Parry: How would you improve it?

[Jpec07]

Fun thought exercise. I'd focus on improving the defensive properties of parry; it's the only raw defensive stat we have, so why not make it worth taking for defense purposes? I'd probably do something like the following:

1. Block Rate += Parry - for Paladins in Shield Oath, have the parry stat apply directly to block rate. Paladins have shields, so instead of trying to bat attacks away with their swords, it makes more sense for them to hold up their shields.
2. Base Mitigation - in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit, parry also increases physical defense at .5*parry, and magic defense at .25*parry (coefficients subject to change). Parry would still have a chance to proc increased mitigation on physical attacks, but would also provide baseline mitigation.
3. "Magic" Parry - in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit, parry can also mitigate magic damage. The rate and amount would be 50% of the rate and amount for physical damage (coefficient subject to change).
4. Better Scaling - either double the rate at which parry affects parry rate, or have parry also affect the mitigation provided by parry while in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit.
5. Critical Block/Parry - in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit, give tanks the ability to critically block/parry, based on critical strike rating (so a 15% critical strike rating would also give you 15% chance at a critical block/parry, which would block/parry at (145+15)% strength).
6. Parry/Block Critical Strikes - in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit, let tanks parry/block critical strikes. A blocked/parried critical strike deals damage equal to if it had not been critical.
7. Awareness - to account for above changes, Awareness now also provides +15% parry.
8. Riposte - in Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit, parry now also provides a chance to deal a 25 potency attack following a parried/blocked attack (chance equal to current parry rate).
9. Battle Mastery - new trait for all tanks, which applies 50% parry to accuracy and 50% parry to critical strike, regardless of current buffs/debuffs. Given at level 30 with job soulstone.
10. Stat Budget - Parry on gear no longer counts toward the overall stat budget of the item, functioning like Def and M.Def, as a bonus for tanks.

EDIT: even though I'm crazy and I try to get as much parry as I can on my gear, I recognize that the stat is relatively weak. This is partially due to the desire of developers to reduce instances where secondary stat allocation caused older pieces to outrank newer pieces for BiS (such that more primary stat is always an upgrade), but it feels like they went just a little too far with that in this case.

[GranZero]

Thank you for all the insightful responses!

You mistook me with someone else :P
My opinion about parry didn't change since 2.0 when they nerfed main stats affecting parry str/rate.

I said that too xD

You're both right, my bad. And with the changes to Parry, I'd expect some skills would also be changed, namely Keen Flurry.

a new stat that accomplishes the same goal of slightly freeing up healer attention but without the elements of RNG or physical niche--for instance a stat called Steadfast which increases Defense, Magic Defense, and Healing Received.

Oh wow, imagine a tank with 1000+ Steadfast stat --- a Scholar can just DPS all day on Cleric Stance, only stopping to heal other party members. Then again, maybe I'm oversimplifying it there...

My only matter of contention with Steadfast is that it becomes a polar opposite of Parry: excellent in parties but is poor in solo (maybe with healer chocobo). But if we're thinking endgame, that's a stat I'd love to have as a tank.

Fun thought exercise. I'd focus on improving the defensive properties of parry; it's the only raw defensive stat we have, so why not make it worth taking for defense purposes?

If I'm going to narrow down the two worst issues Parry have, it'll be that it's unreliable and it's useless as an offtank. I do agree that tanks still need a defensive stat, but it has to eliminate the aforementioned problems.

I love your ideas too --- you buffed the tanking stances which is opposite of what I suggested in buffing offtanking stances. I would think Riposte as a skill a Fencer/Red Mage class would have, but it's great to see it mentioned here nonetheless.