I’m level 30 with level 8 mesh leather armor combo 
Well I can parry enemies that use weapons like a sword, or like the example you picked, pretty consistently. It’s enemies that use hands and other things that I can’t get.
Perhaps I’m trying to parry attacks that can’t be parried. There’s no way to tell what attacks can and can’t be parried.
And what do we say to the god of death?
In and RPG I’d never recommend someone play role of the victim.
When you see death, tell them… not today.
You see how he zipped to you before even attacking! Sometimes the attack is right when they snap to you, and sometimes there’s a delay. Also the parry occured when his hands were like halfway through you, but you had to initiate the parry before that. With other enemies the attacks snap out way faster that you would expect.
That’s what I’m saying about you just gotta learn the timings. Which I guess that’s fine, it’s just tougher and takes many many hours of practice specifically for finding parry timing. Rather than spending time doing anything else in the game.
A fragment of a life of a parry enjoyer in this game. Specially for you.
The parry in this game doesn’t feel particularly different than in other games. And it’s very reactive (e.g. look at that wolf parry near the bridge, the moment he started his attack animation) to the point that the windup is either 0 or near 0.
Yes, you have to learn the timings. Why wouldn’t you ?
Practicing will tell you what can and cannot be parried.
Either way - very, very few attacks cannot be parried post-Breach - to the point of some of them being likely nuanced bugs.
What are you doing at the endgame with level 8 armor …
That’s defeatist… come now.
IMO the timing is fairly reactive, which is why I track the attacks visually. I do plenty of other things in the game as well but I enjoy the feel of parry in the games combat string so I play with the intent to parry. Nothing more.
You don’t have to stop what you’re doing and devote yourself to learning parry. You never have to parry to play the game how you want to play it. All I’m saying is, if you want to there’s no time like the present to pick it up and that you absolutely can do it.
Remember those who say they can, and those who say they can not are both typically right.
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Well I was struggling through the crucible to get the respec since I wanted to change my build. Then there was a weapon i wanted to craft and couldn’t get the materials. So i created 4 more realms to level up Grinnich in all of them. I still couldn’t get enough Boar Tusks to craft the weapon to I started farming crucible level 5 chests to hopefully get that material drop.
Anyways ended up leveling up a lot through that. Now I’m max level with low level gear lol.
Since I can make my way to the Echo Knight I’m tryna be a parry god myself and parry him to death to kill him early game for fun, but I think most of his stuff can’t be parried.
Yea I think they should be learned, I just think the timings should be a bit more natural. Like that instant wolf attack is crazy! And also that Spore launcher dude with the huge windup then quick attack. I can’t even see that attack come out!
In context of EK - everything that doesn’t end with a plague splash on the ground or a plague shot can be parried. Try to get him as a plague boss to experiment in peace instead of having just one attempt.
One other ancient video I did below - though this is from before the Crucible update (not much changed in context of parrying EK in particular, one more attack from p1 is parryable though) - though his HP pool was petty and possible rune gain was back then ludicrous (so this particular fight went rather … fast).
Dang well I suppose I’ll keep testing things.
Usually there comes a point where I figure out the parry timing and can parry even new enemies with good consistency. I just have normally hit that point 15-20 hours of gameplay ago.
Oh true.
Yea I think most people agree with how the parry is. Either they change it at some point or they don’t. I’ll try to figure it out until then.
I do think that being able to block without a shield would be cool. With a perfectly timed block being a parry, then also having less stagger/knockdown effect for parries.
I’m not the one with the game vision though, so we’ll see what happens!
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That’s exactly how I feel parries should work. More lenient timing with less stagger. And yeah, when you’re using a 2-handed weapon or a 1-handed weapon with no offhand gear it makes sense to allow players to block, even if the damage reduction is much worse than with a shield, cause otherwise it’s a wasted button that’s just sitting there doing nothing. Also, having more defensive options than just dodging all the time is nice.
But as you said, it’s the devs’ games, their vision. And it’s not like parries are broken or anything, they could leave them as they are and the game wouldn’t be ruined, it’d still be a perfectly good, playable game. But that’s just my 2 cents; the mechanic is just not reliable overall. And to me reliable is more important than rewarding.
With more practice and paying careful attention, I now know why the parry feels off in this game.
You have to parry early, before the attack comes out for most enemies.
With sword enemies, they start moving their arm towards you before the blade gets to you, which gives you time to react and parry.
With most other enemies though, you need to begin the parry before they even launch their attack. Which means at the end of their wind up, rather than the beggining of their attack. This means that you have to know exactly (or roughly) how long their wind up is, so you can begin the parry at the end of it.
Most other games (and also just logically), you parry when they launch the attack, or even later. Like when the attack is about to connect with you (like sekiro). This means in many cases you can anticipate it.
Many of the enemies in this game have attacks that can’t be anticipated for parry timing until you learn their attack patterns and how long their windups are. Almost like a Dark Souls parry. The only issue is that the parry animation of your character makes it seem instant, but its not. You are not parrying the instant you hit the button, rather it’s just after you hit the button. This means you need careful planning, and must know when they’re about to attack, rather than when they do attack (with exceptions of certain enemies).
So, with many enemies you will not be able to anticipate the parry timing of attacks for the first multiple encounters. Unless you get a lucky guess on when to hit the button.
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i refuse to parry on principle.
to me i find parrying as a mechanic that is divisive. its VERY hard to balance.
first of all telegraphing. how do you make it CLEAR that an attack is parry-able? one thing i absolutely detest is having to watch a youtube tutorial to understand what each and every attack a monster does, and after that i have to learn which attacks should be blocked/parried/avoided. godfall (action fps melee game) does this well but at the cost of immersion where parry-able attacks usually have an obvious flash, while unblockable attacks have a red flash. i dont need to watch any walkthrus. i can jump in and just react. many games do not WANT to give players obvious tells the way godfall does it as it can make parrying much more easier and also does make the game feel more arcadey as it does require a little immersion breaking effects to emphasize the tells/timing.
second is the timing itself. what is the sweet spot? some people say its good the way it is while other less skilled players say its impossible. this also extends to the “retry window”. if a player accidently presses the parry button, they’re likely to be stuck in an animation which prevent them from parrying again. on the flipside, if theyre allowed to quickly spam parry, then most players would just spam the button. even in this forum i can see the divide between players scoffing at others for finding it difficult to parry while other players simply KNOW they’re bad at parrying and probably have stopped trying.
parrying needs to be rewarding to justify it’s existence, but if it becomes too rewarding, then non parryers will feel punished for not utilizing the mechanic. if parrying is in a state which makes parriers happy where they feel the risk and effort they put into learning the enemy’s moveset as well as their ability to recognize and perfectly time a parry feels justified. it is very likely that the benefit of parrying would be so great that non parriers could feel left out. “this game is not for me”.
to sidetrack, this is exactly one of the reasons why i came back to NRFTW. i used to play poe2 as a mace user. i really loved the feel and balance of the game. BUT the existence of every other skill in the game which vastly outperformed maces made me feel i m playing an inferior version of the game. i felt punished for not playing the game in a certain way.
parry system can be a great divider.
personally i would prefer it if NRFTW did something like godfall
funny, but I forget to parry.
It’s much easier to make a dash and strike.
I play with fists in cloth
Parry is for certain builds or soon to be classes. I really couldn’t get the feel for parry in this game but I honestly felt there are more powerful builds anyway. Parry needs a really nice reward for using it in this game to make it compete with other builds in the game.
Learning that in the game, instead of watching YT videos - is what parry lovers (like myself) actually like to do.
Other than that I agree, balancing parry (or any mechanic for that matter, i’m looking at you hotfix2) is not an easy task - and IMHO it’s better to go with “not everything is for everyone” instead of trying to balance something at all costs.
That to say, I hope custom realms / realm tiers will deliver whenever they are getting implemented.
The whole game’s balance is completely out of whack, and the game isn’t much besides “press attack to win” if you get into any builds.
With the most typical “builds” being based on ranged freeze + physical shatter or literally spamming - with one key/button and no care in the world - stamina-using runes such as “front-flip kick”. No need to learn anything - move sets, dodging, positioning, not even mentioning a heresy like parry timing per each attack per each enemy.
And I really mean it - get some good defense armor, pump it up with max stamina / stamina recovery gems, slot that damn front flip kick on some weapon and proceed to spam a button to win.
Figuring out which attacks are parryable and when is very obtuse. Some sort of in game indicators for parry timing and availability would be great. Similar to backstabbing red skull. Just flash some sort of mini icon so i at least know what can be parried and when.
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koshey’s reply is what i want as he mention:
i’ve pointed out this is already implemented in godfall. i parry almost everything in the game and i love parrying in the game. one reason is i only need to train myself to get the timing right for the indicator ONCE. i dont need to memorize 1000 different tells and 1000 different timings. i see the flash, i know more or less when to exactly parry. it doesnt matter if its a new enemy or new boss. i dont need to figure out if the attack is unparriable.
and on top of that, the parry window can remain tight.
to me the issue now is non parriers get “nothing” in return. if you parry, you get a window to do damage while avoiding damage.
if you dodge, you ONLY avoid damage. you only get a reward for dodging IF you sacrifice equipment mod slots so that you gain bonuses for dodging. a good start to give some balance is to have dodging give you an adrenaline buff where you gain a damage boost for 5 seconds or so.
if you move/run out of the way. you also only avoid damage but i would say that its fine as just getting out of the way by default requires the least amount of skill.
i do have a hot take that getting hit should give melee bonuses. i do realize that we do have a recover lost life mechanic. perhaps more life leech effectiveness for melee whenever taking a hit? taking a hit also would include parried/blocked attacks. and yes this is a specifically melee buff.
as for ranged/mages, they should get the opposite, where if they do not get hit after a few seconds, they gain a zen buff where ranged attacks/spells do more damage as long as they have the buff active. dodging/parrying will cancel this buff.
that should cover all the other playstyles i believe
I parry mostly for gaining focus and throwing a rune attack afterwards. Realy good in early game btw.
Same. I can never get the timing right and the stagger is too short lived.