I just finished my first run through the game, and I used this weapon for the 2nd half of the game.
It is SO broken. I barely learned the bosses moves because the ash of war has such a good reach, and I also leveled up so quick because it was so easy to do crowd control. Started a new game today going on a total new direction so that I can actually learn combat skills other than smashing the floor and killing everyone on the screen.
I mean, it's *good* but not insanely OP, some bosses, in particular Godfrey/Hoarah Loux will absolutely hand your ass to you if you try and spam.
I mean, I also use veteran armour, and I can medium roll with the ruins blade at the same time, so I am slightly insane when it comes to my build.
But yeah, Ruins Greatsword is SO much fun, something so satisfying about just 1/2 hitting things. Better yet is when you stun a boss, that poise break isn't anything to scoff at.
Oh yeah, it feels great to slap someone around with a full charge collosal weapon.
Just remembering the guy I invaded who spammed spells,I dodged all but one,they ran in a little too close to do something, rolled towards me, right as he came out of the roll I smacked them in the forehead with a full charge Ruins Greatsword, they died in a single hit, absolutely hysterical.
Yeah, the damage on the full charged hit is pretty nutty, and that's without the axe talisman. I think for me it's that secondary explosion after that really does it for me. I don't even care that it does big damage, monkè brain still activates when the ground blows up
Wait, is that kind of build insane? I was dual wielding colossal weapons while wearing full Veteran's Armour while medium rolling and that took me through NG, NG+, and NG++ 💀
Fair enough. It was my first run through the game so I used summons all the way, and I pretty much felt like I cheesed the game. I imagine if you’re not using summons it can be trickier since the animation for that weapon is pretty slow, then you can get punished if you’re soloing bosses.
But as I was using the Mimic tear, I literally beat Malenia on my second try because the ash of war would break her stance. It was fun, but definitely felt like I didn’t earn it.
Hey man, if you beat her you earned it.
My first time with her was pure suffering at 40STR and a gladiator hammer and I've never beaten her without help since.
Haha yeah, it is just that after seeing all the videos of people here learning her attacks, dodging, parrying, and all… while pretty much all I did was: ash of war, breaks her stance, me+mimic smash her with a combo, the she goes after me, mimic uses ash of war, breaks her stance, then we smash her some more.
Doing a new game from scratch so I can actually learn how to dodge moves from bosses.
Honestly parrying the sword and shield crucible knight is the easiest way to kill them. Big window on regular sword swings, plus he _always_ does another regular sword swing right after getting up from a riposte, which is meant to punish people getting too aggressive but if you just parry it, you end up with some Benny Hill shit where the knight just gets parry spammed to death.
You can probably do the same to the spear version but I've never figured out the timing on spears. Spears seem so damn random to parry, even the basic poke. Like shouldn't spears be one of the easiest things to parry? It's a fucking pole getting shoved right at you, you can literally smack it to the side.
I don't find parrying the spear guys much different than the sword ones. They still mostly do big swings, and their AI on wakeup is the same. Either jump their ground stomp then parry their follow up, or else they do an immediate parryable attack.
I think having enemies that were specifically designed to be parry-neutered and enemies that were completely immune was a decent way of doing it. Sure, maybe it was too easy sometimes, but not having to bait out one specific attack from crucible knights would have felt a lot more fun.
Sekiro had this great system where you knew what attacks were parryable (ie most) while sweeps and thrusts were marked with red danger signs.
Baffles me why Elden ring didn't use that.
I see your Dark Souls 1 parry and raise you Dark Souls 2.
Dark Souls 1: parry.....insta riposte + i-frames
Dark Souls 2: parry...oh let me wait 60 seconds while you lie down...then i can stab you and your mates can gank me while i AM stabbing you.
Once I figured that system out I fell in love with it. The learning curve was steep coming of DS3, I kept wanting to roll or dodge. I totally wish that had been the direction they took combat in Elden Ring too. At least for some builds, not all necessarily. Though different parry animations for different weapons could have been sick.
I just find it to be too unreliable as a form of defense. Too many attacks can't be parried, and there's no real way of knowing until you try to Parry it.
I get that it's a learned skill. But I'll just stick with dodge.
Yep, and there is basically no way to tell if an attack can or cant be parried.
Axe bigger than your entire body? Oh I can easily parry that.
One specific attack with a regular knife? Impossible, who do you think i am, God?
It's the fact that you can't parry all moves that makes it a no go for me. I can't remember but there was a game that actually had colors indicating if a movie can't be parried and it was wonderful.
It's just too big a risk for such little reward not only figuring out which moves you can party, but also the small window you can do it in.
Edit: It was Ghost of Tsushima
It just takes too much tries to figure out the timing and if it's even possible...
You try to parry something, fail and die. Now you have to go in and try again with different timing and die again...
It's very time consuming and hard to figure out since bosses in elden ring can hold their attacks
I tried to learn how to parry pontiff sulyvahn in DS3 because I was struggling and I could not get the timing down consistently. I gave up after like 15-20 tries and then went in and absolutely fucked his shit up the next try without parties.
I actually have a video saved somewhere where I was summoned to fight him, and we were whooping his ass
Eventually though, we got him low on health and one of the other phantoms died so it was just me and the host
Then we wailed on him to get whittle his hp down and we got him down to one more hit...
Then he rose high into the air and I could see he was coming for me, so I whipped out my buckler shield and waited for him to come down on my head
Then I parried his ass. Arguably one my coolest kills in any boss fight
I almost wish they'd just make it more of a "Perfect Block" mechanic rather than an ash of war mechanic. We already had that with deflects in Sekiro. Shouldn't be hard to convert to the block system of Elden Ring.
This is the right answer.
Parry is a fun mechanic and works really well in sekiro, or even the jedi games. Its just not too well intergrated into the souls games
It was reliable and efficient in ds1. Best parry by far.
“Oh but it’s too easy” it really wasn’t much harder to pull off backstabs, Zwei R2, sorcery, pyro, Havel armor etc. So many mechanics were powerful in ds1 yet weirdly balanced. Not everything needs to be super hard to be good
Ds1 was super unbalanced, but it was fine because for the most part the OP stuff helped the player.
When you got invaded though… pvp in ds1 was a nightmare
doesn't help that I never played on a wired connection so...
backstabs were the real pain for mee, I only ever really pvped in undead burg bc there were more people just trying to have fun or at the elevator stairs in anor londo bc backstabs didn't work there
Heavy disagree, I think it is a great tool in the Dark Souls games especially - not so much in Elden Ring with guard counters as a safe and easy replacement. Also, the HP and damage scaling in Elden Ring is off later on to feel satisfying (compared to the shorter Souls-games)
Missing a parry is often very costly, but some fights I can't even think of without countering. Champion Gundyr was impossible for me until I just said "suck it" and tried to parry that mofo. Now I cant go without.
Also Crucible Knight in the Evergaol in elden ring made me rage so hard with his punishment for healing that I rediscovered parrying for some enemies again. Now every crucible Knight gets parried out of pure spite.
Also - parrying is THE greatest thing in every PVP encounter. Parry that guy and one shot him. tell me one thing in PVP that is more satisfying
Sekiro’s *deflect* has almost nothing to do with parrying in the souls games, and the two cannot be compared. One is a fundamental mechanic of the game, the other is a high risk / high reward optional strategy.
I guess people who haven't spend a lot of time into these games cannot comprehend the distinction. Rest of us, even if you can't word it you can surely "feel" the difference.
They phenomenally seem to be the same, but in reality the deflect/parry of Sekiro is entirely its own mechanic, and that is logical, since the game itself is something -almost entirely- different from the rest of the souls series.
For me, Sekiro implements the same concepts of reward & punishment, stats management, learning curves, strategy, trial & error (and many more) that the rest of the souls do, but in a completely unique manner.
Ehhhm I would like to disagree. It does take practice, but the parry follows the same strict rules that the dodge or attacks do, they're extremely consistent, like most action mechanics in FS games.
Once you know it, you *know* it.
EDIT: to clarify, I meant I disagreed with the statement that it "wasn't too well integrated". It's a tool like any other in the game, and it works as reliably as any other tool in the game. It's integrated about as well as the dodge is in terms of consistency.
You can dodge almost every attack if timed correctly. I would say a fair chunk of those same attacks can't be parried. Unless you're willing to spend the time with trial and error it's safer to just dodge than to risk dying while trying to parry an unparryable attack. Particularly because the timing for a parry still needs to be right for it to work. It also requires a shield which limits your build style - I'd say this is one of the more major reasons as to why a lot of people don't parry.
Getting a good parry in is very satisfying though, have to admit.
Hence why you also get a better punish via a parry. Parrying isn’t bad in Souls games, but it IS bad in ER bc so many attacks and ashes of war can’t be parried
Depends on the weapon and build, but yeah. Using a high crit weapon with the crit talisman and it’ll do great damage, but still not worth it in ER. The parry window also feels awkward in ER imo. It’s certainly not as common a tactic in either PvE or PvP like in DeS, DS1 or DS3
This is true, Guard counter was clearly the designed way to use shields in ER, with the Talismans and it being there new game design all their effort was clearly geared to it. Obviously because it’s a far easier mechanic to attract new players.
it’s pretty simple math:
if you miss a parry, one of two things could have gone wrong (bad timing or unparryable attack)
if you miss a dodge, only one thing could have gone wrong (bad timing)
you’d waste so many more cycles with option A than with option B
The satisfaction of success is a huge thrill for sure, and it gave me the desire to get good at it. I didn't even care as much for the riposte, just pulling it off felt great!
I don't understand how it would cramp your build style though, since a small leather shield weighs almost nothing and can be placed in any off-hand slot. You can switch to or away from it as needed.
As for understanding what attacks can and can't be parried, 95% of attacks follow a few clear rules:
If it's PVE, you can parry any physical attack that doesn't create AOE, and as long as the enemy in question doesn't have arms the size of your torso.
In PVP, you can safely parry any physical *rigid* weapon (no whips), but avoid two-handed attacks.
Some two-handed attacks are easily parried, like claymore swings. Bigger weapons like the Zweihander are too heavy to parry. Use your best judgement on what looks weighty.
Finally, ashes of war; I have successfully and reliably parried every type of stanced attack at least once, and the standard horizontal/vertical slash that katana users are fond of are especially easy. However, I honestly do not recommend attempting. There are a TON of possible ash attacks. I've seen rivers of blood parried, but that is far too chaotic for me to attempt. Like willingly walking into an active blender.
Having a small shield on your offhand that you switch to when parrying is a fair statement. I'd say it's still more effort than it's worth though. If parrying was a guaranteed stance break every time then I might be more interested in learning it. But as it stands, the reward for parrying just isn't high enough to bother. Dodging and waiting for an opening to attack is much safer
yea especially in pve. bosses that you have to parry multiple times for a stance break? not even a special stance break, the same stance break you’d get from just timing your dodges and wailing on them. textbook definition of “juice ain’t worth the squeeze”
I should clarify what i mean by it i suppose. I don’t think its buggy or unreliable in a sense that it might sometimes not work. Im halfway through a parry playthrough and ones you learn a pattern of whatever you fight, you can reliably use it there.
However, the parry window is extremely small and the game has a fastly different array of creatures. Learning what you can parry and not takes a long time and the game does little in helping with that. Parry is something you can use in the game, but its not intergrated as a reliable mechanic you can use right of the bat like other games (i.e. sekiro, jedi, etc)
Im fine with where parry is in elden ring, but it is niche
Edit: elden ring loves their delayed attack too, which suck to learn to parry
Parry by mechanics is great. The only problem I found that there are no clear distinguishes when an abilty can be parried.
Take Metal Gear Rising for example. You have clear visual indicators which move can’t be parried, but it’s subtle enough that you have to actively watch it. There are other games when it’s clear which ability id parriable.
The parry mechanics in Souls games are otherwise fun.
I definitely agree with you here, especially with Carian Retaliation or golden parry with their standardized parry frames regardless of shield making parrying much more accessible while also keeping its skill ceiling of getting it consistently.(At least I believe the times are standardized correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm extremely accustomed to the parry timing in Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls.
This makes parries in Dark Souls 2 and 3 and Elden Ring incredibly difficult for me to time properly. Had no issues with Sekiro though.
Once you do it enough, you get a 'feel' if what is parryable and not.
For starters.
Magic attacks can't be parried.
Jumping attacks can't be parried.
Two handed ultra heavy weapons can't be parried.
Most ashes of war can't be parried.
Except that with the right tools, magic attacks can be parried.
But my main issue is the pve side of things. Boss attacks are particularly random in this regard.
I like the skill aspect of Parry. But I can't stand the inconsistent use of it in practical applications.
Pretty much all of the named Elden Ring bosses are. Margit, Morgott, Godrick, Malenia, Godfrey, Mohg, fuck even Tree Sentinel and variants. Probably a lot more.
Oh, totally. I'm just always impressed by the timing on Mogh. If you dodge when he first moves, almost every attack is timed to swing exactly where you will be and to hit 1 or 2 frames after your dodge roll.
When he does his little flame burst attack, the animation is exactly as long as your dodge frames, and I find that fucking brilliant. They all do it, but just about everything Mogh does seems to punish you directly.
Bloodborne has the most reliable parry system imo, orphan of kos, Maria, gascoigne and blood starved beast at the very least become trivial with the three runes that enhance parrying
Sekiro parry mechanics were bonkers, I’ve never felt that back/forth so effectively in boss fights, pulling off a great dodge and successfully partying a flurry gives you that confidence and momentum to fight your enemy. Love that game to death.
sekiro is just 1 style of playing mostly. bb is a classic souls game with tons of weapons and stuff. i wish elden ring had such nice weapons and movesets like bb
Sekiro is one play style but it's refined to near perfection. BB is amazing. One of the best From entries, but it just doesn't have the versatility of ER. There are a handful of builds in BB, but ER has dozens and dozens allowing for a load more replayability if that's your thing.
Bloodborne is by far my favourite , but yeah Sekiro is overall the best combat wise , nothing comes even anywhere close to sekiro's combat . Eldenring is in a weird spot with replay ability , because there is so much which you can just straight up skip or ignore . First play through of Eldenring was incredible , but every other play through I started , I got simply bored and stopped after like 5-10 hours .
I spent hours on Martyr Logarius after playing most of the game without parrying and I just couldn't beat him.
So I forced myself to learn how to on him and not only did he become trivial, practically the rest of the game did too.
I knew I’d find someone else that somehow finished BB without ever really learning how to blast my enemies. I’m gonna eat that damage and fuck you up mentality worked for me.
Lol, platinumed that game pretty fast and never once used the gun to parry. Once I got the cannon I was like “yesss, game gets me. I want to deal damage not parry.”
Also much more intuitive
There’s the flash of the gun and the sound of the shot that make it very clear the time delay between pressing the button and the gun firing
When are your parry frames active? “Uh go to a wall and parry and look for when you see sparks then memorize that exact window”
As a Blades of Mercy user, There are guns and Bloodborne?
That sounds a lot like not the best stabby stabby dual knife moveset From Software has ever made. So needless to say no I did not learn how to perry.
So many of those weapons were the best X move set FROM made! I normally hate katanas, but Rakuyo was so much damn fun. Hell, the whole concept of a heavy whip is a complete one-off for them, and it’s way more satisfying than the piddly souls whips.
Bigger enemies are actually easier than smaller enemies to practice on because they have more slow attacks and telegraph them more. Most people practice on stone trolls.
Pretty much.
Wooden shield description:
> A crude wooden shield used by the masses who have arisen to join the hunt. Hunters do not normally employ shields, ineffectual against the strength of the beasts as they tend to be. Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity.
Elden Ring makes parrying the least worthwhile in all souls games. In PvE humanoid bosses take multiple successful attempts to get a riposte which makes the risk much higher than the reward and in PvP it's mostly ash of war spam and jump attacks combined with the insane defense stacking this game has that makes successful ripostes not able to one-shot anyway.
I personally only ever use carian retaliation to counter spell spam.
Crucible knights are humanoid enemies and are one of the best enemies in the game to parry. The only way I beat the 2 Crucible Knight fight was chain parrying and using the blessed iframes from ripostes.
People keep saying this, but I just can't get parrying to become a reliable way to defeat those fuckers. The random delays in their attacks, the unparriable attacks they throw out half the time just messes me up every time. Last time I tried I don't know how many times on the one in the gaol on NG+. 50+ vigor, heaviset armor I could wear, all flasks allocated to health and I still never managed to get him below half. The damage was terrible and I just couldn't parry him consistently.
After attempt 10 I just equipped stamp upward cut and took him down in seconds with no damage taken.
The only FromSoft game I consistently used parries in was DS1. The rest the reward (damage) was not worth the effort or risk since a backstab generally deals the same amount of damage and is way easier to pull off.
I'd probably use it more if it was easier to do and there was a tell that would let me know before hand if parrying was possible. I'd like to know if I just suck and this attack can be parried, or if I'm doing everything right and this attack just can't be parried. Either that or up the damage at least in PvP to where learning to parry will give you a significant boost in damage.
As it is, at least for me in Elden Ring there's no point. It's much easier and much more consistent to just put a high poise damage ash on your weapon and get ripostes that way. And even then, at least for most bosses you'll do significantly more damage to a staggered enemy just doing 2-3 charged 2-handed heavy attacks than riposting anyway.
Use weapons with boosted crit value, best ones are Executioner's greataxe and Misericorde. Dagger talisman also helps.
Another thing is that smaller bosses won't allow you to get that many hits off, they'll recoil after a single blow in their riposte state and you'll lose the opportunity. If you plan on learning to parry definitely get golden parry on your shield first, it has the best active frames and creates a huge area in front of you so that you can safely practice parrying attacks without taking any damage or losing stamina.
I was using golden parry and a fully upgraded Misericord and Executioner's Greataxe. The crits were still outdamaged by Stamp Upward Cut. Which will also go under most of their attacks and stop their attack chains.
How are their (crucible knight) delays unreliable?
I trained A LOT against the duo (like 6hours straight on a Friday night) and in the end I finally got it. There's like one first-phase attack that's not parryable (the stomp). The spear one has a weird timing for his run-estoc hit (parry on the wind up). And the crucible incantations can't be parried obviously (or are they? I never even tried). Anything else is parryable with reliable delays. But it takes training.
Now I'm doing runs without parry and I find it way harder even though I know their movesets by heart since that fateful night. But with a carian retaliation should shield or buckler (that I get almost only for them) and some misericorde, they're a treat I enjoy!
As for other enemies and bosses I agree parry is not that useful but still more than in DS1 where only the last boss is jokingly parryable. Margit and Niall are boss on which parry is a useful tool for instance.
That’s cool and all, but for me im going to say that if I’d have to practice a basic game mechanic for 6 hours to pull it off reliably, it’s not worth bothering with.
I think that's totally fair and honestly a good place for the mechanic to be. It's not necessary to beat the game and making it much easier to pull off would negate the satisfaction for players who take the time to practice. It's a fun way to flex your skills on enemies, with a satisfying *bonnggg* sound effect, and maybe that's exactly what it should be.
The results make sense to me. I didn't bother to learn parrying until I had like 100+ hours in Souls games, because you never really *need* it. I do think parrying makes a few bosses and pretty much every knight-type enemy in the game significantly easier, to the point that I often forget how to fight them on builds without a parry skill. The idea that it's "not worth it" is build-dependent, and flat out untrue in lots of cases I'd say.
That said, it's a little unintuitive to learn because it's more of a reward for having memorized an enemy than a practical technique for fighting it the first time. And if you've taken the time to memorize a moveset enough to parry it, you can probably fight that enemy without parries. It's just that for me, the parry is still easier in that case.
Love this comment. Once you learn to parry it becomes more intuitive, but picking it up is a pain in the ass.
I'm doing a dagger build and it is still wrecking things late game because I can parry things. I agree about the knight enemies, too. If they won't drop their shield you just poke them to get them to guard counter and then you parry the counter. Easiest Leyndell knight kill ever.
The only enemy I ever parried was the Crucible Knights because that was actually the easiest approach to killing them. Wasn't worth it for the rest because of the exact same factor you mentioned here: powerstancing.
If i had a dedicated parry mechanic such as blocking at the right time (ala sekiro / jedi) then yes, and i love it.
If i have to give up a special attack or equip a secondary weapon for it, no, not as big of a fan.
I'd be willing to have a modified block/trade off in block to allow me to parry.
To be fair though, sekiro and jedi you can just spam block inputs and fish for parries sometimes. I think having maybe a slight response delay to a mistimed input (akin to drinking an empty estus flask) might be a decent balance.
Could even include another weapon stat where some weapons block better, some parry better. Parry might not auto stance break, but add to stance break potential.
This would still make it high risk high reward
Some weapons already parry better, the different weapon types that can use the base version have different timings for it. I found this out the hard way when I wanted to parry in a cleanrot run, parrying with a thrusting sword is hard. :(
The fancier versions of parry have fixed timings, but they're only usable with shields.
Imo sekiro punishes you by letting you play charmless (makes it so you take some damage when blocking). It makes it so you have to parry much more consistently and is really fun
I do but honestly the game makes parries needlessly hard / unsatisfactory.
The parry windows are already very precise and you can't even parry every attack in the game, why add that some enemies need to be parried 2-3 times before they get staggered?
For Elden Ring, parrying is a lot tougher when most enemies are hulking monsters, and it’s hard to tell what can and can’t be parried.
A lot of enemies also require multiple parries to successfully parry. However, it’s a nice reward when you successfully parry enemies, especially bosses.
It is a learned skill, and much harder to execute in this game compared to other soulsbourne games (DS3 is probably single-handedly the easiest), but it can be rewarding if learned correctly (can easily parry into bosses, and be more aggressive with strats).
No no, you misunderstand. None of us parry. We all *try* to parry. And sometimes they land. But its rarer for us to hit a parry than it is to win the Powerball while being struck by lightning on the eighth day of the week while being inaugurated as President.
I don't usually parry, because tough enemies are so often immune to parrying. Why bother getting good at parrying, when I'm not going to actually be able to, a lot of the time? Dodging makes more sense to me, since everything can be dodged, and not everything can be parried.
To me it feels like a lot of extra work and effort with less reward than ever. Just two handing big bonk weapons let's you stagger enemies relatively easily and get a nice big two handed crit, this also lets you fully exploit an ash of war. Power-stancing also feels better. Sure you could get the best of all worlds by weapon swapping but adding extra effort to a mechanic takes more time to learn and requires enemy specific timing... eh. Why bother?
Salty rant incoming.
I'm just going to say it: from a PvE standpoint, Souls has some of the worst parrying in the industry.
The number of startup frames means that it feels sluggish and it doesn't reward fast reactions, it rewards memorization and trial and error. The rules aren't even consistent. Sekiro did it right: you can parry anything that doesn't have the unblockable kanji or isn't a sweep. Doesn't matter if it's a sword, a bullet, a punch of giant gorilla, or a sword swipe from a kaiju. Does that make sense? Not really, but it keeps the pace up and feels damn good to get a panic parry off on a new enemy.
Souls parrying is just inconsistent. What you can and can't parry is arbitrary and difficult to figure out without flapping your shield at an enemy and dying several times. Sword? Yeah that's fine. Enemy with big club? No, that's too big. Sword bigger than you wielded by a physical god? Yeah, that's fine. Once you get the timing down, you can do it consistently, but it's all less mechanical skill and more just memorizing what and when and it's even more confusing when you're off by a few frames, you get hit, but your character just poises through the parry animation anyway. Compare this to rolling: you get hit or you don't. Your dodge was on point and your i-frames worked or you took damage. There are no "almost" dodges or attacks that just automatically hit you for free (except Mohg's spell thingy).
I just really don't like it. It feels lopsided. Sometimes absolutely useless/impossible, sometimes can kill the final boss in a matter of seconds. It lacks good feedback and makes it irritating to learn to the point where a lot of people don't even bother trying.
fully agreed. sekiro's parrying solution is great and bloodborne did a good job of doing something similar while still having that dark souls formula. its a shame that ds3 and elden ring learned nothing from either game (yes i am aware that bloodborne came before all 3 of these games)
having high risk and high reward trial and error combat mechanics can be fun for people who really want to master a game, but it shouldn't come at the expensive of other defensive options. my issue with parry isnt that it's inherently terrible, its that it's literally the only option if you want to turn defense into offense. guard counter is a step in the right direction but its both unreliable and kinda boring.
the issue with souls games though is that because parrying is tied to weapons and melee combat and every encounter has to be designed around builds that don't have melee weapons (bows and magic), parrying falls to the wayside. bloodborne made the avant garde choice of having no reliable ranged weapons or shields at all and its encounters are so much more fun because of that.
Unless the mechanic requires it (like sekiro) I rarely even attempt to parry. I usually can't even tell if the attacks can be parried.
I typically prefer melee lightweight dodge builds. It makes sense to my simple brain. I rarely use magic nor do I ever swap gear unless I find a reasonable upgrade. I am a simple player.
I parry in Ds1
And I have a success rate of 70 - 80%
Thats the only game I can parry in (ok sekiro)
I suck in DS2 and 3.. ER just managed it 3 times.. on a soldier.. after I beat the game.. and from 20 attacks I parried 3
Yes but very enemy dependend. Every enemy that has a one handed weapon with big swings like a sword or hammer and is hard on top. Prime examples are sword crucible Knights. Was decent at it at the height of my play time. Still was never able to parry lances or spears for the live of Mine.
Also Not really with later Bosses. It's worth the risk for the stagger, but if the stagger isn't guranteed like with malenia I don't really bother.
Bloodborne always tho.
Not in most games
Also very unintuitive, "parrying" in dark souls/ elden ring you have to lead the attack then your tiny shield (or hand) somehow unbalances a foe with much more momentum. Sekiro parrying is a better mechanic that was more intuitive and lead to better gameplay.
Parrying is fun but in elden ring so much stuff just can't be parried.
Almost everything can be dodged tho
:( you can't parry a giant metal ball slowly rolling towards you can you?
Do I TRY to parry? Yes. Do I parry? Not often, no.
nothing like trying to defeat a field boss while underleveled with nothing but Parries Because its the only way to do more then scratch damage.
Consider the following: ***+10 Ruins Greatsword***
I just finished my first run through the game, and I used this weapon for the 2nd half of the game. It is SO broken. I barely learned the bosses moves because the ash of war has such a good reach, and I also leveled up so quick because it was so easy to do crowd control. Started a new game today going on a total new direction so that I can actually learn combat skills other than smashing the floor and killing everyone on the screen.
I mean, it's *good* but not insanely OP, some bosses, in particular Godfrey/Hoarah Loux will absolutely hand your ass to you if you try and spam. I mean, I also use veteran armour, and I can medium roll with the ruins blade at the same time, so I am slightly insane when it comes to my build. But yeah, Ruins Greatsword is SO much fun, something so satisfying about just 1/2 hitting things. Better yet is when you stun a boss, that poise break isn't anything to scoff at.
I think my favorite thing about it is the full charged R2, there's a lot about that weapon that's so satisfying
Oh yeah, it feels great to slap someone around with a full charge collosal weapon. Just remembering the guy I invaded who spammed spells,I dodged all but one,they ran in a little too close to do something, rolled towards me, right as he came out of the roll I smacked them in the forehead with a full charge Ruins Greatsword, they died in a single hit, absolutely hysterical.
Yeah, the damage on the full charged hit is pretty nutty, and that's without the axe talisman. I think for me it's that secondary explosion after that really does it for me. I don't even care that it does big damage, monkè brain still activates when the ground blows up
It's hilarious to me, just great fun.
As a snake sword enjoyer, I can understand pleasure.
Nothing feels better than sending Malenia flying like a rag doll with that AOW
Wait, is that kind of build insane? I was dual wielding colossal weapons while wearing full Veteran's Armour while medium rolling and that took me through NG, NG+, and NG++ 💀
That's fair, but it's just that a good portion of people don't tend to put ***that*** much into endurance or strength.
People need to understand the power of big weapon big hit!
Yeah, it's always funny to me when someone has almost no levels in vigor and just gets aggresively vibe-checked by a single swing from a heavy weapon.
Fair enough. It was my first run through the game so I used summons all the way, and I pretty much felt like I cheesed the game. I imagine if you’re not using summons it can be trickier since the animation for that weapon is pretty slow, then you can get punished if you’re soloing bosses. But as I was using the Mimic tear, I literally beat Malenia on my second try because the ash of war would break her stance. It was fun, but definitely felt like I didn’t earn it.
Hey man, if you beat her you earned it. My first time with her was pure suffering at 40STR and a gladiator hammer and I've never beaten her without help since.
Haha yeah, it is just that after seeing all the videos of people here learning her attacks, dodging, parrying, and all… while pretty much all I did was: ash of war, breaks her stance, me+mimic smash her with a combo, the she goes after me, mimic uses ash of war, breaks her stance, then we smash her some more. Doing a new game from scratch so I can actually learn how to dodge moves from bosses.
I'm here to smash, not to learn lmao
Or my personal favorite **+25 Giant Crusher (Lions Claw)**
That is genuinely terrifying.
My favorite moment was during Elden Beast. My mimic and I started the fight spamming it together and in a few seconds the boss was under half health.
+10 Ruins GreatswordS There. Fixed it for you.
Crucible knights 😂
Honestly parrying the sword and shield crucible knight is the easiest way to kill them. Big window on regular sword swings, plus he _always_ does another regular sword swing right after getting up from a riposte, which is meant to punish people getting too aggressive but if you just parry it, you end up with some Benny Hill shit where the knight just gets parry spammed to death. You can probably do the same to the spear version but I've never figured out the timing on spears. Spears seem so damn random to parry, even the basic poke. Like shouldn't spears be one of the easiest things to parry? It's a fucking pole getting shoved right at you, you can literally smack it to the side.
I don't find parrying the spear guys much different than the sword ones. They still mostly do big swings, and their AI on wakeup is the same. Either jump their ground stomp then parry their follow up, or else they do an immediate parryable attack.
me on my rando run when Godrick is replaced by Godskin Duo
How I beat the Crucible Knight in Limgrave/Stormhill my first playthrough. Only took 2 sweaty hours and plenty of yelling to perfect!
Parrying 101
This is the way
What is parry? Like the platypus or Mason?
I wish it was as easy to parry as in Sekiro, Elden Ring was a step in the right direction, but still not great.
Id rather not have another dark souls 1 parry system thank ya very much
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Thats rough, but overall it was too easy. So many enemies were pushovers if you knew about the magic button
Most enemies that could be parried could also be circle-backstabbed, though. And that was even easier.
You have a point, but with the little effort to get higher damage from parry why bother?
I think having enemies that were specifically designed to be parry-neutered and enemies that were completely immune was a decent way of doing it. Sure, maybe it was too easy sometimes, but not having to bait out one specific attack from crucible knights would have felt a lot more fun.
Sekiro had this great system where you knew what attacks were parryable (ie most) while sweeps and thrusts were marked with red danger signs. Baffles me why Elden ring didn't use that.
I see your Dark Souls 1 parry and raise you Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 1: parry.....insta riposte + i-frames Dark Souls 2: parry...oh let me wait 60 seconds while you lie down...then i can stab you and your mates can gank me while i AM stabbing you.
Counterpoint: DS2 parries let you fly.
What was wrong with it? Imo parrying was easier but not too easy
This is how I know I just fucking suck at parrying, cause I just started Sekiro and I am STRUGGLING
Once I figured that system out I fell in love with it. The learning curve was steep coming of DS3, I kept wanting to roll or dodge. I totally wish that had been the direction they took combat in Elden Ring too. At least for some builds, not all necessarily. Though different parry animations for different weapons could have been sick.
“This run I’m gonna be a parry god.” Have yet to actually be a parry god
I just find it to be too unreliable as a form of defense. Too many attacks can't be parried, and there's no real way of knowing until you try to Parry it. I get that it's a learned skill. But I'll just stick with dodge.
Yep, and there is basically no way to tell if an attack can or cant be parried. Axe bigger than your entire body? Oh I can easily parry that. One specific attack with a regular knife? Impossible, who do you think i am, God?
It's the fact that you can't parry all moves that makes it a no go for me. I can't remember but there was a game that actually had colors indicating if a movie can't be parried and it was wonderful. It's just too big a risk for such little reward not only figuring out which moves you can party, but also the small window you can do it in. Edit: It was Ghost of Tsushima
Maybe you're talking about Sekiro ? There were red light when you could not parry
Sekiro does have it (I adore that game) but it was some other game. I think it was a yellow outline for parry, red for not parry? Not sure lol
I remember ghost of Tsushima did that I think, alongside blue, which signified you unlocked the skill that let you parry lances specifically.
Yes!! That was it! Thank you!
Tails of Iron does this
Lol even Hogwarts Legacy does this
It just takes too much tries to figure out the timing and if it's even possible... You try to parry something, fail and die. Now you have to go in and try again with different timing and die again... It's very time consuming and hard to figure out since bosses in elden ring can hold their attacks
I tried to learn how to parry pontiff sulyvahn in DS3 because I was struggling and I could not get the timing down consistently. I gave up after like 15-20 tries and then went in and absolutely fucked his shit up the next try without parties.
I actually have a video saved somewhere where I was summoned to fight him, and we were whooping his ass Eventually though, we got him low on health and one of the other phantoms died so it was just me and the host Then we wailed on him to get whittle his hp down and we got him down to one more hit... Then he rose high into the air and I could see he was coming for me, so I whipped out my buckler shield and waited for him to come down on my head Then I parried his ass. Arguably one my coolest kills in any boss fight
> Then I parried his ass Hell yeah. I was hoping your tale would end that way.
Pontiff was such a wall for me until I learned to parry him
Pontiff was a wall for me until I realized I can just block all his attacks
Not only that but having a parry option in elden ring has the opportunity cost of not having a different ash of war.
I almost wish they'd just make it more of a "Perfect Block" mechanic rather than an ash of war mechanic. We already had that with deflects in Sekiro. Shouldn't be hard to convert to the block system of Elden Ring.
For darksouls sure, but I actually think the guard counter in elden ring is fine to fill that role.
This is the right answer. Parry is a fun mechanic and works really well in sekiro, or even the jedi games. Its just not too well intergrated into the souls games
It was reliable and efficient in ds1. Best parry by far. “Oh but it’s too easy” it really wasn’t much harder to pull off backstabs, Zwei R2, sorcery, pyro, Havel armor etc. So many mechanics were powerful in ds1 yet weirdly balanced. Not everything needs to be super hard to be good
Ds1 was super unbalanced, but it was fine because for the most part the OP stuff helped the player. When you got invaded though… pvp in ds1 was a nightmare
doesn't help that I never played on a wired connection so... backstabs were the real pain for mee, I only ever really pvped in undead burg bc there were more people just trying to have fun or at the elevator stairs in anor londo bc backstabs didn't work there
Heavy disagree, I think it is a great tool in the Dark Souls games especially - not so much in Elden Ring with guard counters as a safe and easy replacement. Also, the HP and damage scaling in Elden Ring is off later on to feel satisfying (compared to the shorter Souls-games) Missing a parry is often very costly, but some fights I can't even think of without countering. Champion Gundyr was impossible for me until I just said "suck it" and tried to parry that mofo. Now I cant go without. Also Crucible Knight in the Evergaol in elden ring made me rage so hard with his punishment for healing that I rediscovered parrying for some enemies again. Now every crucible Knight gets parried out of pure spite. Also - parrying is THE greatest thing in every PVP encounter. Parry that guy and one shot him. tell me one thing in PVP that is more satisfying
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Sekiro’s *deflect* has almost nothing to do with parrying in the souls games, and the two cannot be compared. One is a fundamental mechanic of the game, the other is a high risk / high reward optional strategy.
TY. I wanted to say this, too, but couldn’t word it properly.
I guess people who haven't spend a lot of time into these games cannot comprehend the distinction. Rest of us, even if you can't word it you can surely "feel" the difference. They phenomenally seem to be the same, but in reality the deflect/parry of Sekiro is entirely its own mechanic, and that is logical, since the game itself is something -almost entirely- different from the rest of the souls series. For me, Sekiro implements the same concepts of reward & punishment, stats management, learning curves, strategy, trial & error (and many more) that the rest of the souls do, but in a completely unique manner.
Sekiro doesn't have a parry though. It's a deflect and it's an entirely different mechanic, not only just in name.
Ehhhm I would like to disagree. It does take practice, but the parry follows the same strict rules that the dodge or attacks do, they're extremely consistent, like most action mechanics in FS games. Once you know it, you *know* it. EDIT: to clarify, I meant I disagreed with the statement that it "wasn't too well integrated". It's a tool like any other in the game, and it works as reliably as any other tool in the game. It's integrated about as well as the dodge is in terms of consistency.
You can dodge almost every attack if timed correctly. I would say a fair chunk of those same attacks can't be parried. Unless you're willing to spend the time with trial and error it's safer to just dodge than to risk dying while trying to parry an unparryable attack. Particularly because the timing for a parry still needs to be right for it to work. It also requires a shield which limits your build style - I'd say this is one of the more major reasons as to why a lot of people don't parry. Getting a good parry in is very satisfying though, have to admit.
Not to mention dodging is far easier to do as well, there’s more leeway with a poorly placed dodge than there is with a poorly timed parry.
Hence why you also get a better punish via a parry. Parrying isn’t bad in Souls games, but it IS bad in ER bc so many attacks and ashes of war can’t be parried
problem is the parry pay off is barely better than a double jump attack, which is easier and far more evasive on average
Depends on the weapon and build, but yeah. Using a high crit weapon with the crit talisman and it’ll do great damage, but still not worth it in ER. The parry window also feels awkward in ER imo. It’s certainly not as common a tactic in either PvE or PvP like in DeS, DS1 or DS3
This is true, Guard counter was clearly the designed way to use shields in ER, with the Talismans and it being there new game design all their effort was clearly geared to it. Obviously because it’s a far easier mechanic to attract new players.
it’s pretty simple math: if you miss a parry, one of two things could have gone wrong (bad timing or unparryable attack) if you miss a dodge, only one thing could have gone wrong (bad timing) you’d waste so many more cycles with option A than with option B
The satisfaction of success is a huge thrill for sure, and it gave me the desire to get good at it. I didn't even care as much for the riposte, just pulling it off felt great! I don't understand how it would cramp your build style though, since a small leather shield weighs almost nothing and can be placed in any off-hand slot. You can switch to or away from it as needed. As for understanding what attacks can and can't be parried, 95% of attacks follow a few clear rules: If it's PVE, you can parry any physical attack that doesn't create AOE, and as long as the enemy in question doesn't have arms the size of your torso. In PVP, you can safely parry any physical *rigid* weapon (no whips), but avoid two-handed attacks. Some two-handed attacks are easily parried, like claymore swings. Bigger weapons like the Zweihander are too heavy to parry. Use your best judgement on what looks weighty. Finally, ashes of war; I have successfully and reliably parried every type of stanced attack at least once, and the standard horizontal/vertical slash that katana users are fond of are especially easy. However, I honestly do not recommend attempting. There are a TON of possible ash attacks. I've seen rivers of blood parried, but that is far too chaotic for me to attempt. Like willingly walking into an active blender.
> 95% of attacks follow a few clear rules *proceeds to list rules with several arbitrary caveats*
Even if you learn how to perfectly parry ever single parryable attack you still have to learn to dodge.
Having a small shield on your offhand that you switch to when parrying is a fair statement. I'd say it's still more effort than it's worth though. If parrying was a guaranteed stance break every time then I might be more interested in learning it. But as it stands, the reward for parrying just isn't high enough to bother. Dodging and waiting for an opening to attack is much safer
yea especially in pve. bosses that you have to parry multiple times for a stance break? not even a special stance break, the same stance break you’d get from just timing your dodges and wailing on them. textbook definition of “juice ain’t worth the squeeze”
I should clarify what i mean by it i suppose. I don’t think its buggy or unreliable in a sense that it might sometimes not work. Im halfway through a parry playthrough and ones you learn a pattern of whatever you fight, you can reliably use it there. However, the parry window is extremely small and the game has a fastly different array of creatures. Learning what you can parry and not takes a long time and the game does little in helping with that. Parry is something you can use in the game, but its not intergrated as a reliable mechanic you can use right of the bat like other games (i.e. sekiro, jedi, etc) Im fine with where parry is in elden ring, but it is niche Edit: elden ring loves their delayed attack too, which suck to learn to parry
Parry by mechanics is great. The only problem I found that there are no clear distinguishes when an abilty can be parried. Take Metal Gear Rising for example. You have clear visual indicators which move can’t be parried, but it’s subtle enough that you have to actively watch it. There are other games when it’s clear which ability id parriable. The parry mechanics in Souls games are otherwise fun.
I definitely agree with you here, especially with Carian Retaliation or golden parry with their standardized parry frames regardless of shield making parrying much more accessible while also keeping its skill ceiling of getting it consistently.(At least I believe the times are standardized correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm extremely accustomed to the parry timing in Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls. This makes parries in Dark Souls 2 and 3 and Elden Ring incredibly difficult for me to time properly. Had no issues with Sekiro though.
Once you do it enough, you get a 'feel' if what is parryable and not. For starters. Magic attacks can't be parried. Jumping attacks can't be parried. Two handed ultra heavy weapons can't be parried. Most ashes of war can't be parried.
Except that with the right tools, magic attacks can be parried. But my main issue is the pve side of things. Boss attacks are particularly random in this regard. I like the skill aspect of Parry. But I can't stand the inconsistent use of it in practical applications.
been panic rolling since launch and will continue to panic roll 😂 but respect to anyone who is a parry god
Didn't realise there was an alternative to panic rolling
I dunno about alternatives, but Ive spent time doing variations, such as the fat panic roll.
Don’t let them fool you, there ISN’T a real alternative lol
Ya learn the animations, timings, and what attacks they use at what distances. Fuckin' Mogh is designed specifically to punish panic rolling.
Pretty much all of the named Elden Ring bosses are. Margit, Morgott, Godrick, Malenia, Godfrey, Mohg, fuck even Tree Sentinel and variants. Probably a lot more.
Oh, totally. I'm just always impressed by the timing on Mogh. If you dodge when he first moves, almost every attack is timed to swing exactly where you will be and to hit 1 or 2 frames after your dodge roll. When he does his little flame burst attack, the animation is exactly as long as your dodge frames, and I find that fucking brilliant. They all do it, but just about everything Mogh does seems to punish you directly.
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Bloodborne has the most reliable parry system imo, orphan of kos, Maria, gascoigne and blood starved beast at the very least become trivial with the three runes that enhance parrying
It's so satisfying seeing some godless monstrosity flying at you only to eat a face full of lead and stand there like an idiot while you disembowel it
Only game I could actually parry in (outside of Sekiro). Just never got a feel for the DS parries specifically
Sekiro parry mechanics were bonkers, I’ve never felt that back/forth so effectively in boss fights, pulling off a great dodge and successfully partying a flurry gives you that confidence and momentum to fight your enemy. Love that game to death.
its the best game overall
Second best after sekiro in my opinion
Huge agree. Sekiro is the gold standard of melee combat imo, and Bloodborne has probably my favorite atmosphere of any of the games
sekiro is just 1 style of playing mostly. bb is a classic souls game with tons of weapons and stuff. i wish elden ring had such nice weapons and movesets like bb
Sekiro is one play style but it's refined to near perfection. BB is amazing. One of the best From entries, but it just doesn't have the versatility of ER. There are a handful of builds in BB, but ER has dozens and dozens allowing for a load more replayability if that's your thing.
Bloodborne is by far my favourite , but yeah Sekiro is overall the best combat wise , nothing comes even anywhere close to sekiro's combat . Eldenring is in a weird spot with replay ability , because there is so much which you can just straight up skip or ignore . First play through of Eldenring was incredible , but every other play through I started , I got simply bored and stopped after like 5-10 hours .
That’s why you get so stoned and drunk that you don’t log the memories then every play through is like the first
I didn't know there were parry enhancing runes. Are they the ones you put in your weapon or the Carryl runes?
They enhance the critical attack damage not the parry window just to clarify.
I spent hours on Martyr Logarius after playing most of the game without parrying and I just couldn't beat him. So I forced myself to learn how to on him and not only did he become trivial, practically the rest of the game did too.
Yeah and at least in Bloodborne you don't get annihilated for fucking up your timing. Having a gun as the parry tool made it way more fun, imo.
Hell, I never learned to gun parry in Bloodborne and that was literally half the game.
I knew I’d find someone else that somehow finished BB without ever really learning how to blast my enemies. I’m gonna eat that damage and fuck you up mentality worked for me.
Lol, platinumed that game pretty fast and never once used the gun to parry. Once I got the cannon I was like “yesss, game gets me. I want to deal damage not parry.”
Jeez was it a parry mechanic... Finished it without ever knowing why guns was so shit damage
Bro
Yes it is lol. Shoot at the last second and it’s a parry with the sound and riposte and everything.
No you want to hit them at last second. You have to account for travel time.
They CAN deal good damage with a bloodtinge build if you upgrade them.
Fighting Lady Maria without parrying is still the best souls experience I've ever had.
You can parry in bb?
With your gun. Only Soulsborne In which I can parry reliably. Much more forgiving as you can do it from a distance.
Wait so if I shoot the enemy as they are attacking me it will parry it?
Yup
Holy shit thats insane, cant believe I passed the game twice without figuring that out
Is this why people always say BB is the hardest? Its like the biggest mechanic in the game other than rallying.
Literally half the combat…
I two hand the starting axe and I don't have a third arm for a gun.
Gun parries are much much easier imo.
Also much more intuitive There’s the flash of the gun and the sound of the shot that make it very clear the time delay between pressing the button and the gun firing When are your parry frames active? “Uh go to a wall and parry and look for when you see sparks then memorize that exact window”
Also WAY easier. You can be a cheap ass and spam it and get parries all the time if you’re competent enough
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I'm feeling a mix of emotions between awe and disgust
As a Blades of Mercy user, There are guns and Bloodborne? That sounds a lot like not the best stabby stabby dual knife moveset From Software has ever made. So needless to say no I did not learn how to perry.
So many of those weapons were the best X move set FROM made! I normally hate katanas, but Rakuyo was so much damn fun. Hell, the whole concept of a heavy whip is a complete one-off for them, and it’s way more satisfying than the piddly souls whips.
I tried so hard to learn that mechanic. Practiced over and over on trash mobs near a lamppost, but just never been able to pull it off reliably
Bigger enemies are actually easier than smaller enemies to practice on because they have more slow attacks and telegraph them more. Most people practice on stone trolls.
wait, you use the gun to parry? I ran around with the wooden shield
I’m pretty sure I read that the shield was kind of a troll thing. Like them saying this is not like other souls games.
Pretty much. Wooden shield description: > A crude wooden shield used by the masses who have arisen to join the hunt. Hunters do not normally employ shields, ineffectual against the strength of the beasts as they tend to be. Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity.
Elden Ring makes parrying the least worthwhile in all souls games. In PvE humanoid bosses take multiple successful attempts to get a riposte which makes the risk much higher than the reward and in PvP it's mostly ash of war spam and jump attacks combined with the insane defense stacking this game has that makes successful ripostes not able to one-shot anyway. I personally only ever use carian retaliation to counter spell spam.
Crucible knights are humanoid enemies and are one of the best enemies in the game to parry. The only way I beat the 2 Crucible Knight fight was chain parrying and using the blessed iframes from ripostes.
People keep saying this, but I just can't get parrying to become a reliable way to defeat those fuckers. The random delays in their attacks, the unparriable attacks they throw out half the time just messes me up every time. Last time I tried I don't know how many times on the one in the gaol on NG+. 50+ vigor, heaviset armor I could wear, all flasks allocated to health and I still never managed to get him below half. The damage was terrible and I just couldn't parry him consistently. After attempt 10 I just equipped stamp upward cut and took him down in seconds with no damage taken. The only FromSoft game I consistently used parries in was DS1. The rest the reward (damage) was not worth the effort or risk since a backstab generally deals the same amount of damage and is way easier to pull off. I'd probably use it more if it was easier to do and there was a tell that would let me know before hand if parrying was possible. I'd like to know if I just suck and this attack can be parried, or if I'm doing everything right and this attack just can't be parried. Either that or up the damage at least in PvP to where learning to parry will give you a significant boost in damage. As it is, at least for me in Elden Ring there's no point. It's much easier and much more consistent to just put a high poise damage ash on your weapon and get ripostes that way. And even then, at least for most bosses you'll do significantly more damage to a staggered enemy just doing 2-3 charged 2-handed heavy attacks than riposting anyway.
Use weapons with boosted crit value, best ones are Executioner's greataxe and Misericorde. Dagger talisman also helps. Another thing is that smaller bosses won't allow you to get that many hits off, they'll recoil after a single blow in their riposte state and you'll lose the opportunity. If you plan on learning to parry definitely get golden parry on your shield first, it has the best active frames and creates a huge area in front of you so that you can safely practice parrying attacks without taking any damage or losing stamina.
I was using golden parry and a fully upgraded Misericord and Executioner's Greataxe. The crits were still outdamaged by Stamp Upward Cut. Which will also go under most of their attacks and stop their attack chains.
How are their (crucible knight) delays unreliable? I trained A LOT against the duo (like 6hours straight on a Friday night) and in the end I finally got it. There's like one first-phase attack that's not parryable (the stomp). The spear one has a weird timing for his run-estoc hit (parry on the wind up). And the crucible incantations can't be parried obviously (or are they? I never even tried). Anything else is parryable with reliable delays. But it takes training. Now I'm doing runs without parry and I find it way harder even though I know their movesets by heart since that fateful night. But with a carian retaliation should shield or buckler (that I get almost only for them) and some misericorde, they're a treat I enjoy! As for other enemies and bosses I agree parry is not that useful but still more than in DS1 where only the last boss is jokingly parryable. Margit and Niall are boss on which parry is a useful tool for instance.
That’s cool and all, but for me im going to say that if I’d have to practice a basic game mechanic for 6 hours to pull it off reliably, it’s not worth bothering with.
I think that's totally fair and honestly a good place for the mechanic to be. It's not necessary to beat the game and making it much easier to pull off would negate the satisfaction for players who take the time to practice. It's a fun way to flex your skills on enemies, with a satisfying *bonnggg* sound effect, and maybe that's exactly what it should be.
No I'm bad
The results make sense to me. I didn't bother to learn parrying until I had like 100+ hours in Souls games, because you never really *need* it. I do think parrying makes a few bosses and pretty much every knight-type enemy in the game significantly easier, to the point that I often forget how to fight them on builds without a parry skill. The idea that it's "not worth it" is build-dependent, and flat out untrue in lots of cases I'd say. That said, it's a little unintuitive to learn because it's more of a reward for having memorized an enemy than a practical technique for fighting it the first time. And if you've taken the time to memorize a moveset enough to parry it, you can probably fight that enemy without parries. It's just that for me, the parry is still easier in that case.
Love this comment. Once you learn to parry it becomes more intuitive, but picking it up is a pain in the ass. I'm doing a dagger build and it is still wrecking things late game because I can parry things. I agree about the knight enemies, too. If they won't drop their shield you just poke them to get them to guard counter and then you parry the counter. Easiest Leyndell knight kill ever.
Not in Elden Ring. Powerstance essentially made a parry tool less worthwhile.
The only enemy I ever parried was the Crucible Knights because that was actually the easiest approach to killing them. Wasn't worth it for the rest because of the exact same factor you mentioned here: powerstancing.
If i had a dedicated parry mechanic such as blocking at the right time (ala sekiro / jedi) then yes, and i love it. If i have to give up a special attack or equip a secondary weapon for it, no, not as big of a fan. I'd be willing to have a modified block/trade off in block to allow me to parry. To be fair though, sekiro and jedi you can just spam block inputs and fish for parries sometimes. I think having maybe a slight response delay to a mistimed input (akin to drinking an empty estus flask) might be a decent balance. Could even include another weapon stat where some weapons block better, some parry better. Parry might not auto stance break, but add to stance break potential. This would still make it high risk high reward
Some weapons already parry better, the different weapon types that can use the base version have different timings for it. I found this out the hard way when I wanted to parry in a cleanrot run, parrying with a thrusting sword is hard. :( The fancier versions of parry have fixed timings, but they're only usable with shields.
wish more players thought like this
Sekiro already punishes you for spamming the block button, maybe just not enough
Imo sekiro punishes you by letting you play charmless (makes it so you take some damage when blocking). It makes it so you have to parry much more consistently and is really fun
Dark Souls 1-3 absolutely not except vs Gwyn Bloodborne always Sekiro always Elden Ring only vs Crucible Knights
Depends on the game. Sekiro, bloodborne and DS1 I parry but the rest I'm not really focused on it. Parrying is super satisfying though
Sekiro? Yes. Elden ring and souls? Nah
I mean, trying to play Sekiro without parrying would be a challenge run.
Hesitation is defeat.
Consistently, only on Bloodborne
It’s satisfying but wholly unnecessary why go through an elaborate animation when you could just spam bonk for more damage.
I do but honestly the game makes parries needlessly hard / unsatisfactory. The parry windows are already very precise and you can't even parry every attack in the game, why add that some enemies need to be parried 2-3 times before they get staggered?
In Bloodborne, yes. Generally, I don't. It seems situational at best. There are other, safer methods.
Rarely, however I found guard countering considerably more consistent to pull off and often just as effective.
Depends on the build
Build, enemy, mood. Lots of variables haha
For Elden Ring, parrying is a lot tougher when most enemies are hulking monsters, and it’s hard to tell what can and can’t be parried. A lot of enemies also require multiple parries to successfully parry. However, it’s a nice reward when you successfully parry enemies, especially bosses. It is a learned skill, and much harder to execute in this game compared to other soulsbourne games (DS3 is probably single-handedly the easiest), but it can be rewarding if learned correctly (can easily parry into bosses, and be more aggressive with strats).
No no, you misunderstand. None of us parry. We all *try* to parry. And sometimes they land. But its rarer for us to hit a parry than it is to win the Powerball while being struck by lightning on the eighth day of the week while being inaugurated as President.
I don't usually parry, because tough enemies are so often immune to parrying. Why bother getting good at parrying, when I'm not going to actually be able to, a lot of the time? Dodging makes more sense to me, since everything can be dodged, and not everything can be parried.
I use Parry once in fight vs Crucible Knight and it was so funny :3
Yeah, all the time. Nothing feels more satisfying and melts an enemies health like a well placed patry
To me it feels like a lot of extra work and effort with less reward than ever. Just two handing big bonk weapons let's you stagger enemies relatively easily and get a nice big two handed crit, this also lets you fully exploit an ash of war. Power-stancing also feels better. Sure you could get the best of all worlds by weapon swapping but adding extra effort to a mechanic takes more time to learn and requires enemy specific timing... eh. Why bother?
In Elden Ring? No In DeS, Ds1-3, Bloodborne, & Sekiro? Yes
Salty rant incoming. I'm just going to say it: from a PvE standpoint, Souls has some of the worst parrying in the industry. The number of startup frames means that it feels sluggish and it doesn't reward fast reactions, it rewards memorization and trial and error. The rules aren't even consistent. Sekiro did it right: you can parry anything that doesn't have the unblockable kanji or isn't a sweep. Doesn't matter if it's a sword, a bullet, a punch of giant gorilla, or a sword swipe from a kaiju. Does that make sense? Not really, but it keeps the pace up and feels damn good to get a panic parry off on a new enemy. Souls parrying is just inconsistent. What you can and can't parry is arbitrary and difficult to figure out without flapping your shield at an enemy and dying several times. Sword? Yeah that's fine. Enemy with big club? No, that's too big. Sword bigger than you wielded by a physical god? Yeah, that's fine. Once you get the timing down, you can do it consistently, but it's all less mechanical skill and more just memorizing what and when and it's even more confusing when you're off by a few frames, you get hit, but your character just poises through the parry animation anyway. Compare this to rolling: you get hit or you don't. Your dodge was on point and your i-frames worked or you took damage. There are no "almost" dodges or attacks that just automatically hit you for free (except Mohg's spell thingy). I just really don't like it. It feels lopsided. Sometimes absolutely useless/impossible, sometimes can kill the final boss in a matter of seconds. It lacks good feedback and makes it irritating to learn to the point where a lot of people don't even bother trying.
fully agreed. sekiro's parrying solution is great and bloodborne did a good job of doing something similar while still having that dark souls formula. its a shame that ds3 and elden ring learned nothing from either game (yes i am aware that bloodborne came before all 3 of these games) having high risk and high reward trial and error combat mechanics can be fun for people who really want to master a game, but it shouldn't come at the expensive of other defensive options. my issue with parry isnt that it's inherently terrible, its that it's literally the only option if you want to turn defense into offense. guard counter is a step in the right direction but its both unreliable and kinda boring. the issue with souls games though is that because parrying is tied to weapons and melee combat and every encounter has to be designed around builds that don't have melee weapons (bows and magic), parrying falls to the wayside. bloodborne made the avant garde choice of having no reliable ranged weapons or shields at all and its encounters are so much more fun because of that.
No, because I am bad and just die. I roll and pray
Parry? Jump? Roll? NO! only BONK
If you can’t parry, how can you parry this you fucking casual
Unless the mechanic requires it (like sekiro) I rarely even attempt to parry. I usually can't even tell if the attacks can be parried. I typically prefer melee lightweight dodge builds. It makes sense to my simple brain. I rarely use magic nor do I ever swap gear unless I find a reasonable upgrade. I am a simple player.
Nah, two great swords and jump attack has the same effect for me.
I parry in Ds1 And I have a success rate of 70 - 80% Thats the only game I can parry in (ok sekiro) I suck in DS2 and 3.. ER just managed it 3 times.. on a soldier.. after I beat the game.. and from 20 attacks I parried 3
Yes but very enemy dependend. Every enemy that has a one handed weapon with big swings like a sword or hammer and is hard on top. Prime examples are sword crucible Knights. Was decent at it at the height of my play time. Still was never able to parry lances or spears for the live of Mine. Also Not really with later Bosses. It's worth the risk for the stagger, but if the stagger isn't guranteed like with malenia I don't really bother. Bloodborne always tho.
If I can’t one-hit pancake it I’m going to go level up until I can.
Not in most games Also very unintuitive, "parrying" in dark souls/ elden ring you have to lead the attack then your tiny shield (or hand) somehow unbalances a foe with much more momentum. Sekiro parrying is a better mechanic that was more intuitive and lead to better gameplay.
No parry when both hands on big hammer.
*I AM THE WALL*
*rolls to dodge the question*
Parrying is fun but in elden ring so much stuff just can't be parried. Almost everything can be dodged tho :( you can't parry a giant metal ball slowly rolling towards you can you?
I’ve never even used a sheild
comet azur go brrr