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.

Doesn't look like there is an advantage to parry with two weapons in hand. It only checks the right hand weapon for the parry. As far as I know the advantage to dual wielding right now is the offhand skill, dual weapon whirlwinds, and believing you look like a Frank Frazetta poster.

mfberg