What if Parry was a rate like Block?

[Yuni_Queen]

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.

Yup, it sucks. And it does already exist. DRGs relaying heavily on SkS are rather history as well as ninjas melding SkS...
There are better and worse meld choices. Melding full SkS or even just a little for ninja is a waste, while melding Det for BLM is not too efficient compared to spell speed and crit rate.

You are saying that making parry stronger it would state which path should be taken to be most efficient.
But that's how it is already. Crit has highest AP per point, Det is just behind, and rest are there somewhere. Se meta already exist.
Changing parry that way won't change the meta itself.

Btw:

(and stop doing DREX only you casual)

Please explain what is written here. i literally have no idea if you are offending me or just joking.
For your sake you pray it is this second... >:C

[Canadane]

On top of it being a boring defensive stat (who ever goes "fuck yeah I parried something"

I love to parry things. Suddenly taking less damage is cool.
Sure it's not the best stat out there, but it is performing it's function right now.

[Destous]

The way parry functions is wrong, becuase, as i said, it is not a reliable source of possible mitigation.

The way that Parry functions is fine. It holds a low stat weight because it's based on RNG. There's no discussion on altering block because block rate and strength are baked into the shield and not put on PLD gear as "block rating".

The problem with parry rating comes down to opportunity cost of having parry instead of crit/det/sks/maybe accuracy; and there's really no way to "fix" it so that it's competitive with those stats; it'll only be "less bad" to have a lot of it.

Let's say parry makes your next attack crit/lowers your next GCD by x%/increases the damage of your next skill by x%; it's still worse than just having more crit/sks/det.

It's worse because getting a parry is RNG and stacking sks/crit/det for a desired effect is better than having a parry proc as a middle man.

[Launched]

No one would care. Either it would be an optional stat on weapons that any good tank would try to avoid, or it would be a mandatory extra stat that gets ignored for more important stats, like shield block rate on PLD.

[DWolfwood]

In my opinion, they should make parry and tower shields block 100% of damage, and shields should help mitigate magic damage based on their size. They should rebalance abilities around this idea. I don't see what the big problem is with cutting the healers a break every now and then by lucking out and successfully blocking. If they really want to make certain attacks always inflict damage, they can stick to magic-based attacks. In my opinion, this would help balance DRK vs. PLD after they sort out the balancing of Dark Dance and Sheltron.

[Sir_Hermes]

PARRY IS FINE THE WAY IT IS

[Donjo]

I once thought about the notion of attaching ingrained Parry statistics into weapons ala Paladin Shields... but keeping the Parry stat in place as-is.

Currently a Paladin can stack Parry to, by virtue of rolling both Block and Parry against a physical attack, end up in situations where they do something to reduce physical damage for 50%+ of physical attacks. That is not too shabby, if I say so myself. It's not particularly helpful when the major threat is singular large hits(seriously, why aren't there more multi hit physical busters. Geez...), but it's neat to be able to reach those numbers. So it'd be interesting to let the other two tanks reach that ~50% threshold if they wish to but it would kind of step on the one actual mitigation advantage Paladin has.

Another thing I wondered about is what if SE put Parry on all Tank equipment the way Accuracy was on 2.2+ Healer gear? A completely free stat that just slowly raises as your item level does. Another aspect of better gear making you just a little bit tankier. Shrug.

Of course, none of this would actually fix the issue of Parry being underwhelming as a stat. There seems to be talk of reworking it in either 3.4 or 4.0, so there's that. I mean... nothing SE can do to the stat will make the current generation of players actually want to stack it, but one can appreciate their intent.

[SyzzleSpark]

The shield is PLD's mitigation gimmick, all the tanks already have one (WAR has self heals, DRK has the parry-Reprisal fusion that basically functions like a built-in Eye for an Eye). So I wouldn't want to see that kind of free passive mitigation just handed out on a platter to DRK and WAR. They don't really need it.

The only way to make Parry meaningful in my opinion is to follow the Wrath - Abandon model where Parry is converted to Crit between MTing and OTing based on stance. I.E eliminate the stat and just convert Crit into Parry when you go into tank stance, or the other way around and elminate Crit from tank gear and just convert Parry into Crit when turning off tank stance/turning on DPS stance.

Its the only way to not make Parry conflict with DPS stats. And I hate the ideal of just putting it on a Weapon a la rate/strength stats on PLD's shield, or just slapping it by default on all of our gear as a 3rd secondary, as it eliminates the need for the stat period if its just a thing that goes up whether we choose to or not why not just code it into the job itself? It would also have to scale insanely slowly so as to not reach a point where we're parrying everything.

[Xenosan]

My issue with Parry converting to straight DPS gains (ala a replacement to Crit Rate or Determination), is there would exist the same lack of itemization we have now, just on the opposite end of the spectrum. That is not the best solution to my problem with the Parry secondary. But it certainly is a simple solution.

Personally I'd like to see Parry secondary enhance itemization and bring more sophistication to secondary stat allocation (and the debates that go along with that):

What if the Parry secondary scaled like Accuracy. We need 'so much' before we hit a cap. The secondary scales up Parry proc chances much-much better, but hits a cap that is based on the enemy mob (like accuracy).

Or the Parry cap scales with iLVL, which increases itemization min/maxing as we progressively upgrade in iLVLs (each individual upgrade raises the ceiling to permit dumping of extra Parry secondary).

But, that is still only half of a solution.

The other half is ensuring that stacking Parry secondary - at all - provides added measures of significance for tanks. The mechanic of Parry procs themselves are arguably just as much of a problem as the scaling of their secondary.

Personally, I don't see much improvement in Parry - as a mechanic - unless each tank had their own unique perks & gains from those Parry procs. What about a Parry-specific job trait unique to each job? Benefits as powerful as: each Parry proc increases attack speed by 10-20% for the next two GCDs (raw intuition == presence of mind)? Parry as a secondary increases SwO AA potency (like Determination use to)?

First Parry - as a proc mechanic - needs to be more desired (preferably for reasons unique to each Job), and then the secondary, with better scaling, has a fluctuating cap placed on it. That is the sort of itemization I'd like to see.

I believe they did mention looking at enhancing Parry as a secondary in a recent LL, but I hope they don't provide a cut-corners solution. I guess it depends on how far they're willing to go with an adjustment.

[Donjo]

Yeah, that's why I'm kinda "eh" about those ideas. One leans toward homogenization and the other is just a cop-out.

But... yeah. I don't see any viable way for Parry to be wholly defensive and desired at the same time. Not without redesigning a lot more than just the stat.