UO Second Age

I remember parry being used much more on dexers/townies during t2a. It provided a strong defense. I remember going to Titan Valley and seeing Agent Orange on atlantic soloing titans with a parry swords dexer. Parry provided a solid defense from melee attacks and as well having the chance to lessen certain magic damage [in a sense parry certain spells]. A Parry dexer with magic resist was very hard to fight, and it gave them a much better chance at survival. That is one reason there were more Order/Chaos dexers, for the shield usage.

This is a note I found in a UOHoC chat that explains this feature.

Glamdring> *Nova_* What logic do you follow with regards to parrying as a valid defense against magical attacks? Personally I myself feel that it should have some effect on missle-like attacks such as fireball, magic missle, and energy bolt as they are generally pure forms of energy directed at an individual. It does not have to block them entirely but at least absorb some damage.
DesignerD> The logic we fillow is that parrying is misnamed. It's currently based off of shield usage, so we want to go by the guideline of missile attacks being something you can deflect with a shield. So a lightning bolt fromt he sky, you couldn't parry, but a fireball thrown at you could indeed be blocked.

http://web.archive.org/web/199901250924 ... atics.com/

Discuss ...

Failed to find the specific chat you were talking about, probably should have posted the link to it directly.

The way I understand it is that they are talking about future changes, as they usually do in those chats. A quick review of old Stratic's coverage on parrying (which is very thorough) doesn't mention anything to do with magery even once.

http://web.archive.org/web/199902211310 ... 120398.htm

December 3, 1998 Post

DesignerD> The logic we fillow is that parrying is misnamed. It's currently based off of shield usage, so we want to go by the guideline of missile attacks being something you can deflect with a shield. So a lightning bolt fromt he sky, you couldn't parry, but a fireball thrown at you could indeed be blocked.

Currently means in place, not future, btw

I see what you are saying, but the way I read it, it doesn't mean that that is currently in place.

"we want to go by the guideline" seems like proposition for future changes. I could be wrong, but it is not listed in stratics at all...possibly check patch notes.

For what it's worth, I Remember this being dissused in early 2000. I never saw the Ad-Hoc at that time, but I remember guildies talking about parry counting as magic resist soon.

Parry never deflected magic. It was however extreamly gawdlike. You could literally fight a dozen monsters at once and win. It was also very VERY hard to gm.

Correct. It never prevented magic damage at all. I remember in the earliest periods it was extremely hard to gain in. If you had 60 parry, you were doing awesome. People had all sorts of tricks with summoned daemons and stairs in houses to work parry to GM. At some point I recall people raising it by having multiple blade spirits attack them and having a dedicated healer keep them up. It required lots of hits vs. the old way of needing i guess bigger damage hits. Even with good resist and parry, it was never easy to tackle the tough mobs. Going toe to toe with a daemon for instance was still very hard for a tank.

I actually found that it did reduce damage at one point, but it was not until after UO:R and then was changed. This thread can be closed I guess.

I remember testing the effects of parrying on magic damage during T2A. I never documented the results.

I believe that they were in for a very short time, and were removed when a different system involving spell damage types and armor was removed.

Parrying was indeed more effective during T2A than it is here.

dexxers in towny wars without parry lost

They were awesome characters to use. A friend and I originally went with Parry Warriors to start with for this reason. I just assumed it was the best you could do...

Also the reason for so many parry mages back in the day.