I prefer no secondary schools on any of my wizards, on my first wizard I did and by end of Mooshu I was getting more power pips so secondary school spells were dropped from deck, altho am not unhappy with Death to Feint there are other ways to get that now. Currently my original Life wizard remains the most powerful one I have, tweaked just right.
I do get the blade from Niles in Krock Land and then train Sun though Colossus which is a big help - you can use treasures before hand and get the idea. I crafted the helmet in Wintertusk for the stats and extra blade and had a 0 pip balance blade from an amulet - blade up and you are a one hit wonder. For all over spells early on I used treasure cards or an amulet that had them that was pre level 40.
Life, you said? Balance. Why? Because everytime life gets an attack spell, balance gets a defense and everytime life gets a heal, balance gets an attack.