Quote Originally Posted by Enfarious View Post
That's why I said "partial" parries should happen far more often, "full" parries should be possible but not common, with a larger weapon that can provide more deflection area higher mitigation seems reasonable, but that larger weapon would be slower moving and cause a reduction in rate of parries for the increased mitigation of each.
The possibility of full mitigation is more powerful than you think. That's largely why I'm in favor of parrying only mitigating some of the damage rather than negating it.
End of the day, having a shield should not remove parries from anyone, any weapon can be used to deflect an attack, how effective is partly a function of the mass of the weapon, but also being able to position the weapon is a factor. The trade is the same as blocks should be, larger=more mitigation but larger means harder to get up in time so lowered rate.
I'd rather shields be normalized and avoid the nonsense from FFXI with shield size. What I'd like to see is the devs build on the distinction between PLD/GLA shields and THM/BLM/WHM/CON shields.