Fending vs. Slaying accessories at this point in the game

[Phoenicia]

*snip*

I'm gonna quote myself from another "OMG PARRY" thread..

"I think people miss the point of why parry (and block) aren't that great for tanking and, therefore, should NOT be geared towards.

It is not that parry and/or block are bad per se, parry and block are welcome mitigation, when they happen. Yes, parry scales so slow and you need ridiculous amounts for the percentage to count. But the real problem, and the reason, parry and block are "bad" is that you cannot 100% rely on them to be there when you need them. The tanking meta in this game is "fluff damage" until the "tank buster" comes in.

Fluff damage can be mitigated in many ways and is easy to heal anyways and is where healers go in their DPS stances. Even tank self heals are enough sometimes. Tank busters are what matters because that is what is going to kill your tank. Relying on crossing your fingers for a parry (or block) to mitigate said tank busters is fool hardy and stupid."

[Phoenicia]

... Continued.

"So unless you can somehow cover a hit table of 100% where all attacks are either dodged, blocked or parried, you should NOT rely on the RNG stats to mitigate your damage.

To fix this: SE gave PLDs and WARs tools to "use" said mechanics: Namely Sheltron and Raw Intuition respectively.

I exclude Bulwark and Dark Dance (and wrath stacks) as they are not 100% chance to mitigate damage, hence, not reliable. (I can't begin to count the amount of times where Death Sentence, Mountain Buster, Raven's Beak, Flatten, Revelation, etc. went through my blocks where I block the auto attacks before and after.) They help? sure. Are they reliable? no.

Personally, the way it works, I hate parry. Heck, I even feel I'm forced by SE to use the stat because they keep shoving it up my gear which makes me hate it even more."

[pandabearcat]

Why hate parry? Its better than vit. We have no options for defensive stats so if you're dying you get parry.

Oh wait you can't, cause it doesn't even matter what your preferences are, there is exactly one set of gear. OR! OR maybe sometimes TWO pieces of gear!

Holy mother of god...so much tanking variety.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Why hate parry? Its better than vit. We have no options for defensive stats so if you're dying you get parry.

Oh wait you can't, cause it doesn't even matter what your preferences are, there is exactly one set of gear. OR! OR maybe sometimes TWO pieces of gear!

Holy mother of god...so much tanking variety.

Parry scaling is still laughably bad and doesn't even apply in Alex 4 and a couple phases of Ravana EX.

[Yorumi]

Forgive me for my ignorance of progression content, and my ignorance of stat caps. That said I would also like to see a more detailed analysis of parry. Saying parry is random isn't a valid reason not to have it, even when random it will still reduce healing needed over a fight.

I don't care if it does suck I'd just kind of like see a more detailed analysis than "it's random." If we're going to talk about melded gear couldn't we meld parry instead of vit? Giving str/parry, damage and mitigation? Just trying to get the entire picture so I can make informed decisions.

[Kiteless]

Parry gains give horrible returns on your actual parry rate.

It's also random.

[Greven]

Funny and not far from the truth. The more a tank sacrifies its mitigation (being it HP, Parry, yah that taboo stat or CD) the less space for an healer to do some damage as well. A gain from a side a loose from the other. Though that's what's cool now. Some healers don't even like to DPS so well it's not bad for them but well I'm noticing less healers lately, could it be that all that useless stress added may factor for something? I don't know, I don't think it's wrong, nearly everybody want to DPS, that's a reason why DPS are the bigger slice of the cake and I myself prefer a smooth, fast run but it take skills, not only from the tank and the healers but from the DPS as well cause the more resources you sacrifice in order to do more damage the less you have to do the rest (Less HP, running out of MP or TP etc.) so everybody must be good.

That said, it's very rude to stress your healer or even your party uselessly. I suggest go with fending accessories, once you get used to the instance you can mix fending and slaying but check your party, not only your healer and choose wisely. If you go with friends and trusted people feel free to put most if not all slaying accessory XD

[Phoenicia]

Why hate parry? Its better than vit. We have no options for defensive stats so if you're dying you get parry.

Oh wait you can't, cause it doesn't even matter what your preferences are, there is exactly one set of gear. OR! OR maybe sometimes TWO pieces of gear!

Holy mother of god...so much tanking variety.

Hence why I hate it, it's shoved down my throat for negligible returns.

As a WAR tank through the entirety of 2.x and DRK/WAR in 3.0. Determination, Crit and SS have far more returns than parry. Not just in terms of damage, but also the so neglected self heals that nobody likes to count on. I'd rather heal 200 more HP every time I use IB over crossing my fingers to parry/block incoming tank buster where I already have 1 to 2 CDs running to mitigate.

It's not that parry is "bad". It is just far too unreliable.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Forgive me for my ignorance of progression content, and my ignorance of stat caps. That said I would also like to see a more detailed analysis of parry. Saying parry is random isn't a valid reason not to have it, even when random it will still reduce healing needed over a fight.

I don't care if it does suck I'd just kind of like see a more detailed analysis than "it's random." If we're going to talk about melded gear couldn't we meld parry instead of vit? Giving str/parry, damage and mitigation? Just trying to get the entire picture so I can make informed decisions.

While I don't have any parry data to offer, here's 2 points of consideration.

First, STR/parry meld is just flat-out a waste of money compared to STR/VIT meld. Parry does not apply to several attacks and several entire old encounters (Ramuh EX, Leviathan EX, numerous phases of several old Coils) and even new ones (entirety of Alex4, Ravana EX Beetle avatar). Regardless of whether or not parry scaling is good or bad, investing into a stat that doesn't apply in half the relevant content is foolhardy.

Second, the idealogy that "parrying will save healing needed" only applies on a very amateur healer level. The kind who waits to see damage before healing. In the meta of tankbusters and pre-curing, you are not going to wait to see the hit to heal. Your heal better already be outgoing. You can't wait to see the parry. If it happens, sure you might not need to follow up with another Cure1/Physick/Benefic. But in most situations where it mattered, your co-healer was probably on it too. So all you've accomplished is randomly overhealing.

Most situations where a parry or block was life-saving are extremely confirmation bias-heavy or were entirely preventable circumstances. Planning around something un-ideal happening frequently is just not a sound logic.

This is the same argument that has been argued since 2.0 launch. The game has not changed significantly since then. If anything, we are playing 2.0 again based on preliminary testing of secondary stat scaling for other jobs (DPS). Which means that comparing parry levels now is about at productive as it was in the era of Darklight/Mythology/Coil1.

[Vurtney]

This is really just one of those things which comes down to who you're playing with, mainly the healer that's going to heal the tanks squishy ass. Right now the dungeons can be tanked in slaying no problem whatsoever, hell i'd recommend it. Extremes and Alex (as of right now) are still borderline. I wouldn't do it with randoms.