Parrying

"A wise warrior fights with both weapon and intellect. An even wiser warrior fights with a shield as well."

General
Parrying is a must-have skill for any tank, as it mitigates damage from melee blows as well as archery shots.

In typical usage, an individual must equip a shield in order to parry attacks. If a parry attempt is unsuccessful, no damage will be mitigated and instead the individual will receive full damage.

Parrying and Tanking
A set of new passives and abilities has been added that will help facilitate the role of Warrior "Tanks". These abilities greatly boost the effectiveness of the player's Armor at the expense of mobility and increased stamina damage.

Bastion
A new passive buff effect has been add that will trigger upon the player meeting the following requirements.


 * A shield is equipped that is not a spell casting shield.
 * A total armor penalty of more than 60%.
 * Activation delay of 5 seconds has elapsed.

Bastion provides the following effects.


 * Up to 40% increased effective Armor Rating.
 * Up to 20% chance to Repel a magical attack type every 20 seconds.
 * If you are unmounted you gain an additional 10% bonus to Armor Rating modifier and Repel chance.

Repel
Repel is a magical spell counter that has a chance to trigger on spells and certain weapon abilities.


 * Once activated it will trigger a cooldown of 20 seconds.
 * Repelled attacks are nullified and do no damage.

Limitations
There are various limitations that will decrease the effectiveness of Bastion.


 * The effects of Bastion are halved during movement.
 * The effects of Bastion are halved again during a PvP timer.
 * Removing your shield will trigger a 3 second grace period before Bastion will deactivate.
 * Casting a spell or equipping a two handed weapon will immediately cancel the effect and put in place a 10 second reactivation penalty period.
 * You must remain still for 1 second before regaining the full effect of Bastion.

Taunt
Along with AI improvements. There is a new Parry skill ability called Taunt. This ability allows shield users the ability to force a monster to attack them. This ability also triggers the shield passive called Aegis.


 * Requires at least 60 parrying skill.
 * Has a maximum success chance of 90% that scales off of the parrying skill.
 * Attacker generates 500% increased threat from damage dealt during the effect.
 * Immediately generates a large amount of threat.
 * Successful activation has a 20 second cooldown upon the expiration of the Aegis buff.
 * Each failed activation has a 15 second cooldown on attempt.
 * Cannot be used if Call To Arms is active.

Call To Arms
In addition to Taunt, another new Parrying ability has been added called Call To Arms. This ability behaves similarly to Taunt except that it is an area of effect taunt of lesser strength. This ability also triggers the shield passive called Aegis.


 * Requires at least 80 parrying skill.
 * Has a maximum success chance of 75% to trigger that scales off of the parrying skill.
 * In addition each monster in the radius must roll a 90% chance to taunt check to be taunted. (Scaled by parrying skill)
 * Generates threat for all monsters within 10 units.
 * Attacker generates 100% increased threat from damage dealt during the effect.
 * Heals 4 stamina for every monster that was successfully taunted.
 * Successful activation has a 20 second cooldown upon the expiration of the Aegis buff.
 * Each failed activation has a 15 second cooldown on attempt.
 * Cannot be used if Taunt is active.

Aegis
Aegis is a shield passive that is triggered from use of either Taunt or Call To Arms. This is a buff to the player's shield Armor Rating.


 * On blocking success the effective Armor Rating of the shield is increased by 100%.
 * Provides 20% stamina damage reduction for the duration.
 * Lasts a duration of 10 seconds.
 * Can be renewed or reapplied by use of either Taunt or Call To Arms.

Unwavering Stance
An additional ability has been added to Parrying and the tank role which is used for extreme damage mitigation. You may only enter Unwavering Stance if you already have the Bastion effect active. Once active your movement speed and dexterity are severely limited but you gain several defensive bonuses.

Requirements

 * You must have Bastion active.
 * You must have 100 Parrying skill.
 * Unwavering Stance must not be on cooldown (60 seconds upon deactivation).
 * You must not be mounted.

Effects
The following effects are applied for 45 seconds or until the effect is renewed.
 * +150% towards Bastion's Armor Rating bonus.
 * -20% stamina damage.
 * +30% increased effect of healing from spells.
 * +50% threat generation.
 * -50% dexterity.
 * -50% movement speed.
 * You cannot mount.

Stacking
Taunting while in Unwavering Stance will cause the effect modifiers to increase up to 5 stacks.


 * Max stack count is 5
 * Each stack provides an additional 5% to each modifier.

To leave Unwavering stance just use the ability again to toggle it off. You will have to wait to enter the stance again.

Parry Mechanics
AR only applies when wearing the shield. Shields listed are of the non-magical variety (use the formula below to determine the display-AR for other shields).
 * Displayed AR = ((Parrying Skill * Base AR of Shield) ÷ 200) + 1

% Parry Success =  (Parry / 2) %
 * If you do not parry the blow, the damage goes through as normal.
 * If you are successful, your shield will absorb some of the damage thus reducing the attacker’s blow.

The amount of damage subtracted depends on the type of shield you are using. A shield will absorb an amount of damage equal to half the base AR of the shield for melee damage, and the full base AR for missile damage.
 * Damage reduced for melee attacks = (Base AR) /2
 * Damage reduced for missile attacks = Base AR