Parry...

[Menae]

So, Casper is super duper correct. Like, super duper.

For one, let's just say the op's estimate of like 1-2% damage reduction from full parry was right. Yes, this sounds trivial, but you know what else only reduces about 2% damage over time? Hallowed Ground.

Rampart: 20 seconds every 90, 20% reduction = 4.44% DR over time.
Sentinel: 10 seconds every 180, 40% reduction = 2.2% DR over time.
Hallowed Ground: 10 seconds every 420, 100% reduction = 2.38% DR over time.
Convalescence: 20 seconds every 120, 30% healing received = 5% HR over time.
Total increases from cool downs:
9.04% DR over time
11.58% eHP over time
16.58% HR over time

This is a fallacious argument. You are conflating damage taken over the course of a fight with the damage taken during a very specific portion of the fight. Hallowed Ground is valuable not because of it's overall damage reduction, but its ability to completely ignore specific attacks or dangerous portions of the fight. It allows healers to reposition or heal the raid or top you off. Parry does none of these things; it merely provides a chance for you to take reduced damage from an attack, which may or may not fire off, meaning it is inconsistent. Parry's real value is hopefully allowing your healers to rely more on their smaller, more efficient heals by removing their tendency to freak out when you take a big damage spike via reducing the occurance of those spikes. It CAN save your life, no doubt - but if the only reason you lived through an attack was because you parried it, it's no different from the only reason you living through an attack being the boss rolled low on damage - it's luck, and you should not count on it.

So, if full parry gave you 2%, it would be equal to having an extra sentinel to pop over time. More, this would amount to a 20% increase in total dr over time (2% added to the ~10% from abilities.) so yeah.... It's pretty cool even at this low value.

Not to mention my own testing on turn 5 pre 2.2 has agreed with Casper's value. The returns are very high.

Where parry shines is on big hitting mobs in very strenuous situations. Having so much parry made me able to solo tank twin, which was the only way my group could win. Continuing to have it is allowing us to solo tanking turn 6. Those percentages add up. In places like 5 and 6, in many ways the auto attacks are more dangerous. You don't get killed by the 8 stack cleave, it's the AA after it that drops you. High parry and block gives you a strong statistical chance to mitigate and live in danger situations.

Ps: @50 parry = 1% dr, I'm at about 620 atm. Aka 12.4% Aka more than my entire cool down suite.

This is exactly the WRONG situation. Parry is most valuable in situations where you have lots of smaller hits incoming so that bad luck is less likely. Think about it this way: you have 50% parry (whatever number that requires) and 50% block, both at 25% DR. The boss has a two hit attack coming at you that does a combined 110% of your remaining health (after any CDs/etc you put up); if both connect you die, but even one parry/block saves you. You die 25% of the time. If that attack is instead 10 hits, say, from 10 smaller mobs instead of a large boss, then you will die less than 2% of the time. Parry is also good in any situation where a single hit will barely kill you, as it provides a chance to live where any other stat might not. That said, the best solution in those situations is usually get a heal.

That's not to say parry can't save your bacon - we've all had times where the tank drops to 50 hp and said, whew, thank god I blocked/parried THAT. I'm not necessarily saying parry is a bad stat; I'm saying it's not good for the reasons you are saying it is. The reason you can solo tank T6 isn't because parry is saving you - if it were, you'd be reliant entirely on luck to survive, and that's terrible tanking strategy. Rather, the reason you are solo tanking T6 is because you and your healers are skilled enough and geared enough in NON-RANDOM stats so that they can consistently keep you alive through your cooldowns and the increasing stacks of the boss.