dodging is overrated, if you are doing 1v1s you must learn to parry, and if you are fighting a small group, then its probably more likely you can just attack them and take some hits while blocking, you should always hold right click when in battle, since there is no downside for doing that. if you are fighting a big group then you should just use bow and arrows until the horde dies out, its easier if you have two players to split up the horde into smaller chunks.

if you don't know how to parry, you need to start blocking as soon as the enemy is going to hit you, i think there is a 1 second opening for that, its very easy to learn against draugers and greybrutes since their attacks are slow. its important not to do too early, but the game is generous sometimes.

parrying stuns the enemy and gives you extra attack damage, if you use the sword you do alot of damage since you get a big attack at the start, then normal and then big attack again, instead of normal normal big