Hey.
Welcome to the forum Dusk.
Pretty sure I've seen you in the scoreboards a fair bit.
Melee summoners have always been a bit tricky, for pretty much the reasons you describe. They do have a few small advantages though:
* They always get the 12.5% MaxHP bonus for being unique and the 12.5% MaxHP bonus for being a 'modified' demon, automatically, whereas most demons only have one of these bonuses.
* You have full control over their stat development, and can learn Hero abilities.
* When you need to summon new allies, you're able to put them right in the thick of things since you're right there yourself.
* You're in a better position to use most combat items.
That said, those advantages *are* small, and melees probably are a bit harder to play as the main character, for the reasons you point out, plus the fact that, as summoners, they have to spend a non-zero amount of time doing demon management during combat. I do plan to address this a bit better once I get to adding summoner perks, but I haven't gotten to that on the schedule just yet. It's looking likely it will be either the first or second thing I do once currency is added, which is what I'm working on now.
Summoner perks will basically be summoner only abilities that influence how summoner-specific mechanics work. Each relic will start with different ones, and you can earn more by defeating the enemy summoners present in the Tower.
The following is highly speculative, not fully designed out, and definitely subject to change, but...melee summoner relics will probably start with summoner perks such as:
* Quick Summon (summon is a free action, but has a one turn cooldown) [Reduces the number of turns spent on summoning/unsummoning.]
* Quick Unsummon (unsummon is a free action, but has a one turn cooldown) [Same idea]
* Ranged Summon (extend summon's range to 3) [Lets you summon behind or in the middle of enemies you're tanking for pincer attacks)
* Sacrifice (enables the Sacrifice summoner ability, allowing you to sacrifice an ally to restore yourself) [If you're willing to set aside 1 or 2 stable slots for 'food', this could be a powerful recovery tool]