Fastest way, get an enormous train, pull to zone out. Have 60 bard sing DA song on you and have him zone out. For 12 seconds of you having DA song you will chain fire off Defense skillups. I *believe* that AGI increases rate of defense skillup?

Or do the same deal with a DA Idol. Giant train -> DA -> Tank until DA ends.

That's how I would do it for classes that I would PL from 1-65. Riposte/Avoidance discs worked well too for melee classes.

ToFS in Velious had a floor trap on live (during Velious, no idea about modern EQ) that you could skillup defence on if it isn't "right now" urgent ;)

I did that trick on EQMac and it was freaking awful boring.

And that place is pretty nasty to boot.

One thing I noticed that was different here was how defense skills went up. When I tried live last year, leveling is so fast I had to devote some time to defense skill raises. I found you only had a chance for a raise if the mob missed. I believe it was like that back in the day too?
Here on p1999 you get raises for hits and misses so its even easier to raise.

The real solution?

Give blue a try pals! You won't level so fast, outleveling your defensive skills won't be a problem. Solved.

Well played.