I must be doing something wrong. When I use a 100 evasion / 81 parry stance, I either dodge everything or fail to parry and get smacked around dangerously and have to switch back to shield to save my life, depending on my multi penalty.

My parry skill is lower than shield, which is lower than evasion, but it is not extremely lower.

Is there a better way to set up my stances so that I can learn parry without having to risk my life?

I think I have tried stancing 100 parry, 81 evasion before, but still dodged everything unless I engaged more enemies.

Do I need to try lowering evasion more? Should I still have some in shield? Help me out!

I only use two stances to train defenses with.

SHIELD:

You are currently using 82% of your evasion skill.
You are currently using 100% of your shield block skill.
You are currently using 0% of your weapon parry skill.
You are attacking with 100% of your offensive skill.

PARRY:

You are currently using 82% of your evasion skill.
You are currently using 0% of your shield block skill.
You are currently using 100% of your weapon parry skill.
You are attacking with 100% of your offensive skill.

If I start to dodge more than 5 out of 10 attacks by critters, I decrease my evasion in 10% increments until I block or parry 10 out of 10 attacks, with the remainder going to the other defense so it would look something like this:

SHIELD:

You are currently using 62% of your evasion skill.
You are currently using 100% of your shield block skill.
You are currently using 20% of your weapon parry skill.
You are attacking with 100% of your offensive skill.

PARRY:

You are currently using 62% of your evasion skill.
You are currently using 20% of your shield block skill.
You are currently using 100% of your weapon parry skill.
You are attacking with 100% of your offensive skill.

The lowest I will go while hunting at level is 40% on evasion.

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NMUs are not people. -GM Armifer

I followed DGUTHRIE's advice. It works like a miracle. I am now able to train Parry safely without being beat up.

I knew there had to be a better way. Thank you.