A Paladin's opinion on Parry

[SirTaint]

That's a load of shit lol.

1. 8 rounds with 8 mobs is high in any party set up. Even if you have 2 melee they will wrecking mobs faster then that and if it takes longer then 8 rounds then you'll have at most 2 mobs left. (assuming bad melees) You also have all the dead time while the mobs use their abilities. Taking 8 hits from 8 trash mobs would require a very very poor party. The Healing average was wrong, I used the wrong line from my parse. Your correct numbers didn't not help your argument. 163 vs 165 damage??? We have 8000+ HP, 2 is not making a difference.

2. I do not use STR only builds. For 99% of the content of course I do, I'm over geared. I've been maxed on tank gear for a very long time. (fending,slaying,i110s,parry build,det build,SS build) It is also true that the weaker the mob the less important any defensive stat is. So regarding the OP, trash mobs require even less parry. There isn't a trash pull in this game that can't be done shieldless with no secondaries.


Parry has a use in its current form. Under geared progression. Beyond that it is as effective as spell speed on a tank and anyone that says otherwise is trying to hard to justify the only defensive secondary.

[Ceodore]

I have to agree with OP, but for different reasons as well as mention that his reasoning is weak and ineffective. I use the Parry/Accuracy set up on my Zeta, and specifically just for high end raiding content. These are situations where healers DO need some breathing room, and while it is true that Parry is purely RNG, just like block, I stack it anyways. It might defy the "Number are all that matters" logic and the "Oh, your relic shield takes away from the Parry proc" logic, but that's not the point that should be made. Sure a boss that dies faster does less damage, but making sure you get to the kill without being ripped apart like a paper bag is also the point. For each point of damage you can mitigate is one less point of damage the healer has to make up for, which saves their MP. Tanks that sit here and say that they just man mode it through these fights with out thought to whether they can be the great wall the healers need forget that MP recovery skills are on cooldowns, and especially long ones for white mages. Bards can only use their songs so much before they wear out their reserves. This isn't just about killing the boss faster, because if you are having DPS issues, then that's something you need to bring up with your DPS, not sacrifice your defense for. If you fail to pop that cooldown fast enough, if you fail to use that skill at just the right time, the only thing you have left to save your neck is a shield and a sword.

No, Parry is not a great stat. It's not reliable, it's not going to do miracles. But, there will be that one time, and this WILL happen. Where you'll miss a cooldown, and your healer might miss their shield skill. And your shield won't block, and you'll be totally helpless, except for your last line of defense. A single parry saves the day and reduces Flatten from hitting you with 10K + damage and instead gets reduced to only about 7k because your parry is there. And you will thank whichever of the 12 gods that just saved your neck. Only, your praise is misplaced. It was RNGesus who looked down on you, and all your parry offerings that you sacrificed in his name, and he'll intervene on your behalf.

So no, it's not an amazing stat. It's not consistent. It's not perfect. But it is your last line of defense, and ignoring it just might cost your life.

inb4 "get good scrub" No, it shouldn't come down to your parry being the difference. Yes, it should be your cooldown usage that matters. No, I haven't had this occur because yes, I don't let it get to this point, because no, I'm not a drop the ball tank, because yes, I have had enough practice and I study end game content way way too much, because no, my job does not require that much constant attention, and yes, I do have hours and hours of free time at work to do nothing by study and play video games, because no, I'm not a lazy bumb, and yes, I do love my job.

[SirTaint]

All the endgame fights are scripted, once those scripts are published there is no guessing. Healers can DPS most of the fights until certain mechanics take place. If one of those has the ability to kill a tank then there will be a cool down rotation. Flatten never needs to be parried (your heals have to prep for no shield block or parry either way) and its followed by 1-3 breaths that can't be parried. Ahk Morn can't be parried. T13 is a great example of a fight where parry has extremely low value. It is also a fight where every bit of DPS can make the entire encounter easier on the healers and their MP. Skip a flatten, Megaflare, earthshaker or Ahk Morn and you just avoid thousands of points of damage and MP usage.

Your parry is just leading to over cures or is a crutch for bad healers. Donjo is right we are over thinking secondaries, but parry is not helping you clear anything.

Most parry tanks aren't bad because of parry, they are just misinformed on how these encounters are built and how healing works.

[Dhex]

Build Det & Crit; more damage means shorter encounters which means less healing output required.
Parry is unreliable, unpredictable, and requires being stacked heavily to adjust the rate - this does not effect the strength of the parry - and only typically effects auto-attack damage from most monsters;
- you cannot Parry magic damage.
- in scripted fights with cleave mechanics Parry at best creates situations of over healing and excess enmity
- in sack (large) pulls monsters are damaging you at a rate at which incoming healing is either sufficient or insufficient regardless of attacks Parried







So... build Det & Crit and poke things for more damage.

[Drtoxicmedica]

Anything you tank in this game is based on tank killers, you have Cd's for this kind of damage. Trash mobs are no different you tank 8 plus mobs not for 4 minutes but a minutes at most and at that nor even the whole batch if dps is half competent. You should be flashing maybe 4 times before you start spamming your 123 while flashing every few hits in your combo meaning you should be outputting more damage then a parry build. Nothing and I mean nothing warrants stacking Parry over det or crit in this game except for world first progression.

[Donjo]

SirTaint mentioned earlier in this thread as his first treatise against Parry that Det/Crit are always doing something for you and that Parry is only sometimes doing something for you. This is the most legitimate complaint one can make against Parry. It is also one of the most basic ways for a Tank to make a decision as to which set of tools is best for a particular job: if you're going to spend 90%+ of a fight not getting hit in the face, then Parry shouldn't be stacked.

Now, our current situation is a Paladin fending off a large group of enemies while his party is doing lovely AOE. If we separate the action out into 2.5 second rounds, then we can posit that Parry is capable of providing its benefit to you during every single one of these rounds. These monsters are trying to hit you. As a Paladin, your basic AOE hate generator(Flash) deals no damage. Therefore, any round in which you use Flash is a round where Det and Crit are not providing their benefit to you. Furthermore, Flash is a spell so Skill Speed is not providing a benefit either. This is a rare situation where Parry is always doing something for you while the alternatives are not. This is why it is a viable option in the large dungeon pull.

Now, it should be noted that "viable" does not mean "best". It simply means that a Tank should put it in their list of options to choose from if they're feeling in a speedrunny mood. If a Tank acknowledges the viability of a Parry build but chooses Det/Crit anyway, they are still doing their job correctly because they've (hopefully) identified their party and situation correctly such that they've determined that their stat choice is meaningless so they'll just use their favorite. And, as we've repeated over and over in this thread, stat choice is frequently quite meaningless in dungeons. So do whatever and just remember that more things exist than "moar damage!" if you ever feel like messing with other things. It's the true beauty of the Tank: all the different successful builds we can do!

[Seku]

@Donjo
Det actually increases the hate generation of flash...so det is always playing a role in flash and will do so even more in heavensward since you build hate faster = paladin can tack onto DPS faster.

@ OP
Crit is desired due to the fact it can carry over to your Sword oath damage and proct on the "2nd hit" as well as our current DoT, CoS. Thats more hate being generated and more chance for you to do damage, yet again this is going to be even more relevant in Heavensward since PLD is getting more damage abilities with no hate mod's as well as DoT's.

@Ceodore
If your healers are factoring in parries into their cure cycles their playing the job, what most would consider, very wrong. It should never be a issue after their geared up and are level 50, soon to be 60. Not only that, but with the increase rate of of shield block rate, parry becomes even more useless on PLD as shield's progress unless there is a stat on mobs that lowers the block rate and has no effect on parry what so ever.

[Lattimer]

I have been on both sides of the equation when it come to the Parry/Det vs Det/Crit in regards to gearing, and this is in regards to end-game content such as FCoB.

Initially I started with the parry/det build and did well up through T13 with no problems, what was however noticeable was that the DPS in my static group was in essence riding me on threat, this in turn forced them to slow down their DPS which also meant weird phasing and other Issues. After some discussion I switched around gear and went with Det/Crit after meeting the Acc requirement for T13. Once I did this I found it much much easier to have and keep a significant lead on threat so that my DPS didn't have to throttle back on their DPS.

Mitigation wise parry is not a horrible stat for PLD, It just does not scale well. Parry has three stats it checks. Str for how much it parries, and Dex/Parry for how often the parry procs. Block is also calculated based on Str/Block Str and Dex/Block Rate PLD's unlike warrior don't truely have the option in end-game to ditch VIT and exchanging it for STR.

The split of Parry/Block between STR (amount parry/blocked) as well as DEX(Parry/Block Rate) in my opinion doesn't make parry a useless stat, but one that I wouldn't actively seek going forward, unless there are proposed changes to it with the upcoming expansion.

[Seku]

Initially I started with the parry/det build and did well up through T13 with no problems, what was however noticeable was that the DPS in my static group was in essence riding me on threat, this in turn forced them to slow down their DPS which also meant weird phasing and other Issues. After some discussion I switched around gear and went with Det/Crit after meeting the Acc requirement for T13. Once I did this I found it much much easier to have and keep a significant lead on threat so that my DPS didn't have to throttle back on their DPS.

Exactly and you're also helping meet the enrage timers which is a big issue normally in progression and for people that do the content while it's fresh and don't have x Tome gear. And with how SE put a emphasis on Tank damage [Basicy them making almost all of War;s updates pure damage and giving PLD 2 new damage options]. I get the feeling that tank Damage is going to be more of a thing in future content.

[Lattimer]

Exactly and you're also helping meet the enrage timers which is a big issue normally in progression and for people that do the content while it's fresh and don't have x Tome gear. And with how SE put a emphasis on Tank damage [Basicy them making almost all of War;s updates pure damage and giving PLD 2 new damage options]. I get the feeling that tank Damage is going to be more of a thing in future content.

We also have to remember that with the additional DPS rotation that PLD is getting which is a DoT. Our threat will also increase while under shield oath. Would this be enough to go back to using Parry? I really don't think so. The difference between my Det/Parry build and Crit/Det build was a lose of like 3% dmg reduction from parry, going from parrying 34% of the damage to 31% of the damage.


Again I don't believe parry is a bad stat...I just don't believe it scales well or is effective enough. especially with bosses like Bahamut were other than his auto attack, Flatten is his other physical damage. The remainder of his attacks can't be blocked or parried.