Thread: Can we get an official explanation on what parrying is?

There is literally nothing in game or on Google that isn't about the thing removed in 4.0 besides a Reddit thread that vaguely explains it along with PLD Block. And THAT is just that you randomly have a chance to block physical damage...

But for those that are curious and don't actually know... (because recently I told someone who started playing in HEAVENSWARD about it for the first time who never noticed it, and I started playing in Shadowbringers!)

All classes can parry and have the same rate of doing it (20% chance), it lowers the damage of any random physical attack by 15%. Why is this never explained anywhere in the game or on any official websites?

It doesn't matter because it's RNG and RNG mitigation is not worth anything because it's not consistent. You can't go into a raid and be certain that you don't need more mitigation because you don't know if it will parry or not. This is why most traces of it were removed in the first place.

It's useful for tanks fighting against enemies in dungeons because a lot of them do physical attacks and every 5 parries is like one attack missing. The chance of parrying is high because of the amount of enemies attacking you and this is the only moment that you can really rely on it. Gunbreaker has an ability called Camouflage that still increases parry rate.

You have a point that they don't explain it anymore, but because this ability also reduces damage taken by 10%, it conveys the priority you should be assigning the ability well enough.

DPS did used to have parry buffs as well, but they wanted to make room for abilities that are actually useful to a DPS. Ones that actually do damage.

Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Parrying was somehow important for tanks. The old Battledance Materia increased the parry rate. But they changed it to a flat incoming damage reduction.

Speaking of which, could we maybe make Tenacity an actually useful stat instead of the "if gear has it then it's almost certainly not BiS" and "absolute last stat to materia boost for" thing it is now?

The damage reduction gained from it is flat-out awful. There's barely any difference.

Are these numbers accurate for people? Cause on my PLD when I Parry it's for 19% blocked. As for Tenacity doing nothing...I must admit I don't do any raiding so Materia slotting is an afterthought to me cause it's just all extra but I take far less damage when I slotted as Tenacity as my priority stat (Cause I know nothing of materia and just wanted something) I've noticed not only do I take less damage...but my regen or even clemency if I use it on someone else is pretty much a Benediction.

AH you are indeed right about that. Dunno how I mixed that up.

Originally Posted by Renalt

As for Tenacity doing nothing...I must admit I don't do any raiding so Materia slotting is an afterthought to me cause it's just all extra but I take far less damage when I slotted as Tenacity as my priority stat (Cause I know nothing of materia and just wanted something) I've noticed not only do I take less damage...but my regen or even clemency if I use it on someone else is pretty much a Benediction.

People did the number crunching for it, and the difference in damage reduced and HP healed was definitely not that astronomical. I'm obviously not calling you a liar or anything, but whatever's boosting those numbers for you definitely isn't Tenacity.

...unless they've boosted the stat at the release of Endwalker. Haven't heard anything about that sort of thing happening, but who knows?

I think parry has an additional caveat that you can't do it while casting, which also used to apply to blocking until the devs realized that didn't mesh with the magical part of PLD's rotation (At least prior to them gaining the passive that makes their spells have no cast time).