Why am I not getting parrying skillups?

[Clefairy]

I've always been told that skilling up parrying was hard, but what you have to go through to get even an 0.1 is absurd. I got some eva- and parry+ gear and go out to the boyhada tree to solo/duo Korrigan and I watch my chat log for parry skillups. 4 to 6 times per battle I get the message "Player X parries Monster Y's attack with equppied weapon" so i know i'm parrying, but I never seem to get any skillups(mayboe 0.1 to 0.3 every few hours). I get more sheild skillups ironically but my parrying is 173 before equipment, which is the same as a level 54 player, but when I parry a level 75+ monsters attack I get nothing. If I sucessfully check a skill against a monster 20+ higher than my skill level, then I should be rewarded accordingly. I even tried this on all phases of the moon I could do it all day and be lucky to get half a skill point. None of the other skills are like this, even Enhancing Magic wasn't this bad.

Can in the next update increase the skillup rate of defensive skills? The proc rate of parrying/guarding/sheild isn't that bad, it's just that they go up like once a month and it seem a lot of work to get little in return.

 

[tanls]

Parrying is one of those skills that are difficult to level up for several reasons. First off, I think Parry is 2nd in the defensive stats. It basically goes, Evasion>Parry>Shield. So if you are evading a lot, then you won't get many parry skillups because the attack never gets that far. Even with that though, skilling up can just be a pain with no seeming rhyme or reason. The defensive skill ups just might be more difficult because there are so many of them. With things like Magic, either you cast or not, no other real modifiers apply. Even with weapons, you either use it or not. Evasion, Parry, and Shield Block require a series of action to either happen or not, and these things are not controlled by you directly like with other skillups. You would figure that fighting monk type mobs that hit fast would skill you up decently, and they should, but there are different modifiers in play. I was skilling up club the other night, and would go for half a fight and not get 1 skill, then 5 hits later, I'd get 3 skill ups in a row ranging from .1 to .3. If it's that scattered getting a skill up from a straight forward thing as regularly hitting a mob, then parry skill ups would be even worse, especially from a skill that only procs if another skill failed.....maybe.

All I can say is keep at it, but....because those defensive skills are so difficult, that's the main reason why ppl try to concentrate on those things they can control. Wearing the gear that gives you bonuses and such make it more likey that the skill will happen, but is never a guarantee. Where as shadows are assured, and even armor defensive stats are too.

 

[Clefairy]

I'm sorry this is not what i'm asking. I have already done all that. I AM getting parrying procs, but I am NOT getting skillups. I keep seeing "Player X parries Monster Y's attck with her weapon" over 100 time with no skillups.

Everytime I try to explain my deilemma it is NOT about evding to much/parrying not enough. I have gone HOURS without an skillup and NO OTHER SKILL acts that way, weapon combat skills if I had 0 Archey Skill and shot at a high level monster I would GUARUNTEE I would get a skillup when I eventually hit it.

Square Enix needs to up the rate of defensive skillups because if I can parry and attack 100 times against a level 75+ mob and not get anything something is wrong.

 

[Trish]

You seem to know your stuff, but I have to ask anyway: What job/sub combo are you using to skill up?

 

[tanls]

I'm sorry this is not what i'm asking. I have already done all that. I AM getting parrying procs, but I am NOT getting skillups. I keep seeing "Player X parries Monster Y's attck with her weapon" over 100 time with no skillups.

Everytime I try to explain my deilemma it is NOT about evding to much/parrying not enough. I have gone HOURS without an skillup and NO OTHER SKILL acts that way, weapon combat skills if I had 0 Archey Skill and shot at a high level monster I would GUARUNTEE I would get a skillup when I eventually hit it.

Square Enix needs to up the rate of defensive skillups because if I can parry and attack 100 times against a level 75+ mob and not get anything something is wrong.

I understand what you are saying. The point still goes back to the fact that you are going through 3 different defensive skills and the percentage of available skill ups will still go down because of that. So as few and far between skillups may be, it'll be fewer because of that very fact. I know it can get frustrating, but I doubt SE will do anything else to skills and such like parry that would basically make your defense overpowering. These skills are different than all the other skills. It's hard for me to get shield skill ups for the same reasons. First the mob has to hit, for damage. Second, I might evade. Third, I might parry. Fourth, I might stop it with my shield. Fifth, I might get a skill up. If any of the first 4 stuff doesn't happen just right, then number 5 doesn't have a chance. It's basically the same with parry skill. Actually, it's worse with parry skill and will probably stay that way.

 

[Clefairy]

I'm asking a simple question. Do you think that after parrying 100 attacks from a monster you should not get at least 0.1? I'm not concerned about what i need to do to parry, I need to know why I can't get skillup when I DO parry over 100 times. I'm am not asking to make parrying happen more, i'm asking for the skillup to happen more 0.1 every 20 times I parry against an Even Match or better monster). I believe that is completely fair.

 

[tanls]

I'm asking a simple question................................. I believe that is completely fair.

Ok. I'll give you the simple answer.

Because SE wrote it that way.

And when has SE ever done anything to make things "fair". Ask ppl who have gone 0/infinity on a drop if SE is "fair".

I've gone on Cure Spam sprees and never seen a skill up. I've hit mobs over and over again and never gotten a weapons skill up. Your situation is not any different. If you are just venting, then fine. If you are looking for a definative answer. See above simple answer.

Going by your original post, you are getting 4-6 parrys PER FIGHT, and you expect a skill up how often? Also, as I'm sure you know, the higher the skill level, the harder it is to get more skill ups.

 

[Onewing]

And when has SE ever done anything to make things "fair".

Well, I would imagine it would be "fair" if every body skills parrying up at the same rate. However, I wonder if there is some trick (maybe food or job/subjob) to make it go up faster...

Ultimately, I think it just comes to how frequent you parry, so making the frequency of how often you parry go up, should increase the frequency of how often your parry skill goes up, even if this rate is slower than other skills. I would reduce AGI as much as possible, so you have to parry rather than evade an attack.

 

[Yoink]

The reason why you're parrying 4-6 times per fight and not seeing any skillups for hours has NOTHING to do with the fact that evasion checks before parry - but you already know that.

Here's the real problem. Like you, I solo Korrigan in the Boyahda Tree with NIN/DNC to skill up my parrying (currently 244 before merits and gear). The fights last roughly 6-8 minutes each and during that time I'll parry anywhere from 20-30 attacks. Even with this proc rate, it can take hours to see even one skillup ~ I average 0.3 per hour right now.

For you at your skill level (173 parrying) even when you DO parry an attack, your odds of skilling up are extremely low because of the huge difference between your current skill level and the mob's level. When you do finally get a skillup, it will be worth 0.3 to 0.5 points but because of your low proc rate you should expect this to take days not hours.

If you want skillups more often but in smaller increments (0.1 to 0.2), you should try the following ... use the combat skills chart to figure out at what level your job would have capped parrying skill of 173. Fight mobs that are 6-8 levels higher than that level. You may find you need more -evasion gear because these will miss more than Korrigans do.

Pile on the AGI and +parrying -evasion gear. Remove AGI if you're still dodging too much. Ignoring missed attacks, calculate your parrying proc rate. If it's near 10% then stay where you are and expect regular skillups. If it's much lower, find easier mobs. If it's much higher, find something tougher. Parrying appears to have its own maximum proc rate of around 20%.

One last observation. The NMs in burning circle battlefields seem to dish out skillups more than any other mob I've encountered (first two times soloing Uninvited Guests yielded ~ 3.3 parrying skill total).

Good Luck!

 

[Diomedes Artega]

The reason why you're parrying 4-6 times per fight and not seeing any skillups for hours has NOTHING to do with the fact that evasion checks before parry - but you already know that.

Here's the real problem. Like you, I solo Korrigan in the Boyahda Tree with NIN/DNC to skill up my parrying (currently 244 before merits and gear). The fights last roughly 6-8 minutes each and during that time I'll parry anywhere from 20-30 attacks. Even with this proc rate, it can take hours to see even one skillup ~ I average 0.3 per hour right now.

For you at your skill level (173 parrying) even when you DO parry an attack, your odds of skilling up are extremely low because of the huge difference between your current skill level and the mob's level. When you do finally get a skillup, it will be worth 0.3 to 0.5 points but because of your low proc rate you should expect this to take days not hours.

If you want skillups more often but in smaller increments (0.1 to 0.2), you should try the following ... use the combat skills chart to figure out at what level your job would have capped parrying skill of 173. Fight mobs that are 6-8 levels higher than that level. You may find you need more -evasion gear because these will miss more than Korrigans do.

Pile on the AGI and +parrying -evasion gear. Remove AGI if you're still dodging too much. Ignoring missed attacks, calculate your parrying proc rate. If it's near 10% then stay where you are and expect regular skillups. If it's much lower, find easier mobs. If it's much higher, find something tougher. Parrying appears to have its own maximum proc rate of around 20%.

One last observation. The NMs in burning circle battlefields seem to dish out skillups more than any other mob I've encountered (first two times soloing Uninvited Guests yielded ~ 3.3 parrying skill total).

Good Luck!

Pretty good points made in terms of parrying. Parrying is not easy to raise for another reason. If I play NINJA and have maxxed, capped and merited out parry and evasion, a monster just isn't going to be hitting me that much.

Evasion and parry after all...it does not take that much effort and pretty soon you are playing like a LV76 player (provided you are capped out on stats already). So that would mean at the level 75 level, as a ninja you have both 269 in evasion and parry.

Parrying capped out is even more effective than evasion. Why? Because it is a canceled out attack. I rather cancel out an attack then supposedly hope that the monster would miss me. I never counted on that.

For skill gains you need to look at the following chart:

http://ffxi.dosomework.com/images/skill1.gif

The link is just one example. Anything that you could fight for the applicable level you can skill gain off of. You will get LESS skill gains on average if you bite off more than you can chew.

What do I mean? By going to a higher area way before you are supposed to.
If your parry is very low...under 114, you can just goto Qufim Island and start skill gaining. You will gain at a very fast rate until 100 or so. You can stay till 114 or so which would cap you out for the subjob level depending on your main job. Just primary alternate between giants, crabs, and leeches.