I'm having a rough time understanding (remembering?) stances. I've just been switching between STANCE PARRY and SHIELD SHIELD to work the skills, but I think I've been reading on the forums about a SHIELD/PARRY stance with 0% evasion?

I know that evasion is the best defense, but I get smacked around by creatures at a suitable level since I don't evade well enough/encumbered... Should I switch to 100% Parry and 80% Shield when evasion is locked? Is this even safe?

Until you get the spell Holy Warrior (or the combat/magic changes come in), you can set the defense you're not training as heavily at 5% to keep it moving and just alternate for now. I wouldn't suggest setting yourself to shield/parry for now though.

I don't have many extra points to spend at the moment. Only circle 32...

So for STANCE SHIELD, I could use a 100% Shield, 3% parry, 80% evasion, 100% offense to keep parry moving? Or switch parry with shield to keep shield moving? 3% too little?

I'm also finding that I am killing critters pretty quickly even though my current ranks suggest I should be fighting them. If I lowered my offensive % (and say, put more in parry while in shield stance), would it take me longer to kill a critter thus allowing me to swing more times, thus thus locking weapons faster, thus thus thus I won't have to wait for future critters to arrive?

What's the ETA on the combat changes?