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0 skill with most 1-3 DMG weapons means you will only hit Zvahl Fortalices about 5% if the time. It also means you'll do 0 damage almost all the time. You must do at least 1 HP of damage to skillup. They have 5000 HP, and respawn every 30-60 minutes IIRC. Scythes don't have a very low damage rating at the level they become available IIRC.
Once you do get some skill levels built up, you can switch to a level 1 weapon to keep skilling up. When I did it on dagger with my BLM, it would take me 7-9 hours on auto-attack to kill a fortalice, and I'd get something like 70 levels of skill in that time. I'd do it when I had something else to do, so I could just keep an eye on what was going on out of the corner of my eye.
Magic skilling on those is more of a pain, because Imps and Elementals tend to wanter into range that can detect your casting and will aggro you.
With the skillup update, a Fortalice will no longer cap your skill to what your max is at 75, it goes to about the skill max for a level 81 or 82 now, I think.
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Goto Jugner Forest and wack away at the trees, your skills will rise as fast as balloon boy in a windstorm
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I'd skill up outside abyssea until you reached 200ish skill level... after that sushi / atma's should be enough to give you a fairly consistent hit rate..
Then just skill up there and get merits / cruor while you skill up.