Ok so I took a break after October and I've recently returned and have continued my research on my craptastic skill level! For those who remember the origional basis on this topic I was trying to figure out why parry was so much weaker in performance than shield and I'm a very low level thief with combats around the 50-60s area. My numbers have changed a little since last time I posted but not much since I was out of the realm for a while.

I've learned a lot from our reponses though and wanted to post what I've learned from information given here in forums combined with experiments. This may be old news to you guys but for others that have just started off and are trying to figure this stuff out maybe this can help and they can learn at my expense.

Parry Ability: 51 04.35%
Shield Usage: 53 24%
Light Edged: 62 30% (Not sure if weapon skill matters)

Store bought steel stiletto bought from Haven
You think it is likely that the stiletto is reasonably balanced and is dismally suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.
(based on a shoddy app job done at Appraisal: 52 57% ranks)

stance: 75% evasion, 100% parry, 6% shield
the shield stance isn't high enough to train shield but I was just testing out parry at the moment and not really focusing on training my defenses so I'm open to any suggestions on how to best move all defenses while hunting.

The outcome is very very different, I've learned the balance of the weapon is so VERY important.

"You are confident that the steel stiletto is somewhat more balanced than the ivory-hilted jambiya."

Now keep in mind my ranks are very low and my appraisals are likely to be off. So if any of you higher ups could confirm that all my parrying woes were coming from a poorly balanced weapon and show me some apps on a few LEs then I think I've got a real working system going. Sorry if I'm behind the curve, like I said I'm sure this is all old news to you all.

Reflex, agility, parry skill, evasion skill, balance of weapon = parry.


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The ladies would love it if I shape shifted into a bear while we were making sweet sweet love. That benefit alone would make shape shifting worth it.

-Mvorn

Personally as weapon secondary survival and armor tert, I stance shield till it's locked, stance evasion till it's locked then stance parry until one of the two is no longer locked. This method allows me to keep all three locked almost constantly while hunting at level

Dual wielding as a concept is not completely released. As I understand it dual parry will be possible but only when you're not in roundtime, so the ability will be very limited.
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Prime: Malkien
Prime: (Necromancer Bob- coming to DR in '08!)
TF: Ganymede