Does Dodge = Armor Decay and Parry = Weap Decay?

[phoenyx]

Another post I made regarding the crafting economy and item decay rates got me to wondering (yet again) about the differences between dodge and parry modes in melee combat.

I've always used Parry because I prefer 2H weaps and they seem to parry quite well. Although I notice that even a spear (one-handed) seemed to parry fairly well. So with all the talk of uber-fast decay rates recently on the boards here, it occurs to me that your dodge/parry mode might have something to do with the decay rate of your gear?

Anyone noticed whether your weap seems to decay faster than your armor if you use parry mode? Or whether your armor seems to decay faster than your weap if you use dodge mode?

It would stand to reason that if decay is tied to dodde/parry mode, then it might be *more* economical to go with dodge mode, since each mob's attack would spreading the decay across more pieces of gear. If parry decays only your weapon, and you fight in parry mode all the time, then every mob's attack is contributing to the decay of your weapon.

This is all "what-if", of course. I don't have a clue for the reason behind having dodge/parry modes in the game, but maybe this is one reason?

I suppose another logical reason could be that dodge modifiers work only on armor pieces, so if you have high-dodge armor, it makes sense to use dodge mode. And perhaps the parry modifier works only on weapons, so if you have a high-parry weapon, it makes sense to use parry mode.

Does anyone know how this dodge/parry thing truly works?