Professor Sprout.1560

I'd say that the asura are very lore-friendly when it comes to the class (I may be biased, since my ranger is one). The Druid traitline and NPC druids are products of the Maguuma Jungle, and the asura are a dominant playable race in that region. The setting literature that covers how the asura view the other playable races states that "Although the Asura have grown to appreciate the skills and talents of other races, often using them in experiments or on dangerous missions, they still hold fast to their organized society... The Asura believe they are destined to rule the larger, less intelligent races of the world. They see humans, especially, as quite good for heavy lifting, and in general terms, view other races as merely pawns to be manipulated in Asuran schemes." If that is how they view the non-genius humanoid races, it's not illogical for an asura to also view an animal companion as having similar utility. There's unfinished in-house fanfic of an asuran ranger, albeit a less egotistical one than most, that revolves heavily around the relationship between pet and master. A prominent NPC in one of the first Asuran story missions also has a pet; in that case both are used for comic effect. And perhaps most helpfully of all when coming up with the backstory for your PC, there are multiple examples in the game's backstory of asuran settlements being destroyed by sudden cataclysms (e.g. the pre-surface cities that were destroyed by the imaginatively-named Destroyers; the destruction of Rata Novus by the Chak; whatever happened in the events covered by the Uncategorized fractal, if those events qualify as real; the asura who were "expelled or killed" by Palawa "I'm an overused meme" Joko from the desert during the events of the PoF backstory; and probably other examples as well). A survivor of any of these events, forced to survive in wilderness conditions with limited equipment but the instinctive know-how to tame lesser intellects and craft basic technologies? They would have the perfect backstory to take up the ranger class!

@OP Nice breakdown, I agree with all of it. After attempting unsuccessfully to make Renegade work for a while I gave Scourge a try instead. The difference between them is light and day: it's clear what each element of that class wants to do and the implementations of these elements leave little to be desired. Several of the few imperfect elements of that class have also already received some attention, e.g. the addition of lifeforce gain to torch 4, the stability added to Trail of Anguish or the shade target nerf. As a result I have little interest in playing the Renegade again in the new expansion, and at this point I feel that I've had my say when it comes to this spec. If any devs wanted to swing by here and discuss potential revisions to the class I'd gladly contribute, but in the absence of either revisions or devs I think the politest thing for me to do at this point is to leave the Renegade to those who do enjoy it.