parrying in PVP

i've been doing pretty good with my parries in PVE, but only managed to land one in PVP.

i've watched a bunch of videos on the subject, but i'm just not getting it. are you just supposed to use ESP and go for the parry before the opponent even swings? do you parry after they hit you?

any tips/techniques you'd like to share?

Pretty much, yes. You typically want to lead a person into swinging so that you can parry ahead of time. Because of lag this causes them to get parried after your animation has probably ended. It's a bit tricky, but once you get experienced enough in it you can predict a lot of attacks.

You can also practice with a High Poise armor. Let them swing at you, then after the first swing start parry-spamming.

Easiest way to practice it I found was use a target shield and stand back to a wall or other blockage. Let them invade and don't react as they run towards you. About 75% of them will run straight at you with just a little dancing or side shuffling, and as they get close you can assume they will melee attack so just do a parry with your shield and see how well it works. Standing back to a wall or other obstruction forces them to come straight at you so the experiment is more controllable. I used the little pile of bricks in the alcove at the back of the platform at the burg, where you put your back to it and you're facing the wooden doorway below the hollow with the crossbow. DWs spawn right near the fog gate so you can get in a lot of practice particularly with dried finger.

Once you think you have a better handle on it, then move up to full combat. That's trickier, but just trying it a few times can make seasoned opponents more wary, which is itself a benefit.

Try to visualize your parry animation just barely missing the attack (feels like you are doing the parry too early).

you gotta be magical and trick him into attacking so you can parry and riposte

the lag doesn't let it be that easy though
you practicly have to parry one second BEFORE your enemy even barely swings he is doing the attacking animation you gotta parry right when he is just starting the attack

makes things hard when trying to parry daggers and swords but no one uses them anyways :/

I use daggers and swords by the way.

pargar has a dual bk build, he's good with them.

Scudman_Slayer wrote:you gotta be magical and trick him into attacking so you can parry and riposte

the lag doesn't let it be that easy though
you practicly have to parry one second BEFORE your enemy even barely swings he is doing the attacking animation you gotta parry right when he is just starting the attack

makes things hard when trying to parry daggers and swords but no one uses them anyways :/

Ricards Rapier.... Is where the bacon is.

It will take time and lots of humanity but I am sure it can be mastered eventually. Lag will always be a problem with any type of offensive technique. But as long as you dont get too discouraged about dying alot eventually you will get this skill down pat. Just my opin.

It just comes down to experience. You need to know the movesets of a wide variety of weapons and learn to find patterns in your opponents quickly. I'd suggest nailing the parry mechanics in pve before going too crazy in pvp. They're exactly the same only there is the latency to take into account. If you have a good connection to your opponent it's not all that bad, you just have to react a little earlier. Also the slower weapons are much easier to parry if they do the 2nd or 3rd hit in a combo and the timing is very consistent. Faster weapons are a little tougher though you can spam parry sometimes and get a lucky one in. The hardest type are the ESP ones you mentioned, but again that relies on understanding your opponents habits and trying to capitalize. Does he do a lot of rolling r1's? Catch him as he rolls towards you. Does he like to attack after you swing? Prepare for it. Etc..



I parry quite a bit in pvp and it tends to just get more natural with time. A lot of my technique is fishing for parries by baiting them into attacking, making them comfortable with spamming attacks at me, catching them when I'm confident they're going to attack, etc.. When I see people with BKGA, Zwei, greatswords, etc.. I get excited because there's a good chance they're going to do some r1 attacks and get caught.



Here is a thread with a few of my own pvp videos in them and there is a lot of parrying going on. You can study the timing, see how sometimes I anticipate their attack and parry them as soon as they attempt to swing. The 3rd one is a lower level video but has the most anticipation type of parries in it due to my opponents being less experienced and very predictable.



https://soulswiki.forumotion.com/t3199-a-few-pvp-videos

Whats a good poise amount? I'm not sure how it works and obviously higher is better but at what point value does it become useless/beneficial?

CountAntonius wrote:Whats a good poise amount? I'm not sure how it works and obviously higher is better but at what point value does it become useless/beneficial?

The 2 numbers you should shoot for are 54 and 76. Some say 55 and 77 but either should be fine. 54-55 is good enough to survive the first hit of a greatsword without getting stunned. 76-77 is for one hit of an ultra greatsword. I personally shoot for 55ish and am happy with that. You shouldn't be getting hit with a zweihander or other slow weapon or you pretty much deserve to get smashed.



Basically you should have at least a minimum of 30ish so a lot of the medium and smaller weapons won't stun you outright. Never go 0 poise unless you're looking to get stunned by something as ridiculous as a dagger or thorn armor.



Also remember it is possible to escape a stunlock with a properly timed weapon swap so even if you get stunned there is a way to escape.

Thanks for the advice.

Prepare to die a lot? You aren't kidding. I'm practicing parrying in PvP and am dying often. But, I'm slowly getting better.

One thing I don't get is that people recommend using Parrying dagger or Target Shield.
But if I read the description on them:
Parrying Dagger:
"This dagger is useful after parrying and is normally equipped in the left hand."
Target Shield:
"Small shields are always less stable, but landing critical hits after parry is easier. This shield is specialized for parrying."

I understand it as this; you'll get a bigger window of time for landing your r1 attack after a succesfull parry. Not that the parrying gets easier? correct me if I'm wrong.

thanks for the tips everyone. i actually successfully parried someone wielding the GLGS last nite, EXACTLY when i wanted...but i guess after parrying Gwyn to death so many times i'm used to that moveset.

the host ran away and flasked 3 times, then killed me with a lucky shot and well what is it-ed over my dead body, but i considered it a victory anyways 8)

gekkyy wrote:One thing I don't get is that people recommend using Parrying dagger or Target Shield.
But if I read the description on them:
Parrying Dagger:
"This dagger is useful after parrying and is normally equipped in the left hand."
Target Shield:
"Small shields are always less stable, but landing critical hits after parry is easier. This shield is specialized for parrying."

I understand it as this; you'll get a bigger window of time for landing your r1 attack after a succesfull parry. Not that the parrying gets easier? correct me if I'm wrong.

No it does mean your actual parry window is bigger, not the riposte time after. However in pvp this actually works against you because the parry animation is longer meaning if you miss they have more time to punish. Bare hand parrying seems to have the fastest recovery(at least compared to shields) but you can only do it on the first attack since you can't block with your arm.

Good video on how to "lure" a parry...thought i would share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evL9m67mwAM