"the best"? It depends what you want to do with it. There's no one best pet that does everything. And, again, THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS CHANGE. As much as people want to harp about losing “versatility” and “playing with multiple different pets”, the reality is that people only used a small handful of pets in the first place. PvE dps builds had their dedicated pet (which you didn’t even want to merge out of), WvW almost always used smokescale and snow owl, Siamoth boonbeast build, etc. Even Druid, who still has their pet, only ever actually uses half a dozen of them. That's fine, then. Make the necessary changes in those modes but leave it alone in open world where such things hardly matter. Anet does not balance the game around open worldAgreed. If only they would split, though....