Will Parry become worthwhile in the next patch?

[Nalien]

Just change Parry to Counter already... People don't like Parry because it's purely a mitigation stat, they'll take Critical Hit Rate and Determination over it every time because those stats increase damage... Make Parry into Counter, and it is potentially a solid DPS increase... Suddenly you're not just mitigating 20%, you're throwing out an additional auto-attack... The amount the stat improves rate would still need adjustment, arguably more so with it also providing a light DPS increase, but I just don't think it'll ever be a popular stat without something more...

Arguably that could break tanks somewhat, but after the Vitality/Strength changes... Excuse me while I don't care... Raw Intuition might need an adjustment, would be interesting to see how Counter would function with Sword Oath as well, if that provides an additional 50 potency on Counters as well, then Paladin gets slightly more interesting IMO... Dark Knight wouldn't change much IMO, other than actually having reason to gear the stat...

Would also be nice for "Parry" and Block to not be almost functionally identical... There's an almost arbitrary distinction between the two... I suppose that's another alternative though; Remove Parry from gear, and instead make it an additional function of weapons, the same way Block Rate/Strength is solely a function of Shields...

Itemization is boned in this game whatever they do, though... Stats just don't have the kind of impact that makes specific builds rewarding, none of them do... Itemization is more of a formality in this game, a justification for two pieces of gear with the same item level to exist... People are always just going to pick the best stat, because there is no reason not to... OK, no matter what there will always be a "best" option, but if itemization does its job, and the balancing is tight enough, I don't personally care... It's more about making a build that plays the way you enjoy, but stats here just don't inform gameplay nearly enough to allow for that... They could honestly remove all the stats and just have us chase item levels, and I don't think we'd notice that much of a difference...

[Jpec07]

People don't like Parry because it's purely a mitigation stat

Nope. People hate Parry because it has a really crappy scaling rate, because the combat table sets almost everything against it, and because it doesn't provide a meaningful impact on group success (there isn't enough incoming damage outside of tankbusters for it to feel worthwhile, and tankbusters are almost always predictable). Upgrading to a piece of gear with more Def/MDef is going to see infinitely better mitigation returns than even moving from a full-Crit piece to a full-Parry piece, and when you compare that feeble amount of mitigation to the potential of killing a boss 1% faster, it isn't worth it.

I'd really like for Parry to become a more worthwhile stat, but SE would need to make a lot of changes for that to be the case. For a rundown on it, take a look at this thread: Four Ways to Die - Why the Tank Meta Feels "Off". The gist is that in a world where the biggest threat to your survival comes in the form of a single, highly-predictable period of high incoming damage, the value of passive survival is greatly diminished. Now, this is changed slightly in Midas (that thread was written during Gordias), but it is still considered best practice for tanks to get "enough" mitigation to survive the tankbusters, and then focus on maximizing damage output--there simply isn't a great enough need for extra survivability beyond that point.

It would feel good to need to be un-killable, but the game would need to take a big shift for that to happen.