I really enjoy current summoning school actually. But keep in mind that you haven't seen all of the spells that will be on release.
Now, about triple summon. It would be just too slow(for me) to control 4 summons. And man, i don't want to fight hordes of summons. The idea of 1 summon, which you can adapt is actually pretty good, and has some good potential.
The idea of totems that kinda do their thing is nice, but i would rather see shaman school which would specialize exactly on those(you can really create a lot of different totems, and still it's not like all of the spells should only create totems), but i think that this wouldn't happen, so maybe they will add some different totems for summoner.
About focus summoner. You can dump almost all of your attributes into constitution as summoner(i do), and run with sword\wand and a shield and just soak damage. I think you assume that summoner is very fragile and enemies will easily kill him and get rid of all of the summons you got, but that's not really the case.
Still i expect some buffs for that particular skill tree, because to really start doing something you need 2 rounds, and after those you're kinda on the same level(most of the times even weaker) with other specs in terms of impact on the fight.
What exactly is it you like about it in the current state?
Well, the summoner can trigger fights over distance, that's a thing. But sadly the only one... and even fully pumped...
Damage? About 10%-15% of a single hit by a normal enemy or a melee party member...
Tanking? 1-2 hits of normal enemies, often by collateral damage
Same goes for totems. Just a tad more damage, but way less HP.
Right now summoning, a mechanic I really love in other games, is something that I actually need to ignore entirely to have fun with the game...
The best solution, imho, would be to combine the aspects that right now are split into summons and totems. In other words, no totems, multiple summons. I'd say +1 from a perk and +1 from a costly buff, maybe split into two schools (necro and summoning for example).
The adaptability of the advocate is a nice idea, I agree, but horribly executed, tbh.
The "long battles by many combatants" is already something the totem idea brings, so nothing additional I would shy from. Plus the main aspect of summoning is to increase numbers and allow for a more tactical approach in the battle. With just one summon as a kind of replacement of the caster it is the same as to take a fighter right up front. And that would also be a lot more powerful...
Right now the summoner has nothing he excels at, sadly not even is on par with other classes.
Heck, not even the "add it up on everything" aspect does work, like it did in D:OS1, because you now need to skill for it. (which is a good thing!)
edit:
Didn't hex in skillpoints, it's interesting to hear it gets an improvement. Would be nice if they become at least adequate later on. Would still leave a bad balancing in the early levels, though...
