How the F*** do you parry

[*Dogneely]

I cant for the life of me figure out how to reliably parry. This is making the boss fights impossible.

I've tried holding the block and pressing the direction
I've tried holding the block and holding the direction
I've tried pressing the block right before and pressing the direction
I've tried pressing the block right before and holding the direction
I've tried with both on keyboard
I've tried with keyboard and mouse
I've tried with a controller
I've tried varying the timing on the parry

Nothing works

Is there any console commands/cheats so I can at least beat the few boss battles were I'm forced to use parry?

[Zednaught]

The biggest problem is timing. I try to hit parry right before the blow lands. I'm assuming you're using the direction mod and pressing the correct direction.

You don't need to parry to beat the bosses. I basically never did on my first playthrough. Just keep your distance and dash at appropriate times.

However, if you really want to, just spend an entire fight learning the timing. Don't bother attacking, just get the timing right for each of the bosses attacks. Soon, you can parry every attack reliably. I promise that you can get it down in one or two attempts.

Edit: oh, and wear heavy armor. Light armor is crap in this game. Put on a heavy suit, like URBN/Cerberus, and you'll roll over enemies.

[JD777]

What I do is practice on the basic enemies. As soon as I started my first playthrough and got the implant I spent a good hour or so just practicing parrying the first few enemies. I would recommend practicing on the ones with the big hammers first. When you get that down practice on those women enemies that carry the spear because that will give more practice on the weird timings. It helps because you will develop muscle memory which is something that will just come as you do it.

Also the biggest tip that I can give is to only use the implant directional arrows as a guide to where the attacks will come from not when you should swing. I find the overhead attacks seem to be the easiest to parry with most enemies. Also don't try and parry boss attacks after you attack because you want stamina just incase so you can back out.

The first boss in the game is good practice to because I learned from him to not try and parry every attack but just wait for the one attack I feel most comfortable with and ONLY parry that one. For example when he launches his drone you know he will do a leaping attack that is very forgiving to parry.

Little Johnny does the side to side attacks that are very forgiving to parry but don't try to parry them all at first. If you succesfully parry one than dodge back and try and parry single attacks at first.

I could go through all the bosses I have encountered so far if you want.

Trust me once you practice you WILL develop whats called muscle memory and it will just click. Don't give up because it's very satisfying once you do it at a regular pace. You could also try and count seconds after the directional arrows show up but I would not rely on this much because different enemies have different timings . It could make a good beginning strat though if you are realy having problems.

[Carton]

You hold block and tap the direction. You have to watch the enemy attack animation for the timing, it's not related to when the indicator shows up. Also, if you have vertical camera direction inverted then that will also invert vertical parries by default; there is a setting in the options to change that. Beyond that it's just practice. And watch your stamina, parry attempts require and cost stamina.

[San-Kyu]

So far I found slowing down and going full zen calm during fights have me be much more successful in blocking. The implant that tells you the direction really only doesn't give you everything you need to know to parry attacks, but it does tell you where to pull the right stick and notifies you when an attack animation starts.

Watch your enemy to get the timing down. For example when an enemy begins an downward swing attack watch as they light their weapon in the air, triggering your parry right as they begin their swing. I've found nearly every enemy actually is relatively slow and easy to parry with this method.

You need stamina to parry so its better to stick to individual quick single attacks (not committed combos) to slowly whittle down the enemy and get some energy while waiting for them to attack. The spear with their rapid, long reaching, cheap R1 stabs makes this really easy.

Overall parrying becomes utterly overpowered mid-late game. An armor decreases the cost of guarding at partial set (meaning you can equip a different set for a more optimal partial set). Implants for regaining health and energy with directional parries will literally make you immortal during every fight, including with bosses.

[SuperCamper31]

If you're using a mouse don't forget that you need to move the mouse in the direction of the parry. Took me a little while to figure that out ;) After that, it basically comes down to memorizing every enemy's move set. It's sort of annoying honestly but rewarding when it works. I'm about 10 hours in and still not sure if I'm on board for this new feature but I guess it's ok.

[Kosti]

At the beginning of the game i wanted to learn to parry too. But the unintuitive combination of the display for the incoming attacks combined with the timing of the attacks actually landing through me of.
The bad thing in my opinion is that the game never requires you to learn to parry. Except from like 3 bosses i never had to parry anything. i could just heal through everything and mash enemies with the same combos over and over. i even could heal through many boss fights without dodging and never spent time to learn their patterns.
My hammer combined with the armor set that gives bonus damage to hammers that i was using through the whole game also made almost every enemy attack obsolete as they were always staggered.
Sure i could try another armor set and a less staggering weapon and play through the game a second time with paying attention to what enemies do and learn to parry etc.. But then i would always have this thought back in my head that i could make the game just easier for me which would suck.
I'm a little bit disappointed that there are ways (builds) in the game to kind of cheese your way through it without needing to actually learn the mechanics. The game was at the end sadly too easy that way.

I'm on new game + and i think i will give parrying a try now... .

Sorry for this wall of text. I know this thread is specifically about parrying but it kind of triggered me to write my overall thoughts on the game ;).

[Alveriel]

just equip nightfall set which you can get before first boss, the implants that give health on battery and the best hammer you can find (the one the guys who give nightfall have is very nice) and never parry again, havent used it once now on ng+, dodge is more then enough. Last boss i was just hitting and healing not even dodging.

[BroadsideRenegade]

I didn't parry bosses at all, or much in the game to begin with. I think getting down parrying is probably super powerful/ ideal way to play, but the dodge frames are pretty generous. Most of the bosses, its just a matter of directing your jumps as much as timing them.

[Vesperion]

The only time i really did use the parry system was during the delver boss fight in the park just to learn that you had to parry him 3 - 4 times before you could counter him...

Parry might be an good option if you not wanna hop around like a grasshoper but imo parry is to "impractical" to use cus it seems wonky like hell. Sometimes the game seems not to register an "perfect timed" parry and translates it to an half/missed parry that eats your stam in no time.

The only good thing i noticed about the parry is that if you parry perfect you gain a lot of battery and the stam usage is insanly low in compare to jumping but then again even if you counter right after a parry the dmg isn´t that great either so that simply light attacks are more efficent imo.

[b1ngnx33]

Practice Practice Practice.

and hope for the best.

Good luck.

[Nova]

I know this post is old but I just stumbled into it looking for this answer. The answer is you must move your mouse or camera stick in the direction of the parry. This is super confusing and I think we all just assume it wants you to press the movement key or stick in the direction of the arrow. I only saw 1 or 2 mentions of this so figured I would give the answer. Move The Mouse! after I figured this out I went from never hitting a parry to hitting 8 out of 10.

[EF_Neo1st]

Originally posted by *Dogneely:

I cant for the life of me figure out how to reliably parry. This is making the boss fights impossible.

I've tried holding the block and pressing the direction
I've tried holding the block and holding the direction
I've tried pressing the block right before and pressing the direction
I've tried pressing the block right before and holding the direction
I've tried with both on keyboard
I've tried with keyboard and mouse
I've tried with a controller
I've tried varying the timing on the parry

Nothing works

Is there any console commands/cheats so I can at least beat the few boss battles were I'm forced to use parry?

In case someone still need the help or seek for help with this topic . . .
How the F*** do you parry
With patience, attention and not rushing.
Parry demand you to do at the righht timing (and the timing feels to be something around 0.25s to 0.4s).
Remember you also need to set the correct direction, not just pressing the right button at the right time.

Go with patience if you want to master parry (btw, it is not needed at all to finish the game, you can finish it with just dodge and attack and everything can be just as fine).

You hold block but dont hold the correct direction, you ned to put to the correct direction within 0.25s to 0.4s of the attack, what imo is somewhat lenient when compared to parry at Dark Souls (where I nail 50% parry "at best" but here I nail parry after parry . . . I miss many times too but I nail like over 90% to over 95% of the time, when I am witha good timing I nail 100% of the time).
I play with PS4 controller.

You need to pay attention to when the enemy release the attack, it is not just "you see the indicator you press to parry", it wont do to most enemies.
(set the implant to see the parry indicator with direction).

[EF_Neo1st]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUdcQJNnR1Q

You hold block and press the direction of the attack with a window of 0.25s to 0.4s before the attack hit you.
Learn the enemy patterns and attack distances and you will nail parries at ease.

[Outsider]

Hold block. Move the mouse in the direction UI shows you.
Easy.

[Savager]

You need to get the implant that shows you the coming attack and direction once you get that its easy af. Game was getting hard on me and when I found out how to parry it became really easy.