Originally posted by The n00b A:

Skills increase the damage and speed of weapons, so its worth it.

Try hitting small trees and bushes using flint arrows. As long as you deal damage it (should) improve your skills.

Of course they do, but this is a game, if you just play the game your skills increase very fast.

My point was that (IMO), it is more important to increase your skill, rather than the in-game skill bonus. It takes some practice to get the angle right. When you nail that, you can 1-shot many things that you might have to either melee or shoot at a moving target of you miss.