Parry not a Toggled Mode

[UnderworIdKoboId]

I searched before posting this and didn't find another thread in the Bug Forum, so here we go.

According to the wiki, Parry Mode is supposed to act as a Toggled Mode akin to Expertise or Power Attack. However, it doesn't. Movement will cancel the mode, and I've also found the mode to sometimes deactivate in the middle of combat when the character fails to engage the next opponent.

I don't know how complicated a fix like this would be, but I'd thought I would notify and open a discussion at least.

[Dalenger]

Parry is bugged af. There are a lot of things that will take you out of it, such as moving around much. The recent buff to the skill makes it somewhat viable if you learn how to make it work, but the devs can't fix the underlying issues with it.

[Nitro]

Whether it's viable or not is another pile of potatoes entirely, mechanical issues aside it's not very good at all.

[Velkar]

So is parry actually worth investing points into?

[Kirito]

So is parry actually worth investing points into?

I have a character i'm playing with based around parry at the moment... and am enjoying it quite a lot... although it can be very frustrating when it drops out of the mode... I'm just rolling with it hoping it will be fixed.

Also, deflecting an incoming attack and reposting with (currently) +19 damage is fun... and since it's 1D20 + Parry vs 1D20+AB... they need epic attack bonus to be on an equal footing with my lvl10 character xD.

[Velkar]

So is parry actually worth investing points into?

I have a character i'm playing with based around parry at the moment... and am enjoying it quite a lot... although it can be very frustrating when it drops out of the mode... I'm just rolling with it hoping it will be fixed.

Also, deflecting an incoming attack and reposting with (currently) +19 damage is fun... and since it's 1D20 + Parry vs 1D20+AB... they need epic attack bonus to be on an equal footing with my lvl10 character xD.

Ah, that's quite interesting... so it does work fine, you just need to try and stand still and keep putting the mode on.
Do you know if parried attacks can crit, or cleave if you kill with one?

[Nitro]

It only works as long as you're fighting 1 enemy, any more and your ripostes will be spread out across all the targets, leaving you with an agonizingly slow time to take down one of them. And even against a single target, the damage is lackluster, with 60 ranks of parry you get a +20 bonus to the damage of your riposte, which is really low for single target damage for a melee character in the lategame.

It's a fun build, but not very mechanically viable in PvP or PvE. Unless you just want to be the hardest to hit tank that ever tanked, in which case go DEX palemaster with Epic dodge and full parry. You won't kill anything ever, but you can at least outlast the heat death of the universe.

[Kirito]

You can crit and you can cleave from parry:)

I got slightly confused in the previous post, it's only +12 damage at the moment. So it's equivalent to a strength bonus at present... and end game should be +22 ish. You also get 3 parry attacks per round (or your max Base attacks, which ever is lower)

Nitro, what damage are you getting late game with a basic weapon that's better than +20?

Or have I miss understood?

[Baron Saturday]

Personally I'm kinda fond of parry as a defensive tactic for summoners. Enemy ignores your summon and tries to chew your face? Switch parry on.

But generally it's pretty situational, not something to be using all the time.

Edit: Although now I kinda wanna make a character that uses it all the time...

[Nitro]

The damage in and of itself isn't terrible, it's the circumstances around it. To get a successful riposte you have to hit past the targets AC to begin with, and even with the +5 you get to a riposte in Arelith you'll often see yourself just landing 2 or even 1 ripostes against higher AC targets on Arelith. Then, unless you have a party specifically letting you single out 1v1's against mobs, or advance at a snails pace on your own, you'll end up spreading your damage out rather than focusing one target down, meaning a longer time to kill which means more potential damage heading your way.

And then it takes some specialization just to get to 60 ranks of parry. Either going full DEX base, which will hurt your damage output since you can't get sneak attacks with ripostes, or taking feats to specialize into parry as a STR character, which unless you're going deep into fighter, you could invest into more valuable things.

So as a bonus to a characters defensive 1v1 arsenal it can be decent, but specializing a character solely around parry is going to give you a fairly weak character.

And an extra note, that while on paper a parry character would be decent in 1v1 PvP, most people would just backstep to break the parry mode, or chug a truestrike potion to burst through it with some ludicrous WM damage.

[UnderworIdKoboId]

Parry is fun mostly as a roleplay flavor thing. I was using it for an unarmed monk character to simulate the karate-style blocks you see in kung-fu movies. Smacking away swords and deflecting arrows can be a neat idea for someone who's mainly in it to protect the rest of the party.

[Sockss]

Parry's the single biggest boost to melee damage that you can obtain, by a long way.

Not to mention the +5 AB and effectively negating 3 attacks against an opponent with three flurries.

It's seriously super awesome.

But, of course, it's very circumstantial.

(Obtaining ranks is easy for even a non dex character. 33 base, 10 ESF, ~18-22 itemisation [+more with artefacts] lands you past 60. Then add in a moderate base + self buffed dex bonus.)

[Lorkas]

Don't forget the armor check penalty if you want to build a STR parry character though.