I play as a "Summoner," which (in my mind) is a warrior in heavy armor, wielding a 2h bound battleaxe with conjured minions at his side. My play style will be to summon two minions (atronachs or Dremora Lords), and only use Magic for heals (restoration) or when a minion dies and I have to re-summon.

In the Restoration tree, 2/2 "Recovery" = +50% magic regen. Is this actually a useful stat in combat? With perks, I'm spread pretty thin and don't want to spend any unnecessary points. Like I said, I'll only be casting when a minion dies or if I need a heal. I'm going to enchant gear with +x magic points (rather than regen) and I'm shooting for 200 mana before enchants.

TL;DR: Is 2/2 Recovery (Restoration Tree) worth it for a melee conjurer (only using magic for summons/heals)?

It's actually pretty useful in my experience.

But if you rely on only 1 or 2 schools of combat then Enchanting is a better investment to get free spells and render mregen useless.

I forgot to mention: I understand that magic regen drops significantly while in combat-- this also leads me to believe it's not such a desirable stat. Again, I'm not AVOIDING regen, just wondering if 2/2 Recovery is worthwhile..

I would have at least some type of regain. I usually forego enchanting to get dual enchants. I try to keep at least 50% regain with my summoners.

Make Conjuration free to cast with Enchants. You don't have to hardly cast anyways as a Summoner fighting next to your Dremora. Pump up your damage and make Conjuration free to cast. Saying that that "breaks the game" is far from the truth as Conjuration costing Magicka does not add anything special to the game.

You don't need to go the whole hog in making Conjuration free to cast. You don't need much regen either. With my character of this build, I wanted to max out 2-H damage, so I have that on everything I can, including resist jewelry for each element (3 sets of ring and necklace). I've had 200 base magicka for ages now, and I have 45% conjuration cost reduction on my main armor piece, plus some magicka boost on helm and gloves. This is enough for all conjuration spells except Storm Thrall which is just over (my Conjuration skill is still at 95 and I don't have the Master cost reduction perk).

With Smithing, this build is ridiculously overpowered at high level (from about 30 on). I am useing Volendrung right now at 340 damage, and my armor rating is 1061. I also added a follower wife and currently a powerful frost mage as a thrall. Just silly really.

I hardly use Restoration enough to level it. I ground it up to 40 right at the start of the game and got Respite, Regeneration, Recovery 1 and Dual Cast. I used just dual cast Healing for most of the game. Still haven't bought the Apprentice perk. It has only gone up 15 points in 40 levels because this guy is a wrecking ball.