Life Steal Minions
Suggestion for a minion that, upon hitting an enemy, heals the player.
To make it a summoner-specific perk (and not something all classes can take advantage of) I have two ideas.
1) Health recovered per minion is fairly negligible. If you are not a summoner and can only summon 1-2 minions, the amount of health you regain will not be a competitive option to potions. If you are a summoner, however, having 6-8 minions that heal upon hit becomes beneficial as the small amounts of health add up.
2) The summon has a "swarm" ability where, for every additional minion, health gained is increased by a certain percentage. I think that would address the issue of it being beneficial to everyone instead of being a summoner-specific perk.