Why Avoid Parry?

[Ashkendor]

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.

Some attacks look magical but are actually physical. Revelation in T12 comes to mind.

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.

I remember a thread awhile back posting the actual numbers for how much parry you had to stack to see a noticeable difference. It's ludicrously high. We're talking several hundred parry for a 5-6% change in overall mitigation. It's just not worth it.

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

Trust me, it's ass backwards to me too. I came to this game straight off tanking in a couple of other games, so I was fully VIT statted at first and had Acc/Parry on my Novus. At some point I became aware of the more aggressive tank meta and swapped up my gear, dropping a couple hundred Parry in favor of Crit/Det. I didn't say anything to my static's healers and they didn't notice a thing.

[Jpec07]

So a couple other things I thought about:

• It is possible that Parry scales per opponent, similar to Accuracy (where stronger opponents require more Accuracy to consistently hit). This would mean that 700 parry can give 35% Parry rate against a trash mob in Azys Lla, but could go back down to 20% against Thordan EX or Alexander: Savage mobs. So basically, each mob might have a coefficient that interacts with the base parry amount or the amount of parry stat to determine the parry rate, in similar fashion to accuracy (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if all combat table stats are affected by this coefficient - has there been any testing?).
  
• Since PLD has no inherent self-healing (outside of what pittance is done by Bloodbath), it may make Parry retain some of its priority over the other stats. Clemency is an oddity in that it seems to scale directly with attack power, for which Strength is much more potent a stat than any other (going from a Fending set to a Slaying set with comparable Det/Crit caused a 2-fold increase in the efficacy of the ability over several casts no I wasn't trying to be a healadin in Void Ark last night don't look at me like that). Mind, I'm not saying that Parry is good here, just that the mitigation model for PLD might still prefer it to DPS stats for mitigation.
  
• Several people have made good points about how other stats interact with self-heals, which are an important part of both DRK and WAR mitigation (not SUPER important, but important nonetheless). So I'm starting to get a better sense for how DPS stats may hold more mitigation value for those jobs, because not only is the mitigation provided come from quickening the end of the enemy's life, but also from the increased mitigation provided through self-healing.
  
• There seems to be a lack of current data about how stats play out in 3.0, and a lot of people are stating their claims about the stat based on its poor scaling in 2.x. The only recent tests (linked earlier in this thread) suggest that it scales about as well as Crit--only instead of affecting both rate and amount (like Crit), it only affects rate, which compounds the perception of poor scaling. This is further exacerbated by the fact that Parry is the last thing calculated on the damage table, and that critical strikes cannot be parried (which makes Awareness more desirable with more Parry).
  
• This entire discussion is moot anyway because of how prevalent the aggressive meta has become, and how little tank damage there is in most encounters (Pharos Sirius HM and Saint Mocianne's Arboretum give me hope, though - lots more damage going out in those places than either Fractal or Neverreap, or even Alexander Normal).
  
• The delineation between magic/not magic is weird. I suspect that calling an attack physical vs magical may be a bit of a mistranslation, and that the true delineation may actually be whether or not a given attack can be parried. So changing the name of the attribute may be advisable (to the localization forums!).
  
• People who facepull in Void Ark before you can switch into your Slaying set to offtank more effectively suck. 8|

[Donjo]

Jpec, I've just gotta say. You've handled yourself very well in this discussion. You've asked some important questions; questions that too many people have outright ignored... and when people bit back, you peacefully considered their points of view without biting back yourself.

So kudos to you. This has been a good thread.

[T2teddy]

I really loathe the fact that SE made Coils and Alex require so much more dps that the dedicated raiders chose to force tanks and healers to dps too. THAT's what has led to all this damage is the be all end all of tanking crap. And sadly. the raider's self imposed meta has spread through the whole damned game where IT IS NOT NEEDED. The only reason virtually all he community is insisting on tanks and healers upping their dps and pulling massive amounts of mobs is so the stupid dailies take 1 minute less to run.

I might add that by behaving like that y'all suck the joy out of being a low level player in an instance for the first time. Seriously.

[Sapphidia]

One thing I think is also worth mentioning: quite a few of the raiding tanks here who are vehemently defending the "no vit, no parry, tank in dps stance whenever possible" meta are not necessarily fans of it.

I personally would LOVE if I could stack Vit, stack Parry, and walk into an encounter and just laugh as I shrug off damage barely needing any healing, and how my health pool was a direct correlation to my gear advancement. I don't -like- the DPS heavy meta because this wasnt why I chose to roll tank as my main. Obviously a lot of players DO like the current meta as it lets them have a more aggressive playstyle (particularly players who play tank who normally gravitate to DPS roles in games), but it's certainly not clear cut.

We're all waiting with baited breath to see what changes 3.2 brings. I fully appreciate the -desire- of Jpec07 to try and justify a mitigation-heavy setup. Reading between the lines of his posts I get the feeling Jpec07 is a similar tank-minded player to myself who is desperately trying to find some kind of nuance or statistic to cling onto to let it be viable to gear up to TAKE LESS DAMAGE, which is where a lot of the enjoyment of tanking comes from. That feeling that your gearing choices and gear advancement over time as you progress is contributing to making you harder and harder to kill.

Sadly, as things are now, Parry is just a garbage stat simply because 40 parry = 1% parry chance = 0.2% less damage taken by physical only, with added unreliability. With Crit being a similar amount for 1% crit, which is about 0.5% damage increase, it's just a much much bigger impact on your performance. I wish this wasnt the case.

Ironically, as I say this, I'm a raiding Paladin who has 650 Parry in their tanking set (even with full Slaying Accessories), more than any other secondary stat bar Acc, simply because the i210 tanking gear I've picked up has all been stacked with it and there hasnt really been any other viable option due to how gated Esoterics and Gobtwines are. So here I am saying just how much it sucks, yet the best gear I have available to me sadly is stacked with it.

[Februs]

One thing I think is also worth mentioning: quite a few of the raiding tanks here who are vehemently defending the "no vit, no parry, tank in dps stance whenever possible" meta are not necessarily fans of it.

It's also worth noting that "Har Har! Moar Dps! Har Har!" Is not the only reason for why slaying accessories are sometimes preferable. I mainly Tank as Pld, and most people's instinct is to use pure Vitality on a Pld given that they have less health than Warriors (especially in Defiance); however, people who main Pld know first hand that Pld's have the lowest enmity gen of all 3 tanks. Scaling Str accessories allows a Pld to somewhat compensate for this discrepancy because Flash, RoH, and even Clemency scale with Str, not Vit.

Currently, I am running with full Vit, but when I chose to run with Str I do so knowing that I'm doing it at a trade off. I'm exchanging a tiny bit of HP out of my already more than sufficient Hp pool for increased enmity generation and greater returns off of my skill set. The fact that this also boosts a bit of my Dps is just a nice sidebar, not the goal.

[Reaver_Bharash]

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.

Discoid is a magical attack and Raw Intuition (Parries All Attacks Taken From The Front. All Attacks Taken From The Flank Or Rear Will Result In Critical Damage. for 20s) does not work. I fell like a sack of bricks when I first tested this when A4 was new.

Pull a bunch of trash, stack up all of your damage buffs and pop vengeance: You heal for the damage you do and are constantly overpowering which is giving you massive sustain because your healing for how much damage you do. A critical hit will make you heal for even more.

I think you mean Bloodbath, not Vengeance. Though Bloodbath + Vengeance is always nice

On a successful parry, instead of reducing damage of that hit you should gain a buff called: "Short Reprieve". It also reduces damage from the hit as well.

Short Reprieve:
Reduces all damage taken by 20% for 2.5 seconds.


Of course, proccing parry again would refresh the buff.

A buff like this would make parry infinitely more useful.

Yea and this would make Raw Intuition one of the most OP skills in the game, parry + 20% less damage taken for 20s. Dark Dance can increase this chance as well but not as effectively as Raw Intuition. PLDs will be the only ones who will not be able to increase that chance. Overall, this is not gonna happen.

[Kacho_Nacho]

*snip*

The question though is the -degree- in which it is easier... and it's not much. The way the game works, you just don't have constant incoming damage or spike damage of the magnitude where the parry/vit/shield tank's overall toughness makes any real difference to the success of a group. However, the strength/crit/det/sword tank will be pushing 30-40% more DPS than the turtley tank... and in -most- cases nowadays, that extra dps is just far far more useful.

No one is FORCING tanks to avoid parry or focus dps 100%, but the hard encounters the game currently has basically -suggest- it, and groups where a tank cannot contribute a meaningful amount of dps simply have much more trouble clearing it. There's no disputing that Parry/Vit makes a tank easier to heal, the fact of the matter is that it just DOESNT REALLY MATTER with the content we have given how dependant everything is on proper cooldown rotations.

By all means play the parry stacking "brick wall" tank, and in 4man dungeons and content where DPS checks arent especially important then the success of a group wont really be affected - heck, if your healer is undergeared or new then it might actually improve the chance of success. But for any meaningful difficult content tanks simply cannot ignore the fact that the benefits gained from Parry are virtually nothing, but the benefits gained from increasing the damage output can have meaningful improvement on group success when it comes to pushing phases, skipping mechanics, and hitting hard enrage timers.

I appreciate you so much, Sapphida!

You don't talk down to us tanks more accustomed to a turtle tanking paradigm. You also take the time to explain why STR tanking works in the current content. Thank you!

Something occurred to me earlier while I was thinking about this thread. Please bear with me, I am having a BAD fibromyalgia day. I might not be completely clear. Mind is foggy as hell.

ANYWHO...

Couldn't a tank going balanced STR/VIT also be good strategy? That would mean the tank would require less healing but still put out decent damage. The extra MP the healers save would allow them to dps more.

Or is this a case where the extra dps a full STR tank provides trumps the extra dps the healers would provide above?

[MercureXI]

Well, just adding my PoV here, but considering how little parry stacking has any effect on the actual encounter (low boost and unreliable anyway : healers can't predict a parry, and use same heals anyway), you are better off with DPS just because reducing the time you have to tank, on the other end, is a good thing, like when you push a phase or kill adds faster etc.

Not to mention that, as a WAR, more attack means more self-heals, which helps a lot more and is more reliable than parry as a whole.

Until SE decides to actually put some thoughts into parry (like, for example, parry stat affecting some of your skills, like say, parry making some of your defensive skills last longer or be more effective), it's a dead weight stat.

Gearing up with parry as your priority, will just nerf you overall compared to gearing up with dps stats.

[Leogun]

Yea and this would make Raw Intuition one of the most OP skills in the game, parry + 20% less damage taken for 20s. Dark Dance can increase this chance as well but not as effectively as Raw Intuition. PLDs will be the only ones who will not be able to increase that chance. Overall, this is not gonna happen.

Could just make it so 100% parry skills wouldn't proc the effect. I mean, it seems fair. Or such skills could proc different effects instead (so that using such skills wouldn't seem like a detriment).