Their criticism of shield is off-base as well; it is actually one of the most powerful defensive spells available to an armor-less mage of any sort, because its +5 AC bonus stacks on top of both your DEX modifier and base AC from other sources (such as mage armor, your Draconic Ancestry, and barkskin) and is available as a reaction against someone attacking you. In other words, you have 18+DEX AC available to you whenever you are attacked, despite wearing no armor whatsoever.
Future spell suggestions
While your theme (ambush back-line leadership with charm spells to disrupt the order of battle) isn't at all bad (save for Spell Sniper not working with save-or-X spells), you may wish to augment it with more combat-useful charm effects and complementary spells. My suggestions for this theme (going from second to sixth level spells) would be:
- Crown of Madness -- very useful for disrupting battle order, and at a good distance too
- Detect Thoughts -- get inside your enemy's head
- Invisibility & Misty Step -- you'll need some help skulking around to get in range for your save-or-X spells, so take it
- Counterspell -- shield's counterpart for going up against higher level casters
- Fear -- AoE crowd control, mind-affecting-style
- Gaseous Form -- more sneaking assistance
- Hypnotic Pattern -- medium-range AoE charm/crowd-control
- Greater Invisibility -- cast your spells while invisible
- Dominate Beast -- be the bane of the dogs of war
- Confusion -- throw entire war parties into disarray
- Dimension Door -- your first outright teleportation ability
- Dominate Person -- obvious choice
- Mass Suggestion -- again, obvious