This is a guide for parrying inDark Souls 2.
We are sharing an extensive guide for you below, going through each weapon attack, but you can get the basics here.
Weapons in Dark Souls 2 have sweet spots. These are the parts of the weapon that make the most damage when they strike the opponent. Of course, every weapon is different, and so some weapons have easier to use sweet spots than others. Now, if you parry a weapon at its sweet spot, the parry becomes easier to do.
You can use this knowledge best for setup parries. You want to be a few steps apart from your enemy, not close up, for the parry to be most effective. You can setup parry any R1 spam as long as your distance is correct.
Also, it’s easier to parry after your opponent’s third or fourth swing. Of course, you are better off parrying the second swing since players do not frequently go for three or four swings, but the timing is stricter.
You cannot parry jumping attacks or guard break attacks, save one special fist type jump attack.
In terms of parrying weapons, if you plan to do no blocking, you want to use a parrying dagger. Other weapons match the parrying dagger’s abilities, but you will have to test them out to figure out which ones work best for you. If you want to do predict parries and setup parries, small parrying shields are your best choice. If you only want to do setup parries, use medium shields. Fast weapons like longswords can also do setup parries, but are harder to parry with compared to medium shields.
If you want to go to the next level, you can try slow prediction parries with weapons like Zweihander. You need to predict moves a mile away, and the window of time for parrying is very very strict.
OK, if you want to get into the nitty gritty details, you can check out the videos below.
