Pet Dragons spells too rage-expensive

[WhYdOyOuThInKtHaThApPeNeD]

In short I choose option 1.

Right at the beginning of my mage run the rage cost from upgrades quickly made almost everything unusable. I thought they must have made a mistake designing the game or why isn't my rage increasing with my pet levels automatically?

Upgrade junk skills like (imo) wall & lava to keep good skills within limit.
A few times I got stuck where all 3 options were something I would lose when upgraded, so I just chose the 1 of least importance.

I never upgrade the treasure searcher above 2nd level.

For offensive as mage I used Ball of Lightning almost exclusively. Till eventually got Dive then it was that depending on the enemy. Never bothered with any other attack skill.