Parrying

As others have mentioned on here, the current state of PvP is somewhat of a 1-hit affair -- during the lvl 50 expansion, damage values may have doubled but HP values certainly didn't. This problem probably isn't going away anytime soon unless the DSO team further increases everyone's HP (gasp) or reduces everyone's damage (double gasp).

To improve this situation (and make PvP less 1-hit), what about an option to parry/block? You may remember the fond days of Street Fighter.



What if players could parry an attack they see coming? This would reduce damage or negate it completely. It would also make PvP more skill-based, since you would have to be quick on your toes (well, fingers) to parry incoming attacks.

A few notes:

• This would be different from our current block system, since block rate is a matter of chance (and your char's stats), while parrying would be a matter of skill. You would need to respond to an attack quickly to parry it, whereas you can block damage all day without even looking at your screen. Parrying would definitely not render the benefits of block rate obsolete, especially the point below.
• Parrying would need to be direction- and mana-based. You would need to parry in the direction of the attack (i.e. your mouse cursor needs to be pointing there) for it to be a successful parry. Parrying would also need to cost a significant amount of mana/concentration/steam/rage so it's more of a last-resort save than casual usage. These two aspects would prevent people from spamming parries to be invulnerable.
• It would be awesome if the key stroke for parrying is the much-neglected space bar!

What do you guys think?

Hopefully, parrying might be able to help PvP change from this:



Into this:

 

Terrible idea given the current state of lag in the game.

People with low latency connections would have too much of an advantage.

 

People would just spam the "parry" button endlessly... since no one is as skilled as Saber.

 

Good point, though don't they already? It sure is absolute torture to play PvP when lagging. People with low latency connections definitely have an advantage in dodging shots and jumping away.

Absolutely, and that's why I mentioned that parrying has to be direction- and mana-based (i.e. needs to be aimed properly and costs mana), so that it can't be spammed endlessly. And why didn't I ever think of creating a female DK named Saber -- "Take that... Excalibur!"

 

This is just like proposing legal "god mode" in the game. XD