Can't parry.

[Red Giant]

My friend has reached level 8, and is still in 0% in parry. He fights with weapons and hand to hand, but never seems to even parry.

Is this normal or a bug?

 

[Shurik3n]

Its not abnormal, if he was 14 and still 1 parry you might have something.

 

[Red Giant]

is there any specific way to parry? or is it just random?

 

[The Man In Black]

Random

 

[Thothie]

Different weapons allow you to parry more often. You'll only gain parry xp on successful parries, so if you want to train parry, get a shield. (Shields increase parry % by up to 120%)

 

[Evaan]

You know, we should do some of these "Grab Bags" that the Camelot Herald has.

It's basically a QA every friday where myths are busted and players are answered questions related to quests, game mechanism, spells and so on.

As here - I was told by several people on this forum that shields do NOT parry. They deflect, and thus does not train parry, and you just told us otherwise (and I assume you're right ).

 

[Jelly]

Which also reminds me, the deflecting chance stacks, if you're using two shields at once.

 

[Evaan]

Sounds logical, but you'd be without ability to attack. Useful for escapes, perhaps?

 

[Thothie]

Deflect is seperate from parry (or rather, it is in addition to).

	CBaseEntity *pAttacker = Damage.pAttacker;
	if( IsAlive( ) && pAttacker && pAttacker->IsMSMonster() )
	{
		CMSMonster *pMonster = (CMSMonster *)pAttacker;
		int ParryValue = GetSkillStat( "parry", STATPROP_SKILL );

		int AccRoll = RANDOM_LONG(Damage.AccuracyRoll,100), ParryRoll = RANDOM_LONG(0,ParryValue);

		//Using a weapon that can parry (shield, some swords) gives a parry bonus
		int iAttackNum = 0, iHand = 0;;
		CGenericItem *pHandItem = FindParryWeapon( this, iHand, iAttackNum );
		if( pHandItem )
		{
			attackdata_t *pAttack = &pHandItem->m_Attacks[iAttackNum];
			ParryRoll *= 1 + (pAttack->flAccuracyDefault / 100.f);		//If 100% bonus, the roll gets multiplied by 2
		}

		//Awareness gives a small parry bonus
		ParryRoll += GetNatStat( NATURAL_AWR );

		//Thothie - do not parry certain damage types
		msstring thoth_dmgtype = Damage.sDamageType;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("target") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("fire") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("poison") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("lightning") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("cold") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( thoth_dmgtype.starts_with("magic") ) ParryRoll = 0;
		if ( Damage.flDamage == 0 ) ParryRoll = 0; //do not parry 0 damage atks
		if ( ParryRoll > 90 ) ParryRoll = 90; //always allow at least 10% chance to be hit

		if( ParryRoll > AccRoll )
		{
			//thothie attemptig to pass parry vars
			msstringlist ParametersB;
			ParametersB.add( pAttacker ? EntToString( pAttacker ) : "none" );
			ParametersB.add( UTIL_VarArgs("%f",Damage.flDamage) );
			ParametersB.add( Damage.sDamageType );
			ParametersB.add( UTIL_VarArgs("%i",ParryRoll) );
			ParametersB.add( UTIL_VarArgs("%i",AccRoll) );
			CallScriptEvent( "game_parry", &ParametersB );
			if( pHandItem ) pHandItem->CallScriptEvent( "game_parry", &ParametersB );
			Damage.flDamage = -1; // -1 means the monster dodged the attack
			ClearMultiDamage( );
			//Learn parry skill from  a successful parry
			if( !pAttacker->IsPlayer() )  //Can't learn from being attacked by players
				if (pMonster->m_SkillLevel * 2 > 0)
					LearnSkill (SKILL_PARRY, STATPROP_SKILL, pMonster->m_SkillLevel * 2 );
				else
					LearnSkill (SKILL_PARRY, STATPROP_SKILL, 0 );
				//LearnSkill( SKILL_PARRY, STATPROP_SKILL, max(pAttacker->m_SkillLevel * 2,0) );
		}
	}

Parry works by adding your weapons' parry stats, to your parry skill and your Awareness (shields, are also weapons by this calculation, and shields add more parry points than anything.) This number has to be greater than the monster's accuracy roll.

Whenever you parry attacked you will see:
"You parry the attack! ( PARRY_ROLL / ACCU_ROLL )"

You will notice, if you have a shield, your parry rolls will go WAY UP, and if you are unarmed, they go way down.

Some shields do so better than others, and some weapons do so better than others. Here are a few examples (mind you, some seem screwy to me, but I've left most of them alone):
Guantlets of fire: +10% (vs. -20% when unarmed)
Longsword: +30%
Novablade: +60%
Most 1h Swords: +5%
Most Smallarms: +20%
Most 1h Blunts: +0%
Dwarven Axe: +25%
Rune Axe: +30%
Great 2h Axes (golden, etc): +25%
Rusty Axe: +15%

Buckler: +50%
Large Iron Shield: +190%
Rune Shield: +175%

Hopefully that clears it up, but to summarize:
The higher your parry rolls, the more often you parry; the more often you parry, the more often parry trains. Shields raise your parry rolls more than anything, thus, shields train parry.

 

[The Man In Black]

Does the amount of exp you get from parry have anything to do with how powerful the attack is?

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Large Iron Shield: +190%

Holy sh*t

 

[The Man In Black]

Yeah, lol. I'm gonna have to buy a large iron shield when I want to train parry ;-)

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

And then it breaks oh snap owned.

 

[The Man In Black]

Well, if it doesn't matter how much damage would be done to train parry, why wouldn't I just find a spam of easy monsters and go buy a new shield if it breaks?

Or is that too hard?

 

[FER]

I guess damage does matter. Once i got to high level in parry, I often leveled up when fighting the morc chief, who does loads of damage.

 

[The Man In Black]

I guess damage does matter. Once i got to high level in parry, I often leveled up when fighting the morc chief, who does loads of damage.

So we should all get phoenix armor and go after Atholo with LIShields?

 

[FER]

Last time I played with Shuriken on bloodrose, phoenix armor wasnt absorbing all the hits

 

[The Man In Black]

I know, but you don't parry burn damage, so you may as well get some health back and stay in there longer.

 

[Thothie]

Yes, the strength of the blow is a factor. Atholo strikes fast, but not hard - might be better off blocking the Morc Chief blows. But given his rate of fire, maybe not... Tis true, generally speaking, skeletons are your best parry trainers just due to the rapid fire.

Pheonix armor only aborbs and converts the extra fire damage from Atholo - the impact of his blows are not blocked, and do a lot more damage than the DOT. Cuz apparently, monsters with elemental weapons hack.

 

[The Man In Black]

I dunno about Atholo not doing damage.. Unless it was just his burn, he was doing pretty nice damage to me >_>

 

[Thothie]

I mean, per blow, as compared to the Morc cheif.

Atholo: 50-90hp per blow (+fire ambient, etc. which cannot be parried)
Morc Chief: 400-800hp per blow (+freeze damage " ")

Granted, Atholo swings about 4 times a second, while the Morc Chief swings maybe once in 4 seconds.

 

[The Man In Black]

I usually think in terms of DPSecond rather than DPSwing

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, but the XP calculator ramps with the damage size, so ya gotta kinda weigh both.

 

[The Man In Black]

Have I ever told you how much I want dogg to die? :|

 

[Thothie]

Now now, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, if not for Dogg's mysterious ways. - I'm also not sure if the parry code is his. Gotta remember how many different folks have been through this.