Personally, I have not delved deep into the necro pet class set up, but I have played hundreds of multiplayer PUG games and no one whom I have grouped with plays a dedicated pet class build.
Why is this?
For me, targeting and pet AI seems to be a big issue. I donno if that’s just operator error or a more pervasive issue.
On top of this, all the pure pet builds I’ve tried out wind up with an incredibly squishy character in ultimate.
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Possibly because people choose not to bring pet builds to MP, as they might be considered more solo-play friendly?
I just don’t like pet builds. I want to make a badass fighter/wizard. I don’t want to be a dog walker.
It’s more like “evil overlord, master of minions” than dog walker in flavor, but in practice…
Don’t make assumptions just because you did not meet such people. I for one, mostly just play pet builds, ever since the Diablo II Necromancer, though it was Titan Quest where this got cemented as my favourite class type. My oldest GD character - started during the Alpha when we had only 3 masteries - was a pure Occultist summoner, too. 
And if you check the build threads here, you will see a lot of pet builds there as well.
The Cabalist is easily the best pet class for now, nothing greater than running around with hordes of skeletons, hellhound, raven, blight fiend, and assorted pets.
Because of the squishiness of the build in MP. Enemies have more health and I believe do more damage to compensate for more players. Shotgun damage is bad enough at wiping pets out in single player. I’d hate to think what it would be like in multiplayer. Also enemies have a tendency to run straight past the other people you are playing with to smash the guy playing the pet build.
I play a lot of Crucible and have been in numerous games with three or even four full pet builds, including mine. Admittedly, the four pet builds game was a single occurrence and also an absolute nightmare, but i see at least one other in many games. Also during campaign play I get tons of pet Necros joining.
It’s crazy that our experiences in the exact same community could be so vastly different. Are you playing pre-expansion characters and restricting game access to level 90+? That could be one factor, as many might still be lower.
They’ve died down slightly since the expansion hype has cooled off, but I still see them very often.
I don’t know about all this squishiness talk, my Cabalist and Conjurer can both take some hits due to the lack of need for offensive player stats.
my friend has played one and has really enjoyed it, not my cup of tea either though.
Slow to level. Bad clear speed. Bad damage. I play pet classes in similar games but in this one it just isnt fun.
Do you have endgame gear for a pet build? I think it’s competitive with anything, though it’s not my cup of tea either.
The problem for me is that I need to constantly re-summon and re-buff the pets in any fight because even with skeletons maxed out as hard as possible, they still fall apart like a paper towel in a monsoon. Between needing 100% uptime on all pets to maintain 100% dps and the pet AI being kind of terrible (you basically need to use the Pet Attack command every other button press to keep them on task), it’s just not worth it for a lot of people.
Honestly I enjoy pet builds in games where they’re viable, and for pre-xpac they’re fine, but once you hit AoM content you may as well be walking around with 50 unspent points for the good they do.