Playing this right now. The Charisma Tree skills are pretty much mandatory given how wide spread the benefits are.
Right Now I got 10 in every healing skill and am trying to figure out whether or not to go Ranged/Slashing or Blunt/Magic. I just fluked out and got my hands on a staff with 25 int but ignored it after I realized that int has no effect on healing for some strange reason. I'm thinking I should go Ranged and max the skills in that, and have Slashings single target basic skill maxed because when I started the game I found a cursed sword with 20 attack power on my second mission and more or less bulldozed all the samurai/warriors in one shot. I'm thinking if I go physical damage now I can single target shoot down all the priests/wizards/students/thiefs and Ninjas that appear in the back ranks before my team chainsaws them to pieces. I'm level 42 because I powerleveled on the demon hunt missions a couple times, the storyline missions I'm currently dealing with all go down like jokes so I'm pretty sure I overleveled while trying to get my hands on a good Dagger/Shuriken.
Seems like Slashing is the best bet for single target physical type damage, and my save reloads of magic didn't really impress me either way. Having fun though, just wish I could fire troops instead of having them clutter my UI when they already showed off they were useless.