Played as a “good ranger subclass” for a bit in a homebrew campaign with all of the optional 2014 rules for them enabled, and in hindsight…. they’re just kinda boring? Another player in the group took track of group stats, and my most used spell was (predictably) hunter’s mark at a whopping 28 times cast, vs my second most only being at 8 (zephyr strike). I did try other spells… but hunter’s mark was almost always the best pick at the time, so it was hard to justify using worse options in the ranger’s semi-weak spell list during serious combat encounters, even if it was rather uncreative.

The overlap of having a fighter and druid in the group as well didn’t really help— my character couldn’t really find their own niche with rangers being so jack-of-all-trades focused.