Check the available spells of each school to see if you really want to invest for something worthwile there - as mentioned above, the lvl 5 elemental talents are very weak - and so are most of the spells
In my opinion, it's not worth it to go above 3 in hydrosophist. You have plenty of healing by that time imo and the two damage spells that you get at 5 aren't that stellar.
Witchcraft is good to have on one character to lvl 2 for oath and absorb elements.
Geomancy is awesome until 3, but lvl 4 only gives you 2 more summons and lvl 5 earthquake is really bad.
Pyro is great and is worth it to invest 5 points into it as meteors are the only kinda reliable endgame spell damage. Staying on lvl 3 otherwise is good as well.
Aero, again, 3 is great, 4/5 not so much (chain lighting can be great, but it's targeting is weird most of the time)
So Ideally, you would want:
hydro 3 (6 ability points)
witchcraft 2 (3AP)
geomancy 3 (6AP)
pyro 3 (6AP)
Aero 3 (6AP)
total AP cost: 27 AP. which is a little over half of what you get and it will keep you covered for all fights. you can then invest 9 more into pyro if you want, or a lot of people opt for putting 15 points into man-at-arms because it has the best talents available (50% elemental resists, 25% more hp, 15 armor), and also the selection of support spells isn't that bad.
Also expert marksman is worth putting one point into for Tactical Retreat.
