If you are hitting the character - damage counts < and it's right!
If you are hitting the pet - damage doesn't count < and it's also right!
If you are hitting the character, which has pet and "Transfer Pain" is ON, dmg which is dealt on target goes on pet and doesn't count..
Only way to survive against: Elemental Master/Spectral Master/Arcana Lord > you have to use COV+Max Clar for 2 min (as dagger) and after that you are 100% dead or if u will survive somehow, 99.9% your dmg will be 50%/less than the opponents DMG. (Let's think about condition, when they are using cov/pow for countering your strategy..)
Even strongest dagger against mages "Wind Rider" can't deal with that problem.. 35% m.def + 6lvl sub skill m.def.
In my opinion, GM must make "Transfer Pain" DMG countable. word "balance" means for me that any character must have chance against someone. (there must not to be "NOT WINNABLE MATCHES") maybe hard matchups, but not "NOT WINNABLE", otherwise players must relog or alt f4 ))
Sincerely yours deepR.