How big of a chuck does spellcasting make of the Rangers power?

[CyberThread]

Just about how big of a chunk of power and identity, does spellcasting make up for a ranger?

[iTreeby]

so, I think the main reason to take ranger is for the spells. well really, for Hunter's Mark because, advantage on Wis Checks vrs. the target seems really cool for non-combat purposes and the tracking feature makes it the poor man's locate creature. I haven't really looked past the second level ranger spells because i'm only going to take it for a max of five levels or so in a rogue build but, the low level spells are really cool. PASS WITHOUT TRACE.

[silveralen]

Alot honestly.

Even his basic martial competency comes from buff spells (swift quiver and hunters mark) or some of the novas. Without those, he struggles to remain relevant in a fight.

[Easy_Lee]

Rangers require their spell-casting to bring them back on level with other martials. Spells like swiftquiver enable rangers to keep up (reasonably well, anyway). And the volley line of spells grants rangers good AoE options. Hunter's mark is a big deal when you're trying to deal competitive damage.

The problem is that these things consume spell-slots and often require concentration. That means rangers run out of crap they can do much sooner than other "striker" type classes, who rely on weapon damage. It also means that rangers are always worrying about what spell they should use in a given situation.

Without casting, the ranger features by themselves are not reason enough to pick a ranger (unless you do something like my Breaking BM build). There are some cool role-play spells in there, like speaking with animals, but most of it is just spells to help you compete for damage. Rangers accept madness and fewer ATI's to still fall far behind fighters for DPR and casters for AoE. And the "DPR + AoE + Utility" niche is better filled by blade-pact warlocks and even elemental monks, who both get their resources back on a short rest instead of a long.

So it's hard to justify playing a ranger right now. Their biggest boon, spell-casting, is also the thing holding them back the most. If they didn't have spell-casting, chances are they would have more "always on" class features to make up for it. Those class features could put them on-level with similar characters.

I'm hopeful we get an official, magic-less variant.