1. Stat points:
A. Very easy! Almost everything goes to Defense since you'll never do much damage anyway, that's what your minions are for.
B. You might want to spend a few points on other things to get gear, particularly strength since it allows for the better armor and quite a few of the minion bonus unique items are strength-based.
2. Skill points:
A. Four obvious skills to max as soon as possible: imp, then pet mastery, then charm magic skill, then Burning Bind.
B. The "thorns" reflect damage effect is not particularly useful. Focus on boosting the damage that the minions inflict.
C. One point in each golem is sufficient, and you can have both out at once.
D. The only skill non-summon skill you'll want is Terror, which you can spam to stall for time while your minions kill things (two-three points is plenty).
3. Spells:
A. You get six spell slots, four on you and two on your pet. All four of yours should be charm spells, which means potions for healing and scrolls for utility. All summons have vastly increased cooldown timers for the pet, and having your pet summon is inefficient. The basic setup for your spells is two skeletons of different levels (i.e. I and II), one set of archers, and one set of zombies. You can use more skeletons, but you can only have one set of archers and one set of zombies out at a time so having two archers or two zombies is pointless.
B. Skeletons are your infantry. Get two copies of the spell of different levels so you can spam them. Each spell can have up to 5 skeletons out at a time, though you'll rarely want to sustain all five. Keep the two spells hotkeyed together so that you can alternate back and forth rapidly for a constant stream of minions. Higher roman numeral spells (i.e. I->II) make the skeletons cost slightly more and last longer. Cooldown is always three seconds for you, but 30 seconds for the pet. Skeletons are always summoned near you and ignore cursor placement. The rare spell Blood Skeleton is equivalent to spell level VI or so of the basic skeletons. The blood skeletons cost more to summon, but they drain health and heal themselves and you. While they are better than normal skeletons, they still die rapidly and are not a reliable source of healing.
C. Skeleton archers are more or less an attack spell and have to be recast into the middle of each fight. Keep this spell on right-click and cast the archers ahead of where you plan to move. The archers typically summon where your cursor is, but will show up elsewhere if there isn't enough space. They have very short range, and it may take a few attempts to get them into position. Cooldown for you is 5 seconds, so you can just try again. Higher roman numeral spells cost more, summon more archers (3 at level I, 4 at level II, 5 at level III) and last longer. Cooldown for the pet is 30 seconds, though having a second set of archers is nice since they deal very good damage. Archers are very flimsy but can be replaced rapidly. If you cast any summon archer spell, all of the archers that you summoned disappear.
D. Zombies move slowly but they are summoned where you place the cursor, making them the equivalent of paratroopers. One cast summons all three. Unlike the archers, they almost always go where you place them and they are very handy for fighting enemies from ledges or in small rooms. Like the archers, if you summon a set of zombies all of your current zombies disappear. Higher level spells add poison damage to the zombie attacks.
E. Aloe Gel and Flaming Sword are also summoning spells but they are not Charm spells and they will not be particularly useful. The final Charm spell fires a projectile that makes enemies switch sides. While fun to play with (you can charm the champion monsters) it is difficult to aim and not particularly effective.
F. If you put charm spells on your pet, they will also be cast with your specialization bonus, but since the cooldown timers are increased the summons are dubious or useless. The pet makes good use of Heal All, Heal Self, and Web. Frost is effective, but has the side effect of shattering enemies which will make it hard to keep up the supply of imps. Fireball is very helpful at low level for some offensive punch since the summons don't do much damage until you start piling on spell masteries and buffs.
4. Equipment
A. There isn't much equipment that helps this build, though there are quite a few uniques that give minor bonuses to minions. Most are fairly useless since their bonuses are tiny compared to the bonuses given by your specializations, though extra hitpoints and extra speed are useful.
B. The build works well for very hard and hardcore because you really don't need anything from your gear except the ability to survive. More armor, more health, more resists. Bonuses to movement speed and mp are also helpful but not critical.
C. Your weapon is largely irrelevant, as maintaining the army is a full time job and you won't have much time to attack personally. Very few weapon effects are useful, but improvements to casting speed are a good bet if nothing obvious shows up. Mana steal is helpful at low levels.
C. I am not certain if magic find affects minions, but this build is essentially a Fishymancer converted to Torchlight.
Honestly, I don't recommend points in Imps early on, I usually skip them. Just buy the summon spell scrolls instead.
I also like to max Armor Mastery, +40% to armor is beastly. (Then again, I play VHHC only).
Also, making a summoner without maxing the final golem is just silly. Get that guy maxed out. Max Charm Spell Mastery as well.
Imps are entirely useless early-mid game. Their damage is subpar to even the skeletons and they have no tanking ability. You'd be far better off maxing Alchemic Golem and Burning Bind first, and then Pet/Minion Mastery after.
The Alchemic Golem will likely have more health and armor than even your pet unless you're lucky enough to get a Burrower or Goblinhound morph, and upgraded its damage is superior to any other pet/minion you could possibly have aside from an Elemental pet. It tanks like a beast and its AoE spinning attack does huge amounts of damage. I'd say it's the best minion you have, even superior to your actual pet since you can just resummon it instantly every time it dies.
Early game you want to focus on getting tank pets out to survive, and once that's down you can start adding DPS to your horde in the form of skeletons. Early game your own added DPS, in the form of Ember Lightning/Lance or even just wanding, should be enough while the Alchemic Golem and your pet tank. Imps should be the very last pet you add due to their limited usefulness. You should be maxing skills in this order: Alchemic Golem -> Burning Bind -> Pet/Minion Mastery -> Charm Spell Mastery -> Beam Golem -> Imps.
The basic skeletons are not really that useful. Without the Blood Skeletons' healing ability and assuming you're not spamming Heal All or something, they die quickly and their damage isn't actually that great. Instead of staggering (having two different ranks of the same spell) Skeleton spells, you should just have the one rank of VI and then Skeleton Archers, and have your fourth spell slot be Web or something with utility. I'd say the VI Archers are far superior to V Skeletons, and there comes a point where you can actually have too many minions - the horde might bottleneck enemies in tight corridors, preventing your workhorses like your pet and Alchemic Golem from reaching the enemy.
Itemization is important for the summoner as well. Just because your DPS doesn't come from your weapon doesn't mean your gear doesn't matter. You're looking for +minion modifiers, +damage and +speed particularly to help your horde do more damage. There are a lot of uniques in the game with 2-3 +minion modifiers, with the ultimate trophy for your summoner being the Rayleigh Claire.
The most important suggestions I'd have for anyone who wants to play a summoner alch though, is probably to get the Ocular Golem+Persistent Skeletons+Longer Alchemist Buff Duration mods.
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