Mike

They do already, but sadly it's not enough as the summons themselves have almost no physical/magical defense stat to them.

I don't think making the summons invisible will help as once they are out of stealth, they will be 1 shotted, but instead. Maybe add damage reduction to them or make them as tanky as beastmaster's summon that has a lot of hp and def. Biggest issue with charmer's summons right now is how fast they die, especially after every class now does a lot of damage. 3K-3.8K dog hp is not enough anymore for them to live long, even with 4/4 demonic pact they still die pretty fast. But I agree that something needs to happen as charm does no damage other than summons, and without summons it's useless.

There's a talent for charmer that not many use since most charmers often go for other branches, most notably "Fearsome Horde" (2x Dog per call use talent branch) or in some rare cases the "Spawn of Gloom"(The new summon that replaces bird) which on it's own needs a rework. But im not going to be talking about that in this topic, instead. I'll be talking about the least used branch, "Triune". Which to me, seems to be the best charmer staff support branch out of the three. But unfortunately one of the key talents, "High Summoning" functions in a really weird way, especially if you will be using it solely for staff. Doubt any charmer would ever use mace in this branch as the "Fearsome Horde" tree branch is far better and more suited for a mace playstyle. Nonetheless, the "High summoning" talent makes it so that your Chaotic Assistance (Bird) gets a buff (For 18 seconds, the birds get a 15% attack speed buff and a 10% Penetration buff) after using the "Summoner Skill" Here's a simplified explanation of the issue. Example 1: In this image, there's no dog(Call) in the location, which means < Becomes unusable. Example 2: In here, we can see that there is a dog in the location, which makes the skill< Usable. The issue is, to be able to use "Summoner skill" you will need have a dog down for you to be able to use the "Summoner skill" meaning that you will be forced to sacrifice a dog in order for you to be able to buff your birds in exchange any damage dealer or an enemy with high Lifesteal parameter can make use of that dog that you spawned in to heal themselves from killing your dog that basically does 0 damage if you're on a magic damage build, just because you cannot use the "Summoning skill" since it is unusable without a dog(Call) in your location. A swift and slight fix to this would be that anyone who has "High Summoning" key talent tree unlocked, would have the option to be able to use the "Summoning Skill" whenever a Chaotic Assistance is active, instead of the older requirement of needing a dog to be in your location. Thanks for reading!