First: +1 to you Kesh.
And now to my wall of text...
Unfortunately, this is a flawed analogy to HA. If HA is scissors, there exists no rock. The class doesn't have a real counter.
Luckily, HA's scissors are dull and generally not very dangerous. Their supreme survivability and lack of real counters would be an issue if they could rack up kills like no tomorrow. They can't.
HA's are fine. Fucking annoying, but fine.
You are right there is no counter class to the HA. And you're right about the flawed analogy too but thats what I was getting at. This game is not about paper-rock-scissor and if you argue like it was you get all kinds of wrongs. In WoW you balance classes so that they are stronger against some and weaker against others with a total of +-0. That game is made in a paper-rock-scissor way but in this game (mod) its not. Instead it has three capabilities: protection, firepower and maneuverability (just like in military theory). IRL these are by default contra productive towards each other. For example the more protection you have the more you weigh and weight makes you loose maneuverability. Since the game is not RL rules like weapon proficiency loss due to weight has been made to mimic RL in order to get the balance. The balance is ofc not for each class towards every other but towards the capabilities of the classes. So if you have a class which have high maneuverability it should have average firepower and protection or some weakspot to not make it OP.
If you take the HA it has high maneuverability as it can ride. It has quite low protection as it cant invest much points in str or IF and if it takes heavy armor it looses accuracy (firepower). However if played by a player who knows what he's doing some maneuverability will spill over to protection as you can dodge, utilize the terrain and stay out of range. All in all I would say a HAs protection is average. When it comes to firepower the HA cant use the heaviest bows, it gets penalties for being mounted (if moving) and it has to choose high PD or high HA+WM. All in all I would say that the HA has low firepower. So like many said before the HA has high survivability but low killingpower. Such setup, or class if you will, will be able to engage a lot of different type of enemies due to its survivability but it will not be particularly strong against any of them.
However one could argue that the HA is very powerful agains melee cav as it easily can shoot down the horse and for that should be nerfed. I agree that HAs exells at horse killing but I would call that the melee cavs weakspot counter which prevents the melee cav from being OP. If you take a look at the melee cav it has high maneuverability due to the horse. It has average to high protection as it can invest quite a few points into str and IF, it uses heavier armor (wpp-loss effects melee less then ranged) and get the spill-over-effect from the maneuverability (just like the HA). Lastly it has high firepower as it utilizes the horses speed combined with a hard hitting weapon (which inf cant due to lack of horse). With high scores in all three capabilities there must be a weakspot to balance it all out and thats the combination of the horses weakness to arrows and the HAs ability to keep up. Without the horse the melee cav looses a lot in all three capabilities. So when the thread-starter gets dehorsed he cant kill stuff as easy as before and instead of train to get better he thinks the game should be made easier for him.
As for inf I think you need to get a little throwing back to counter cav. There should be an anti cav build(s) for those on foot too.
About the bump-shot thing, stay aware, learn to jump-slash, horsie-head-poke or just step aside. You think the HA magically learns bump-shot when he invest in HA skill? Just like every one else he has to train to master it. Btw you haters make it sound so easy. Ride around at full speed and never get hit, headshot inf and archers as you pass them by, dehorse cav in no time and-bump shot anyone without any risk.
@Kafein Could you explain what you mean by the 3vs1 example? I dont understand.