Well the entire thing that started this for me was offhand being released. I wanted to focus on dual wielding and parry which is a weapon skill defense. weapons being secondary for me it made sense to focus on it more than shield, so my reasoning was why bother with shield at all since thats a tert skill for me?! I'm not sure if that was the right idea, I'm seeing the benefit of training parry and shield at the same time now. But I am really starting to understand how to effectively use parry in melee finally and its winning me back over.
I believe the example I gave with the first posting was a meadow ram charging me twice and ripping me a new one... so here's the current situation.
* A meadow ram charges, kicking up dirt and rock as it aims at you. You deflect the body with a darkened steel stiletto.
and that is the case for as long as I'm not swarmed. HUGE difference as you can see, granted I have a few more ranks than before but not so many as to create that big of a difference.
To wrap it all up, guys you were a big help and thank you very much for this discussion.
