Old Dogs and New TricksFollow

Okay, so we learn lessons from others, but sometimes too late

My 1st toon was a Wood Elf Druid and I had no clue about EQ. Didn't add any WIS to start-up stats (I know, I know )

I set him up with 1HS and before I discovered Allakhazam/My Guild/My brain, I was in my 50s with Maxed 1HS but no skill in 1HB or 2HB.

Now as I want to be a rounded character (Yes I'm sad enough to skill-up in all the languages even though I don't role-play) I like to max whatever I can and am now trying to skill up in Bash.
So, some questions for my learned colleagues:

a) - Is there any point now?
b) - Is it true that I can only skill up beating on Dark Blues or higher?
c) - Is there truth in the rumours of skilling up melee skills against High Level player pets?
e) - What happened to d)?
d) - Ahh there it is!
z) - What unlikely novel was written by the author of the 'Pink Panther' series of Movies? (So what's wrong with Trivia?)

Nobby,
I have been using the Boat engineers in Dulak on the Storm dock, for skill ups.
With a shot of Virtue I can snare them, root them, and then beat on them for about 10 minutes with a few heals in between before they die.
They seem to hit for less than a hundred.
After I have used those two for skill up, I then move on to clear the boat until they repop.

Dark blue is the answer because I am working at gettng my skills up so an enhancement will land more often. If I am in a strong group I jump in as often as possible where my other skills may not be the front runner. Try to hit from behind if possible when you do this it seems to raise your skills faster. Also having a chanter cast boon on you to improve dexterity will help or at least it has for me.

Since we are talking about bash, what dictates the damage a shield does when bash is used? I kind of had a sense that a "better" shield does more dmg - and I think it may correlate with AC of the shield. I'm just wondering if there is a well known answer to this.

heh I've done this before :)

Even with my melee skills maxxed my druid does very little damage. I'm better off just using that time to med. However, what you want to do is pick up a pair of SCHW or a FBSS depending on your budget. Grab a DEX buff from a very high lvl shammy. If you have decent gear this should push you to your cap. Get a KEI so that you can keep your health up with heals when things go sour.

Equip a well balanced scimitar for 1HS or a shovel for 2HB. Find yourself a DB Giant as they have a very high regen rate. Snare it, Nuke it down to below 20% health and stand behind it and whack away. Its one of the quickest ways to raise offense and weapon skills without resorting to exploits.