Why Avoid Parry?

[Jpec07]

I don't get it. In 3.x, outside of shields (which are an oddity to themselves), Parry is literally the only pure mitigation stat that we can stack. I understand that Parry isn't "reliable" because it's based on RNG, and that right now, with fights so focused on DPS output, putting any stats into mitigation is a waste.

But in general, don't tanks want to do whatever they can to take less damage? Sure, you can't rely on Parry to save you, but won't it help to smooth out incoming damage when there are a lot of hits coming in? And to that end, isn't Parry then the best stat a tank can get?

So why should tanks avoid Parry, and why is the advice to new players to avoid it?

Edit: Killing a mob faster is only viable as mitigation if the damage prevented is greater than the damage that would have been prevented by instead passively mitigating it. Killing a mob faster to save .3% damage by stacking Crit is not viable as mitigation if a full Parry build would have saved you .5% incoming damage. Is the scaling on Parry really so poor that the DPS gained by using other stats instead makes tank DPS a more viable source of mitigation?

[Freyyy]

- Parry is only possible against physical attacks.
- The parry stat scales very VERY poorly, you have to get a LOT of it in order to see a tiny difference. And by doing that, you're wasting a LOT of good DPS secondaries.
- Unreliable form of mitigation. When big physical damage are incoming, you and your healers can never assume that you will parry. You have to prepare for it with your tanking stance and appropriate cooldown usage. If RNG decides that you parry on top of that, it's unneeded and unexpected mitigation which leads to overhealing most of the time.
- Only useful when actually tanking something, while DPS secondaries are useful 100% of the time.

[Jpec07]

- Parry is only possible against physical attacks.

Not sure how accurate this is. I've seen parry come up on a number of magical attacks, and based on what I've seen from other posters, it seems to affect both physical AND magic. Evidence is purely anecdotal, though.

- The parry stat scales very VERY poorly, you have to get a LOT of it in order to see a tiny difference. And by doing that, you're wasting a LOT of good DPS secondaries.

Even so, isn't it still more valuable for a tank to stack anything that will reduce incoming damage? Even if only by a little bit? Sure, encounters right now don't really make mitigation valuable (because of how little damage is going out), but as a general rule, isn't anything you can do to even have a chance of slightly reducing incoming damage worthwhile?

- Unreliable form of mitigation. When big physical damage are incoming, you and your healers can never assume that you will parry. You have to prepare for it with your tanking stance and appropriate cooldown usage. If RNG decides that you parry on top of that, it's unneeded and unexpected mitigation which leads to overhealing most of the time.

But what about trash pulls, or bosses that have frequent auto-attacks? You're listing one example, but that example is why cooldowns exist. Parry seems more to exist for helping to just reduce incoming damage in general; as a tank, isn't any little bit of help we can give to our healers worthwhile?

- Only useful when actually tanking something, while DPS secondaries are useful 100% of the time.

This is the only point I can kind of understand--but even so, wouldn't it still make sense for the MT to equip Parry to smooth incoming white damage? Especially when DPS is only an incidental goal of tanking, doesn't it make more sense for a Main Tank to do whatever is within their power to have the greatest chance at reducing incoming damage as possible? DPS secondaries are also not useful for period of outgoing damage where the boss cannot be attacked, while Parry is/might be.

Not trying to argue, just really trying to wrap my head around this, because it seems completely backwards to me.

[Risvertasashi]

Basically... let's say you go all parry. If you can get a piece for a slot with parry, you get it, wear it, use it.

To notice the difference, you have to do some hard core stat crunching. Recording encounter after encounter until you have a ton of data points to compare against your previous build. Only then will you notice a very slight difference.

Without the help of said programs/crunching, you'll never notice any gain from stacking the parry stat. Your healers won't notice. That's why people call it a terrible stat.

Same applies to block for PLDs.

[Merkava]

Not sure how accurate this is. I've seen parry come up on a number of magical attacks, and based on what I've seen from other posters, it seems to affect both physical AND magic. Evidence is purely anecdotal, though.

What you think are magical attacks are actually physical, the game is weird like that at times but Parry only works on Physical attacks. I know what you mean but trust me when I say you haven't parried a single magical attack.

Even so, isn't it still more valuable for a tank to stack anything that will reduce incoming damage? Even if only by a little bit? Sure, encounters right now don't really make mitigation valuable (because of how little damage is going out), but as a general rule, isn't anything you can do to even have a chance of slightly reducing incoming damage worthwhile?

The problem is that it's RNG based and extremely unreliable. The scaling is so bad it's best to rely on skills that boost Parry chance rather than the parry stat itself. Parry is negated by Critical hits and you have to wrap your head around the idea that one of the best ways to mitigate damage in this game is to kill whatever is hurting you faster. Giving a boost to a stat that gives you a more sizeable boost to damage is more useful than a stat that MIGHT give you a small boost to your defense. On top of that most big fights are scripted so big reliable mitigitations are far more important than RNG mitigation.

[Jpec07]

What you think are magical attacks are actually physical, the game is weird like that at times but Parry only works on Physical attacks. I know what you mean but trust me when I say you haven't parried a single magical attack.

Quake III is physical?

The problem is that it's RNG based and extremely unreliable. The scaling is so bad it's best to rely on skills that boost Parry chance rather than the parry stat itself. Parry is negated by Critical hits and you have to wrap your head around the idea that one of the best ways to mitigate damage in this game is to kill whatever is hurting you faster. Giving a boost to a stat that gives you a more sizeable boost to damage is more useful than a stat that MIGHT give you a small boost to your defense. On top of that most big fights are scripted so big reliable mitigitations are far more important than RNG mitigation.

I don't agree with this logic. Tanks in general contribute the least to group DPS (with the exception of Warriors in Deliverance). This is by design. The tank's job is to hold hate and to survive - dealing damage is an incidental aspect of tanking gameplay, but the vast majority of damage responsibility lies with the pure DPS jobs. Based purely on potency, +50 DTR will give more DPS to a damage job than it will to a tank.

A parried attack results in 20% mitigation for that attack, since 3.0. With a parry rate of 25%, that translates to (roughly) 5% total mitigation of incoming damage, plus or minus to account for RNG. Hypothetical numbers time. Even if it takes 250 Parry to get +1% parry rate (+.2% mitigation), isn't that worth it? The only way to tell is by determining if +250 of some other stat will help the enemy/enemies die fast enough to where their total damage output is more than .2% less (more likely for trash, less likely for a boss). And from a tank, I'm less inclined to believe this would be the case.

I also don't buy the RNG argument. Crit is also RNG based, so why is crit > parry, scaling aside?

EDIT: Another thing is Reprisal, which Procs on parry and gives a few seconds of -10% damage output. So then wouldn't DRK have even more reason to get Parry on their gear?

[Merkava]

Quake III is physical?

If you parried it then yup, like I said the game is weird like that. "Parrying" magic makes less sense than blocking magic and it's already been said that Shields will never block magic.

I don't agree with this logic. Tanks in general contribute the least to group DPS (with the exception of Warriors in Deliverance). This is by design. The tank's job is to hold hate and to survive - dealing damage is an incidental aspect of tanking gameplay, but the vast majority of damage responsibility lies with the pure DPS jobs. Based purely on potency, +50 DTR will give more DPS to a damage job than it will to a tank.

The problem here is that your assumption not entirely correct (namely when it comes to warrior). A good tank can contribute a significant amount of DPS, heck I'm often top DPS in 90% of pug parties. Even if the tank is below a good DPS (which should be the case with a competent DPS) it is still a significant amount of damage that is being contributed, helping mitigation by killing things faster. A large pull is only dangerous when it takes too long and killing it fast is not only the responsability of the DPS, Tanks and Healers have to weight in as well.

A parried attack results in 20% mitigation for that attack, since 3.0. With a parry rate of 25%, that translates to (roughly) 5% total mitigation of incoming damage, plus or minus to account for RNG. Hypothetical numbers time. Even if it takes 250 Parry to get +1% parry rate (+.2% mitigation), isn't that worth it? The only way to tell is by determining if +250 of some other stat will help the enemy/enemies die fast enough to where their total damage output is more than .2% less (more likely for trash, less likely for a boss). And from a tank, I'm less inclined to believe this would be the case.

Have you ever tried bloodbath and zerk with overpower spam with a large pull? The amount of mitigation that offers is in a level of its own, the higher your damage the better it gets.

I also don't buy the RNG argument. Crit is also RNG based, so why is crit > parry, scaling aside?

EDIT: Another thing is Reprisal, which Procs on parry and gives a few seconds of -10% damage output. So then wouldn't DRK have even more reason to get Parry on their gear?

Your logic is sound and I understand where you're coming from, the only problem is that it just doesn't work like that in actual combat. Heck, thanks to bloodbath (in the case of WAR) critical and damage can actually offer far superior mitigation than parry. You just have to wrap your head around the idea that killing stuff faster is just way better than reducing damage by marginal amounts. Now I kinda agree that the degree where some people do give it importance is a bit... crazy, seeing as I don't think I'd ever give up a higher ilvl piece of gear since primary stats >>> secondary stats, specially after all the nerfing in 3.0.

But I have seen numerous raiders prefer lower ilvl gear just because it has parry.

[Iagainsti]

I also don't buy the RNG argument. Crit is also RNG based, so why is crit > parry, scaling aside?

At least when we're talking Warriors, Crit RNG can be manipulated with IR and Deliverance stacks, resulting in better self heals through IB, or higher damage bursts with FC. Parry mitigation cannot be manipulated. See previous post for end result.

[Ralvenom]

The tank's job is to hold hate and to survive - dealing damage is an incidental aspect of tanking gameplay

Actually, a tank's job is 3-fold:
1. Keep hate.
2. Survive by using CDs when needed.
3. Contribute to party damage.

Some people like to forget #3 there.

Likewise, a healer's job is 3-fold:
1. Heal the party, especially the tank.
2. Contribute to party damage.
3. Don't overheal.

People expect healers to do #2 there. But, for some odd reason, they have NO ISSUE with forgetting #3 up in the tank section. It's as if some tanks feel that they're the special cookies who get to avoid having to deal damage, SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE. If you fulfill #1 & #2 as a tank, but you don't even bother to try to do #3...then I think you've failed as a tank, regardless of whether you're a WAR or DRK or PLD.

[Sapphidia]

Quake III is physical?

Yep. A huge number of AOEs and abilities are Physical damage even though they may look like fire/earth. A lot of the stuff in Titan is actually Physical too, only some of his abilities are earth damage. If you can parry it, it's physical.

I don't agree with this logic. Tanks in general contribute the least to group DPS (with the exception of Warriors in Deliverance). This is by design. The tank's job is to hold hate and to survive - dealing damage is an incidental aspect of tanking gameplay, but the vast majority of damage responsibility lies with the pure DPS jobs.

This is why you don't understand the pointlessness of Parry. Just because you disagree with the logic doesnt make it false. Tank DPS is important in almost every raid encounter.

Tanks contribute less DPS than other DPSers but not by much. A tank who minmaxes their DPS will still be contributing a large amount of DPS to a party. Even if they put out 50% of the damage of a DPSer, that's still a large amount of total damage considering there's only 4-5 DPSers in a party. There are fights in this game that have very tough DPS checks and every ounce of DPS helps.

No, there's nothing inherantly wrong with having lots of Parry if the parry was -free-. But by stacking Parry you're giving up Crit or Det and thus reducing your damage output. Parry scales incredibly poorly and you need a huge amount of it to see even a few percent of increased parry chance. And when you consider 5% parry chance is less than 1% total mitigation against physical stuff only, you have to realise that Crit/Det is just the better choice.

I can understand coming from a tanking background that the desire to be as tough as possible is there, but FFXIV is different - here the ideal tank gets tough -enough- and then does more damage. Paladins are encouraged to swap to sword oath for more dps as often as possible as long as their healer can take it, and that -20% damage taken that you give up from not having Shield Oath is worth far more than any amount of parry stacking.

There's also the factor of the combat table. The way FFXIV calculates hits is a multiple roll system. First it checks if you dodge/evade. Then it checks if the enemy crits. If the enemy DOESNT crit, then it rolls a block chance check. If it doesnt block only then does Parry get checked for, so 30% parry chance doesnt mean 30% of incoming hits are parried, it means 30% of the htis that arent Crits, Blocks or Evades get parried. For paladins with decent block chance this reduces the effectiveness of Parry far more than Warriors/DRKs.

It sounds like you arent going to believe people though without understanding just how important tank damage is in the game. I'm not sure how we can get that across without having seen it in the flesh. We're in a tanking meta where tanks are expected to generally wear slaying accessories rather than Fending ones, tank outside of their tank stance as much as possible, and contribute as much DPS to a party as humanly possible, at the expense of mitigation. Tank damage is generally quite minor outside of scripted big tankbusters which are dealt with via reliable cooldowns and not RNG parry. You can't not pop a cooldown on Thordan's Heavenly Heel because you hope you'll Parry it, you need to ensure you have reliable mitigation. Parrying it is a bonus.

Maybe if parry gave a HUGE amount of bonus chance to parry for each point then it might be worth it on some encounters. But as it is, a tank who stacks parry might take maybe 2% less damage than a tank that stacks pure dps stats but put out 3-4% less dps. That's a no brainer decision.