Whats The Point of Parry?

[Spooky7.62]

Why would you go for a parry besides a DI unless your trying to get OD meter?

I want to use it more but don't know why I would use it.

[C1REX]

The very first thing you should start using it for is to not jump over fireballs. Easier and safer.

[kiteless 凧無し]

Use it against projectiles for starters

There are moves that DI isn’t great against and parry is preferable, like Honda headbutts

DI is much higher risk and obviously can be DI countered which means it’s not ideal against moves with fast recovery or ones that can be cancelled. With parry the worst thing that can happen to you is being throw

[Naughty Senpai 69]

Contrary to DI you don`t get full combo punished when you parry a light attack.

[Providence 777]

can be used against ambiguous cross-ups, if you don't know what side your opponent's aerial attack is going to hit.

but does not work against deep cross ups because of the recovery time of parry.

[Kwcten]

maybe i wanna block without losing guard meter :P

[SeeNoWeevil]

Avoids the high/low, left/right mixup.

[Elley]

the point of parry is to land a perfect parry.

[kuaikukia]

Oh boy, I want to see if you could survive the JP lvl 2 without using parry

[Ahriman]

DI is a very bad idea unless it's used deliberately to punish something that you know will lose to DI. Parry is much safer but still susceptible to throws, recovers your drive gauge, avoids high/low mixups, gives you a chance to perfect parry and completely flip the momentum at no risk to yourself.

[IPlayGamesOnPC]

Parry is immune to mix ups and cross ups.

[Demystificator]

Perfect parry opens a punishing combo.
With practice, you can expect perfect parrying divekicks.
Pretty sure you can absorb some Super with Parry.

And ofc... Parry Rush : you dash quickly and whatever attack will be sightly safer. If it hits, you can do a devastating combo for 1 OD bar.

[SpiralD]

Parry gives drive meter, if you use drive alot it's super useful.
That being said it can create bad habits.

[Powercrank]

it stops overhead/low/crossup mixups in exchange for making you more vulnerable to throws

[Cat on Mars]

A lot of answers to your question in here! Most are right.

You can also option select parry. People mention perfect parrying dive kicks. It's an option select. You block and then try to perfect parry. If you're wrong and late on the timing, the OS takes care of it and you just end up blocking. If you're wrong and late, nothing will come out and you'll block.

Another option select is, when plus, throw > parry (or AA button if you have more time. Some jumps are fast). This means if they neutral jump the throw, you will perfect parry their jump in and punish them anyways.

Avoiding left/rights like mentioned. Avoiding the drain on drive from extended strings

Also people mentioned fireballs. It's not just about stopping the drain on drive, but if you perfect parry a fireball you can drive rush from the perfect parry only and sometimes even punish the fireball. Either way you can space it to get in.

Edit: I was trying to think of some good examples to OS parry because there aren't many of the plus OB pressure moves in this game like axe kicks...

But Marisa's charged heavies. You can OS those by inputting a delayed parry. If she does a normal one you block, if she does a charged one, you perfect parry. This means either way she's either minus or punishable if you react to ONLY the charged heavy - which is completely doable.

[Döktor Jönes]

I also want to add that parry specials or a super doesn't drain your drive gauge.
So, if someone does wake up super, parry is better.