Is Combat actually useful for those who don't use weapons?

I mean the only thing I see useful in there is to do with shields.

Yes, in fact it's basically ONLY useful for those who don't use weapons. All the stances are about avoiding attacks. In practice it doesn't seem to actually -work-, but in theory.

It USED to be useful for those who use weapons

Stances are a amazing against knights, they increase your dodge rate a great deal.

They did before the knighthood changes anyway. I think they just decrease wounding now or something?

I believe they are looking over stance now, but I do not think they have changed them yet.

Well, at master combat, I dodge 1 in 13 without stance, and 1 in 11 with stance. And knights used to complain about missing tonnes. No way is that tonnes, so I guess something's up.

Master isn't much. I heard it rises to 33% at Trans, or something like that. I know it's a big difference though.

I think combat's dodge rate isn't determined by skillrank so much as lessons invested, just like Resilience. Considering Trans is around 1800 lessons, the 60 or so credits you have invested in to get Master isn't going to be substantial at all.

I don't know if it's been toned down any, but there was a thread about a month back on the subject. High-dex trans combatants have pretty close to a 100% dodge rate if using a localized stance like "head" or "gut". If you have average dex and use a huge, sweeping stance like "upper," you're talking about 33% dodge...for four body parts. Trans combat makes knights sad.

Lessons invested is indeed the important factor. It also impacts your ability to parry, ripost/coule (for knights), and to partially dodge (meaning you get hit for partial damage because you did not make a complete dodge).