> I havent played in couple weeks for multiple reasons but from what I hear, nobody has 90%+ at rank 35.

From hearing everyone's posts that's what I thought too. So I rolled up a fighter type character to see how "bad" it was. Currently:

Int: god-like
Rank: mid 20s
Hours: 41 (lots of stupid mob deaths)

trip, dirt kicking, disarm, kick, primary weapon, plus a few other class-specific skills all perfected.

parry: 96%
shield block: 92%
dodge: 86%

Now, admittedly I spent a fair number of hours perfecting my non-defensive skills. But hey, guess what, my defenses went up too. There are certain caveats to that, but I've the feeling it's not kosher to discuss them here.

The point is is this: at least with regard to "smart" races, it's not hard at all to improve one's non-defensive skills and only moderately hard to improve one's defenses.