Won't be here long, just dropping a tip off.

All you MLB/SLB users need to pick up a dagger. 14 dex for the parrying is actually a good choice. Shove your DMB on that baby and just swing. It's too fast for people to casually just parry, and it's R2's do pierce damage, thusforth it's low base damage goes a lot further. Here is my current faith build, it's gotten me really far as of right now.
http://tinyurl.com/cg6gbwp
Yes that is a mask.
Yes that is 3 wrath of gods.
Yes That is 77 poise on a mini maxed char.
When parrying I use the Ascended flame for a great combustion, it's 900 damage and sometimes you'll hit a person who is slow to react twice. Two Firestorms for gankers. Highly effective from my perspective, beats most fair duelists, and even most gankings fail, spam Firestorm for TWoP and spam WoTG for a backstab attempt. (No DPS for a counter stab.) Furthermore you can do over 1600 damage in 1 second when spamming R1 on a darkmoon blade dagger. The normal dagger has more damage, but parrying knife looks far cooler.

Bye.

Double Posting!
Just forgot some other tips.
The darkhand is great for parrying if you don't need a swing to line it up and can predict the first one. With 80/80/80/80, blocking a Demon Greataxe with DMB on via a failed parry will only do 111 damage. A washing pole only takes 40 to fail. It's a great shield for parrying, even if it fails when blocking.

Also, if you're a caster, I'd reccomend mixing some pyromancy into your build, always. Most opponents don't predict a dual spell class, and so when you first cast a new spell type, they will be generally surprised, increasing the tactics success rate.

I can attest to this strategy being surprisingly effective. I would suggest some subtlelty, as I tried it while Forest Hunting once (just straight up spamming R1 with SLB parry dagger) and I didn't lats too long.

That being said, how is the swing time on the Hand Axe? If it swings close to as fast as a dagger, there is the added benefit of it being possible to stun-lock (it should have the same poise break as a curved sword).

Does the parrying dagger swing just as fast in off hand? If so, you could buff the dagger and have a chaostoc in the main hand.

I dont think you can buff left hand weapons.

Move the talisman to the other hand?

I always thought that the spells specifically said right hand weapon... although it does make me wonder what magic shield would do on a left hand equipped dagger.

you know you can use great magic shield on the dark hand. i was kinda surprised by that, but you can.

^ Interesting thanks for the info.
I wonder if baldurs side sword has a similar effect or if despite its name it was intended for use in the right hand slot.

So are you actually leaving the forum, or are you taking a break doing something else?

Your motivation is somewhat foggy to me.