Skill Ups.. Yeah right!

[Kavik]

I suggest skilling up on a mob. Also, if your blu magic skill is above eh 250 like you said, take off all the skill + gear you've got. I find that having all that gear on sort of confuses the skill up process. It has been stated by SE that the higher your skill is the more difficult it is to get skill ups. So when you put 15 or more skill lvls worth of gear on, the game reads your skill as 315 when it is really 300, so you will get skill ups as if your 315 (more slowly) then the 300 you really are. It's just an example, but i find it true with almost every skill i've ever tried to level. Also, as brd i went from 210 singing/wind skill to 259 singing/wind skill on the pink-fish/dolphin things in sea, using threnody, took about 30 mins. Then tried to skill up in port jueno on string skill while i waited for a party, using carols on myself, got .1 or so every 5 to 6 mins (15 or so casts).

For the enhancing magic problem, the best - only - way i have found to lvl it quickly is to get in beseiged and find a general that doesn't already have pro/shell 4-5 and spam pro/shell 1 on them over and over.

[Forevergogo]

Skill ups against appropriately-higher level mobs are Always faster than skill ups on yourself.
Blue magic, I would imagine, would be fastest skilled up while performing blue magic on higher leveled mobs- try doing an abyssea exp party, get some refresh atma, and even with a few MP cheap spells you'll start seeing major skill ups.

I do hope that S.E. notices that skill ups don't occur as fast as they've made leveling, what with fields of valor exp, and later with abyssea- and soon to be their new mid-range to high-end leveling with valor-like rewards, players need competent skill as they progress, more often skill ups, please!

btw, as a bard... go /rdm an equip all that great fast cast and -song casting gear you have, spam threnody in your downtime, or if you're too busy pulling... Etudes are the way to go. Spam etudes with the right instrument for an hour or so, and you should see significant skill ups.

My personal struggles are Dark Magic, Enhancing Magic, Healing Magic, and Holy Magic.
Dark Magic is used maybe twice on average per mob (if I'm lucky..) Enhancing Magic seems to skill up when I'm Not trying- IE: Teleport skill ups proc more often than me sitting and spamming bar-spells. Holy Magic, I've gotten into the habit of tossing Banish and Flash as often as I can afford to- on the pretense that it provides a short defense down on the mob or knocks its accuracy down to near zilch. :P But still, skilling those up kills me inside...