Why do you take chip damage when you perfect parry?

[Waido]

Who thought it was a good design to take grey health damage when you perfect parry?
Obviously you get it back when you do the visceral attack but still it makes the game feel super unrewarding if you wanna do a parry play through instead of dodging.

[Cenwalh]

You should not receive wither damage when doing a perfect parry. If you did receive wither damage, then it wasn't a perfect parry. There is a certain sound that plays when you do a perfect parry that is distinct from just a block (missed parry).
Even half-parries do poise (not sure if this is the actual term) damage to the enemy, so you can still stagger them even if you didn't do perfect parries.
The parry windows in this game are very hit and miss, some are easy, some are ridiculously precise and you need to analyze in-depth the animations of the attack, as well as the shield or weapon you're using. IMO parries are much harder than they are in the Souls series.

[königplatzen]

Yeah, that's a strange thing. looks like it's the same grey damage as when blocked.
Maybe it should encourage to use better shields for parry?

The visceral attacks are also not very rewarding, because the damage is not a lot higher than normal attacks.

[Selyn=Kisaragi]

That was one of the poaints the made me think this game has some bad risk/reward options, not even Sekiro does that with the perfect parry in the highest difficulty. I can udnerstand taking some damage in the form of grey bar if you fail the attempt... but not when done perfectly. This forces you to just completely ignore parry and go with the classic roll/sidestep which makes the game uninteractive/unengagin this leading to a stale and boring experience.

Or so I think.

[königplatzen]

Originally posted by Cenwalh:

You should not receive wither damage when doing a perfect parry. If you did receive wither damage, then it wasn't a perfect parry. There is a certain sound that plays when you do a perfect parry that is distinct from just a block (missed parry).

I thought, it's parry, when it flashes blue?

[Cenwalh]

Originally posted by königplatzen:

I thought, it's parry, when it flashes blue?

I think so? I don't remember tbh, I haven't parried any enemies since the Pieta fight. I distinctly remember that when I parried her attacks, there was no wither damage.

I might be mistaken, I will go test it right now in game.

EDIT:
Yep, if you do a perfect parry, you take no wither damage. I just did that against one of those spear-wielding enemies in Pilgrim's Perch. No wither damage and it instantly broke their posture and allowed for a grievous attack.
Now, not all enemies will have their posture broken from just one parry, but if you do a perfect parry, you should take no wither damage, as I stated initially.

[königplatzen]

Originally posted by Cenwalh:

Originally posted by königplatzen:

I thought, it's parry, when it flashes blue?

I think so? I don't remember tbh, I haven't parried any enemies since the Pieta fight. I distinctly remember that when I parried her attacks, there was no wither damage.

I might be mistaken, I will go test it right now in game.

I don't know it either. Maybe it depends on weapon or shield. Or there are different types of parry like blocks.

[Waido]

Originally posted by Cenwalh:

You should not receive wither damage when doing a perfect parry. If you did receive wither damage, then it wasn't a perfect parry. There is a certain sound that plays when you do a perfect parry that is distinct from just a block (missed parry).
Even half-parries do poise (not sure if this is the actual term) damage to the enemy, so you can still stagger them even if you didn't do perfect parries.
The parry windows in this game are very hit and miss, some are easy, some are ridiculously precise and you need to analyze in-depth the animations of the attack, as well as the shield or weapon you're using. IMO parries are much harder than they are in the Souls series.

The first boss with the light swords. If you perfect parry her you always receive grey damage.
The perfect parry gives you slightly less white damage than blocking but it still adds up if you do a parry only run.
I do not use a shield I just parry with the staff that comes with the pyromancer class.

[Cenwalh]

Originally posted by Waido:

The first boss with the light swords. If you perfect parry her you always receive grey damage.
The perfect parry gives you slightly less white damage than blocking but it still adds up if you do a parry only run.
I do not use a shield I just parry with the staff that comes with the pyromancer class.

I used a long sword to parry, no shield as well. I only tested it right now on some random enemies, perhaps it's different with bosses or their parry windows are harder to hit.
Now I looked at the in-game tutorial, which states "Parry attacks just before impact to receive less wither damage and deliver high posture damage to the enemy".

So I was mistaken, the general rule is that indeed you only reduce the wither damage with a parry. Still, there are definitely enemies which deal no wither damage when parrying their attacks perfectly, as I have literally just done this in-game.
It seems to be on a case-by-case basis and I think it only depends on the enemy and not the weapon you use.

[Waido]

Originally posted by Cenwalh:

Originally posted by königplatzen:

I thought, it's parry, when it flashes blue?

I think so? I don't remember tbh, I haven't parried any enemies since the Pieta fight. I distinctly remember that when I parried her attacks, there was no wither damage.

I might be mistaken, I will go test it right now in game.

EDIT:
Yep, if you do a perfect parry, you take no wither damage. I just did that against one of those spear-wielding enemies in Pilgrim's Perch. No wither damage and it instantly broke their posture and allowed for a grievous attack.
Now, not all enemies will have their posture broken from just one parry, but if you do a perfect parry, you should take no wither damage, as I stated initially.

Perfect parry is when it flashes blue? I can only say up until Pieta because I basically just started. But I'm trying to only parry and not dodge unless an attack is not possible to parry.
But even with the blue flashes. By the time she got staggered and I could do the visceral attack My hp bar was almost completely "drained" with grey health. That 1 attack filled it up again.. But it basically made the fight a 0 hit run.

[Cenwalh]

Originally posted by Waido:

Perfect parry is when it flashes blue? I can only say up until Pieta because I basically just started. But I'm trying to only parry and not dodge unless an attack is not possible to parry.
But even with the blue flashes. By the time she got staggered and I could do the visceral attack My hp bar was almost completely "drained" with grey health. That 1 attack filled it up again.. But it basically made the fight a 0 hit run.

I honestly haven't noticed any blue flash, despite distinctly looking for it. I just parried like 4 of those spear enemies (they are not present in that area you mentioned, it's the next one). But when I have more time I will test on more enemies.

However, the perfect parry has a distinct metal clinking sound that plays. Similar to the one in Sekiro, if you know it.

But check out my post above and the in-game tutorial as well (it's in inventory). The rule is that you only reduce wither damage when perfectly parrying, you do not negate it completely. There are exceptions, in that there are enemies that already deal a little amount of wither when blocking, and that is negated completely when parrying.

[Waido]

Originally posted by Cenwalh:

Originally posted by Waido:

The first boss with the light swords. If you perfect parry her you always receive grey damage.
The perfect parry gives you slightly less white damage than blocking but it still adds up if you do a parry only run.
I do not use a shield I just parry with the staff that comes with the pyromancer class.

I used a long sword to parry, no shield as well. I only tested it right now on some random enemies, perhaps it's different with bosses or their parry windows are harder to hit.
Now I looked at the in-game tutorial, which states "Parry attacks just before impact to receive less wither damage and deliver high posture damage to the enemy".

So I was mistaken, the general rule is that indeed you only reduce the wither damage with a parry. Still, there are definitely enemies which deal no wither damage when parrying their attacks perfectly, as I have literally just done this in-game.
It seems to be on a case-by-case basis and I think it only depends on the enemy and not the weapon you use.

Yes it is definitely less. But still by the time the boss is staggered your hp bar is drained.
It's just very disappointing if u wanna Parry every attack. It's niche for sure but I actually think the Parry is satisfying in this game so I would love to not dodge. But it is. Very discouraging with the amount of wither damage u take from bosses even with perfect Parry

[Cenwalh]

Originally posted by Waido:

Yes it is definitely less. But still by the time the boss is staggered your hp bar is drained.
It's just very disappointing if u wanna Parry every attack. It's niche for sure but I actually think the Parry is satisfying in this game so I would love to not dodge. But it is. Very discouraging with the amount of wither damage u take from bosses even with perfect Parry

I agree, it should be more rewarding and I think the wither damage should be reduced MUCH more, by like 90% or something, when doing a perfect parry.
I think what you're supposed to do is attack to recover the withered health, even if you didn't break posture. That's how I did it anyway for the Pieta fight.

However, I think it's just that the parry playstyle is just different in LotF. Whereas in Souls you would simply just parry after parry every attack, here it's more like parry, then attack to recover withered health, then parry again, etc.
I don't dislike it that much, because it breaks up the pattern of just pressing one single button imo.

I wonder if shields/weapons that have high resist to wither also reduce it more? It would make sense.

This is exciting, now I have something to test out.