How do high level players usually go about leveling new combat skills?

So the new animal form arrived and I figured I'd mess around for a bit, see what it's all about and a recurring "issue" of sorts has come up.

The new form, being level 10ish, hits for basically nothing while my armour is at ~750 and nothing can do me any harm, so it's a tedious process of simply chomping on suitable enemies until I gain some levels.

In the past, at least, I've tried other methods - circle grinding panthers with the assistance of a higher level was particularly effective, and supplementing your low level skill with Animal Handling, utilising a high-level pet, was also effective.

I generally enjoy the challenge of a new character, but dislike the idea of having to grind through tradeskills again. Going back with a veteran character to level up new skills is most certainly not the same (or even remotely similar) in terms of the player experience.

Even opting to throw all equipment aside and start "fresh", you've still a number of bonuses and additional abilities which tend to trivialise the content all the same.

Do others tend to pace themselves, enjoy the journey of leveling up a new skill - or find some sort of gimmick to expedite the process to get it done with as swiftly as possible?

There are two "cheats" that help leveling a new skill fast.

• Animal Handling pets are summoned at full strength, so if you wear high-level gear they are effectively unstoppable killing machines at low level. All you need is a spot with constant repop, for example one of the crystals in the red wing of Goblin Dungeon (when a crystal is up, it keeps spawning elementals).
• Mods that add a lot of damage even to a low level ability. I like Privacy Field (Warden), and I just rush mobs, to make them die on my damage shield.

or Necro pets

The thing about mods is that even though your skills are capped to +25 of your lower skill, the mods from gear are not. So you want to find a skill with a bunch of flat damage along with high percentage mods, make a set for 80, then use that gear set when you're capped to level it.

You can also make acid/fire shield potions, use a high armor set, and beat the crap out of low level stuff. This is similar to what Niph stated re: privacy field.

I'm doing fox and pairing it with priest or necro or warden. Leveling all of those up. I tried just starting out naking killing pigs with two new skills, but without of 'new game fog of war' it seemed tedeious. So I level each to about level 30, then start playing with new skills.

My main uses unarmed so i use that to help level the other skills to 30, works with anything. As others pointed out, the mods on the armor make those lower level attacks still very deadly. Just boring since I'm not using the new classes.

I would use the fire shield potion, be sure you use statues, pumpkins, poetry and throw in the 60% word of power buff...basically you'll get double the experience gain that way...and if you can tag along with some high level friends...
Or kick back, enjoy the journey and learn the in's and out's of your new combat abilities...slow and steady

So I hit 80 with fox pretty fast. I decided that I was going to run fox/unarmed (and am having great fun with it) and that mean't I had a damn fine set of armor for unarmed, but fox wouldn't be contributing much. Leveling was easy. I did Dinos in elt, goblin dungeon elementals, wolf beach at kur, gaz, and then finished in Rahu. It was just pure grinding. Once i hit about 70 I was working on my new gear and had it ready to put on at 80.

Since then I've had a lot of fun learning how to play the new class.

If I do a Fairy, I'll be doing two new skills, and taking my time. That makes sense for a whole new character.

When I was doing Staff and Shield from 0 - 60 and again with Necro and Mentalism 0 - 60 I really enjoyed going right back to the early dungeons and progressing through them, getting new gear along the way and having those older dungeons become challenging again and playing with brand new players and seeing their excitement and joy after taking down some of the earlier bosses. As soon as I hit level 50 I crafted some decent gear to level to 60 and enjoyed the experience again of going from having found gear to crafted gear that was specific to the moves I wanted. Without the need to worry about favor and craft skills it's actually really fun re-exploring all the older dungeons as a noob again and them being a challenge whilst you grapple with new abilities. No class locking in this game gives it a wonderful depth of replay-ability.