[X] My Assistant

I was talking about Ubershank's shortsword. Dual Wielding almost always wants Overpower 5, except for maybe DW Club, or if your DW build shares a weapon with your 1H build.

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Sorry my mistake.

Definitely keep that shortsword IW, the good element is worth more than any perceived negative from the Swift Strike. I did some analysis of how much damage a good element is worth a year ago in this thread. I forgot the result but I think it's worth like 2 butchers or something, plus being the final potency it is the most difficult to obtain. Check my signature rapier and join the club. Oh yeah and my original rapier too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Traditionally it's always been thought that 1H should aim for But and Fat, and furthermore these two are almost as good as each other. While Overpower and Swift Strike are far below. More recently it has become somewhat accepted that Butcher is better than Fatality, but by how much is debatable.

It was quite recent that some people considered that Overpower is as good as Fatality even on 1H, but this isn't accepted by everyone.

I personally prefer Swift Strike to Overpower on 1H, but I'll only accept a little because it's primarily a defensive potency, and high level 1H players eventually won't need defense. Yet defense still helps players below level 400, or higher level players in PFUDOR IW and Grindfest, and I think Swift Strike is the best 3rd potency in these cases.

Do you still cast Haste as 1H? Even some high level players still cast Haste in PFUDOR Grindfest. Haste has the same effect as Swift Strike. If you caste Haste, then Swift Strike helps you too. Someone right here did a comparison and found that in practice, contrary to expectations, Haste indirectly improved clear time in Grindfest by making things easier. Though I'm not sure I believe it, extrapolating that result suggests that Swift Strike likewise speeds up clear times as much as Fatality and Overpower.
The improvement to 1H from max Overpower is only 1%. This was calculated long ago in Research for 1H. Don't forget that 1H naturally has a crazy high chance to hit enemies because of Overwhelming Strikes providing ~50% counter-parry on average, enemies being stunned ~70% of the time, and your own counters always hitting. Your crits and elemental strikes should be taken for granted, don't make the mistake of double-counting what Overpower gives you. Procs and Overcharge can be considered an additional bonus.

I didn't notice before that Overcharge gain is capped. That improves my view of Swift Strike a tiny, tiny, tiny bit.

Well, that research is like 4 years old, isn't it? Does it still apply fully? (I'm asking, as I have no idea about mechanics changes from then)

A few caveats regarding that research and:

- It doesn't say if it uses Imperil or not. I'm assuming it doesn't.
- Imperil makes Counter-Attacks and Elemental Strikes stronger, so the influence of criticals is lower.
- It says that Counter-Attack damage is 75%, but Wiki has nothing about that, but that there is a cap of 75% in Counter-Attack proc chances. That 75% damage difference could be overall effect of not using Imperil, as you don't get PMit reduction.
- See that if it had stronger Counters and Elemental Strikes, he'd get like 16k Counters and around 20k overall strike damage. Just from using Imperil.

A sample of what I mean regarding Imperil and Elemental Strikes/Counter-Attacks:

CODE

Void Strike hits Arya Stark for 4028 void damage.
Fire Strike hits Arya Stark for 3461 fire damage.
You hit Arya Stark for 7785 void damage.

You counter Arya Stark for 7988 points of void damage.
You block the attack from Arya Stark.

As an example, another RE of mine:

CODE

Void Strike hits Flame Vortex for 2818 void damage.
Fire Strike hits Flame Vortex for 2355 fire damage.
You crit Flame Vortex for 11235 void damage.

Void Strike hits Flame Vortex for 2832 void damage.
Fire Strike hits Flame Vortex for 2673 fire damage.
You hit Flame Vortex for 6197 void damage.

Monster under Imperil, crit attack with no PA, normal attack with 1 PA (normal was after critical). Checking Void Strike damage, I guess I had taken away all its PMit with Imperil and my other guess is that I had taken some Fire elemental reduction with my Shocking Shield. Heartseeker yes, but had forgotten to put Spirit stance on (it was a RE).

For starters, regarding Butcher. With Imperil the effect of Counters and Elemental Strikes is higher, so Butcher increases your damage more than what Fatality does, as the latter one only works with critical hits.

Regarding Overpower, it's a bit the same, that 2.3% of Fatality vs 1.3% of Overpower isn't that clear. With Imperil the influence of Fatality is lower, so it'd be like 1.8% vs 1.3% of it. Plus Overwhelming Strikes.

Regarding Imperil there is a caveat: you need to cast it before every round (you spend 3-5 turns casting it if you want to affect a whole round of monsters), so you lose Overwhelming Strikes, if you still had some remaining (something that doesn't always happen, lol). Of course, the tradeoff is that your Counter-Attacks and Elemental Strikes deal more damage, plus you don't need to wait to proc 2 PA stacks (that take 3 turns on average) to equal that.

So, how is this caveat related to Overpower? That it helps, even if it's a bit, to start up those Overwhelming Strikes, that btw, they also indirectly help your Counters.

Still, it's a 15% increase in damage vs the 30% increase in damage for the Elemental Strikes and Counter-Attacks. Plus well, you get to proc it again, so it isn't as if you lost that 15% damage wholly.

And don't forget the procs, that are extras but you sure can pile a few:

- Penetrated Armor: this debuff is vital for non-Imperil Rapier styles.
- Bleeding: if you're using a Shortsword. More damage as you stack it higher, consider it an extra.
- OC gauge: everyone loves this, and needs it.

So I guess it's a matter of how your style is too:

- Non-Imperil Rapier 1H style that relies on killing monsters one by one goes better with Fatality, as it doesn't really need to use all the synergies of the game to work with. Just proc PA on the guy you're playing with and rapie it to death, I guess.
- Imperil 1H style with Imperil works better with Overpower, as it really uses all the synergies involved and it needs all the help it can get to activate Overwhelming Strikes. Or rather, as it relies more in Counters, Fatality doesn't do much for it. IMO, Overpower doesn't have a clear effect like Fatality does, but it helps here and there directly or indirectly. You know, it works "in the shadows".

Stil, in overall clearing speed? I'd say I'm not sure. Higher critical (and overall) damage means less hits per monster, but also more wasted damage. You don't want ludicrous amounts of damage either.

Dealing 50k hits to kill a 110k HP monster means that you've wasted 40k damage on the 3rd hit; so rather than piling more and more damage, what you want is a more stable damage so it helps you gauge the number of hits needed, so that you can pin-point your build as much as possible to deal the adequate amount of damage (knowing how many HP do monsters have and having a stable way of reducing their mitigations helps to pin-point that "adequate" amount).

In the example above, if your hits are 40k, that monster is killed as fast as the 50k damage one with only 10k wasted damage.

My point is that this game looks like it's about sacrifices: you want more damage, you get less defense. Or less critical chance. That means that you have to deal with other issues that might be more detrimental than dealing less damage and 1 more hit. More damage might not translate into faster clearing speeds than if you put those resources in other stats, like mitigation or critical chance).

Also, this game is full of synergies between skills, procs and builds. I'd say Overpower (and maybe Swift Strike for its specific builds) works more in that area than Fatality, that is pin-pointed to more critical damage.

There is also the fact that the more you accumulate critical damage, the lower are its effects overall. Getting a full Savage set with Heartseeker is the perfect recipe to making your Fatality less significant, because critical damage stacks (it's additive, as some would call it).

Regarding Swift Strike, it helps more the offensive users than the defensive users. Or rather, defensive users do want their Counters rather than dealing normal attacks.

I do still use Haste because I need more damage and better armor to tank monsters (you try to keep your monsters alive if possible up to the last moment, so that you get more counters), once I get something decent, I want to try using without Haste to see the effect of my Counters.


Still, a question: can Counter-Attacks be parried? I never saw a thing regarding that.

This post has been edited by ahroun: Sep 20 2019, 18:28

A few things about that research could be updated or done differently but all changes to the game version since then have not changed any of those mechanics. I'm assuming it doesn't use Imperil but neither do many players. Imperil makes everything stronger so you double-counted part of your thought process. Elemental Strikes are the only things that get boosted twice from Imperil.

When checking battle logs, you should know that the random variance in damage in this game is huge. It goes from 1~1.5x damage so don't use just one attack. Either average out the data with a script or check enough logs to find the damage ranges like I do.

I did my own calculation of Fatality vs Overpower using Imperil just now and I got about 1.9% Fatality vs 1.3% Overpower, using various simplifications. In reality not every monster will be Imperiled so I'm inclined to guess it's still 2.0% Fatality vs 1.3% Overpower.

That is nevertheless a fairly close comparison, and when you consider that Overpower is a true 1.3% improvement to your main attack, while Fatality and even Butcher often overkill enemies, the argument that Overpower is as good as Fatality on 1H has merit. I think it boils down to your personal feelings and playstyle.

It's hard to calculate exactly how much damage improvement Imperil gives you, this is something that is best ignored and left to experimental data. It's been shown in the past that Imperil usage does help clear times but only on someone who has trained it fully and has related proficiencies and hath perks.

Actually most players have a proficiency around 110% of their level. So consider the worst case scenario of being a 5% counter-resist. Consider Evil Enchantress as being roughly a +5% counter-resist as well.
I myself (with Ass25 and absolute dedication to the usage of Imperil) reach almost 0.24 prof factor, so 12% counter-resist. That's barely any better than the said 10%.
At the very best, you can consider a 660 prof Lvl500 player, who gets 16% counter-resist.

TL;DR => The training and the frequent usage actually don't weigh that much. Only Evil Enchantress does have a strong influence.
So no, there is no "only on someone who has trained it fully and has related proficiencies and hath perks", that's bullshit. It's more a matter of not neglecting your depr prof excessively, having a decent WIS and using Aether Shard.

Well, the examples given are just samples to show you the relative damage. I've found that it happens consistently and the damages shown in the research reinforce that idea.

But in the end, it's as you say: everything boils down to playstyle and preferences.

Still, people can't expect to use Imperil with just slapping it to a non-Imp Rapier style and make it work. It's a whole different style, the same as using 2 handed style, DW or a mage.

Just because they share the Heavy Armor use and fighting style doesn't mean that they are the same.

Imperil (and the fact that you can also use other Dpr spells like Silence, Sleep or Drain) isn't an attachment. It's a whole new set of tactics and behaviour you will need to adapt to.

As I've said it above: you're going to use more synergies of the game in your favour. Of course you've gotta learn something new.

And yes, it requires training: the same as any other. Or you expect to have fun with a DW style with prof 0?

PS: as decondelite says, Aether Shards are great, I reserve them for PFUDOR DwD due to budget constraints, but they really help with clear times and with less frustration. And yes, don't neglect your profs and WIS.

PSS: in my case, I started to use Imp consistently at like level 250, out of desperation. My 1H Heavy prof is 393, my Dpr prof is 391. It came naturally to me to use Imperil, as those SGs are a pain in the ass.

This post has been edited by ahroun: Sep 21 2019, 00:28

I have a question regarding current market. Mid- and High- grade leather and metal have prices way below bazaar price of Exquisite/Magnificient bazaar selling prices for equipment and it's not that easy to sell these materials (especially Mid-). Does that mean that vast majority of these materials on the market come from monsters labs of players instead of salvaging? Should I ever bother salvaging non-forged and non-HGW/HGC items for profit or at least savings?

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) I don't fully understand what you're talking about, but if you mean that the vast majority of Mig grade metals and Mig grade leather come from the monster Lab, the answer is YES.

In fact, in my case making calculations, the only thing that really should be salvaged in terms of material to sell them and make a profit is everything that has no value of magnificent or legendary degree that is Cloth, since the rest if Salvage as market prices are, you would be losing credits when trying to resell the materials you get from when you save them, at least that is what happens at the level I am currently.

Just wanted to say 'thanks' to all who helped discover an actual viable new melee play style that has shaken up the 'rapier only' point of view. I really hadn't believed that that would happen, 3 years ago. The game mechanics haven't changed that much in all these years, and a lot of experts had missed the imperil-1h style!

So thank you. Especially Decondelite, but also other experts (ahroun, BWS, and I probably forget a few). Great job dudes!

Speaking of which, I have discovered that in fact you can survive quite well in battles of only 3 enemies at my current level, with nothing more equipped than a Legendary Rapier with overpower level 5, and 22.56 parry, and without having to regenerate anything for 3 turns, in other words; You can kill 9 enemies with only the 2 shields activated, regeneration and hearth seaker, and 3 when you are reborn with the spirit shield.

As I know that, I already tried it, I only equipped that weapon and I began to fight in an IW of 20 battles at the PFUDOR level, I was quite surprised at what it lasted without doing anything other than attacking.

This post has been edited by Arkoniusx: Sep 21 2019, 07:55

Hello experts, I'm back again for help on DW styles. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Q1: When choosing off-hand balance rapiers, what attributes could be the most important?

I'm now using main slaughter club and prepare to find an off-hand balance rapier.Comparing ADB/accuracy/parry/PA proc chance/crit/elemental etc is complicated for me...

Just as examples below, Could you please give some advice on them?

Legendary Fiery Rapier of Balance
344, ADB 56%, Parry 77%, Str 19%, Dex 63%, Agi 35% PA proc 21.8% - 7 turns

Legendary Arctic Rapier of Balance
344, IW 8, ADB 44%, Parry 43%, Str 65%, Dex 26%, Agi 76% PA proc 22.2% - 7 turns

Legendary Shocking Rapier of Balance
371, ADB 39%, Parry 88%, Str 57%, Dex 63%, Agi 80% PA proc 24%- 7 turns

Legendary Arctic Rapier of Balance
368, ADB 59%, Parry 67%, Str 69%, Dex 39%, Agi 91% PA proc 21.7% - 7 turns

I just soulfused the club and cost all my soulfrags. I plan to buy them in item shop to soulfuse the weapon. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Q2: How can I play in PFUDOR(improvement on equipments/playing habits)

This is my current character Statistics.(without any enchants)


I can only play in IWBTH now . When try to play in PFUDOR, I found before I kill the enemies, they easily hit me and broke my spark of life. I may need scrolls and potions/elixirs to finish PFUDOR random encouters and arenas. According to my character, does it due to pmi/mmi/evade or something else?

About equips:
As above I plan to replace off-hand weapon first, then I plan to replace armors next. I'm using the Leg negation legging because my mag Fleet legging lacks of agility, which cause it has the same evade chance as the negation one. So may I suggest if my mag fleet/shadowdancer equip has full PABs(SDEA), I may not need to replace them with Leg negation/arcanist ones?

And when choosing shades, does evade as important/more important as ADB?

About playing habits:
When playing in IWBTH, I will always save more than 75% overcharge to cast frenzied blows at beginning of the next round. I will only use imperil when against school girls currently.

If the monsters are less than 5 and not the high PL/HP ones, frenzied blows can easily kill 2~3 of them, and I will kill the rest low HP ones without spirit stance(to save enough overcharge).

The question is that if the monsters are 5 or more or some of them have high PL/HP, even if I use spirit stance+frenzied blows cannot kill 2 of them. Then before I kill them they will start to attack me. If the monsters number are 8 or more, like the last few rounds of arena "To Kill a God" "A dance with Dragons", several attacks of the living monsters may broke my spark of life. I guess this it will be worse in PFUDOR.

I found most of my overcharge is used to cast frenzied blows, seldom for spirit stance. I'm not sure if my playing habit is right or not.

Could you please help on the two questions?
Thanks in advance. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[edit]: resized pic

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Sep 21 2019, 11:57

First of All, show me your proficiency stats, second why you soulfuse the club? You wasted the soulfragments that you should have used to soulfuse with the rapier, since that is the weapon that you should bring in your main hand, not in your Off-hand, since you must first penetrate the enemy's armor to do more damage with the secondary attack, which can be a shortsowrd or an axe.

You will take an eternity even if you survive in difficulty PFUDOR, in finishing the major challenges in the arena, since with the club most of the time you will fail, I tell you from my own experience.

Once again I remind you, DON'T MISS YOUR CREDITS TO IMPROVE LEGENDARY EQUIPMENT, IF YOU CAN'T GET THEM QUICKLY, because you will never see them again.

Also, is time to obtain Weapons whit IW 10, because thats the only why you can survive en PFUDOR with the Dual wielding fighting style, that, or having, even an ethereal weapon, since weight is your worst enemy in that fighting style, the less weight the better, and you need to get Void attack to do direct damage to the School Girls, AKA the legendary monsters.

*Fun fact, I can't help you to tell you if the magnificent grade weapons work in DW fighting style, since I jump from exquisite grade weapons to legendary ones, I was lucky enough to get several in one way or another, I never got weapons from Magnificent grade, and if I got them, they were worse than those of exquisite grade.

This post has been edited by Arkoniusx: Sep 21 2019, 09:19

Also, is time to obtain Weapons whit IW 10, because thats the only why you can survive en PFUDOR with the Dual wielding fighting style, that, or having, even an ethereal weapon, since weight is your worst enemy in that fighting style, the less weight the better, and you need to get Void attack to do direct damage to the School Girls, AKA the legendary monsters.

Or use Voidseeker Shards. You get damage changed to Void and 50% accuracy bonus. The accuracy doesn't stack on DW, but I guess you get the bonus to proc offhand hits?

Or use Voidseeker Shards. You get damage changed to Void and 50% accuracy bonus. The accuracy doesn't stack on DW, but I guess you get the bonus to proc offhand hits?

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) Well, I don't use them anymore, because I have my weapons with Void attack now, what I don't like about using them is the time limit, there were 2 times when an emergency arose while using the above, and they were wasted, and Once I fell asleep and also, they were wasted, it is better to have the void default attack for any inconvenience.

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) Well, I don't use them anymore, because I have my weapons with Void attack now, what I don't like about using them is the time limit, there were 2 times when an emergency arose while using the above, and they were wasted, and Once I fell asleep and also, they were wasted, it is better to have the void default attack for any inconvenience.

I use them for the accuracy bonus. Remember that at 200% accuracy or higher, monsters can't Evade you.

First of All, show me your proficiency stats, second why you soulfuse the club? You wasted the soulfragments that you should have used to soulfuse with the rapier, since that is the weapon that you should bring in your main hand, not in your Off-hand, since you must first penetrate the enemy's armor to do more damage with the secondary attack, which can be a shortsowrd or an axe.

You will take an eternity even if you survive in difficulty PFUDOR, in finishing the major challenges in the arena, since with the club most of the time you will fail, I tell you from my own experience.

Once again I remind you, DON'T MISS YOUR CREDITS TO IMPROVE LEGENDARY EQUIPMENT, IF YOU CAN'T GET THEM QUICKLY, because you will never see them again.

Also, is time to obtain Weapons whit IW 10, because thats the only why you can survive en PFUDOR with the Dual wielding fighting style, that, or having, even an ethereal weapon, since weight is your worst enemy in that fighting style, the less weight the better, and you need to get Void attack to do direct damage to the School Girls, AKA the legendary monsters.

*Fun fact, I can't help you to tell you if the magnificent grade weapons work in DW fighting style, since I jump from exquisite grade weapons to legendary ones, I was lucky enough to get several in one way or another, I never got weapons from Magnificent grade, and if I got them, they were worse than those of exquisite grade.

Thanks Arkoniusx.

Here is my Primary attributes and proficiencies.


I soulfuse the club not rapier as main-hand just because it's a hallowed slaughter one with 90% ADB, and I cannot afford a Leg slaughter rapier like that as main hand. I didn't soulfuse the mag slaughter rapier cause it's not worthy(ADB 46%, Parry 30% lv 245), and I don't have a better balance/nimble rapier which have IW10 and good attributes, so I use the slaughter rapier currently. As the experts suggested, an off-hand axe (no parry)is not a good choice at my level.

I have both the weapons IW10, and when playing I will use feather shards+voidseeker shard on them. In that situation my evade chance could increase to 43%.

Since I choose a more offensive way on weapons (slaughter club+balance rapier) as rapier+waki, I'm not sure if I can improve some defense on armors so I could play in PFUDOR.
Hope the experienced DW players could help on that. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It just occurred to me that even if one entertains my unconventional idea that Swift Strike is a good 1H potency, Swift Strike is still worthless. At best, it is a wasted useless potency. Because you can just increase your Agility nearly for free, to gain as much Swift Strike and Evade as you like, up to a point.

Let's compare some of my current stats at level 377 when in my normal 1H persona, and when in my DW persona wearing the same 1H gear. Most learned and slotted Abilities are the same, for ones that aren't like Light/Heavy armor, I'll leave out the affected stats.

CODE

1H: Str 442, Dex 442, Agi 300, End 442, Int 250, Wis 350
DW: Str 433, Dex 433, Agi 433, End 433, Int 250, Wis 350

artifacts: Str 25, Dex 24, Agi 23, End 22, Int 27, Wis 27
equips: Str 526, Dex 524, Agi 60, End 346, Int 0, Wis 0

8470 attack base damage (2132 from rapier with but 4, fat 4, swift 1)
188.6% hit chance
42.2% crit chance / +67% crit damage
1.7% attack speed bonus

74.3% physical mitigation
72.8% magical mitigation
6.7% evade chance
63.2% block chance
57.5% parry chance
15.1% resist chance

90.4 interference
54.7 burden

(with DW primary stat distribution)

8455 attack base damage
188.3% hit chance
42.1% crit chance / +67% crit damage
4.6% attack speed bonus

75.1% physical mitigation
72.6% magical mitigation
8.7% evade chance
63.2% block chance
57.2% parry chance
15.1% resist chance

By raising my Agility a lot I gave up a paltry 15 damage, or 0.18% of my total. I gained a whopping 3% attack speed bonus and 2% evade chance. In comparison Butcher 1 on my rapier gives me about 39.5 damage, or 0.47% of my total (Butcher 5 would give me 2.34% more damage, consistent with Research for 1H).

Another way to compare, starting with my 1H character I can subtract Str 1 and add Agi 43. This will lose an insignificant 1 damage point. I calculate Agi 43 should grant me 43/25 * (1 - 54.7 burden * 4/300) = 0.47% evade and 430 / 377 * (1 - 0.02 * (54.7 burden - 40)) = 0.80% attack speed bonus. This procedure can be repeated a few times with rapidly diminishing yields.

By the time you reach the balanced DW character, subtracting Str 1 will only add Agi 1, thus giving roughly 0.01% evade and 0.02% attack speed bonus at the cost of losing 0.01% total damage. Clearly not a good idea, though it would be a fair trade if monsters were competitive with player characters.

Conclusion: After further thought, if you believed Swift Strike is a decent 1H potency (for reasons not explained here) it's still just as good as ever. However, if you are consistent to this belief you perhaps ought to increase your Agility by 40~100 points which gives an additional 1 or 2 Swift Strikes almost for free. You might even consider raising your Agility to be equal to your other stats like in DW, though it's not necessary to go that far.

Thanks Arkoniusx.

Here is my Primary attributes and proficiencies.


I soulfuse the club not rapier as main-hand just because it's a hallowed slaughter one with 90% ADB, and I cannot afford a Leg slaughter rapier like that as main hand. I didn't soulfuse the mag slaughter rapier cause it's not worthy(ADB 46%, Parry 30% lv 245), and I don't have a better balance/nimble rapier which have IW10 and good attributes, so I use the slaughter rapier currently. As the experts suggested, an off-hand axe (no parry)is not a good choice at my level.

I have both the weapons IW10, and when playing I will use feather shards+voidseeker shard on them. In that situation my evade chance could increase to 43%.

Since I choose a more offensive way on weapons (slaughter club+balance rapier) as rapier+waki, I'm not sure if I can improve some defense on armors so I could play in PFUDOR.
Hope the experienced DW players could help on that. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You currently have very good DW stats for your level, only I recommend that you start looking for equipment to play with the one-handed fighting style, since if you really want to collect credits enough, it is always good to use 2 people, in fact, if you start practicing now, it is very likely that you can play PFUDOR difficulty without any problem in several challenges of the arena, and in the randoms encounters that I see that are the ones that are missing you enough, since for your level, minimum you should have about 3000 soul fragments.

Once again, I repeat it again, no matter how much attack a weapon has, if its attack accuracy or your attack critical chance is very low, and the worst thing is to have a club or a Slaughter prefix Ax as your main weapon, since you are going to fail a lot.

The recommended way to fight in DW style is Rapier and Shortsword, putting in the main hand the weapon that most attack accuracy and attack critical chance, since it will be the weapon that does the most damage, I recommend a Rapier of prefix balance in the main hand, and a short sword of slaugther prefix in the off-hand, but there are times that it is better to bring both with the balance prefix, especially if the 2 have a considerable attack.

Bringing 2 weapons with parry makes it easy to move quickly in the DW fighting style.

Since I choose a more offensive way on weapons (slaughter club+balance rapier) as rapier+waki, I'm not sure if I can improve some defense on armors so I could play in PFUDOR.
Hope the experienced DW players could help on that. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

your parry and evade are too low, when you get your new rapier forge the parry as much as possible
Also, use imperil (2 times at most) if there are 5+ monsters, then spirit stance on and frenzied blows, spirit stance off and kill the ones that barely survived it, then the rest. Killing them fast is the best defence.
In a random encounter use weaken or silence

Just wanted to say 'thanks' to all who helped discover an actual viable new melee play style that has shaken up the 'rapier only' point of view

shortsword with OP, right?