Tips for a first time Scholar?

[VanilleFang]

I don't play SCH but from what you've said it seems like you are doing pretty good. The only advice I can give at the moment (I'm heading to work/Just got up) is that you will want to get Stoneskin and Swiftcast as soon as possible. I don't know what your thoughts on THM are but I hated leveling it, but Swiftcast is too good a spell to give up and is well worth it. Other than that? You'll probably need to get out of the habit of spamming Energy Drain. You learn other Aetherflow spells, one being Lustrate.

[spelley]

I don't play SCH but from what you've said it seems like you are doing pretty good. The only advice I can give at the moment (I'm heading to work/Just got up) is that you will want to get Stoneskin and Swiftcast as soon as possible. I don't know what your thoughts on THM are but I hated leveling it, but Swiftcast is too good a spell to give up and is well worth it.

How "required" would you say Swiftcast and Stoneskin are? Would I be negligent to ignore them until I get closer to 50, or are they fairly "required" would you say?

Other than that? You'll probably need to get out of the habit of spamming Energy Drain. You learn other Aetherflow spells, one being Lustrate.

I only spam Energy Drain just as Aetherflow is coming back up, so as to not waste the stacks. I plan to save at least 1-2 stacks of Aetherflow in order to cast Lustrate when it's needed.

[Sida]

How "required" would you say Swiftcast and Stoneskin are? Would I be negligent to ignore them until I get closer to 50, or are they fairly "required" would you say?

While Swiftcast can be used for all sorts of emergency casting, it really shines when you need to battle resurrect people. And as a healer, in later content, you will need to battle resurrect people. So yeah, it's not awfully bad if you won't get to it before later levels but that's just postponing it.