Fun fact: Pointy Hat broke his brim in that opening scene.

Fun fact:  the old Irish god Lugh was described as a jack of all trades.  When he asked for admission into the ranks of the Tuatha de Dannan, he was told that all of them had great gifts, and he had to demonstrate his in order to join.  So he displayed his amazing swordsmanship and was told "your cousin Brigid can do that."  So he performed a song on his harp and was told "your cousin Aengus can do that."  So he used magic to call winds and surround himself with birds and was told "your cousin Oghma can do that."  Laughing, Lugh asked "but which of them can do all of these?"  The guards smiled, bowed, and allowed him into the Tuatha's castle.

Irish myth describes flexibility and multitasking as a superpower worthy of the gods.

I used to think "Ranger" came from the root "range" as in "distance".  It turns out the root word means "the range", as in "the land".  They were the keepers of the woods, with the oldest form of the root meaning "one who roams".  Not necessarily bow users, but the caretakers of the woods for the King who owned it.  They could disappear into the forest and are always watching you, but you can't see them.  Robin Hood would have been a ranger because of his connection to the Forest.  Tom Bombadil also is a ranger, in the truest sense.

I think a core problem with any ranger version is that its core fantasy does not translate into DND all that well. Rangers and Wizards in classic fantasy (primarily lord of the rings, but also true in the Witcher and many folktales involving any sort of wise sage or woodsman) are defined by having more experience and knowledge than other characters in the story. While you do see wizards casting spells in classic fantasy, they spend most of their time giving information and guidance to less experienced characters. Wizards know deep secrets about the world, ancient intrigues and fundamental truths. Rangers know monsters and their weaknesses, how to live off the land, and (imo most importantly) HAVE EXPERIENCE LIVING AND TRAVELLING ACROSS THE SETTING.
In DND, this core fantasy is challenging to pull off, at least how the game is set out in the PHB and DMG. How most people play DND is with the DM knowing everything about the world, and the players only know what they learn during play, plus limited knowledge from their backstory. It is hard to play a guy who knows things when you, the player, do not know things. How DND handles PC knowledge as a whole (with knowledge rolls) makes it very difficult to play someone consistently experienced in the world. In fact, DND is largely designed for the Players to know as little as possible, the reason metagaming is so hated in DND is that knowing all the information in a Monster statblock, trap or item description, or location guide, often trivialises encounters, or spoils the best parts of the feature. I have previously thought that Rangers are designed to shine in the much neglected Exploration Pillar, but exploration in DND is designed around discovery, and experimentation with monsters and dungeons, a guy who's core fantasy is knowing stuff can trivialise exploration.
The designers of DND moved the WIzard's core fantasy away from world-wise sage and towards more sheltered academics, while upping their firepower. There are certainly many versions of wizards in fantasy in line with DND's depiction (many inspired by DND), but If i was making Gandalf in DND, i'm not sure I would make him a wizard class. Rangers, like pointy hat says, don't really have a strong identity outside their worldly experience, especially with how DND prefers to keep Martials much more realistically powerful compared to Casters, with some exceptions like Barbarian and Monk.
I'm not sure how you would implement "guy who knows stuff" into DND without just letting some players metagame. I am a big fan of the Daggerheart Rogue subclass that lets the player create an NPC they know whenever they encounter a new city. You could possibly play something similar for Rangers, like allowing the Player to create a shortcut through an environment, with the excuse they have travelled through this region before. You could even have them be able to add features or weaknesses to monsters, although that may not fit with DND's rigid monster design.

actually, hunters usually do invest and speak towards environmental conservation. because they spend a lot of time outdoors, in nature, appreciating it, appreciating the animals, learning their habits and lifecycle, relying on nature for their survival or income or leisure, and have a keen interest in keeping habitats and species alive and healthy. for them to hunt.
licensed and legal hunting in africa for example, is largely funding anti-poaching and conservation efforts.

Gosh Antonio, I thought the gigantic million dollar Kickstarter was the thing you did this month

Kicking the hat as an intro is perhaps the best reference to that bit of trivia I've ever seen

he actually made me think Anima was just a class that I had missed somewhere

let’s add to the swarmkeeper love: I had a character that was a corpse (reborn in stat block) puppeted by a swarm of fairies, a fantasy version of weekend at bernies, or a crew of a massive ship. I still love them dearly

Because people assume they're archers, when they're actually wilderness survival guides. They get mad that they got "bamboosled" by other RPGs using the term to mean archers. It doesn't help that they often show them with a bow in the Player's Handbook.

some scholars say that pointy making food analogies in every video since the dawn of this channel was foreshadowing wild hearth

On the line about rangers being called rangers because ranged weapon: Yes, but also no? I always saw them as more of a park ranger vibe. Even when not being nature focused. I always thought that the bow and ranged weapons came as a side effect of that(because their melee can work pretty ok, especially with a decent weapon available to them), and then people just said "oh, rangers = ranged" and the game devs just went with it until it became their identity.  That might be a me thing only, but I always kinda liked the idea of them being a ranger not because they have a bow, but because they act as a sort of grounded every-man. Familiar, reliable, and versatile.

For anyone who doesn't know regarding C1 Matt literally gave Vex a necklace she could use like a poke ball to summon Trinket back to when he got to low hit points. That's how far they had to go to make Beast Master playable.

Also makes the Daggerheart Beast Bound subclass make a lot of sense- the beast can only take stress, not actual damage and when it marks it's last stress, it leaves the combat or hides*. Because *the whole point of the fantasy is your beast- and just  replacing it with another random bear/wolf/gazelle/three toed sloth/what have you goes against the player fantasy.

You could be a honey colored Plasmoid, carying his swarms queen bee petrified in amber within his body.

The initial reason rangers were in Dungeons and Dragons to begin with was they were the scouts and guides that lead party members across the world map and in local areas. Since later editions moved away from long boring travel to get straight to the dungeon. We don't need guides and hunters anymore. Anyone can wield a bow. Specific skill proficiencies uninique to rangers were stripped down to generic skills stats. And druids can summon and become their own animals. Making the game more streamline made some classes feel practically obsolete.

Holy shit we're eating GOOD this week! So excited for Wild Hearth and love to see a video about my favorite class!

1.0 Beastmaster WITH a Necromancer is funny just slowly turning your friends beloved pets into your zombie army.

9:50 I suspect this is exactly why I love playing rangers. I’m not super committed to minmaxing but I’m always very conscious of party synergy, so I really like being able to fill in for whatever the party needs.

The thing about Rangers is that their whole concept is "reliability". That's it.
They are reliable in combat, outside of combat, in the wilderness, and in the cities (even they don't like it there).

Honestly?
The thing that fails them is that they are VERY underwhelming in combat, and to me, I think the solution would just be that they are so reliable in combat that their chances to miss attacks are ver low.
They should eventually just get something like "Reliable Talent" for their attacks, so that the average roll that they pull off with a proficient weapon is so good they don't even have to roll, and/or they have increased chances of critting.

Something so simple as this would be effective without being overpowered, because, again, they are a mix of fighter/rogue/druid.
So having that increased reliability in combat becomes more exciting and fun without breaking the game.
They still only have 2 attacks per turn, they can't sneak attack, and they can't cast high level magic.

This way most of the time a Ranger is hitting enemies almost without needing to roll, but still rolling so they can crit.
The archetypical ranger you think of when you hear "ranger", isn't Aragorn, it's Legolas.
And doesn't what I described "feel" like Legolas?

32:35 I feel like the Hollow Warden is Wizards pointing vaguely at Cryptids, Deep Forest Horror, Appalachian/Old Forrest Horror, and saying yeah that's your class. Then not appreciating more effort is needed to translate it. There's some sauce here, I grew up in the Carolinas (Southern USA) and Im familiar with the flavor I think they want for Hollow Warden, there's also potential to lean into an Old Yokai/Oni Aesthetic too