Yep, when I was level 20 and I got the skirmish tutorial, I actually was pretty confused and I didn't know what a raid, a skirmish, an instance or PvP were. So when I got some marks I bought like 3 traits and were like, ok, I equipped, what do I do now?

50 levels later, and many (not many, just the needed ones for quests and one ocasional off-quest skirmish) skirmishes later, I suddenly waste time reanalysing the skirmish trait system, etc. And only then I realised the traits were actually the soldier upgrades (facepalm), so all this time I was running with a level 1 warrior with a lv 1 personal trait for myself. Yikes. Better, as I'm a minstrel I also bought herbalist and herbalist traits (I thought they were for me), but I didn't slot them, as I didn't understand the system, so I used a lv 1 warrior instead.

Now that I know what I need to deal with, I see that herbalists are generally used. I am a minstrel, and as far as I can see double healing is actually good (I never did a raid but it seems it's good for raids too - also didn't know that raids were epic skirmishes, thought more like epic instances). From the top of my 3000+ marks (I never used them) I upgraded my soldier to lv 15 in herbalist and herbalist (and other things) traits, as well as lv 10 in sage. Do you recomend sage or herbalist?

Also, do you use your marks and medallions generally for which purpose? I was stacking marks and I didn't need them, I used them to get cowbell stuff once. Now I wasted it developping my soldier, but it naturally will surely help. From what I see from the skirmish camp, it seems the soldier upgrades will be my main waste of marks, or the ocasional rare item that I was aware of.