What's an RTA spammer?

I actually like Amiri in my group. But I did the OP thing that redeems any class: Get her a pet. The Barbarian level is just sitting there to apply rage to the toughest fight of the day.

If you go Sacret Huntsman 3/Ranger X she can at least make a little use out of her stats. Not min/maxed but not completely useless either. I like picking Intimidating Prowess/Shatter Defenses/Dreadful Carnage for her ranger feats.

The Smilodon is actually better then a mediocre built fighter. It is good enough to contribute the damage after the casters did the real work solving the encounter.

If I min/maxed for unfair I would certainly get a merc though.

Range touch attack. Basically it ignores armor cause it only has to touch the creature.

More power to you. I hate her and everyone who looks like her. If there was unlikable NPC competition somewhere she'd take a second place.

Pets are not OP. They are glorified meatbags and pack animals. For unfair that is. Below unfair It's just a roflstomp no matter what you play so long as you play a certain way.

Neither of this helps her personally to not get one-shot, which is the peroblem. It's one thing having a sorc or a cleric to be made of paper and sit out the combats as far away from trouble as it goes. Quite another is to have a melee character that drops dead the moment something looks at her funny.

It's not even about min/max. She just can't do anything right. She has alignment with no good gods to pick, she has the weakest archetype of a weak class and she has badly allocated 20PB with no redeeming qualities. She has the same STR as valor path Valerie. and people always bitch and moan how low of a STR Val has. Let that sink in.
Even devs hate her so they didn't bother to fix her stats even to PnP values.
Unfair is more about play-style than anything. One can take anything as a 5th-6th. One can even claim it works after those memelords get carried through the game, but we know the truth.

Well, I'm playing on hard and the Smilodon is actually the second best damage dealer in my party right now (Ekun being first). Especially since I started using the turn based mod where pounce is incredibly good. I'm currently at level 12.

I keep Amiri out of harm's way by using Polearms and enlarging her. Two pets and two tanks are usually enough.

Pets are OP, at least somewhat. It's the kind of class feature that is better then entire classes. You have to min/max a fighter to outperform a Smilodon with Animal Growth, Shield, Shield of Faith, Barkskin, Good Hope and Bard Song.

They are not OP in the sense that they can't cast spells.

She will still be hit by cyclops and all other huge things. And enemies do tend to slip the cracks sometimes, so she will be hit. Not such a big problem cause she won't be one-shot below unfair.

As to pets... outpacing a fighter is not exactly a great feat. Try outpacing proper melee even with ̶s̶c̶u̶f̶f̶e̶d̶ RP-friendly stats. They are not bad, but are way overhyped. Mainly by people whos builds are not robust enough and so they get impressed when a pet does comparably well, if I had to guess. Pets are good for plugging holes, adding dps on CC'd enemies, taking care of backspawns and all that, but ultimately they don't have mirror image and as such just drop dead no matter the buffs you've spent, so I just don't bother and keep em with what communal treatment they get for free.

Well, I agree that no character without access to spells is going to be "impressive". But I think 5 attacks with +27 to hit (before bard song) and d6+20 damage is quite good. 46 AC is acceptable for an offtank, you do have to get out of the way of hard hitting things though.
What really got me into my Smilodon though is turn based combat. It is much closer to table top as in getting full attacks is much harder (at least I think they are easier to get in real time mode, never payed that close attention) and charge is better. Pounce with that attack routine is pretty good.

46 is the same as not AC as far as I'm concerned. I only start paying any attention to at at 60-ish by endgame mark. Even amiri can be V16/Barb2/F1/Stalwart1 or Barb2/F1/V7/archae2/DD4/Booter4 or some such and be better if you really plan to use her in combat.

It's cause you can't move out of order in TB, while in RT things always move, so melee lines clash right when initiative kicks in and most everyone in melee gets full attacks on round 1. In TB pounce is better, but then I'd probably still use something that can quicken rod dimension door to the enemies instead(and it's one cast for the whole party. Yay!).

46 AC is decent at level 12. Definitely enough to off tank. The problem is actually not AC as many mobs will have less then 30 AB at this level, the problem is being flat footed in the first round of combat.

Only for TB. For RT you just run back for 3 seconds give or take. That or just have UD.

Well, I'm having less of an issue with it in turn based combat. In real time, the front lines will clash and the mobs who rolled better on their initiative will attack flat footed. I really dislike the micro managing in realtime. In turnbased the pets are still behind the tanks if they haven't acted in combat yet.

Being flat footed was causing some hits on the pets. Other then that, they are actually quite tanky (on hard) once you gained some levels for buff duration and slots. Touch attacks and bosses/mini bosses can be dangerous though, so you have to make sure they engage your tanks first.

Should I try tenebrous depths, I will probably try a pet party. Sylvan Sorcerers, Animal Domain Clerics and Rangers loose essentially nothing compared to options without pets.

They do sacrifice quite a bit. Sylvan will never do comparable damage AT/Sorc and won't still be successful as deep into the depth as sage would. Animal domain is pretty free, but not cause animal domain is so good, but cause community happens to be on erastil and there's nothing better than animal there. Rangers lose to slayers big time. It's not even funny how far apart the two are in combat efficiency even if you account for the pet. Only half-decent damage dealer with a pet would be sacred12/Mad dog4/F1/V3 abadar/nobility TN and that damage is not impressive at all if you pit him against saint or some other real damage dealer. What can be done is a funky trip build with tandem trip, bites and a pet, but that's not exactly amazing as you'd be torn between mad dog levels, pet level, mutagen timer and sacred levels. And there is no real way to make a pet build that will have mirror and won't suck at melee apart from dumping gyronna on him.

Does this mean you'd suggest moving ekun to primarily slayer or sacred+maddog? or is your guide in your other threads of keeping him mostly ranger+2eldritch+3sacred still better?

Depends on what you'd want of him. And on party composition, how long are you going to keep him about and on how much lore-friendly you want him be. All are valid concerns.
Ra6/Sacred(abadar/nobility)12/EA2 is a legit alternative to a majority ranger build.
And he can't be mad dog as he's LG. Not that he'd want to.