Parries are a bit confusing

[Daddy Kaneki]

Parries, or "Deflections" as they are known in this game, are a bit confusing. In basically every other similar game that I have played, the difference between a parry and a block is that parrying will deflect the attack whereas a block will not.

When deflecting, the enemy is not thrown back unless they are very low level.

I would like some information on this. Does deflecting do more stance damage than blocking? Is blocking situational or should you always prefer to deflect?

[An Irate Walrus]

Deflections produce an orange spark/corona effect at the point of contact; they always do more posture damage than a simple block (blocks often do *not* produce posture damage--particularly on bosses and sub-bosses).

You obviously cannot deflect perilous attacks, so depending on what's coming in, you should use the Mikiri Counter (for thrusts), jump (and double-jump to kick the enemy in the face and deal high posture damage) over sweeps, and get the hell out of the way of pretty much anything else.

Blocking's really only useful if you get caught out and can't get a deflection off--or if you're trying to learn an enemy's attack timing and either don't mind getting mauled a bit while you do, or you have the reserve posture to endure an entire attack set.

[Don Lobo]

Originally posted by An Irate Walrus:

You obviously cannot deflect perilous attacks

Minor correction here, you can't block perilous attacks but thrusts can be deflected and so can the Snake Eyes grab.

Originally posted by An Irate Walrus:

Blocking's really only useful if you get caught out and can't get a deflection off--or if you're trying to learn an enemy's attack timing and either don't mind getting mauled a bit while you do, or you have the reserve posture to endure an entire attack set.

And just a minor addition to this. When you get comfortable with the combat you can deliberately block to get your posture broken and have it reset back to 0. You generally don't want to do this though, it's reserved for the end of combos and similar stuff, when getting broken isn't really a problem because you can just quickly roll out of an incoming attack, now with posture at 0, ready to deflect anything afterwards.

It goes without saying, but since you can't get your posture broken while deflecting, you'd generally still want to time your deflects right every time.

[JHarlequin]

Everything already seems to be covered though there might be a few details that can be put in.

When you block, you often won't take damage but will take full stance reduction, meaning if you block, your stance bar will fill fast, and additional affects like fire and poison apply I believe as much as if you were hit by the attack.

If you can deflect the attack and you do deflect it, you take no damage though some additional affects can still apply like fire and poison though they aren't as strong as getting hit by the attack. You also take some stance reduction but not as much as if you got hit by the attack, or had blocked the attack.

The affects on the enemies are also varied by what happens, if you block an incoming attack, nothing really happens to the attacker. If you deflect the attack, they take high stance reduction and you can stagger them if you deflect enough times.

An enemy getting knocked back is in a few rare cases what happens when you deflect a particular attack. A few specific enemies basically get a bit of protection with some of their attacks and will always bump you back and step back if you parry those specific attacks.

Otherwise, a knockback is probably a stagger and occurs when their stance bar is broken. During that stagger is when you can deathblow. Most enemies in the game have an easily broken stance bar and it only takes a few parries early on, and only one parry as you get late in the game.

In general, for any non-perilous attacks, it is best to deflect the attack. Second best to dodge it, third best is to block, and finally of course the worst result is getting hit.

For the perilous attacks, the proper counter is the best, though some attacks don't exactly have a counter. As someone mentioned the snake eyes grab can be deflected which is kind of odd. It is effective, but also difficult, so figuring out how to avoid it is often easier than learning how to deflect that attack.

[Daddy Kaneki]

Thanks everyone.