Parry

Description

Parrying is a technique where you deflect an enemy attack, leaving the enemy in a special staggered state, vulnerable to ripostes.

Parrying is a technique usable against most humanoid enemies in Dark Souls. It is not recommended for beginners due to the required enemy knowledge, but learning it will definitely provide the player with great advantages. Mastering this technique will take a lot of practice, but it will increase the player's concentration, reaction time, and stress management abilities in difficult situations.

Execution

1. Equip a shield or weapon that can parry in your left hand. An empty hand works as well but is not recommended as failing the parry will have you take full damage.
2. Face a parriable enemy, lock-on recommended though not required, stand as close as possible. Since your weapon/shield has to connect with the enemy attack itself, your chance also increases if you are nearer.
3. Press L2 (PS3) / LT (XBox) / TAB (default on PC) at the moment (the first frame) the enemy's weapon begins its motion towards you (i.e. after the windup).
4. On successful parry, the enemy will be thrown back for about one second, and you'll hear a echoing cue sound.
5. The enemy will be in an unique staggered state. Ripostes can only be done in this unique state. But you can basically do whatever you want (e.g. two-handing then riposte, heavy-hit, cast offensive magic, jump-attack, heal, run away, backstab). Even if you're not doing a critical attack, the enemy will receive 40% extra damage because of the staggered state. With enough skill, you can riposte immediately after the parry connects. If done quickly enough, the parry cue sound won't play. This makes the game extremely easy, seeing as most enemies can be parried.

List of Weapons and Frame Data

Equip only in left hand. Parry animation has 2 main components: Active frame and recovery frame.

• Active frame is where the enemy will be parried if their weapon connects with your weapon.
• Recovery frame is the "cooldown" period where you can't do anything at all.

Weapon	Active Frame	Recovery Frame	Total	Notes
Fist Weapons	6 frames	16 frames	22 frames	Including bare-handed
Daggers	6 frames	16 frames	22 frames	-
Curved Swords	6 frames	20 frames	26 frames	Except Gold Tracer1
Katanas	6 frames	16 frames	22 frames	-
Thrusting Swords	6 frames	15 frames	21 frames	-
Whips	6 frames	16 frames	22 frames	-
Small Shields	6 frames	14 frames	20 frames	Except Crystal Ring Shield
Effigy Shield	6 frames	18 frames	24 frames	Only Small Shield with the longer recovery of Normal Shields
Normal Shields	6 frames	18 frames	24 frames	Except Crystal Shield, Spiked Shield, and Pierce Shield
Heater Shield	6 frames	14 frames	20 frames	Only Normal Shield with the shorter recovery of Small Shields
Buckler Target Shield Parrying Dagger	8 frames	19 frames	27 frames	These three weapons have longer parrying window and different parrying animation

Partial Parry

When you parry a little too early (i.e. already entered recovery frame) or trying to parry an unparriable attack, you will do a "partial parry". You don't actually parry the attack (no parry SFX), and you don't technically block the attack either (no deflection), but it has several properties:

• You still take damage, but the damage is partial. The damage taken is calculated from your weapon's actual blocking abilities divided by 2 (e.g. a partial parry by a Target Shield will give you 39% physical damage reduction instead of the normal 78%).
• You don't suffer any kind of block stun, hit stun, or Poise damage.
• You can do this to almost all kinds of attack in the game, including projectile attacks. The only exception is grab attacks; you must dodge those.
• If an enemy's attack would take away more stamina than you have remaining, you will get knocked back. For example, the Mushroom People's punch or the Gaping Dragon's tail swipe.

List of Parriable Enemies

Some of these enemies use the same base model as the player (NPCs, Clan of Forest Protectors, Dark Spirits, etc.). As such, they may carry parriable weapons and thus can be parried.

Ordered by normal playthrough without the Master Key.

Enemy	Location	Notes
All normal-sized NPCs	Various	NPCs with the same base model as the player all carry parriable weapons
Hollow	Undead Asylum Undead Burg Undead Parish Depths Painted World of Ariamis	The archers don't have parriable attack
Armored Hollow	Undead Burg	-
Undead Soldier	Undead Asylum Undead Burg Undead Parish	-
Balder Knight	Undead Parish Sen's Fortress	The crossbow-wielder in Sen's Fortress doesn't have parriable attack
Heavy Knight	Undead Parish Sen's Fortress Painted World of Ariamis	Can be parried but can't be riposted
Andre of Astora	Undead Parish	NPC His dropkicks cannot be parried
Clan of Forest Protectors	Darkroot Garden	-
Havel the Rock	Undead Burg	-
Undead Assassin	Lower Undead Burg	-
Butcher	Depths	Her left hand grab cannot be parried
Dark Spirit Kirk, Knight of Thorns	Depths Demon Ruins Lost Izalith	-
Infested Barbarian	Blighttown	The boulder-wielding ones don't have parriable attack
Infested Ghoul	Blighttown	Their grab attacks cannot be parried
Dark Spirit Maneater Mildred	Blighttown	-
Serpent Soldier	Sen's Fortress The Duke's Archives	-
Serpent Mage	Sen's Fortress The Duke's Archives	-
Undead Prince Ricard	Sen's Fortress	-
Painting Guardian	Anor Londo	-
Dark Spirit Xanthous King, Jeremiah	Painted World of Ariamis	Cannot parry the Notched Whip, but if you interrupt his spell casting, he might punch you with his Pyromancy Flame, which you can parry
Silver Knight	Anor Londo	-
Hostile White Phantoms	Anor Londo	Lautrec's lackeys when you invade him using the Black Eye Orb
Darkmoon Soldiers	Anor Londo	Only in dark Anor Londo
Skeleton	The Catacombs	The archers don't have parriable attack
Vamos	The Catacombs	NPC
Dark Spirit Paladin Leeroy	Tomb of the Giants	-
Darkwraith	New Londo Ruins	-
Undead Crystal Soldier	The Duke's Archives	The archers don't have parriable attack
Crystal General	The Duke's Archives	-
Daughter of Chaos	Lost Izalith	If you interrupt her spell casting, she might punch you with her Pyromancy Flame which you can parry
Black Knight	Undead Asylum Undead Burg Undead Parish Darkroot Basin Catacombs Tomb of the Giants Kiln of the First Flame	-
Gwyn, Lord of Cinder	Kiln of the First Flame	The only parriable boss His grab attack cannot be parried
Scarecrow	Royal Wood	Additional Content only
Bloathead	Oolacile Township Chasm of the Abyss	Additional Content only
Bloathead Sorcerer	Oolacile Township Chasm of the Abyss	Additional Content only

List of Enemies Who Can Parry

These enemies have a special defensive stance. If you attack them in this stance, they will attempt to parry you and if you're close enough, you'll get parried and get riposted.

Enemy	Location	Notes
Balder Knight	Undead Parish Sen's Fortress	Only the rapier-wielding ones can parry you
Undead Assassin	Lower Undead Burg	-
Skeleton	The Catacombs	The scimitar and falchion-wielding ones can parry you

Aside from the enemies above, some hostile NPCs (the ones with the same model as the player) will attempt to parry you when they hold up their left-hand weapon (either a shield or a Parrying Dagger). They differ from the "normal" enemies above in that they will dodge backwards (or just block the attack) if they got attacked by a non-parriable attack.

NPC	Location	Notes
Undead Prince Ricard	Sen's Fortress	Parries you with Buckler
Crystal General	The Duke's Archives	Parries you with Crystal Shield even though normal Crystal Shield can't parry
Crestfallen Warrior	Firelink Shrine New Londo Ruins	Parries you with Heater Shield
Oswald of Carim	Undead Parish	Parries you with Parrying Dagger
Lady of the Darkling	Anor Londo	Parries you with Parrying Dagger
Knight Lautrec of Carim	Undead Parish Firelink Shrine Anor Londo	Parries you with Parrying Dagger
Darkmoon Soldiers (Balder Knight)	Anor Londo	Parries you with Balder Shield

Tips

• Backhand attack by the enemy (right to left from your point of view) are usually more difficult to parry, since usually it will hit you first before hitting your weapon/shield.
• Spear Thrusting attacks have the longest parriable time-window, start parrying those might be a good practice for beginners, since they can attack behind their shields.
• Blunt weapons have a long lag before they come down, so take a breath and don't panic, and wait for the actual swing animation rather than spam parries.
• Poise is recommended for the beginning, so even if your timing was off, got hit, your parry would still finish, eventually connect with the same swing that hit you and so it will stop the enemy's combo, preventing you from taking further damage.
• Jump attacks (forward + strong attack) are useful against enemies who have the auto-parry defensive stance, as it doesn't trigger the parry. Hostile NPCs will just roll backwards though, and online players can parry it.

Notes

• It is possible to parry an attack from an allied phantom (or the host, if you're summoned)

Video

• Information about partial parry and frame data are from this video.

Footnotes

1. Additional Content only.