Skip to content

Parry

Parry is a defender-side roll that runs after an attacker's hit chance check has already succeeded. A successful parry partially absorbs the incoming damage. Two requirements:

  1. The defender has the Parrying skill trained.
  2. The defender is wielding a shield or a two-handed weapon (one-handed-with-no-shield, bare hands, and bows can't parry).

The formula

Parry chance is a flat percentage of skill, scaled by your equipment.

Parry chance

chance = (Parry / 100) × baseRate + Vigilance
if Dex < 80: chance ×= (20 + Dex) / 100
chance = min(chance, 0.60)             # passive cap
chance += Bulwark (if active)          # post-cap, panic-button bypass
Equipment baseRate
Shield 0.50 (50% at GM Parry)
Two-handed weapon 0.35 (35% at GM Parry)
One-handed weapon, no shield n/a — can't parry
Fists or ranged weapon n/a — can't parry

Why the cap?

The 0.60 passive cap bounds always-on parry scaling so a fully-specced shield tank doesn't approach 100% block from skill + talents alone. Active-window cooldowns (Bulwark) add AFTER the cap, so they can briefly push past it — that's the whole point of a panic-button cooldown.

Reference table

Parry chance at the indicated Parrying skill, Dex ≥ 80, no Bulwark active:

Parry Shield, no Vigilance Shield + Vigilance 3/3 (+15 pp) 2H, no Vigilance 2H + Vigilance 3/3 (+9 pp)
0 0% 15% 0% 9%
25 12.5% 27.5% 8.8% 17.8%
50 25% 40% 17.5% 26.5%
75 37.5% 52.5% 26.3% 35.3%
100 (GM) 50% 60% (cap) 35% 44%

GM Shield + V3 hits the cap exactly. From there, Bulwark (active +40 pp for 10 s) pushes the effective chance to near-100% for the window.

On a successful parry

A successful parry reduces the incoming damage rather than blocking it outright:

Equipment Damage reduction
Shield 75% (you take 25% of the hit)
Two-handed weapon 50% (you take 50% of the hit)

So a GM Shield + V3 tank on average mitigates 0.60 × 0.75 = 45% of incoming melee damage from parry alone. A GM 2H + V3 player mitigates 0.44 × 0.50 = 22% — the gap is by design; two-handed weapons trade defensive ceiling for offensive output.

Parry-succeeded subscribers

The parry event fires a notification subscribers can react to:

  • Riposte (Swords T5 active): during the 30 s window, every successful parry triggers a free counter-swing back at the attacker. Sword-only.

Low-Dex penalty

If your Dex is below 80, the final chance is scaled by (20 + Dex) / 100. Applied before the cap.

Dex Multiplier
20 0.40
40 0.60
60 0.80
79 0.99
80+ 1.00

A 100 Parry / 30 Dex shielded character lands at 0.50 × 0.50 = 25%, not 50%.

Bonus sources

Source Notes
Talent: Vigilance (with shield) +5 pp per rank, max 3 ranks → +15 pp
Talent: Vigilance (without shield) +3 pp per rank, max 3 ranks → +9 pp
Talent: Bulwark (active) +40 pp for 10 s, bypasses the 0.60 cap
Talent: Last Stand (active) Different layer — flat 75% damage reduction for 8 s, replaces the parry roll entirely while up

Taunt requirement

The Melee Defensive T4 talent Taunt requires 90+ Parry skill in addition to a shield or two-handed weapon. The threshold is meant to gate the tool behind a meaningful Parry investment so it stays a parry-archetype tank ability rather than a free utility.

Parry vs Magic Resist

Parry only triggers against weapon swings — it doesn't engage on spell hits. For spell damage, Magic Resist is the parallel damage-reduction layer (linear MR/400 scalar, no roll). Investing in both Parry and Magic Resist is the standard tank loadout because they cover disjoint damage sources; they never double-count on the same hit.

See skills/magic.md for the full Magic Resist breakdown.

See also