Anet has already changed this on many professions, only engi has not yet been modified if I'm not mistaken Im all for the idea to make elite specs have a tradeoff for being an elite spec. If a 20% stat reduction of pets is a good one is very debatable, but at least the intention is good. I dont know that much about other classes, but I wonder what the tradeoffs for soulbeast, firebrand, spellbreaker, mirage, etc. are. Pets are very instrumental for druid and a 20% stat nerf is pretty significant, but druid got nothing in return. Soulbeast currently has no tradeoff. Spellbreaker only has 2 adrenaline bars total (instead of 3), and only gets tier 1 burst skills Ie the weakest one. Firebrand gets Tomes with significantly longer CDs in exchange for low CD instant cast abilities on their F1-F3 (I’d argue that they should also lost the passives, but that’s me), and Mirage loses the mobility from a normal dodge skill in exchange for a stationary dodge that can be done at all times. So all of the ones you listed (minus Soulbeast) have a form of tradeoff. Whether it’s strong enough to warrant what they get in exchange is debatable. But I’d argue that since core warrior and core guardian are still things those professions definitely give up something. Mirage imo probably needs to get some unique shatters like chrono, and SB needs a trade off (probably gonna be just one pet) The idea of tradeoff is to counter the add up of mechanics not adding an arbitrary weakness to an otherwise balanced spec, look at heralds ; all necro and ele elites.Berseker and Scrapper received trade off because they could use both their main mechanic and the elite one at the same time ( berseker was able to use normal burst + zerk burst before the changes and scrapper had still access to all F+ skills ). Ranger effectively lose access to pet mechanics while in beastmode, a tradeoff idea would be valid if the ranger could go mergeform and still use the pet, given how top rangers use core variant ( and personally I use it also ) , it's safe to say that your statement is blatantly wrong , soulbeast is situational and not a must have like holo or mirage. Druid received tradeoff because while using astral form he could still use his pets....if you still insist on your idea of tradeoff for soulbeast then I would expect to see a tradeoff for every single elite traitline in game ...including the herald traitline that the devs stated not requiring a tradeoff Every elite spec SHOULD have a trade off, and the devs think so too which is why they’ve said that and have been adding them into specs that don’t have them. All necro elites have a trade off of their shroud completely changing, scourge for example has a pitifully low amount of survivability compared to either of the other specs because it has an absolute LACK of a shroud in exchange for powerful offense and support via shades. And ele has a trade off with weaver, it has a drawback of having a CD on every attunement when you swap (normal ele and tempest can power swap through all their attunements if they want), and also requires two swaps to get a full attunement. And Soulbeast May lose access to their class mechanic in beast mode in a traditional sense, but they still gain all the benefits their pet would be giving them, both the skills and the buffs. It would be like saying the original berserker had a trade off because they couldn’t use their normal burst skills while they were in their primal rage, which as we can all see was not determined to be an actual trade off. They won't just remove our 2nd pet...it wouldn't even be a ranger anymore, the devs will never do that...so pointless to even askI would 100% trade both pets for a Druid spec line that was built well.