Someone who knows what they are doing can afford a few "lost concentrations" or skills missing or a few extra hits going through. They know when to RTFA as I've seen people put it. Someone who doesn't know what they are doing probably won't benefit from everything going perfectly their way. But the counter to this is that the people that know what they are doing also know ways to get the most ouf of the skill improvement code.

Basically the only people who talk about skill spam winning fights for them are people who would've won the fight anyway, regardless of skill %. These usually end up being your one trick ponies like cranial spammers, they only win fights that cranial spam wins, or pincer spammers, they also only win fights that pincer wins. You'll find the village to be chok full of them. They are almost always berserkers and their strategy is the same. Lag and pray for a lot of deathblows. It works. I did it as Trewyn. It's cheap. Both skills can be defended against, just not by all classes. Outside the village they are bards and necromancers that can't win a fight without sleep + maledicts. I LOVE killing these types of people because they keep trying the same stupid trick that didn't work the first six times and they ALWAYS start with the same thing, something that you can prep for, something that you can make have less than a 10% chance of succeeding. And that 100% sleep spell does what when it doesn't work? Nothing. Not a damn thing. All it did was cause you to lose the first strike both times you tried it. What do you do as a bard when after the sixth attempt to disorient them you've failed and during those 10+ rounds that person you were fighting has maledicted the hell out of you? You're right, you RTFA.

Yeah you walked up pointed and killed them with your fire giant? Show me a fight where you did this and having 63% in everything would've changed the outcome. I bet these fights were one or two rounds, four at the most. And you nailed it. Bash. But you'll never be able to convince people. That's why it's currently en vogue to solo rank, even with all the miles of code that make it MUCH better to practice skills with a group. Back in Trewyn's day this was pretty typical too. I can tell you what's different though. The amount of time I spend spamming skills and spells and the amount of kills I typically get with a char. The first has gone WAAAY down and the second has gone WAAAY up.

I'll tell you a give-away for my char. I'm usually the evil guy suggesting we go hunt trolls because it's good practice (the group bonus is NICE) and you might have some poor unsuspecting group walk up and think you are all a bunch of goodies. As a warrior, you'll get a LOT more bang from your practice time if you drag that poor little shapeshifter with you. Again, the group bonus to learning is nice. I'll walk around and do useless things with a group just because being in a group makes my passive spells go up faster. Nothing says you have to fight the stuff that gets you to hero the fastest. Everyone has stuff they want to practice (trust me). Doing it solo is not the way this game was designed. Grab a buddy and go beat the !@#$% out of something.