The main problem is there is no counter to pets. I can hard counter a thursar with a skeletal mage. in an open field the thursar would have 0 chance if winning without pet or ally assistance. You can counter that skeletal mage with a Veela foot fighter who will eventually catch that mage with superior stamina if there is no water.
A tamer (or ritualist) with mounted archery and mage does not have a counter and its the most common build right now. Most are also running Elfs so they are dex mages if they ever need to be off mount.
How many primary skill/action skill points exist to be invested in pet related skills? Uh ok lets count: Beast mastery, CC, Advanced CC, Taming, Domination, Ritualism, Herding, Animal Care. Did I miss anything?
How many primary skill/action skill points can I invest on my Alvarin footy to kill pets or defend against pets with? 0. Absolutely 0. Zoology under professions, but that skill also buffs Pet masters.
There should be 300 primary skill I can buy to turn a footy into PETDOZER. But there's not? Why? Why are pet masters exempt from build counters?
The problem with this statement is Every build is a counter to pets. You are just dog shit. People have said multiple times pets arnt skilled based. "all you do it hit all pets attack and jobs done"
That means if you have more then 10int IRL you can kill pets easily. The only pets you can not parry are Risen sators, Tags, and there is one more I believe but I forget. Along with the dire wolfs if there are more then 1. But in that case you just pop your clade, (life steal for Thusar, or rock solid for Oghmir. Dex fighters are kinda fucked. But this is the only time they are really fucked.) And Just swing away.
But as I said any competent foot fighter SHOULD be able to solo any pet. Easily, the mechanics are already in the game for that its called parry. All you have to do is get used to the attack animations and it renders almost all pets useless!
I can attest to this I have an Ogh FF, along with a sheevra pure mage. I am no way clamming to be a a good FF, I am how ever clamming that my above statement is true. I went out and fought countless Taru dogs, and terror birds, I can now solo them ez just by parrying.
But remember Its never going to be you vs just the pet.
Ik this is about tandem riding. But you are talking about pets in general.