Hey there,
MRD/WAR have the ability to parry attacks rather easily. We have multiple abilities that rely on this and you negate almost all damage while doing this, thus staying alive longer allowing your WHM do tend to other things.

With this in mind, I'm thinking of replacing some gear with some that has high melds of Battledance materia. The IV level materia offer what seems to be quite a lot of parry. However, this materia is dirt cheap on my server. This leads me to believe the following possibilities.
1) Parry isn't helpful at all
or
2) The +25 (per Battledance IV) isn't worth it in the end, with others favouring something else. Possibly overlooking something rather useful.

Now, I primarily tank, so I'd prefer damage reduction as much as possible. I'm aware if I were to focus a little bit more on DPS the added damage would mean more enmity, but with everyone else (maybe even a WHM!) outgunning me in damage, I never relied too much on damage generated enmity.

I started to think of what else I could meld to my hands (as Battledance would go in hands or weapon slot)
HP+ through Bloodthirst isn't all that great for WARs considering they can have over 5k HP in an ideal setup.
Str+ with Strength materia is nice if I wanted to do more damage, I suppose.
Atk+ using Heavens Fist could offer up to +30 attack power each. This is quite a lot! But again, I'm not trying to focus on damage.
Acc+/StoreTP+ Using Heavens Eye or Evenflow is something I do want to consider because combos missing is the worst. The worst. Extra TP is nice I suppose, but only in larger quantities.
Dex+ is something else I'd like to think about, as I do believe a higher dexterity rate means a better parry rate, no? Would +20 Dex be better than +25 Parry?

All other materia that can meld to hands are either magic related or resistance to a specific enfeeblement. Not really that great for a tank.

I guess what I do want to know is, is Parry+ worth it for us? Or am I looking down the wrong route here for my favourite job? Have I overlooked something that's so much more worth it than parrying?