The summons also range from totally useless through to cannon fodder through to You But Tankier so the spirit summon experience is exactly what you make it. For every player that used the mimic there's probably five that used the first wolf summon the whole way through.

And having played Elden Ring 3 Times and then tried DS3: the bosses in DS3 are a joke that I mostly got on the first try because the ER bosses are much faster, with shorter warning windows, longer combos, and shorter recoveries, and that annoying delay before launching into their moves. ER is absolutely balanced around using summons.