. They can turn it into four attacks if they upcast Summon Fey (two from you; two from the Fey,) and they don't even need to concentrate on it, so they can stack that with Hunter's Mark or Guardian of Nature or something. This in addition to the Fey's riders.
-Drakewardens get two attacks from them plus one from their drake, for a total of three attacks.
None of these are the basic "Extra Attack...again" that the Fighter gets, but it is effectively a third attack (albeit more conditional) with additional riders.
A lot of people don't seem to realize that a lot of the Ranger's power and scaling comes from the subclass. Admittedly, this is the opposite of how most classes work in 5e. But the point remains that by Tier 3, Fighters get three attacks, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and most Rangers get three attacks + riders + their 3rd level dpr dice...and that's not even touching their spellcasting. Unlike the Paladin and the Fighter, the Ranger's base chassis alone doesn't tell you everything about said class' power.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
i assume you mean bonus action stuff via feats or dual wielding. if that were the case the fighter would get one more as well.
No. I'm talking about their subclass features. The only Ranger not to get a third attack is the Swarmkeeper.
-Hunters get Horde Breaker at 3rd-level, which is a third attack if multitargeting. Then they get Multiattack at 11th, which has the potential to give them the most attacks out of any martial, depending on the amount of targets in range.
-PHB Beast Masters get three attacks by 11th-level (one from you; two from the beast) and includes the beast's riders. Depending on how you interpret the Tasha Beast Master's rules, they would get either three or four attacks, plus again, the beast's riders.
-Gloomstalkers get three attacks in the first round of combat (plus a D8) and can reroll a miss at 11th (which is huge and insanely understated by the community.)
-Horizon Walkers get three attacks if multitargeting at 11th and also get access to Haste. And then they also get teleportation riders in addition.
-Monster Slayers get a reaction attack at 15th that lets them auto-succeed on save effects they're the target of. By 15th, save effects are extremely common and effectively gives them a third attack per round.
-Fey Wanderers get a third attack from their Summoned Fey at minimum. They can turn it into four attacks if they upcast Summon Fey (two from you; two from the Fey,) and they don't even need to concentrate on it, so they can stack that with Hunter's Mark or Guardian of Nature or something. This in addition to the Fey's riders.
-Drakewardens get two attacks from them plus one from their drake, for a total of three attacks.
None of these are the basic "Extra Attack...again" that the Fighter gets, but it is effectively a third attack (albeit more conditional) with additional riders.
A lot of people don't seem to realize that a lot of the Ranger's power and scaling comes from the subclass. Admittedly, this is the opposite of how most classes work in 5e. But the point remains that by Tier 3, Fighters get three attacks, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and most Rangers get three attacks + riders + their 3rd level dpr dice...and that's not even touching their spellcasting. Unlike the Paladin and the Fighter, the Ranger's base chassis alone doesn't tell you everything about said class' power.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
i assume you mean bonus action stuff via feats or dual wielding. if that were the case the fighter would get one more as well.
No. I'm talking about their subclass features. The only Ranger not to get a third attack is the Swarmkeeper.
-Hunters get Horde Breaker at 3rd-level, which is a third attack if multitargeting. Then they get Multiattack at 11th, which has the potential to give them the most attacks out of any martial, depending on the amount of targets in range.
-PHB Beast Masters get three attacks by 11th-level (one from you; two from the beast) and includes the beast's riders. Depending on how you interpret the Tasha Beast Master's rules, they would get either three or four attacks, plus again, the beast's riders.
-Gloomstalkers get three attacks in the first round of combat (plus a D8) and can reroll a miss at 11th (which is huge and insanely understated by the community.)
-Horizon Walkers get three attacks if multitargeting at 11th and also get access to Haste. And then they also get teleportation riders in addition.
-Monster Slayers get a reaction attack at 15th that lets them auto-succeed on save effects they're the target of. By 15th, save effects are extremely common and effectively gives them a third attack per round.
-Fey Wanderers get a third attack from their Summoned Fey at minimum. They can turn it into four attacks if they upcast Summon Fey (two from you; two from the Fey,) and they don't even need to concentrate on it, so they can stack that with Hunter's Mark or Guardian of Nature or something. This in addition to the Fey's riders.
-Drakewardens get two attacks from them plus one from their drake, for a total of three attacks.
None of these are the basic "Extra Attack...again" that the Fighter gets, but it is effectively a third attack (albeit more conditional) with additional riders.
A lot of people don't seem to realize that a lot of the Ranger's power and scaling comes from the subclass. Admittedly, this is the opposite of how most classes work in 5e. But the point remains that by Tier 3, Fighters get three attacks, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and most Rangers get three attacks + riders + their 3rd level dpr dice...and that's not even touching their spellcasting. Unlike the Paladin and the Fighter, the Ranger's base chassis alone doesn't tell you everything about said class' power.
Well said.
Subclass stuff makes sense yeah as they get a way to either do damage or attack.
I agree a lot of their power comes from subclass. Its why the beastmaster changes were so important.
I will also add this: By tiers 3 & 4, the conditions for the 'conditional' third attacks are extremely easy to come across.
There is not a singular monster in 5th-edition (that isn't homebrew) that can pose a threat to a full party of 11-15th level PC's by itself. If the DM wants to actually challenge the players, that baddie has to have friends. So long as there are two enemies on the battlefield, the Hunter can proc Horde Breaker and Multiattack. If there are at least three, the Horizon Walker is proccing the third attack from Distant Strikes. But even if there are just two, the teleportation riders are important and the H-Walker still has Haste as a backup. So the Hunter and the H. Walker will be making a minimum three attacks pretty consistently at those levels.
As stated briefly before, by 15th-level and above, baddies will be forcing save effects on the party. They need those big hits to actually threaten a group of 15th-level PC's. If they are not forcing those save effects because they're afraid of the Monster Slayer's retaliation, then the DM has just lowered the encounter's CR significantly. Besides, the risk/reward still favors using the those big save effects. Especially if they can be procced as Legendary Actions. All this to say that the M. Slayer will almost certainly be making their reaction attack at that level. Bonus points if you pair it with the Mage Slayer feat for another way to guarantee you get a reaction attack that round.
Finally, there's the Gloomstalker who only gets their third attack in the first round. No way around that, but the first round is by far the most important round, and that matters. A Paladin doesn't overtake the G. Stalker's overall damage until round three (by which point most encounters are coming to an end) unless they Smite. But Smite costs resources. So that means the Paladin will go into the next encounter weaker than before while the G. Stalker hasn't used up any of their own resources. And none of that is counting potentially missing their attacks, which G. Stalker has to worry much less about.
Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, and Drakewarden third attacks are not conditional at all. Swarmkeepers fall off in terms of DPR at 11th, but they are a subclass so focused on playing chess with the battlefield that, frankly, focusing on pure damage is the worst thing they could be doing anyway.
I will also add this: By tiers 3 & 4, the conditions for the 'conditional' third attacks are extremely easy to come across.
There is not a singular monster in 5th-edition (that isn't homebrew) that can pose a threat to a full party of 11-15th level PC's by itself. If the DM wants to actually challenge the players, that baddie has to have friends. So long as there are two enemies on the battlefield, the Hunter can proc Horde Breaker and Multiattack. If there are at least three, the Horizon Walker is proccing the third attack from Distant Strikes. But even if there are just two, the teleportation riders are important and the H-Walker still has Haste as a backup. So the Hunter and the H. Walker will be making a minimum three attacks pretty consistently at those levels.
As stated briefly before, by 15th-level and above, baddies will be forcing save effects on the party. They need those big hits to actually threaten a group of 15th-level PC's. If they are not forcing those save effects because they're afraid of the Monster Slayer's retaliation, then the DM has just lowered the encounter's CR significantly. Besides, the risk/reward still favors using the those big save effects. Especially if they can be procced as Legendary Actions. All this to say that the M. Slayer will almost certainly be making their reaction attack at that level. Bonus points if you pair it with the Mage Slayer feat for another way to guarantee you get a reaction attack that round.
Finally, there's the Gloomstalker who only gets their third attack in the first round. No way around that, but the first round is by far the most important round, and that matters. A Paladin doesn't overtake the G. Stalker's overall damage until round three (by which point most encounters are coming to an end) unless they Smite. But Smite costs resources. So that means the Paladin will go into the next encounter weaker than before while the G. Stalker hasn't used up any of their own resources. And none of that is counting potentially missing their attacks, which G. Stalker has to worry much less about.
Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, and Drakewarden third attacks are not conditional at all. Swarmkeepers fall off in terms of DPR at 11th, but they are a subclass so focused on playing chess with the battlefield that, frankly, focusing on pure damage is the worst thing they could be doing anyway.
I'm not at all familiar with the Drakewarden, but putting it aside, I'll point out that the FW "third attack" you're referring to is extremely resource-expensive, and it seems odd to leave that out of your analysis given that you covered it with Paladins (all Rangers can summon the FW pet, and it costs a spell slot - the FW simply gets 1 bonus slotless cast per day, and can cast the spell with duration 1 minute instead of 1 hour concentration). The Fey Wanderer and Beast Master "third attacks" being from a pet with riders is also significant from several perspectives, like how any ability they have adding damage to their own strikes (as FWs have) won't apply to the pet's strikes, and likewise, the pet's riders won't generally apply to their own strikes (a PHB Beast Master can milk their poisonous companion unless stopped by homebrew, which changes the calculation considerably).
Also worthy of consideration is that - as the DMG explicitly acknowledges - damage against a single target is better than damage against multiple (WOTC's guidance is on page 184; like much of the DMG it's not very verbose, but roughly speaking, 3.5 damage against 2 targets is considered equivalent to 5.5 against one, meaning if you could do 11 damage to one target but instead are forced to split it into 5.5 against two, you're underpowered - the WOTC-assumed equivalent DPR would be 7 per attack against two targets). It's always better against a horde of any size to be able to focus fire down members until they die - being forced to spread your damage around is a nerf.
I guess my point is that measuring DPR is messy and complicated, and it's easy to accidentally overlook significant factors.
I will also add this: By tiers 3 & 4, the conditions for the 'conditional' third attacks are extremely easy to come across.
There is not a singular monster in 5th-edition (that isn't homebrew) that can pose a threat to a full party of 11-15th level PC's by itself. If the DM wants to actually challenge the players, that baddie has to have friends. So long as there are two enemies on the battlefield, the Hunter can proc Horde Breaker and Multiattack. If there are at least three, the Horizon Walker is proccing the third attack from Distant Strikes. But even if there are just two, the teleportation riders are important and the H-Walker still has Haste as a backup. So the Hunter and the H. Walker will be making a minimum three attacks pretty consistently at those levels.
As stated briefly before, by 15th-level and above, baddies will be forcing save effects on the party. They need those big hits to actually threaten a group of 15th-level PC's. If they are not forcing those save effects because they're afraid of the Monster Slayer's retaliation, then the DM has just lowered the encounter's CR significantly. Besides, the risk/reward still favors using the those big save effects. Especially if they can be procced as Legendary Actions. All this to say that the M. Slayer will almost certainly be making their reaction attack at that level. Bonus points if you pair it with the Mage Slayer feat for another way to guarantee you get a reaction attack that round.
Finally, there's the Gloomstalker who only gets their third attack in the first round. No way around that, but the first round is by far the most important round, and that matters. A Paladin doesn't overtake the G. Stalker's overall damage until round three (by which point most encounters are coming to an end) unless they Smite. But Smite costs resources. So that means the Paladin will go into the next encounter weaker than before while the G. Stalker hasn't used up any of their own resources. And none of that is counting potentially missing their attacks, which G. Stalker has to worry much less about.
Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, and Drakewarden third attacks are not conditional at all. Swarmkeepers fall off in terms of DPR at 11th, but they are a subclass so focused on playing chess with the battlefield that, frankly, focusing on pure damage is the worst thing they could be doing anyway.
I'm not at all familiar with the Drakewarden, but putting it aside, I'll point out that the FW "third attack" you're referring to is extremely resource-expensive, and it seems odd to leave that out of your analysis given that you covered it with Paladins (all Rangers can summon the FW pet, and it costs a spell slot - the FW simply gets 1 bonus slotless cast per day, and can cast the spell with duration 1 minute instead of 1 hour concentration). The Fey Wanderer and Beast Master "third attacks" being from a pet with riders is also significant from several perspectives, like how any ability they have adding damage to their own strikes (as FWs have) won't apply to the pet's strikes, and likewise, the pet's riders won't generally apply to their own strikes (a PHB Beast Master can milk their poisonous companion unless stopped by homebrew, which changes the calculation considerably).
Also worthy of consideration is that - as the DMG explicitly acknowledges - damage against a single target is better than damage against multiple (WOTC's guidance is on page 184; like much of the DMG it's not very verbose, but roughly speaking, 3.5 damage against 2 targets is considered equivalent to 5.5 against one, meaning if you could do 11 damage to one target but instead are forced to split it into 5.5 against two, you're underpowered - the WOTC-assumed equivalent DPR would be 7 per attack against two targets). It's always better against a horde of any size to be able to focus fire down members until they die - being forced to spread your damage around is a nerf.
I guess my point is that measuring DPR is messy and complicated, and it's easy to accidentally overlook significant factors.
That is a fair point.....the attack is against a separate creature its value does drop a bit as action economy dictates that killing/incapacitating is the best way to win a fight.
The Summon Fey is not that resource expensive. You can cast it once without expending a spell slot, and you can choose to concentrate on it and make it last a whole hour. And every casting of it after that gives you the choice of making it last an hour (with concentration) or a whole encounter (without concentration.) This means you get more out of one spell slot than a Paladin does since, while their hit is bigger (assuming a 3rd-level Smite,) it doesn't carry over to the next turn, let alone the next round, let alone the whole encounter, let alone multiple encounters.
I was not attempting to measure DPR with my post. I was simply pointing out that Rangers get more than two attacks as they level up. All I was trying to point out is that, despite not getting another feature called "Extra Attack" past level 5, they are still making three attacks in their own ways.
As for the pet classes, I'd argue that the damage a pet does is significantly less than what the Ranger will do, but the riders make up the difference. A Fighter can get three big hits; a Beast Master gan get one big hit, two medium hits, and a knockdown/grapple/poison, etc.
The Summon Fey is not that resource expensive. You can cast it once without expending a spell slot, and you can choose to concentrate on it and make it last a whole hour. And every casting of it after that gives you the choice of making it last an hour (with concentration) or a whole encounter (without concentration.) This means you get more out of one spell slot than a Paladin does since, while their hit is bigger (assuming a 3rd-level Smite,) it doesn't carry over to the next turn, let alone the next round, let alone the whole encounter, let alone multiple encounters.
I was not attempting to measure DPR with my post. I was simply pointing out that Rangers get more than two attacks as they level up. All I was trying to point out is that, despite not getting another feature called "Extra Attack" past level 5, they are still making three attacks in their own ways.
As for the pet classes, I'd argue that the damage a pet does is significantly less than what the Ranger will do, but the riders make up the difference. A Fighter can get three big hits; a Beast Master gan get one big hits, two medium hits, and a knockdown/grapple/poison, etc.
My only qualm with that is that ranger not having CON save prof and in this case a melee focused build will likely drop CON in fights unless a feat is taken to compensate. Which is a valid strategy with this build.
Fair enough, but I will say that, unlike Paladins, Rangers don't have to focus on melee to do good work.
And even if they do, they're likely a lot more effective making use of hit-and-run tactics, as opposed to tanks that plant themselves in the frontlines and take hits. I think the Mobile feat is very valuable for melee Rangers. With that said, a simple War Caster or Resilient (Con) instead can let them do their job in the frontlines without having to dip out. Tasha's Deft Explorer giving them more movement and a climb/swim speed, along with Land's Stride letting them ignore difficult terrain, makes them a very mobile class. Pair with a reach weapon and you can get in and out without worrying about opportunity attacks.
Moving away from the Fey Wanderer specifically and onto more general Rangers, spells like Zephyr Strike and the Flame Stride UA, as well as the Hunter's Escape the Horde feature, seem to encourage this kind of tactic on melee Rangers.
I’ve also been allowed to play a ranger as a prepared caster one time. It is too much. Too good. Encroachment on the druid, just as a third attack would a fighter, and always on expertise would a rogue.
I disagree but I appreciate your perspective.
🥰
It was fun, don’t get me wrong. But fun like using all the cheat codes fun.
Rangers already get a third attack tho.
I am not sure what you mean?
They do not get more than one extra attack...unless you are counting their subclass damage?
i assume you mean bonus action stuff via feats or dual wielding. if that were the case the fighter would get one more as well.
There are many ways Rangers could be improved, and one way it's impossible to cover briefly would be improving their shoddy spell list. Tasha's already put some effort into that. It's tempting to give them a non-spell way to consume their slots, like how Paladins can smite, but I'm not convinced that's better than just giving them better spells. For example, if Hail of Thorns worked like Divine Smite - i.e. not concentration, and you can pop it after hitting - it would be much better at earning its keep, as it would consume spell slots much more efficiently, and not collide with genuine concentration spells. The Ranger spell list really doesn't feel like it was designed around how Rangers work, knowing very few spells, powering them with very few spell slots, and usually being unable to combine spellcasting with Extra Attack, meaning they have to choose between two attacks or a spell most of the time.
They get two. Some get a situational third. BM get more.
No. I'm talking about their subclass features. The only Ranger not to get a third attack is the Swarmkeeper.
-Hunters get Horde Breaker at 3rd-level, which is a third attack if multitargeting. Then they get Multiattack at 11th, which has the potential to give them the most attacks out of any martial, depending on the amount of targets in range.
-PHB Beast Masters get three attacks by 11th-level (one from you; two from the beast) and includes the beast's riders. Depending on how you interpret the Tasha Beast Master's rules, they would get either three or four attacks, plus again, the beast's riders.
-Gloomstalkers get three attacks in the first round of combat (plus a D8) and can reroll a miss at 11th (which is huge and insanely understated by the community.)
-Horizon Walkers get three attacks if multitargeting at 11th and also get access to Haste. And then they also get teleportation riders in addition.
-Monster Slayers get a reaction attack at 15th that lets them auto-succeed on save effects they're the target of. By 15th, save effects are extremely common and effectively gives them a third attack per round.
-Fey Wanderers get a third attack from their Summoned Fey at minimum. They can turn it into four attacks if they upcast Summon Fey (two from you; two from the Fey,) and they don't even need to concentrate on it, so they can stack that with Hunter's Mark or Guardian of Nature or something. This in addition to the Fey's riders.
-Drakewardens get two attacks from them plus one from their drake, for a total of three attacks.
None of these are the basic "Extra Attack...again" that the Fighter gets, but it is effectively a third attack (albeit more conditional) with additional riders.
A lot of people don't seem to realize that a lot of the Ranger's power and scaling comes from the subclass. Admittedly, this is the opposite of how most classes work in 5e. But the point remains that by Tier 3, Fighters get three attacks, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and most Rangers get three attacks + riders + their 3rd level dpr dice...and that's not even touching their spellcasting. Unlike the Paladin and the Fighter, the Ranger's base chassis alone doesn't tell you everything about said class' power.
Well said.
Subclass stuff makes sense yeah as they get a way to either do damage or attack.
I agree a lot of their power comes from subclass. Its why the beastmaster changes were so important.
The Tasha’s BM is important for the increase in power of the game due to Tasha’s. It had to be offered by the book to solve an issue the book created.
The BM fits just fine with the core rules and XGtE.
I will also add this: By tiers 3 & 4, the conditions for the 'conditional' third attacks are extremely easy to come across.
There is not a singular monster in 5th-edition (that isn't homebrew) that can pose a threat to a full party of 11-15th level PC's by itself. If the DM wants to actually challenge the players, that baddie has to have friends. So long as there are two enemies on the battlefield, the Hunter can proc Horde Breaker and Multiattack. If there are at least three, the Horizon Walker is proccing the third attack from Distant Strikes. But even if there are just two, the teleportation riders are important and the H-Walker still has Haste as a backup. So the Hunter and the H. Walker will be making a minimum three attacks pretty consistently at those levels.
As stated briefly before, by 15th-level and above, baddies will be forcing save effects on the party. They need those big hits to actually threaten a group of 15th-level PC's. If they are not forcing those save effects because they're afraid of the Monster Slayer's retaliation, then the DM has just lowered the encounter's CR significantly. Besides, the risk/reward still favors using the those big save effects. Especially if they can be procced as Legendary Actions. All this to say that the M. Slayer will almost certainly be making their reaction attack at that level. Bonus points if you pair it with the Mage Slayer feat for another way to guarantee you get a reaction attack that round.
Finally, there's the Gloomstalker who only gets their third attack in the first round. No way around that, but the first round is by far the most important round, and that matters. A Paladin doesn't overtake the G. Stalker's overall damage until round three (by which point most encounters are coming to an end) unless they Smite. But Smite costs resources. So that means the Paladin will go into the next encounter weaker than before while the G. Stalker hasn't used up any of their own resources. And none of that is counting potentially missing their attacks, which G. Stalker has to worry much less about.
Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, and Drakewarden third attacks are not conditional at all. Swarmkeepers fall off in terms of DPR at 11th, but they are a subclass so focused on playing chess with the battlefield that, frankly, focusing on pure damage is the worst thing they could be doing anyway.
Disagree with PHB BM simply due to the protracted time it took to get a beast back....a full day to replace a subclass is terrible design.
I'm not at all familiar with the Drakewarden, but putting it aside, I'll point out that the FW "third attack" you're referring to is extremely resource-expensive, and it seems odd to leave that out of your analysis given that you covered it with Paladins (all Rangers can summon the FW pet, and it costs a spell slot - the FW simply gets 1 bonus slotless cast per day, and can cast the spell with duration 1 minute instead of 1 hour concentration). The Fey Wanderer and Beast Master "third attacks" being from a pet with riders is also significant from several perspectives, like how any ability they have adding damage to their own strikes (as FWs have) won't apply to the pet's strikes, and likewise, the pet's riders won't generally apply to their own strikes (a PHB Beast Master can milk their poisonous companion unless stopped by homebrew, which changes the calculation considerably).
Also worthy of consideration is that - as the DMG explicitly acknowledges - damage against a single target is better than damage against multiple (WOTC's guidance is on page 184; like much of the DMG it's not very verbose, but roughly speaking, 3.5 damage against 2 targets is considered equivalent to 5.5 against one, meaning if you could do 11 damage to one target but instead are forced to split it into 5.5 against two, you're underpowered - the WOTC-assumed equivalent DPR would be 7 per attack against two targets). It's always better against a horde of any size to be able to focus fire down members until they die - being forced to spread your damage around is a nerf.
I guess my point is that measuring DPR is messy and complicated, and it's easy to accidentally overlook significant factors.
That is a fair point.....the attack is against a separate creature its value does drop a bit as action economy dictates that killing/incapacitating is the best way to win a fight.
The Summon Fey is not that resource expensive. You can cast it once without expending a spell slot, and you can choose to concentrate on it and make it last a whole hour. And every casting of it after that gives you the choice of making it last an hour (with concentration) or a whole encounter (without concentration.) This means you get more out of one spell slot than a Paladin does since, while their hit is bigger (assuming a 3rd-level Smite,) it doesn't carry over to the next turn, let alone the next round, let alone the whole encounter, let alone multiple encounters.
I was not attempting to measure DPR with my post. I was simply pointing out that Rangers get more than two attacks as they level up. All I was trying to point out is that, despite not getting another feature called "Extra Attack" past level 5, they are still making three attacks in their own ways.
As for the pet classes, I'd argue that the damage a pet does is significantly less than what the Ranger will do, but the riders make up the difference. A Fighter can get three big hits; a Beast Master gan get one big hit, two medium hits, and a knockdown/grapple/poison, etc.
My only qualm with that is that ranger not having CON save prof and in this case a melee focused build will likely drop CON in fights unless a feat is taken to compensate. Which is a valid strategy with this build.
Fair enough, but I will say that, unlike Paladins, Rangers don't have to focus on melee to do good work.
And even if they do, they're likely a lot more effective making use of hit-and-run tactics, as opposed to tanks that plant themselves in the frontlines and take hits. I think the Mobile feat is very valuable for melee Rangers. With that said, a simple War Caster or Resilient (Con) instead can let them do their job in the frontlines without having to dip out. Tasha's Deft Explorer giving them more movement and a climb/swim speed, along with Land's Stride letting them ignore difficult terrain, makes them a very mobile class. Pair with a reach weapon and you can get in and out without worrying about opportunity attacks.
Moving away from the Fey Wanderer specifically and onto more general Rangers, spells like Zephyr Strike and the Flame Stride UA, as well as the Hunter's Escape the Horde feature, seem to encourage this kind of tactic on melee Rangers.