Help with skills

[Haeli]

Howdy all,I was wondering if someone could give me some insight into what exactly skills do in EQ2. I know in WoW for example you had a defense skill which affected your rates of blocking, parrying, evading etc, as well as how often you could be crit.The reason I ask is... well, i just want to know, but beyond that im trying to do the headwork on the Achievement lines to see which one seems the most useful and fun. One of them increases the benefit of your songs that add to combat skills and magic techniques ( i think thats the wording it uses).From what I can see of our abilities, we have 1 song that raises ordination, subjugation, ministration and domination. We also have another song that increases the groups defense skill.If there are any others that that Achievement would affect i didnt see them. (That is assuming that im correct and those two songs would be affected by that achievement).So what does raising your skill do for you? Does it increase damage / healing? Does it just increase your % to hit with your spell? And as for defense, is it similar to WoW?Ive read that the achievement for increasing your haste song is pretty worthless for the most part because it only affects your white damage, not the damage from your spells / combat arts....there is also the one that increases your cast speed but i think at 8 points it would only be like 6.4% increase, which seems cheesy... but i need to get that to get to dont shoot the messenger, which seems phenomenal to me (i love passive stuff =) ).Err Ive rambled now... help!Thanks.<div></div>

[Kulaf]

<div></div><p>Defense should be your general rate of getting missed or hit based on an even con encounter.  Parry controls the rate at which you block blows.  It might also control your rate of riposte.....since I riposte but do not see it listed as a seperate skill.</p><p>Casting skills like Subjugation, Ministration etc. control the fizzle rate of your spells.  Focus controls your interruptions from taking damage.  So our song that improves all of those makes casters fizzle less and focus through damage to still get their spells off.</p>

[Bassist]

Caster skills also affect being able to hit mobs effectively.  If the skill is higher it seems to change the con of the mob vs. the player, and 5 skill points == 1 level of con.<div></div>