Blocking and Parrying Magic: It Just Makes Sense

[Jpec07]

So I will start by saying that I absolutely agree with the devs on one thing: Block and Parry should never be able to mitigate all magic damage in the game. That just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If you cast an AoE firebomb or Flare at someone, there is no way that they would physically be able to prevent themselves from taking that damage. However, I will posit that there are some situations where these things make a lot of sense.

The Concept: Categorizing Spells
There are, in my mind, two different categories that can be used to organize spells: direct vs. ambient, and manifest vs. ethereal. A direct spell would be something that has a travel time and that moves in a line directly from the caster to the target, while ambient is something that more or less surrounds them and deals damage from all sides. And on the other category, a manifest spell would be something that takes physical form before attacking the target, while an ethereal spell would be more along the lines of coalesced, non-solidified energy.

So something like Stone I would be a direct manifest spell, while Aero I would be an ambient ethereal spell. Determining what a given spell is would basically be done by examining its mechanics in the animation: a laser from the boss is direct ethereal, flare would be ambient ethereal, Stone III would be ambient manifest, and so on.

Blocking Direct Spells
In this case, spells that are direct would be able to be blocked. You can hold up your shield and largely stop the damage from a fireball being hurled at you, or you could stop ice shards that were being vaulted your way. But shields can only block from one direction, so block would not be able to affect something like Aero, Thunder, or Stone III, all of which surround and deal damage from all sides.

Parrying Manifest Spells
So if Shiva hurls icicles at you, you should be able to parry them, because they have physical form. You can hit ice with your sword. You would also be able to bat a stone flying your way out of the air, and if you were quick enough, preventing them from crushing you from all sides (in Stone III). But an axe cannot cleave a fireball, and nor can a sword bat away a lightning bolt. You would be able to parry attacks with physical form, but anything that was mostly volatile energy would not be able to be redirected away from you.

How Gud to Git
Because it's magic, it would not make sense for physical measures like a block or a parry to be able to mitigate them as well as they would physical damage. However, 50-70% of their physical mitigation amount would not be out of the question.

TL;DR
I believe block and parry should be able to work against some magic attacks, because it just makes sense.

[Syzygian]

Asking it to make sense is ridiculous. I've parried the Oppressor's landing damage from across the room before. You can parry Earthshaker in t13. SCH and SMN can parry, albeit rarely, with fucking books. Its never gonna be logical. What's more is that parry and block still allow 70-80% of the damage through meaning if it was a real life parry or block, your character did a really crappy job.

Mechanics like this are fun to chit chat about with friends in game for sure. Threads about them on the official forums are kinda like... "they're never actually going to do this... why is this here..."

=/

[MaethusXion]

I've parry'd Titan's landslide before. As DRG if I remember right, PLD if I don't.

[Freyyy]

I'd like to be able to deflect magical attacks with my sword like lightsabers can deflect blaster lasers in Star Wars

[Zojha]

I'd like to be able to deflect magical attacks with my sword like lightsabers can deflect blaster lasers in Star Wars

Same. But with my fists. I already stopped a giant energy ball with my hand, so it's canon anyway >.>

[Ragology]

In DC universe online, the players defense values got so high that it trivialized content and so the developers added armor piercing to some of the enemies to compensate for it. Maybe magic damage is meant to be this games form of armor piercing?

Oh and another thing, when I'm tanking Stone Vigil and get to the part where the ice elementals attack, using an Ice Ward potion causes their attacks to miss more often (at least thats what it looks like, I haven't done thorough testing.) I was wondering if all magic attacks in the game have an element tied to them and if raising your elemental resistances would cause those to miss as well?

[Shurrikhan]

...

I agree completely. On all points.

Though I'd still call Aero direct-ethereal. Isn't there some brief moment of animation where it appears to be flung from your hand before wisping around the target? Or maybe I'm just remembering it that way because there are certain things I'd like to see it usable for in the future that would only make sense if it were direct...

[Immut]

Blocking yes. You can block a fireball or a laser with a shield. You can not parry a fireball. That shit don't work. Unless you're using one of those ridiculously huge swords you can hide behind.

As far as the manifest spell part, if it's got a solid physical form and isn't simply a form of energy, why isn't it just physical damage?

[eagledorf]

The core of the problem, from a gameplay point of view, is that the game was designed from the very beginning to make sense with the tank taking almost all physical damage and the party taking almost all magic damage.

To make my point, here is a list of skills/stats/status (off the top of my head) that only work on physical damage:

1. Foresight
2. Eye for an Eye
3. WHM/BLM Virus
4. Sheltron
5. Raw Intuition
6. Wrath
7. Block STR/Rate
8. Parry
9. Dark Dance
10. Bulwark
11. Rage of Halone
12. (Reprisal) (procs on physical)

The following are skills that are magic only:

1. Dragon Kick (Delirium)
2. Apocatastasis
3. Dark Mind

This is also evidenced by the high magic defense on healer gear.

Exceptions to this made for mechanics that were supposed to be awkward for the tank. For example, T2 vulnerability stacks or Ravens Ascent right after Ravensbeak.

What we have now is a raid cycle where there is an unusual balance between these two damage types rendering a large number of skills useless (especially A4S) and the kind of weird addition of Dark Mind to the tanking repertory (most likely related).

[Anova]

Block and parry do very little to reduce HP damage, but HP isn't by itself health. It's just a numerical representation of how durable you are until you receive a fatal (or knockout) blow.

Nobody is going to be alright after taking a direct hit from a missile, but characters in the game can. Is everyone secretly a superman? Is it because it's a game? Or is it because the tanks are already doing something to survive those kind of hits that other classes can't (deflection, blocking, and parry)?