Would be kind of cool if you could set global behavior on your totems on whether they do direct attacks or AOE.
But it's clear what Larian aims for with their design, they want to force the player to do what the class is named after: summoning, and spending your AP for exactly that. I just do not think it's a good way to do it that way. It for example potentially prolongs the often already quite boringly slow battles even more with masses of weak attacks.
I actually would go with lower amounts of "full summons" instead, scrap the "totems" (+ give the "incarnate" a real elemental design as well as rename) and give them a reasonable AP upkeep in return.
Or as a narrow gauge solution at least... give them a way lower maximum number but higher protection, damage and slightly increased AP cost.
I agree that summoners should actually spend relatively little time directly summoning because that's not very interesting. Rather, they should spend time enhancing and directly using their summons in interesting ways. I think there's a good start with the existing skills, and I'll see for myself tonight how it plays, but I hope they continue to go in a more in an active direction rather than a passive one.
