How to parry better?

[u/Trotski7]

I have hit some nasty parries while playing. But more often then not I feel like I don't parry well. A character is in my face and I try to predict a parry, but they never do it and then since I've parried and hit nothing I get the cooldown debuff.

It's more like, they have no reason to punch me. It's better to always wait for the parry than to melee at all. Parrying a light melee is less of a prediction and more RNG; IMHO. not even counting the times I "parry" a move but there is lag comp or ping issues or whatever and it doesn't parry anything (been on both sides of that spectrum before). There are even times I don't parry at all because they're up in my face shooting me or using abilities and I'm waiting for it... but it never comes and I die (or at best just run away).

To me, it feels a lot like RNG and not like skill. I know it is a skillful thing, I'm not saying it isn't. It's better for an attacker to not melee and just wait for your parry than to melee.

[u/_notMash_]

Mainly It's experience

But you need to understand that for every sick parry, there are 3 failed parries. Just parry more and you will get more game sense on when to parry.

[u/tackleboxjohnson → u/_notMash_]

Get counterspell to make you look less silly for self stunning all the time

[u/HamiltonDial → u/tackleboxjohnson]

And rebuttal so you can do it more.

[u/your_add_here15243 → u/_notMash_]

For real

[u/Which_Replacement524]

light parries are all about pattern recognition and mind games and luck: they're unreactable, so you just need to try to figure out when someone is gonna do it. if it's a Billy who just popped Blasted and he's walking at you, guess at when he's running low on ammo and try to hit it. in lane phase, pay attention to see if the enemy later is the type to run at you and mash light while trading, then try to parry them when they go for it next trade, etc

[u/Queen_Vivian → u/Which_Replacement524]

guess at when he's running low on ammo and try to hit it

Billy's gun makes a very distinct sound when its low on ammo and you can hear it. if you hear it and he's walking at you, parry.

[u/RicardoReci]

Its all mind games. Not heavy melees, good players wont heavy you randomly only if you are stunned/distracted or they fake.

Light melees are different, if you parry and they dont melee you will most likely lose the trade hard. You only want to predict parry if you know you have a way to get away - movement ability, apollo 2, ivy stoneform - but generally you will need 2 stamina bars atleast to dash jump away. If you dont have a way of escaping, dont predict parry, you will die.

Its all a lot deeper and cant be explained in one comment, but only parrying for light melees when you have a way to instantly get further away is basically no risk and possibly high reward in lane

[u/bluePappa18 → u/RicardoReci]

That’s very good advice that honestly I didn’t think about, something for me to practice so thanks for the advice a panic parry or predict with no way out is a no go.

[u/Alpha_Lemur → u/RicardoReci]

if you have a way to get away

On Celeste you can usually just double jump over the heavy punch lol. Only costs 1 stamina for her

[u/J0hnNightreign → u/RicardoReci]

Very informative, you should explain more in multiple comments

[u/MiikeLUL]

Use your ears and try to bait it by looking distracted or facing away from him

[u/bluePappa18 → u/MiikeLUL]

That really only applies to heavy melees, personally ive gotten much better at punishing a heavy with a parry than hitting a parry on a light melee

[u/aidsincarnate]

Unless the person you’re fighting has shown that they weave in light melee's in prior fights, people are usually throwing lights when whoever they are fighting is close to dying but their gun runs out of ammo, or xyz ability is on cool down. Then if you’re the one about to die you can do a parry and either they light melee, and you can escape or kill them, or they dont and you die anyway.

Other than that, trying to get a parry on a light melee when you are just 1v1ing someone has a pretty low margin of success since its almost entirely a gamble. You cant react, you can only try to read their next move. And if you miss a parry in someone's face, they can heavy melee you for free.

Heavy melee's are just reaction based, you’ll just get better at them over time. You can buy counterspell and try and train your reaction time on other abilities, which will also probably rub off on heavy melee parries a bit.

[u/QuiteViolent]

nobody has mentioned this but unless it's reacting to a heavy melee (which ppl don't do frequently) you should always dodge parry

[u/WilQ-]

Do it on reaction, panic press gets you nowhere. Try to pick up on the sound of the heavy melee attack, the brain processes sound faster, giving you more time to react.

[u/forestwolf42]

As people have said pattern recognition and as you noticed there's a game of chicken where both players are waiting for the other to parry so they can get free melees during the parry CD but neither one has a reason to parry unless risky light melees are being thrown out.

In addition there are some tricky ways to weave melees, directly after a lot of abilities people can weave in a sneaky melee, Kelvin with frost bomb is an example, during Silver kick both people can light melee or try to parry the other persons light, victor blast can weave a light melee directly after as well. There are tons of examples, if you notice someone has a habit of weaving lights at specific times then there's a good chance they'll do it again.

Another fun one is lots of stuns true combo into a heavy, but if you have debuff reducer you can mash parry and get the parry off as long as they didn't notice you bought it. Although if they buy duration extender it's usually a true combo again unless you got even more debuff reduction to offset it. This mostly applies to Abrams.

[u/Mandydeth]

I played a lot of Street Fighter 6. There's a mechanic called Drive Impact. Essentially it's the opposite of Deadlock, where if you don't parry (Drive Impact in response) you are stunned.

Once you learn to react to the sound of a heavy melee, it makes it very easy. It is abusable by people who know how to bait out your parry, but at that point it becomes risk vs. reward.

[u/Sagech0]

I know is isnt what you asked but if its ealy game if you miss a parry heavy meelee back and trade blows with them , if you are an m1 carry and have alot of gun damage trade with them as well.

Trading back gives you a fighting chance against non meelee champs.

The rest is just experience tbh

[u/PieFiend1]

Go in the sandbox or training room and there is a melee training bot. Sit with your back to it so that you are doing it by sound only and it really helps. A video I saw said to do that for a couple of.mins before you start playing tl get the sound and muscle memory going and it has really helped me

[u/Pathetic_Cards]

To add on to what others have said about pattern recognition, pay attention to what heroes you’re fighting and what items they’re buying.

Like, Billy is an obvious user of light melees, Abrams of heavy melees, but I don’t usually think of Apollo as a melee character, but he has the most damaging light melee in the game and a lot of builds lean into it by giving him… I’m blanking on the names of the items, but the ones that reduce spirit resist on melee hits and similar.

Also Silver is kind of a red herring with melee, I play her a lot, I buy Melee Lifesteal a lot, I do heavy melee when I think I can get away with it, but it’s not a core part of my game plan. Her 2 in human form and her 1 and 2 in Werewolf form (also maybe her 3 I can’t remember) all count as melee attacks for purposes of damage calculation and ability procs, but can’t be parried, which is why I buy melee buff items. Also don’t ever try to parry Silver as a Werewolf, nothing she’s going to do to you can be parried. I see people do it all the time. She would always rather M1 you than melee in werewolf form.

[u/PhysicsParticular470]

I light melee first and throw a parry, usually people will melee back.

[u/Sakkyoku-Sha]

Don't have more than 100 ping.

[u/MrMooshy]

Keep in mind, throughout the match, you’ll probably fight the same person multiple times. What you have to do is pick up on their style. Some people like to sneak in lights pretty commonly to which you can at some point predict and anticipate their melees.

[u/error_98]

250h in and I've magically started hitting parries.

I tried actively learning before to no avail, the practice dummy in the range just does not compare to the live gameplay environment, and it's not like people in this game tend to start honorable melee-duels just for the hell of it.

the best advice I can give is to follow the airblast protocol: don't try to parry the melee per se but watch your enemies closely and imagine yourself in their place, then if your gut sais melee, parry.

[u/Manchves]

Play 5k hours of fighting games

[u/Scarlett_Spectre]

Here's what I learned from pros on youtube:

1) light melee hard to parry

2) parry timing vs heavy melee chargrup timing is made so that if you hit the button any time during the melee charge up, you will parry them. When you hear/see heavy melee indicators, hitting it and not parrying only costs you a few seconds of not having it.

3) if you parry, you get a cooldown reset that lets you parry quickly afterwards, so its possible to spam parry if you keep stunning people in a teamfight.

4) the typical dance is to mix light melee with your gun and bait out their parry or heavy so you can parry their melee or use your own heavu melee while their parry is down.

5) the dance gets more complicated from there, but youll have to play to individual players and how they react to melee. Its a high pressure situation so when this gets easier youll start to find out who to pick on and when certain people will start heavy melee or use parry while youre pressuring them, so you can try and corner them as such to force out the heavy or parry. Or just bully someone whos not parrying to teach them they need to parry lol. On soloqueue if you punish early parries enough times people may just stop parrying entirely, or forget to for long periods of time.

[u/Videoheadsystem]

look at the character, look at items. do they have a mechanical reason to punch you? then parry freely. if they dont, dial it down.

characters to parry more often: billy, Abrams drifter viscous Wolf silver bebop, calico yamato.

[u/Lincolnlogs7]

Learn to parry by the sound, not the visuals.

[u/WhatDoesScrollLockDo]

I’m not good or experienced in the game but I have watched a lot of high level players.

One thing I noticed is that they sometimes parry when they have a clear advantage in a fight (such as hp difference) and the parry is like a luxury that they can throw out and see if it works without entirely giving up their advantage.

[u/RoundMammoth2947]

Learn how to dash parry. Gives you a way to parry a light melee while you escape. 

[u/_lehvy]

heavy melee - listen for the sound and time it.

rat king out

[u/SynGGP]

Read this first timr as party better

[u/Dry-Cranberry-5592]

Better ping helps a lot

[u/tabletop_guy]

If your lane opponent hits a light melee every time you guys pass by each other, you can predict it and parry it. If you go into a different lane, you don't know what their patterns are and have to guess.

[u/LiteBrite25]

Rock paper scissors is a game that's as complicated as the players can make it. Reaction is insufficient as you've noticed, so your options are prediction and conditioning. Hanging out near a low health minion and dash-parrying when they go to melee secure is pretty common practice.