Even in battle you can and have to pick your fights...
1h-only isn't for the front line anyway.
I meant more that if his blocking is poor, then he's going to put his shield away, miss one block against the axe user, die, and spend the next two minutes twiddling his thumbs. That's a really rough way to learn how to manually block.
Siege is a bit better, especially if he is on the attacking team. Duel is the best practice though, since he can spend his time practicing his blocking with nearly no downtime between fights.
That seemed like a brilliant idea- two hits from a big shield breaker and I'm 1 h only anyways. But just checked the game, and I'm 160 ping. I guess I'll just throw jarids randomly then die:(
Are there seriously no servers that give you a lower ping? What country do you live in?