What if Parry was a rate like Block?

[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.

[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.

[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

[Violette]

Btw:

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

1. Don't make threats, that's not making me want to answer.

2. It's because dungeons tend to have heavy physical damage, with very few magical attacks, as opposed to raids, where the dangerous damage is more mixed (or magical).

[Yuni_Queen]

1. Don't make threats, that's not making me want to answer.

2. It's because dungeons tend to have heavy physical damage, with very few magical attacks, as opposed to raids, where the dangerous damage is more mixed (or magical).

Abandon Topic.
Still have no idea what DREX is.
And quess my joke missed you at doorway as well ._.

Sohm Al is a good example of way more magical dmg than physical, but yeah, most dungeons have less those.

[Violette]

Abandon Topic.
Still have no idea what DREX is.
And quess my joke missed you at doorway as well ._.

Sohm Al is a good example of way more magical dmg than physical, but yeah, most dungeons have less those.

Duty Roulette EXtreme.

And while bosses may tend toward more magical mechanics, trash still is mostly physical across the board. Which also the only place parry approaches its true defensive values, but that's another post in another thread

[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.

[Violette]

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.

I stand corrected but that's still a rare case.

[Sir_Hermes]

PARRY IS FINE THE WAY IT IS