Who else can't seem to get the parry right?

I'm not sure where I heard this, but I was told to watch the enemies hands and as soon as they start moving toward you during the attack you hit parry. I'm awful at parrying, but this has been the only way I've been ablessed to parry consistently.

I haven't parried outside of the 3 times I tried it in the tutorial area. I've mostly been rolling and getting in behind enemies instead, so there's rarely an opportunity that seems worth it. The timing definitely seemed different when I tried it though. Whether it was more difficult or not I couldn't really say, since I was never great at parrying in the other games.

The Uchigatana guy at the beginning is the only guy I can consistently parry, most of the time I can get it off after getting hit a few times. The parry isn't instant like Bloodborne and even Dark Souls 1 had a pretty fast parry, but it's not quite as slow as 2's parry. More often than not I find I'm slightly late and I misjudge the slight amount of time the animation takes.

The golden rule for parrying in all the Souls games is the same, parry the hand not the weapon. The reason I think a lot of people are having more trouble with it in this game is the enemies are more proactive and will attack abruptly. Previous Souls games allowed you to run right up to an enemy before they started to swing which allowed you to get close enough to parry the hand. This game has been injected with a little bit of Bloodborne enemy AI behaviour they're slightly faster and attack earlier.

That being said I almost exclusively only use parries for bosses, otherwise it's more often than not faster to just kill them with normal swings.

I've managed a few parries, but haven't been trying too often. It's definitely going to take some getting used to versus the original Dark Souls. Backstabs however I'm doing all day long. I also love the kick in this game - having it break guards for a critical is really useful against the more defensive enemies who are quick to whip up their shield after attacks and have good reactions to you backstab fishing.

Sounds like you're nailing the parry - but you need to get right up close to them and use R1 (light attack) for the riposte animation. If it's not working you either are too far to their side or are just not close enough.

Am I crazy, or do some shields just not give you the option to parry? I'm rolling around with a Silver Eagle Kite, and any time I press L2 I default to my weapon's special stance.

@schowacs: Certain shields forego the ability to parry but instead allow you to use your weapon art 1 handed. There's a small icon on the bottom left of the shields in your inventory that indicates which does which.

@baronsamedi: You are a lifesaver. A part of me wants abandon the Silver Eagle just so I can parry (plus it's incredibly taxing on my equip load), but so far it's the only shield I've found that has 100% physical absorption.

@y2ken: Thanks, maybe I'll give it another shot (perhaps I'll have better luck with my katana's parrying ability rather than a shield).

I'm having issues with parry too, but my backstab game is usually pretty solid unless I'm trying to sneak up on someone. Then I can't backstab to save my life.

Though, personally, I love getting locked into the backstab animation vs an Abyss Watcher, but he's actually not there anymore and I'm just stuck waving my axe in space.

I parried once while summoned for a boss fight. I wasn't even trying to, I was trying to mash out my weapon arts and forgot to take my shield down.

I've been getting it more and more as time goes on. There is nothing like killing an estus chugging invader with a parry and riposte! :D

For early stuff, the regular old Knight Shield, the one that the Knight starts with, has 100% physical and weighs 0.5 less than the Silver Eagle shield. It doesn't look as cool, though. Knight Shield can parry but the window isn't great, definitely not as good as basically any smaller shield.

Parry is the only mechanic I never mastered in these games, mostly because I never forced myself to learn it. In all the other games I could do it semi-reliably against familiar foes but not in this game. I don't know why, I can dodge pretty much any attack easily but the parry never lands. I know the active frames of a parry is narrower than the iframes of a dodge, but it never felt this hopeless.

Has anyone tried the Farron Greatsword for parrying? I've been getting pretty consistent parries with the dagger on that thing, I think it just has a crazy amount of frames or something.

@doctordonkey:That's what I've been using. That and the Shield of Want which lets you use the weapon art instead of a parry. So I have a relatively stable shield that gives me more souls per enemy and the parry window of a dagger. Now if I could just get my equip load to a point where I could use the Pursuer's Curse Ward Greatshield and Farron Greatsword

I'm finding the parry much more reliable than it was in Dark Souls 2. Seriously. In 120 hours of DS2 play, I think I successfully parried maybe three times because it was so unreliable and I didn't want to risk it. I could never figure out the riposte either. Not once. Dark Souls 1, I was parrying fools like crazy. I guess DS3 lies somewhere in the middle. Unsurprisingly. Every time I compare the three games, it's Dark Souls 1 > Dark Souls 3 > Dark Souls 2. Demon's I think I was too scared to parry. I played that entire game from behind a shield wielding rapiers. I think I only started to learn to roll effectively against False King Allant because of his incredibly obnoxious suck your level mechanic.

Basically what I have done with these games. I just don't want to get hit. Never have bothered with a shield with less than 100 physical resistance either.

Was able to pull off about 3 parries in the tutorial area, but that did result in getting stabbed quite a lot. Never really been able to pull it off reliably, good to see I'm not the only one.

The input lag/input buffer in this game is killing me after coming off 2. All my timing is off , which is rough for a no shield agility build.