At the time of writing, we are currently at patch 3.26, and one of the biggest tank-related changes is the change to how VIT and STR stats work for tank classes/jobs in general. That said, there were some unmentioned changes that came with the updates, mainly the endgame fending accessories: tanks are encouraged to wear fending accessories, but when they play offtanks, the parry stat becomes negligible since the attention is not on them. Thus, as offtanks, STR accessories are more preferred over VIT ones.

First things first, Parry is a damage mitigation stat that determines the probability of reducing physical damage by 20%. The higher the stat, the higher the probability of reducing incoming physical damage.

The last live letter discussed the following:
Q: Is there any way to add a noticeable utility to the parry stat on tank equipment?
A: As of Patch 3.2 it's possible to meld materia into the new equipment sets, and we're aware that many tank players are not choosing parry when they are considering which materia to meld into their equipment, focusing on determination or critical hit rate instead. I’ve been discussing this with the development team, and they said that the parry calculation is based on a gradual curve, so even if players were to focus on parry, it wouldn’t have any noticeable effect because the rate at which enemy damage is mitigated would not necessarily increase. However, this is tied to large-scale system changes, and while I can't give an official comment just yet, we are looking into whether we can make adjustments in Patch 3.4, when the item level is increased, or around Patch 4.0.
Its inherent problems are as follows:
  • It relies on luck and RNG. Critical Rate also relies on luck and RNG, but while Crit is nice to have, one would not rely on Parry for trustworthy damage mitigation.
  • It only affects physical damage
  • Parry is relatively useless when offtanking. As an off-tanker, one becomes a melee DPS that switches with the main tank when mechanics beckon to do so.
  • Unlike Critical Rate, Parry does not increase mitigation relative to the stat (whereas Critical Rate increases the rate and damage dealt by critical damage). It is a flat 20% mitigation.

Onward to the reason for this post while this is still a heated topic, how would you recommend the developer team to improve Parry? Here are some suggestions. Please note that some of them offset other points:
  1. Make Darkside, Sword Oath, and Deliverance stances use Parry. Let me explain --- what if changing to the aforementioned stances also increased damage with the aid of Parry? Let’s say, when in Deliverance stance, reduce 30% of Parry stat and increase attack power by say (0.01 x reduced parry) %. For Darkside, increase Crit Rate by 10% of Parry. For Sword Oath, a flat damage and accuracy increase by 5% of Parry. This change may eliminate other classes wanting to abuse Parry changes by equipping fending accessories
  2. Make Parry reduce magical damage as well. I can see why this could be a problem for what the developers intended, so I would understand if this one is not considered, which brings me to my next suggestion:
  3. Give a trait to Dark Knights to make their Parry mitigate magical damage as well. The meta that we see right now for Dark Knights is that they are chosen for magic-heavy battles. This trait will just make them fit the mold better.
  4. Make Parry counter damage. Similar to MRD/WAR’s Vengeance skill, what if tanks return the flat 20% reduction as damage? Vengeance would still be useful as it still has the 30% reduction + 50 potency return for every physical damage. What if Parry returns 5% of its stat in potency to every kind of damage?
  5. Change Parry to be additive to Defence/Magic Defence stat. This is the lazy change to the Parry change. If SE really wants to stick to the meta, they might go: WAR: 7.5% of Parry is added to physical and magical defence. PLD: 15% of Parry is added to physical defence. DRK: 15% of Parry is added to magical defence.

Note that I am not even including the pre-Heavensward Parry state --- the suggestions above work with the developers’ decision to stick to what Parry does right now. I just made suggestions based on Parry’s inherent issues. What would you suggest to Square Enix?