I find myself playing solo more often than not. As such I tend to avoid caster classes as I'm terrible at spell selection that doesn't enhance my melee prowess. Clerics, while excellent at melee enhancement can get tedious with the amount of spells required to maintain the right level of prowess for level appropriate areas.
I'm looking for a class that can be fairly resilient without constant recasting and has a wide range of summoning ability to augment offensive capability. Cleric might still be the way to go, but are there any others? Bard tops out at level 6 summons, Ranger at level four. I'd avoid both of those as a summoner.