Parry...

[Zourin]

Parry (and by the same math Block and Dodge) is important, not because of the DPS that's avoided, but the gambled chance you parry/block/dodge one of the Murder-Dead-Kill moves that you generally can't avoid. DPS is countered by healers and general mitigation (defense & damage reduction abilities), but the real beauty of parry/block/dodge comes in taking the edge off the hits that make healers freak out.

Since there's no +defense stat, and evasion-based gear was eviscerated, the only way to hedge our bets is +parry.

The shite-eating grin you have after you dodge two mountain busters in a row is priceless. Too bad everyone else winds up dying when something that glorious happens. I'll gladly take a parry though.

[ZDamned]

Parry (and by the same math Block and Dodge) is important, not because of the DPS that's avoided, but the gambled chance you parry/block/dodge one of the Murder-Dead-Kill moves that you generally can't avoid. DPS is countered by healers and general mitigation, but the real beauty of parry/block comes in taking the edge off the hits that make healers freak out.

The shite-eating grin you have after you dodge two mountain busters in a row is priceless. Too bad everyone else winds up dying when something that glorious happens.

You have the absolute most valid point in the thread against my argument. You can't beat a raw 5K Damage totally mitigated by a Dodge, nor the 800 lessened damage from a good parry on those attacks.

However! I must submit to you that we have tools for those situations, and they are ALWAYS attacks that the fight is based around. Which means they are beyond predictable. Turn 6's attacks hit for a max of 3K damage, and they hit on a timer, which the healers will always be ready for unless it's the first time they encountered it. Realistically speaking, you can't heal Titan HM, or EXM properly the first time you ever go in, because it's a pattern fight, and until you know the pattern, only luck will guide you through safely.

Tanking well vs Tanking Luckily are 2 totally different things, and If your luck as a tank got you through a fight one week, it won't carry your entire group forever. At some point your healers need to learn when to time their Stone Skins and Adlos, or else you won't have a good time on true to life hard to win encounters.

Death Sentence is a perfect example here. If your healers can't deal with it consistently, you may as well stop fighting Twintania. No amount of added parry will make it any easier.

[Zourin]

However! I must submit to you that we have tools for those situations, and they are ALWAYS attacks that the fight is based around. Which means they are beyond predictable. Turn 6's attacks hit for a max of 3K damage, and they hit on a timer, which the healers will always be ready for unless it's the first time they encountered it. Realistically speaking, you can't heal Titan HM, or EXM properly the first time you ever go in, because it's a pattern fight, and until you know the pattern, only luck will guide you through safely.

What you have described is "damage per second", really, and yes, it's handled by experienced healers in a choreographed fight, not the tank (aside from popping cooldowns, so at a minimum it's a cooperative effort). Rotational burst damage is just spiky dps in the long haul. Dodge/Parry/Block is the chance that the healer gets a momentary reprieve to tend to other party members unless they're precasting (risky if the heal is a fraction early)

That said, the OP isn't terribly far off the mark. Increases in Parry offer minimal differences in tanking ability to the magnitude of percents of percents, so there is very, very little difference between most gears within the same tier (other than crafted, which bears a marked lack of Parry). i90 gear vs i80 gear, there won't be a measurable difference in parry rate so much as a difference in max HP and general armor mitigation which will play a more vital role. SE's 'standardization' of stats generally means that even if you stack parry as high as it goes, you aren't irreplaceable by another tank.