I have to agree with the impression that summoning isn't particularly dynamic right now. There's just not enough active skills. The summon buffs aren't very interesting.
I wonder if they should just make the incarnate stay around permanently. Right now it feels like a summoner has to waste a turn just to summon his incarnate, or tediously summon one before every combat and enter combat before too much time has passed. Maybe just dropping down the incarnate summon to 2 AP would make a big difference.
Either you could just summon a different one if you want a different type of summon, or there could be a new skill that for 1-2 AP infuses the summon with whatever element its standing on. Maybe the skills the summon starts with would be on a 1-2 turn CD, so it's not so easy to just cycle between fire/earth/water/blood for the different skills. Not sure if that'd be a huge deal anyway though.
There's definitely more active skills coming, but specifically I'd like to see skills like: swap positions with your summon or maybe totem (0 AP), give all statuses you have to your summon (positive and negative), Damage sharing, heal sharing.
Ways to convert all existing totems to one type, ways to target totems to attack someone, totem auras, incapacitating oneself to empower summon or totem, various ways to sacrifice summons and totems.
A skill that lets you damage characters inbetween you and your summon, a skill that makes your summon use the same (non or self/targeted, like self-invis or contamination) skill that you use next, summon buffs that take into account your build (like buffing a summon with +fire damage if you are a pyro).
And of course some more summon types (hard to control demons, flying summons, utility summons, etc.)
I'd love to see more Summoning abilities.
Removing the duration on Incarnates sounds like a great idea. As-is nothing stops you from Summoning and Infusing before a fight, and the 10-turn duration is so generous that even doing this, you'll rarely have a summon time-out before it dies. Removing the duration would just help with the tedium.
I loved the new Incarnate and Totem skills. I found the amount of utility and tactics that Summons brought to a fight was immense.
Incarnates are great for initiating fights, excellent tanks (with some investment in Summoning and Infusions), and are very flexible thanks to the choice of element and options for AoE and Ranged abilities. Due to their innate Opportunist, they can do a lot of extra damage by standing near many enemies and getting off free attacks as they try to run. They are also great for breaking open doors and chests, can assassinate NPCs without ever pulling your party into the fight, and are a great way to check for traps. Because you can cast and double-infuse the summon outside of the fight, even a skill point investment can be very beneficial, for practically any class.
If you also use totems you can get stellar zone control and keep enemies so busy trying to keep your totems from building up that they don't have time to also chase after your summoners.
Even if you're spending 2 AP each turn adding a new totem, you still have a couple more AP to get off some attacks or utility.
A few caveats:
1. The Elemental Totems/Incarnates are almost always worse than the Physical Blood/Wood versions. Blood Totems get about 50% more health, and do the most damage, so sticking with Blood helps a lot, with wood as the 2nd best.
2. Dimensional Bolt is mostly crap. It's unreliable, so often ends up ruining whatever you were trying to do with it, and is also low damage. It is preferable to just have a source of blood, such as the elf racial Flesh Sacrifice, to gain access to the better Incarnate/Totem options. Bolt is also the only Summoning ability that scales off of Int (or any Stat, for that matter), which often gives people the impression that Summoning is an Intellect supported Skill tree, when in-fact Incarnates and Totems do just as well for a build using any other Stat.
3. If heavily using totems, be sure to spread them out to avoid enemy AoE. They are very good about killing grouped-up totems. A high Summoning skill with Blood totems helps a lot, as the Totems often become too bulky to one-shot.
4. Stay away from Supercharger. The 50% damage bonus is only additive with the other Incarnate bonuses, so it mostly just gets your Summon killed fast without a significant bump in damage, and wastes an AP and memory slot. E.g. my lvl 8 Blood Incarnate does 35 avg sheet damage with both Infusions and 7 points in Summoning. Adding Supercharger only increases the damage to 43.5, a measly ~24% increase, for its own untimely death. If you must use it, try to cast it before the Summon would die anyway.
I would agree that the Summoner abilities aren't very Dynamic, in the sense that you mostly use the same abilities, but there is a lot of decision making behind how you choose to use the abilities.
