First of all, the patch is really cool and the new additions are super fun, I’ve been enjoying them a lot!
That said, I wanted to share some feedback on the current state of parrying (I really enjoy parrying and using heavy weapons).
With the recent changes, parrying is currently riskier but way less rewarding than dodging. Here’s a comparison to highlight the issue:
Dodge roll:
Creates distance
Completely avoids damage
Low stamina cost
Consistently leaves the player in a favorable position (at least in 1v1)
Can be chained
Allow follow-up
Parry:
Does not create distance
Negates damage
Low stamina cost
Very strict timing and difficult to execute reliably
Even when successful, it provides little to no advantage and often results in the player being punished after attempting a follow-up
I’m currently playing with a Claymore, and in practice the only reliable way to land a close-range charged melee attack is via the shoulder check or waiting for a recovery. After a successful parry, there is simply not enough time to land a charged attack without getting punished, and even a normal attack is risky because slow weapons are punished too quickly.
This creates a clear imbalance in risk vs. reward: parrying requires precise execution, knowledge of enemy attack patterns, and perfect timing, but still does not allow meaningful follow-ups for heavy weapons, making the system essentially unusable for slow-weapon playstyles.
Recommendation: Consider increasing the reward for a successful parry (longer stun, guaranteed opening, stagger window, or weapon-dependent follow-up timing) so that it meaningfully supports heavy weapons and justifies the higher execution cost.
Thanks for your hard work, and keep up the great patch!
The nerf to parry should have been restricted to Unspoken. It’s completely ruined the reward structure of Parry for average players.
You risk eating a full hit just to get 50 focus now because the parry duration is so pitifully short most rune attacks won’t even finish before the enemy is already swinging at you.
Really annoying how balance changes from Unspoken advocates is bleeding over to degrade the play experience for the rest of players.
Totally agree that the current parry is no longer rewarding enough. The concern is probably in co-op mode where teammates can jump on boss if one person does parry successfully. Suggesting to have different mechanism based on the number of player.
Parry has been in a Over-tuned state for way to long and people got to comfortable with it.
Now its in a state where your not using parry as a pseudo generator spender playstyle. Pre-nerf all people did was Parry Rune Parry Rune Parry Rune oh look boss is staggered Rune Heavy rinse and repeat till mob or boss was dead it was not healthy for the game and could not stay that way.
Parry Rune Parry Rune Parry Rune oh look boss is staggered
You do realize the loop you just described is harder than fighting the boss normally right?
Also, not sure if you have played Sekiro, a highly regarded and critically acclaimed game, but that is the exact playstyle of that game and it was lauded for its combat.
The game is not in a healthy state when Cyvion has a built in input reading dodge on long animation rune attacks.
Before, you could parry and the stun would last long enough to use spin attacks as a punish, a reward for the risk of the parry.
Now he immediately comes out of the small stun before even one spin completes, and dodges out of a 100+ focus rune attack reliably.
The end result is you now only have frontloaded quick rune attacks as the only viable rune attacks in these sorts of encounters.
This decreases playstyle approach to basically just trading 1-2 blows with him and dodging ad nauseam and parrying the charge for a quick 1 hit rune attack.
It’s a boring playstyle for many, and while you may prefer that, the feedback of other players is that they do not. They can keep this change in Unspoken for those of you who do to enjoy that tedious guerilla chicken scratch playstyle, without taking the option of long punish states to pull off a full attack sequence or rune attack from regular players.
Your playstyle preference is not a fact. Most players were not stunlocking bosses with parry. The average difficulty in a game is balanced around average players, the hardest difficulty is balanced for those who want to master the systems and metagame and optimize the crap out of encounters.
i enjoy parrying just for the sake of parrying. I like hearing that really punchy successful parry sound effect and seeing the enemy reaction. that being said, there are a lot of enchantments that makes parrying really worth it - gain health on parry, damage increase after parry, damage on parry, etc. the 50 focus gain is huge and can be made higher with focus gain gems and enchantments. so i dont really agree that we should add anything more to it as, in my opinion, there are already so much gain in successfully parrying
The fact is the other guy complaining parry is overpowered does not parry himself. He’s jealous when he sees someone do that and thinks it’s overpowered rather than acknowledging that some users are very skilled and deserve to be rewarded.
There are some players in this community who claim everything is too easy, and their solution is to make it grindier and have more RNG. I have a feeling they play on Path of the Torn but posture on the forums for Internet ego points.
I really don’t like parry after this patch.
If you are playing in heavy build, you don’t have that much stamina. Parry + hit + roll - no stamina. So high chances after such combo you will lost HP because not that much enemies perform single strike and will hit you after single roll.
Performing a parry and don’t having a window to strike with charged attack is annoying af.
We have in game some enemies that can spam 4-6 attacks in a row, and it is really risky trying to parry them, and having ‘reward’ for 1 simple non-charged attack is not pleasant at all.
Mastering the game, e.g. coming into first boss and kill it with parry and performing heavy rewarding attacks - is really cool, you feel your personal skill is rising.
Now it is more trading stamina into focus with danger to catch massive damage into your face.
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of feedback that really highlights what this topic is about.
The fact that parries aren’t particularly rewarding removes a whole ‘high risk / high reward’ layer of gameplay, which is really a shame for players who enjoy risky playstyles, especially those built around big, slow, hard-hitting attacks.
Taking away gameplay options or making them far less attractive and much more punishing just isn’t fun.
A potential solution could be to keep the same system, but have a longer window after X successful parries, depending on the enemy’s poise. It’s demanding, but rewarding. This is just one example.
Parry Rune Parry Rune Parry Rune oh look boss is staggered
You do realize the loop you just described is harder than fighting the boss normally right?
difficulty isnt everything in video games. difficulty isnt everything in video games. difficulty isnt everything in video games. difficulty isnt everything in video games. difficulty isnt everything in video games.
difficulty isnt the point here, its variety
there is virtually no depth in the strategy of parry-into-rune-attack loop, REGARDLESS OF HOW HARD IT IS TO PULL OFF
its the same motion over and over
humans dont like the same motion over and over for prolonged periods of time
that, my friend, leads to burnout. burnout is the literal exact opposite of what a ‘replayable’ game wants
if parry were made high-skill high-reward as folks are saying, but the reward wasnt always the same exact mindless thing (read: instant 99999 dmg nukes), i would kinda enjoy it
that said, just as everyone else, im not satisfied with this version of parrying.
it just makes me parry twice in a row, or use a 50 focus rune that the developer accidentally sneezed while typing the damage value of and added an extra 0 to the end. the core issues still arise
i didnt want to talk about this because it could be considered a bit of a derailment (its also super overdone of a topic) but its important
the runes themselves play a big role in the mindlessness factor, honestly. parry is one of the biggest fall-guys of how runes work
theres a lot of quick high-damage ones and that leads to the strat of spamming those after a parry, rather than focusing on the moveset variety that runes might provide you otherwise
the high damage ones need some huger animation commitment, and there generally also just needs to be more 15-25 and 50-75 focus runes for each weapon archetype that you can slot in, ones that dont do absurd damage and might even have other uses than damage (i.e. movement and iframes)
I hope people have tried using a Greatshield, because if your aim is to stagger the boss, it is much easier to just hold block and do 30 stance damage per enemy attack. It’s much safer and requires 0 skill compared to parrying.
Considering that, parrying has barely any reward for the skill involved.
Heavy Weapon wielder ≠ Heavy build
As mentioned before, a lot of enemy have 4-6 chained very wide attacks. And you gonna perform Dodge Roll Allow Follow-up Attack? Good luck with that.
Even you can do this, what the point of parry attacks then? Transferring stamina into focus?
