Increasing Skills

[Morphik]

What is a good way to increase your skills without spending skill points?

For example, you used a 1hb but never used piercing. Now you want to increase piercing. Or your defensive skills are low and you want to increase them.

[sajbert]

Use the abilities. E.g. use a 1hb weapon on a appropriately level mob. I believe it also works in PvP vs pets.

[Castle2.0]

Put the 1hb in your offhand and go about your life.

Or dual wield 1hb and attack any NPC that could give exp, even high greens.

[htabdoolb]

This depends a lot on your class and level, and also on whether you are grouping or soloing.

Sub level 10 or 15 or so on any class, just grab a weapon of the specific type you want to increase your skill in and get into fights with low blue con enemies. This will raise both your offense and defensive skills. Higher agility helps with raising defensive skills faster, and higher dexterity with offensive skills. The effect is fairly moderate though, so don't worry too much about it if you have a race with low scores in either.

Mid levels (20's and 30's) can be tougher, especially as a caster class, as enemies start hitting much harder. Melees usually won't have too many problems keeping their skills sharp, as they'll be in the thick of things whether solo or grouping, but it is very easy for a caster to go a dozen levels and hardly get hit at all when grouped up. This can make it more difficult to gain significant amounts of defensive skills. The only remedy for this is to get hit, a lot. Get aggro and take damage, and your skills will slowly creep up.

It's best to work on your defensive skills sooner rather than later, because enemies start hitting like trucks in the 40's and 50's. If you wait until then to try to max your defensive skills, it is going to be a much tougher slog to get through. Also, casters tend to have much lower defensive skill caps anyway, so if you work on them as you level, by the time you're in your early thirties they'll be maxed out and you won't have to worry about them after that.

Regarding weapon skills, pick weapons with a lower delay for faster gains. More swings means more chances to gain skill, especially if the damage is particularly low as well. For example, the Mosscovered Branch is a 5 damage, 15 delay two handed blunt weapon for melee classes. I put one on my 20's ranger and went from 0 to 125 2hb skill in less than half a solo level, fighting versus low blues and high green /con enemies. It swung so fast and hit so low that I gained nine skill ups off a single enemy once, it was great. Have a set of cheap, fast training weapons that you can equip every level or two and gain skill points with, before switching back to your nice main weapon for proper dpsing.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[boromn]

(Assuming this still works?) Another AFK way of doing it is if you can find a friendly player that will let you duel and beat on their pet that cons blue to you. I haven't done it this way in a while, but it works great if you are both just chilling in EC trying to sell.

[Toxigen]

just gotta suck it up and dish out lame hits for a while

[cd288]

I've never noticed defense mattering on casters even when it's capped. That's not going to save you from a high level mob.

[Morphik]

Thanks for all the input and ideas. I have a 39 shaman and basically since lvl 20/24 stopped meleeing because I was always grouping. So now my offensive and defense skills are lacking and I am paying the price now, every little bit helps, especially with first character and basic gear.

What would be a good mob to train on that doesn't hit too hard?

[Toxigen]

Thanks for all the input and ideas. I have a 39 shaman and basically since lvl 20/24 stopped meleeing because I was always grouping. So now my offensive and defense skills are lacking and I am paying the price now, every little bit helps, especially with first character and basic gear.

What would be a good mob to train on that doesn't hit too hard?

idk when they green out but the yeti cave in DL has that single that roams out to the mouth of the cave

im sure theres a mob somewhere in classic that wouldnt hit as hard but thats a great spot to level at once you're up to speed

[eqravenprince]

Easiest way I've found is to find a group that will let you just skill up on their mobs.

[htabdoolb]

[QUOTE=What would be a good mob to train on that doesn't hit too hard?[/QUOTE]

You might try the centaurs in South Karana. Centaur Chargers are level 29/30, which should be perfect low blues at level 39. There's even a Centaur merchant nearby, who'll buy all the stuff you loot off of his dead compatriots.

As others have said, there are no shortage of mid level creatures to find and fight in the game. Browse through the Per-Level Hunting Guide (https://wiki.project1999.com/Per-Level_Hunting_Guide) if you need more ideas on where to start. You might avoid giant things like hill giants and cyclopes and such though, as I believe that they have an innate damage bonus compared to other creatures of a similar level, so they'll hit harder than they otherwise should.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Yeah the earlier you can train up your skills, the better. As you get higher level, mobs will eventually get harder, which means you will take more damage per mob while training at higher levels.

Easiest way I've found is to find a group that will let you just skill up on their mobs.

Good idea!

[NPC]

So on live, the higher the level of mob is from you the faster you would level up melee skills trying to hit them. Also the faster your Defense would go up if they are beating on you. So try to find a weak damaging, lowest delay weapon for the skill you are trying to train, haste yourself and try to find a high level group 5-10 levels higher than you and ask if you can melee on their mobs to raise your skills. That should allow you to raise melee without taking any damage, being so low level you should never take agro. Beat on Red mobs basically. To raise your defense find a zone with high level mobs near a zone line and buff up as much as you can an let them beat on you, again red mobs. Preferably not too high so you can take more damage.

[aussenseiter]

So on live, the higher the level of mob is from you the faster you would level up melee skills trying to hit them. Also the faster your Defense would go up if they are beating on you. So try to find a weak damaging, lowest delay weapon for the skill you are trying to train, haste yourself and try to find a high level group 5-10 levels higher than you and ask if you can melee on their mobs to raise your skills. That should allow you to raise melee without taking any damage, being so low level you should never take agro. Beat on Red mobs basically. To raise your defense find a zone with high level mobs near a zone line and buff up as much as you can an let them beat on you, again red mobs. Preferably not too high so you can take more damage.

Defense should only skill up on a miss I've heard. Regular miss not the dodgey stuff.

[WarpathEQ]

For caster melee skills, run up and melee any mob that is running away to get some hits in and skill up over time.

Biggest thing is leveling everything to max at low levels as others have mentioned. Defense skills will come in time as you make mistakes that result in you getting hit when you otherwise shouldn't at higher levels but the more you can do early on (switching to a new weapon type when your main is maxed even if its a rusty weapon for example) will help a ton.

[eddrick]

A few tips for melee skill ups if you have a duo melee partner:

-A rooted mob will attack the closest player.
-Low delay weapons level up skills the fastest
-Haste (worn and casted) speeds up skill ups
-If a caster high INT or high WIS will speed up skills ups whichever is primary stat

As a shaman. Get a tank or melee partner. Fight light blues.
1. Root mob
2. Have your partner get very close to the mob and start attacking
3. Move your shaman behind your partner and start attacking

Your shaman will not get hit, but will level up melee skills.

GL

[eddrick]

For defense.

A shaman can face tank light blues with their highest slow.

Doing this for a level or two should get your defense where you want it to be.

Killing this way is slower than root/rot or other shaman kill methods. But this is the way to get your defense to max.

[Morphik]

Thanks for all the great tips everyone! Time to start building up the skills!

[Jimjam]

For defense.

A shaman

Slowing will reduce the number of skill up attempts you receive though. Shamans are lucky as they have other tools to reduce npc dps besides slow - whether buffing their own tanking atats or reducing the enemies offensive stats.