What if Parry was a rate like Block?

[Destous]

It's a simple idea. Block rate/strength comes in a set amount based on shield type and item level. What if Parry worked the same way as a flat amount on tank weapons based on, in this case, only item level?

Parry as a stat has been especially lackluster in HW. It's hard to rely on Parry rating to increase your longevity in fights because it's up to RNG whether or not you parry. While DRK and WAR both have CDs for increased parry chance, it's still just a chance.

The changes to Vit aimed at getting Slaying gear off of the tanks did a little bit to change the "avoid parry" meta, but the fact remains that less parry and more of any other stat is still better. So what if parry was removed as a secondary stat and implemented as a flat rate on tanking weapons?

[Violette]

Well, parry strength used to scale with strength but was removed.

Parrying an attack is not interactive. Parrying an attack is not exciting, fun or engaging gameplay (even with procs). I don't feel like I've done anything to negate some damage and just roll on with my proc.


That's the key of the issue surrounding it as a gameplay stat, that active mitigation is more engaging and rewarding, while parry was neither.
So if parry was like block, it'd still suffer from the current issues surrounding it.
It's boring to itemize around, it's random and not-useful as defense in a spike damage game and it does not engage the tanks, rather relegating them to meatshields who simply take hits and hold aggro.

[Ragnorak]

No pls leave parry off my weapons thank you have a nice day

[ADVSS]

the could scale it with vit, i dont see too much happening there really,
in fact just make vit the tanks equivalent to healers mind and melees str/dex at like a .8 per point weight and just flush str for tanks down the latrine entirely so theyre balanced and not weird like every other job that has a straight stat for attack and everything else that it does

[Jamillion]

Parry just needs to not be so lackluster. The goal isn't to remove its stat relevance, just to make it worth stacking. Parry needs some type of counterattack or something included in it and better stat scaling, or largely noticeable overall mitigation. The problem with parry currently is that it is the worst scaling stat AND barely noticeable.

[Yuni_Queen]

Removing Parry as a secondary stat will not fix the parry problem.

Parry needs to be reliable, making weapons have flat both chance and strength won't do the trick.

[Destous]

Removing Parry as a secondary stat will not fix the parry problem.

Parry needs to be reliable, making weapons have flat both chance and strength won't do the trick.

There's really nothing wrong with how Parry functions. It's 20% physical mitigation sometimes. It's simple and to the point. The issues it has is when brought under the lens of opportunity cost; having parry as a secondary means not having something else, and short of excessive accuracy rating, parry doesn't have a larger stat weight than the other possibilities.

By removing it as a secondary stat, that opportunity cost goes away.

[Yuni_Queen]

By removing it as a secondary stat, that opportunity cost goes away.

BY removing it in that way, you remove possible additional stat designed for tanks. Stat, that was designed only for tanks.
Spell speed/crit is for casters, piety/whatever for heaelers, crit/det for melee.

Taking away this stat rather than improving how it works, is avoiding responsibility and doing something to piss off.
And that's not what i want to be done with parry.

The way parry functions is wrong, becuase, as i said, it is not a reliable source of possible mitigation.
It needs improving or fixing.
If parry functions so good, why people do not meld it like crazy?
It was rhetorical question, please do not try to convience me by trying to give some arguments you will write while-you-wait.

Parry to be as good as other secondary statistics, needs to be reliable.
Giving weapons flat parry and removing any other sources of parry influence, do not make parry reliable, since you will have no impact on it.
In other words, you will take away the only tank's secondary stat, to conceal the fact, you didnt even bother to make it better: "We removed parry, now, that you have no posibility to worry about it, it's all good."

[Violette]

BY removing it in that way, you remove possible additional stat designed for tanks. Stat, that was designed only for tanks.
Spell speed/crit is for casters, piety/whatever for heaelers, crit/det for melee.

The stat's aren't as simple as that...

i.e. there are good arguments for piety builds for blm's, dragoon relies heavily on SkS (well, used to when the stats were lower), mch is crit/w/e (sks or det) but brd is crit/sks, drk and war like sks but paladin abhors it, etc. No stats were designed with one role in mind, so please don't perpetuate that idea.
Crit itself is only seeing a resurgence because of it's scaling being MUCH better than anything we currently have (until SkS gets gcd's under 1.6?s) such that the only class that doesn't really want crit is whm. But I digress.

We have 2 flat increases to tankiness, i.e. vitality and defense.

Parry actually hurts tank itemization. It pigeon holes a lot of builds into either taking only one set of items (i.e. all non-parry accessories) or taking stats which are undesirable in other roles.

If you're TANKING PHYSICAL HITS ALL THE TIME ALL THE TIME NEVER SWAPPING! then an argument can be made for parry given it's a small physical defensive boost (and stop doing DREX only you casual). But even if it is a flat defensive bonus (therefore making it the most desirable stat in the game), it's still only useful to 1/8 (maybe 2/8, your fight may vary) people.

Which creates a secondary issue.
Parry is a secondary statistic.
If parry's defensive bonus is negligible unless stacked to the nth degree, why would I stack 1 stat and force my build around that, when I could get multiple which all increase my damage. The investment and itemization around it may force some distasteful choices resulting in too much/too little of other stats to play my class effectively.

If parry's defensive bonus is noticeable when not stacked to the nth degree, as I said, it's a secondary stat. It instantly becomes the best secondary in the game for most classes, because it's meldable 4x on crafted accessories. Survivability is amazing in progression and while 12 crit isn't going to be missed much, if parry is noticeable even when not stacked to the nth degree (and given most dps accessories don't have parry on them), you can get 200+ parry along with 75 vitality on all your dps and healers, making them muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sturdier, which is very desirable.

Which outlines the two of the main issues with parry:
It forces tank itemization down specific paths (which sucks) and it has little wiggle room. On top of it being a boring defensive stat (who ever goes "fuck yeah I parried something" (unless it's followed by "REPRISAL BITCH")), it doesn't have much of a future.

[Lyth]

In an optimization problem, there is one stat that you try to maximize. The other stats are generally constraints that you have to meet, but not maximize. Crit and det are examples of things that you try to maximize (depending on whichever one gives you the best dps return). Accuracy (and to a lesser extent skill speed) are examples of constraints, with cut-offs that you are required to meet in order to avoid losing out significantly on dps.

The problem with Parry is that it isn't something that you want to maximize (i.e. it doesn't increase your dps), nor does it act as a constraint (there is no minimum parry threshold required to survive an encounter). Average mitigation tends to be more important in attrition fights. But this game isn't designed like FF1, where you need to get through Gulg Volcano on only 4 casts of your WHM's Cure 1. As a result, we tend to just ignore parry and minimize it.

Block is nice because it's free. As a weapon property, there is no trade-off involved in blocking. There are two advantages to OP's suggestion. One is that you are no longer losing out on stats by gaining parry. Second, it gives us transparency on how much of a defensive advantage PLD gains from block, and makes it easier to normalize PLD's 1h block and parry rates against the 2h parry rates of the other two tanks.

If you want there to be a dedicated but meaningful "tank stat", then it will either end up being a constraint (meet this minimum value in order to avoid dying), or something you try to maximize when actively tanking (i.e. a counterattack stat). I personally see the latter as more interesting, but it also runs the risk of further forcing tanks to specialize into MT and OT roles based on their gear choices, which I'm not so keen on.