Skills/Parrying

« Back to Skills

Parrying is the art of blocking blows with a shield. Every time an attack lands on you while you carry a shield, your Parrying gives you a chance to catch part of the blow on it. It's the classic defensive skill for sword-and-board fighters, and it shines against archers.

At a glance

Skill category	Combat
What it does	Blocks part of the damage from weapon hits, if you carry a shield
How you use it	Passively, whenever a weapon or fist attack hits you
Needs	A shield in your off hand, so a one-handed weapon (or none)
Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster), raised up to 120 with Parrying power scrolls
Stats it can raise	Strength (mostly) and Dexterity
Starting gear	Choosing Parrying as a starting skill gives you a wooden shield.

How parrying works

When a weapon attack hits you and you're holding a shield, the game rolls to see whether you parry:

Parry chance = (Parrying − 2 × shield armor) ÷ 100 (always at least 1%)

On a successful parry:

Against melee attacks, the shield soaks up half its armor rating in damage.
Against arrows and bolts, it soaks up its full armor rating.
A blue flash on your character shows the block.
There's a 25% chance the shield takes a little wear.

Whatever damage is left over then goes through your armor as usual. Without a shield you can't parry at all, no matter how high your skill is, and Parrying does nothing against spells.

Bigger shield or better chance?

Heavier shields block more damage, but they're harder to get into position, so your chance to parry drops. Light shields block less, but much more often. At Grandmaster, all of them are worthwhile:

Shield	Armor	Parry chance at 50	Parry chance at 100	Melee damage blocked	Arrow damage blocked	Weight	Blacksmith price
Buckler	7	36%	86%	3	7	5 stones	about 50 gold
Wooden shield	8	34%	84%	4	8	5 stones	about 30 gold
Bronze shield	10	30%	80%	5	10	6 stones	about 66 gold
Metal shield	11	28%	78%	5	11	6 stones	about 121 gold
Wooden kite shield	12	26%	76%	6	12	5 stones	about 70 gold
Metal kite shield	16	18%	68%	8	16	7 stones	about 123 gold
Heater shield	23	4%	54%	11	23	8 stones	about 231 gold

Blacksmiths sell all of these. They can also craft every one except the wooden shield (from iron or colored metal); carpenters make wooden shields from logs.

Better shields

A shield's armor rating goes up with:

Magic protection: defense +15, guarding +20, hardening +25, fortification +30, invulnerability +35.
Colored metal (for smith-made shields): Dull copper +2, Shadow iron +4, Copper +6, Bronze +8, Gold +10, Agapite +12, Verite +14, Valorite +16.
Exceptional quality: +8.

Remember that more armor means a lower parry chance, so a huge magic shield parries less often but blocks a lot when it does.

Training Parrying

Parrying can only rise when you're hit while holding a shield. Every hit is a chance to gain, whether or not you parry it.
Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt, sometimes several tenths at once. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
The harder the attempt is for your skill level, the better your chance to gain. Your chance also drops as you get closer to your Parrying cap and to your total skill cap of 700.
If you've set Parrying to go down (the arrow in your skills list), gains elsewhere can lower it to make room under your total cap. Lock skills you want to keep.
Reaching 100.0 adds Parrying to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.
Use a light shield while training. A buckler or wooden shield gives you a better chance to parry early on.
Let something weak hit you. A creature that hits often but softly is ideal: it gives you lots of chances without much danger. Keep bandages ready.
Training with a friend works well too: one of you holds a shield while the other attacks with a weak weapon.
Warrior guildmasters, nobles, blacksmiths and iron workers will train you for gold: up to a third of their own skill, at most 42.0, for 1 gold per 0.1 points. Ask them (or use their context menu) to train the skill, then drop the gold on them.

Stats: each successful use has about a 2% chance to raise Strength and a smaller chance (under 1%) to raise Dexterity by 1 point. Each stat can rise at most once every 10 minutes, and only if it's set to rise.

Suggested path

Parrying	How to train
0 to 42	Buy the first points from a trainer (warrior guildmaster or noble).
42 to 60	Carry a buckler and let weak creatures like Giant Rat, Skeleton, Zombie, Headless One hit you while you fight back slowly.
60 to 80	Move on to Orc, Lizardman, Ratman, Ettin. Their hits are bigger, so bandage between fights.
80 to 100	Tough melee creatures like Troll, Ogre, Ogre Lord. At this level, a metal kite or heater shield starts to pay off.

Power scrolls

Power scroll

Parrying tops out at 100.0 unless you use a Parrying power scroll. There are three kinds: exalted (110), mythical (115) and legendary (120). Double-click one to raise your Parrying cap to that number: "You feel a surge of magic as the scroll enhances your Parrying!"

Parrying power scrolls come from champion bosses: Barracoon, Lord Oaks, Mephitis, Neira, Rikktor, Semidar and Silvani. Each champion boss leaves 6 power scrolls in random fighting, magic, bard and animal skills, handed out among the players who helped kill it. Each scroll is a 110 (60%), 115 (35%) or 120 (5%).
A scroll only works if it's higher than your current cap. Otherwise: "Your Parrying is too high for this power scroll."
Champion power scrolls are cursed: they always drop when you die, even from a blessed container. Use them or bank them quickly.
Raising the cap doesn't raise your skill. You still have to train the extra points.

Tips

Shields need a free hand. Two-handed weapons, bows and crossbows can't be used with a shield.
Archers beware. A shield blocks its full armor rating against arrows and bolts, so a parrying warrior shrugs off a lot of archery damage.
Pick your shield for the fight. A buckler parries most often; a heater shield blocks the most per parry.
Mages, leave the shield at home. Shields slow your mana regeneration, just like metal armor.