Parrying

Training

Put on a suit of armor to get 70 physical resistance. Player made GM spined armor will work. Get several shields of any type (high durability is good) and find some sheep. Possible locations are the Yew farms or outside Moonglow city. Get 9 sheep to attack you and tab out to prevent yourself from hitting back. Healing may be necessary if your Hit Point Regeneration is not high enough.

If you are able to heal yourself steadily for a prolonged period of time you might consider wearing no armor (as the sheep will quickly erode it's Durability). For this reason you should also be sure to bring an adequate supply of shields.

Over time the sheep's combat abilities will improve as they strike you. Although tedious, because of this it's fastest to train parry in a single session rather then leaving and coming back to fresher (and hence slower) sheep.

With the introduction of the Spectral Spellbinder (handy little buggers that they are!) Grandmaster Parry can be achieved in 90 minutes or less with relatively cheap equipment. For the fastest and easiest route, equip a suit of armour with 70 physical resist and the Self Repair (SR) property on each armour piece - if you have a full set of Virtue Armour even better. Also, using a shield with Self Repair is just as important as a shield and armour with at least SR 3 will never become so damaged as to need repair or replacing while using this method. I would strongly advise any warriors to take the Anatomy and Healing skills, and at least while training a new character, to also take the Focus skill.

For quickest results, buy 40.0 skill in Anatomy, Healing and Parry at Haven Warrior (remembering to take the new char quests) and head out to Old Haven wearing your armour and shield described above and a ton of bandages - carry as many as you can! Set your combat status to "War" and engage a 'binder. As you should not have a weapon equipped, only those trained in the Wrestling skill need to reset their combat status to "Peace". Now sit back and heal yourself while the 'binder does his business. You should reach 50 skill in just a few minutes. Keep this up until you have reached at least 60 parry skill. Then engage another 'binder and keep adding another for every 5% gained in parry until you reach 90 when you will want to add another two 'binders for a total of eight - you will be surrounded by them at this point. Just keep up the healing and you will achieve GM Parry in no more than an hour and a half.

To make life MUCH easier for yourself, make a healing macro using a single key strike. In 2D, this means using the Bandage Self command. If you're using Magery to heal, have Cast Spell (Greater Healing) on a macro or for potion users, Last Object.

GM Parry and Beyond

Myself and some friends have tried this method out several times each and found it the quickest way to gain in Parry. While it is possible to gain in Parry beyond GM with 'binders, faster gains are made by travelling to Dungeon Despise and paying a visit to a Lizardman and buddies. Just as with the 'binders enagage eight lizardmen with your self repairing shield and armour equipped and a pack full of bandages. Sit back and keep on healing. Elder Warrior (110 Parry) should only take you about another 90 minutes maximum. For the masochists out there, yes, you can gain Legendary Warrior (120 Parry) after about 4.5 hours of this. Hang in there guys, it's unbelievably dull but worth it in the end!

Rationale (or "Wot, No Sheep?")

Using 'binders and lizardmen is much quicker than using sheep as they have much more Strength and Dexterity, so they hit faster, harder and more accurately - i.e. faster gains. The reason for training Focus during this is that Focus helps your char to gain in Dexterity very quickly which means that you become better at Parry and can also heal yourself more quickly. For weapons use, you will be able to hit faster and more accurately with a high Dexterity too. If you want to train Resisting Spells this is also the time to do that. If you train Parry to GM with the other skills mentioned, you should end up with around 95 Resisting Spells and about 80 Anatomy and 75 Healing by the time you reach GM Parry. You should even see some modest gains in Tactics if that is taken. Mages training Parry without the Healing skill should remember to pre-cast the Protection spell or bring some packhorses carrying vats of healing potions!

Another handy tip is to use a Buckler shield as this is the smallest shield available and provides the least protection - once again, faster gains!

Of Shields and Samurais

While you're training the Parry skill, even with an exponent of Bushido , it is still best practice to use a shield. For example, if a fencer equips a mace there is still a chance that some good, solid hits will be scored on the various monsters which will inevitable kill them. Fine you may say - but this just means having to drag around a bunch of critters while you find another one to make up the numbers each time one gets squished.

--Umbral, Wandering Cleric - Guild of Europa 06:36, 8 September 2008 (PDT)

Parrying

Contents

Training

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