A good friend of mine, Jaida Winterdaze, told me of a great way to increase melee/casting skills, (I haven't used this for casting, because there are, for the most part buffs you can just cast on yourself to raise your skill..), and that is, going to an Arena with your merc, then attacking your merc with whatever spells, weapons, or skills that you need to increase, and it will ACTUALLY go up!
As a paladin, I had trouble increasing my throwing skill, because there really aren't any weapons that I can use to increase it... that is, until after some research, I came across https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=4260 or Bracer of Hammerfal, a wrist that summons a stack of 100 hammers a pally can use.. Thanks to these, my skill is now maxed, along with my archery (unrelated to the bracer...lol)
Just thought I'd pass this on to you folks who kept looking at a melee/casting skill that just wanted to get it up without having to sit there and keep wasting your time beating on mobs and possibly dying...