Why Avoid Parry?

[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.

[Kosmos992k]

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.

That is the point of Warrior though, is it not? It's a race to kill it before it kills you, so for a Warrior, moar dps is by design. Of course thanks to encounter design, they had to also give War mitigation almost comparable to PLD so that War can survive encounters. which goes back to the idea that PLD is the mitigation tank being a moot point since all 3 tanks can mitigate reasonably well.

However, what you outlined above is a great explanation of how Warriors are supposed to function as tanks.

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.

If they've done any research they should know how much of a folly that is.

I remain quite surprised that there has not been a greater outcry about the modifications to Parry and Blocking, they go to fundamental aspects of all 3 tanks, PLD in particular.

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.

You made a lot of great points, but I wanted to say something to this point in particular.

That makes sense in end-game content and raiding where there is a premium on DPS, but it makes much less sense to players from that traditional tanking background, or who don't play at the end-game/raider level. People pick Paladin for numerous reasons, I assume some for the look and some because they want to be the rock-like anchor of the group protecting everyone else. For those players in particular, it's a paradigm shift in their view of being Paladin. I honestly hate the 'moar DPS' meta, and the fact that it spread from end-game into every other aspect of the game.

I'm not sure who it is that is encouraging Paladins to swap to Sword oath for more DPS, but they'll get no where with me on that score. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need in the raiding environment for the additional DPS from the tank. Outside of that, I honestly think it's out of line for anyone to pressure tanks of any kind to play in a particular way, unless the tank is literally failing to do their job well enough to hold hate.

Honestly, what Square Enix should do is make such that Parry Percentage is increased by Strength. In other words, Parry as a stat on gear should disappear. Rather, more strength = more parry, and we get more parry the better our gear gets. No more stacking Parry, it just is like 30% of your Strength. Design encounters with this in mind, so that a tank who doesn't have the minimum recommended gear to handle an encounter gets knocked flat by auto-attacks.

Oh come on, why not just make everything scale of Strength and drop every other stat in the game? You can't just keep scaling everything of STR just because Warriors focus more on STR for DPS output anyway.

The more we scale everything else of 2-3 primary stats, the more homogenized everyone becomes. I didn't sign up for this game to play a slightly prettier clone of every other Miqo'te Paladin.

[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.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

I'll put it this way: all tanks and healers are going to treat every fight as if you will never Parry anything.

If you happen to Parry, great. Won't actually change how people react. Healer will still throw the same Cure at you that they would've anyway.

All raids, bosses, etc are scripted fights. There is a set rotation. The majority of cooldowns and heals are used proactively, not reactively. Because of this structure, it's pointless.

Also parry rate is not 25%. You can't possibly reach 25% with current numbers (aside from cooldowns). It's like 8%.

And your Crit/Parry comparison pales because Crit scales much better, AND affects the potency of Crits (parry is constant 20%)

[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.

[Syzygian]

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.

This is a straw man argument. Literally zero people expect a tank to sit there and do no damage. It is in fact impossible to do so and keep hate. The arguments being posited are whether or not a tank's dps secondaries actually contribute -significant- increases to raid dps over a tank favoring parry, assuming they both have the same str and weapon damage.

[Ralvenom]

This is a straw man argument. Literally zero people expect a tank to sit there and do no damage. It is in fact impossible to do so and keep hate. The arguments being posited are whether or not a tank's dps secondaries actually contribute -significant- increases to raid dps over a tank favoring parry, assuming they both have the same str and weapon damage.

Doing just enough damage to keep hate is failure. You're a DRK. You know this.

[Lan_Mantear]

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

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

While I agree with your opinion. It is just that, opinion. At their core, at tank's job is to hold hate. A healer's job is to heal, and a DPS's job is to do damage. Everything else beyond that is icing and is part of what defines a mediocre player vs an exceptional player.

So long as player is doing their role's core function. They are not technically playing incorrectly. They are just being mediocre. It can be a struggle, but even mediocre players can clear content.