Parry...

[PiedPiper]

You are so wrong... If I could parry 45-50% of the time, I would never have started this thread.
PS: I have more parry than you do, and I NEVER see your magic numbers.

You can't have much more parry than me lol. I'm over 620 with food, it's simple not possible to be much more.


That said, of course you aren't parrying 45%, not all attacks can be mitigated and you block then parry. Of the parriable attacks that you don't block? Yeah you are parrying 40%+. Do you play with floating text on?



Also, I was taking about cding in final phase not before that.

[SwordCoheir]

That said, of course you aren't parrying 45%, not all attacks can be mitigated and you block then parry.

By that logic though, you've cut the usefulness of parry by half if not more depending on the instance. Even if you negotiate instances based on the types of attacks enemies use, the slower or the more magical the attacks are the more significantly blocking/parrying is crippled, and it simply won't measure up to DPS secondary stats (save for skill speed maybe) when capped accuracy removes the only factor that hurts your hate/dps "missing".

[Vique]

There are generally several schools of thoughts among tank players (in most MMO's):

1) The faster things die, the less damage you take.
These players will prefer offensive stats over defensive. More damage also means more emnity/threat/aggro. The bigger your threat lead, the more allowance you have to maintain buffs and debuffs (especially true for warriors) and other maintenance duties such as dps-ing adds, stun locking, avoiding crap, etc. without worrying about healer aggro taking over. You can also push phases faster and have to deal with annoying mechanics less ie T6. The less time an encounter takes, the less time u have to make mistakes as well. Offensive stats like strength also have passive mitigation attributes other than damage.

2) Your job is survivability and threat.
This is the official job description of a tank. These players will min max avoidance/mitigation stats and ignore damage completely. It is safe build when potency of healing and dps are variable and inconsistent or if you are unfamiliar with a new content/mechanic. You have to fend your yourself. Encounters usually run a little longer, but you can offset that by surviving better.

3) Avoidance vs mitigation
Essentially comes down to RNG vs predictability. Usually you have to sacrifice one for the other, ie choosing between onion shield and holy/allagan shield. Could be applied to parry I suppose. From experience it depends on the encounter. In my opinion, if you have multiple fast attacking mobs, avoidance is king. But if you are tanking a singular, slow hitting boss, I prefer to take mitigation. You dont normally die from sustained damage. You die because of large, unpredictable spikes. In which case if you have low(er) mitigation, and when the RNG gods are not smiling on you, you are sure to die (in some games).

Of course, there is no prevailing build as no amount of theory-crafting or practical tests can disprove the viability of any of the other builds. To be a good tank, I think one should be aware of all possible alternatives and adjust their build to suit the encounter and his teammates. However in this game, the itemization is poor, and any difference between items of the same ilevel tier usually produce differences that are quite negligible at best. Trading 1% of avoidance for 1% more damage or vice versa is a matter of choice and wont make you a better or worse tank.

[Casper]

The difference is no more than 1% DR for 2% damage. Except in cases where you will not do any of the heavy lifting (T8 as OT for example), i don't think the extra damage is worth the loss of DR.

[PiedPiper]

By that logic though, you've cut the usefulness of parry by half if not more depending on the instance. Even if you negotiate instances based on the types of attacks enemies use, the slower or the more magical the attacks are the more significantly blocking/parrying is crippled, and it simply won't measure up to DPS secondary stats (save for skill speed maybe) when capped accuracy removes the only factor that hurts your hate/dps "missing".

Of the bosses that actually pose a threat to the tank (turn ls 5, 6, 8, etc), they attack either exclusively with massive attacks that you can mitigate, or almost exclusively.

Also, I think you underestimate the value of mitigating big slow attacks. An aa that drops you to 5k instead of 3k gives healers a gcd to use on the party rather than you. Anything you can do to give the healers more time (as this, and not mana, is the real gate on healing output) is much more important than saving one gcd.

[MythToken]

I am going to have to agree with Piper here. IF parry equates to 1-2% dr over time, that is HUGE.
Anyone arguing a tank should favor dps over DR is just wrong.

However I would still like to see some more conclusive data on parry, and more importantly how this affects warriors who cannot block.

[Casper]

I am going to have to agree with Piper here. IF parry equates to 1-2% dr over time, that is HUGE.
Anyone arguing a tank should favor dps over DR is just wrong.


However I would still like to see some more conclusive data on parry, and more importantly how this affects warriors who cannot block.

Parry is even better for Warriors, because they don't have blocks to lower their parry. Pld parry x% of the hits they dont blocks; Warrior parry x% of the hits, period.

Data on parry IS conclusive. 13 parry = 1% parry rate, with 10% base parry rate at zero additional parry @50; thus 52 parry is 4% parry rate, which at 24% DR for parry comes out at 0.98% DR. You end up with about 53 parry = 1% DR. Full parry gear compared to no parry gear is about 250 difference, so about 5% DR difference. Test it out for yourself. Numerous people have done it, including myself, and i did those tests on level 10 mobs, level 46 mobs, and on T6. Parry rate never varied with mob level and was always consistent with the formula given. It is not an unproven theory or anything.

[CianaIezuborn]

Parry is even better for Warriors, because they don't have blocks to lower their parry. Pld parry x% of the hits they dont blocks; Warrior parry x% of the hits, period.

Err, no, that's not how percentages work.

War going from 25% parry to 26% parry is an increase of 1.35% (.75/.74)

Paladin with 25% block and parry going to 25% block and 26% parry is also an increase of 1.35% (.5625/.555)

[Menae]

Err, no, that's not how percentages work.

War going from 25% parry to 26% parry is an increase of 1.35% (.75/.74)

Paladin with 25% block and parry going to 25% block and 26% parry is also an increase of 1.35% (.5625/.555)

Your argument is misleading. A warrior going from 25% parry to 26% is now mitigating damage from an extra one hit per 100 swings; a paladin with 25% block and 25% parry going to 26% parry is now mitigating damage from an extra .7 swings per 100 (assuming your numbers are right; I didn't double check them). It's an equal increase in the relative number of mitigated attacks, true, but if both tanks have the same parry percentage and parry strength, the warrior will gain more absolute damage reduction. Parry is better for warriors, assuming both classes have same formula for how it works.

[ZDamned]

Your argument is misleading. A warrior going from 25% parry to 26% is now mitigating damage from an extra one hit per 100 swings; a paladin with 25% block and 25% parry going to 26% parry is now mitigating damage from an extra .7 swings per 100 (assuming your numbers are right; I didn't double check them). It's an equal increase in the relative number of mitigated attacks, true, but if both tanks have the same parry percentage and parry strength, the warrior will gain more absolute damage reduction. Parry is better for warriors, assuming both classes have same formula for how it works.

Your both going about it wrongly.
If you look at it from a purely mathematical stand point, you need to ignore all blocked attacks.
The only difference is you are taking less hits overall. Throw away all Shield Blocks, and the chances to parry between both are the same. This is why Paladin mitigates more than Warrior. They just have another layer to defend with. In the case of the shield Blocking first, you just deflected damage with the outer layer first, but when you don't block, the attack "pierced through" the outer layer, and your chance to parry is now equal to what it would be on a warrior with the same amount.
Just because you don't get as many opportunities to parry, doesn't mean you have a lower chance to parry.
It's all perspective.
And when talking about the Noct Hoplon, you basically want to block more often than not, but with a Buckler, you want to parry more often, because Parry deflects more damage.