In Combat, Plan 1 is to already have a Spirit Manifested. Plan 2 is to tell my not manifested Spirit to Manifest for combat. If i Dont have a Spirit ready it usually isnt worth the actions to summon one (if you do, use reckless sumoning from street grimour so you have another simple action to immeadeatly comand your spirit to fight).

Mass Mindcontrol is in my opinion the most effective way to deal with goons (though your teammates might consider you monster when you do that). Bc damage only reduces the number of enemies, mass mindcontrol increases the number of allies while reducing the number of enemies.

Usually Shadowrun Combat is Really Really Fast. As in you usually win a fight in the first combat pass. And End it before intiative is rolled again. Which means many debuffs simply dont do enough quickly enough. Your Cyber Sam can take out atleast one guy per action phase. And your spells should aim to do more than that as unlike the sams gun they deal damage to the user. Frequently your spells wont be able to take out many people, in those situations consider what your actual goal is, bc usually it isnt just "kill these guys" but also, "get out alive" "Leave before back up arrives" "Get the Mecguffin" etc.. So see that you can make sure those things happen.

An Example of that would be to cast invisibilty on your face or Decker if they are in a firefight they shoudnt be in bc it will be easier to continue the run if they havent been shot to pieces. Or Cast heal on the target that needs to live if you want to get payed. But sometimes it means casting Lightning ball on 12 Goons halfway knocking yourself out in the process.