If you have both a knife and shield in hand, you will use the shield and it's bonuses to parry, if you only have a knife, you will use that :D

Parry bonus is a multiplier to the block armor if you successfully parry, block force is how far back an enemy is pushed when you block (even without a parry, tower shields push enemies back fairly far, but cannot parry)


The more you block, the more you increase your block skill, each level of block skill add 0.5% to the block armor, so a block skill of 50, adds 25% block armor.

So a fully upgraded black metal round shield (90 block armor), with a block skill of 100 (50% bonus), has a block armor of 135, if you then parry (1.5% bonus) your effective block armor would be 202.5




A black metal knife has a block armor of 3, so with 100 block skill
4.5, with a x4 parry bonus, so you effective block armor would be 18.....



Or in other words...the knife is rarely worth trying to block with, it's better to just dodgeroll or run from the attack at that point ;D

Originally posted by xx:

Parry with non- tower shields and two handed weapons. Parrying just with the dagger and you will go back to Valhalla quick fast in a hurry.

Actually, you can parry with the dagger as well as with allot of the other weapons. Thing is... if the enemy is strong, or a 1*/2* one... it is good to have a shield handy to pull out to parry with.
I run around right now, for most of my building and such with a Dagger and the Fenris set... works pretty well for everything that is not Plains, and even Plains I can kill Deathsquitos or Fulings die fast. But if a Fuling Berserker comes around or any * Fuling... I pull my shield and I am golden.

Parry with non- tower shields and two handed weapons. Parrying just with the dagger and you will go back to Valhalla quick fast in a hurry.

Since fists are weapons too, just leave a shield and try to parry a strong enemy (like troll) - if parry is successfull, then obviously shield matters

Originally posted by Veseljko:

As i understand, every weapon or shield has 3 categories:
BLOCK POWER - This is the base amount of damage you will negate while blocking normally (modified by your blocking skill)
PARRY FORCE - This determines how far enemies will be knocked back when parried
PARRY BONUS - modifies BLOCK POWER by PARRY BONUS when successfully parried attack.

So if you have 10 BLOCK POWER on your weapon and x4 PARRY BONUS, successfully parrying will negate 40 dmg before armor and resistances.

According to the ingame menu in Valheim you have:
-Block armor
-Block force
-Parry bonus
-Knockback

The "Block armor" is what you call here "Block Power".
The "Block force" is what you call here "Parry force".
The "Parry bonus"... this is the one that actually confused me, in combination with "Backstab". I thought originally that "Parry bonus" works similar like the "Backstab"; while "Backstab"is a multiplier on the damage that is done after a successful "Backstab"... I thought the "Parry bonus" multiplies the damage done after a successful Parry.

Going back to the wiki, checking out the weapon section, I read:
which states the exact same as what you said, "Parry bonus" multiplies "Block armor" upon a successful Parry.

That is how you can Parry using the Flesh Rippers, which have a low "Block armor" of 8 plus bonus from the Blocking Skill... yet when testing them I could Parry attacks and take no damage.
As I said I thought the "Parry bonus" is a multiplier on damage after a successful Parry.
Thank you allot for that information!

That being said, I not really understand why Tower Shields do not have at least double the "Block armor" then Round Shields. Tower Shields can not Parry and they have -20% movement vs -5% from Round Shields.
A Black metal shield has a Block power of 90 with -5% movement and if you Parry you have a Block armor of 135.
A Black metal tower shield has a Block power of 116 and since they can't Parry that's the max they got. They make you slower then the Black metal shield and have less Block armor.

Yes you could argue that the Black metal shield needs more skill but I think the Black metal tower shield should have a block of 135 not 116. That way you have a choice... do you want to have more movement speed but then have to use the "skill check" to really block bigger stuff... or do you want to just block the bigger stuff without the chance that you screw up and eat a big hit?

Parry mechanics did change quite a bit. Now a parry costs a LOT of extra stamina, making it a strategic choice rather than a timing skill. The wiki has more details, but in general stronger shields should absorb more damage while costing less stamina.

Tower shields don't seem to have any particular blocking bonus. They can absorb a bit more damage for less stamina, but that's it. Maybe the loss of parry is an actual bonus, but the speed penalty is very dire for what it gives.

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Parry mechanics did change quite a bit. Now a parry costs a LOT of extra stamina, making it a strategic choice rather than a timing skill. The wiki has more details, but in general stronger shields should absorb more damage while costing less stamina.

Tower shields don't seem to have any particular blocking bonus. They can absorb a bit more damage for less stamina, but that's it. Maybe the loss of parry is an actual bonus, but the speed penalty is very dire for what it gives.

Nah before devs added the stagger bar , parrying cost a lot more of stamina , now that system balance the stamina use adding a fill in the stagger bar if the blocked hit its too strong

Originally posted by Veseljko:

As i understand, every weapon or shield has 3 categories:
BLOCK POWER - This is the base amount of damage you will negate while blocking normally (modified by your blocking skill)
PARRY FORCE - This determines how far enemies will be knocked back when parried
PARRY BONUS - modifies BLOCK POWER by PARRY BONUS when successfully parried attack.

So if you have 10 BLOCK POWER on your weapon and x4 PARRY BONUS, successfully parrying will negate 40 dmg before armor and resistances.

Its like this
And best block armor for parry are from :
Rounded/buckler shield
2 handed weapons ( have a lot of block armor since h&h , my crystal battleaxe can parry 101 of damage with 55 blocking skill , blackmetal atgeir have more)
1handed weapons
Bows ,knives and claws

As i understand, every weapon or shield has 3 categories:
BLOCK POWER - This is the base amount of damage you will negate while blocking normally (modified by your blocking skill)
PARRY FORCE - This determines how far enemies will be knocked back when parried
PARRY BONUS - modifies BLOCK POWER by PARRY BONUS when successfully parried attack.

So if you have 10 BLOCK POWER on your weapon and x4 PARRY BONUS, successfully parrying will negate 40 dmg before armor and resistances.

I think only Parry Bonus from item you are using for parrying applies. I have read a lot on this topic and i never found anything that would explain Parry Bonus when carrying shield and weapon. But it seems logical to me that only Parry Bonus from shield is applied since you use a shield to parry.
And yes, it doesn't make much sense to parry with knife when you have a shield, but not all players are using shields.
I have seen a lot of my friends not use shields in fights (i know they have it). I must admit I don't understand that because it's intuitive for me to use a weapon and a shield together. I can only guess it's difficult for them to press two hotkeys in the middle of the fight when switching from 2h weapon to 1h weapon. I also had this problem so I added a macro on my keyboard. When i press hotkey 1 to equip my main weapon it automatically press 2 for a shield.

Purely based on the animations, I'd say weapon parry is only used when not carrying a shield. Even with one-hand weapons it can be better than nothing, for example me being a controller player, I'm waaayyyy slower switching weapons and sometimes get stuck with half equip.

Originally posted by Veseljko:

I think only Parry Bonus from item you are using for parrying applies. I have read a lot on this topic and i never found anything that would explain Parry Bonus when carrying shield and weapon. But it seems logical to me that only Parry Bonus from shield is applied since you use a shield to parry.

Yeah, I not found anything either. My playing with the Blackmetal Knife tells me it doesn't work. I should next time, write down damage numbers

Originally posted by Veseljko:

And yes, it doesn't make much sense to parry with knife when you have a shield, but not all players are using shields.

I wanted to type that it makes no sense to parry with a weapon when you have a shield with you, then I found out something else. Apparently weapons do have a Block armor which is the same as shields have it. When you use the item to Block then it will negate a certain amount of damage. However I just read there is something called Parry block armor... which makes sense.
Those new Flesh Rippers seemingly only have Block Armor 5 - 7.5, but when I parry with them I take no damage. This is because they have Parry block armor 30 - 45 meaning the Block armor is higher when parry.

The Blackmetal Knife btw has Parry block armor of 8 - 12... so not useful. While some weapons now make sense to parry with... the Knife which has a x4 multiplier doesn't.... that is unless you like tanking hits.

Originally posted by Veseljko:

I have seen a lot of my friends not use shields in fights (i know they have it). I must admit I don't understand that because it's intuitive for me to use a weapon and a shield together. I can only guess it's difficult for them to press two hotkeys in the middle of the fight when switching from 2h weapon to 1h weapon.

I use a Logitech G600, that MMO mouse with 12 buttons on the thumb-side. I also have a 3rd mouse button(which I use as 2nd middle mouse button)... so I never had a issue. I would actually love it if you had 9 or 12 hotkeys to put stuff on... not just 8.

But yeah... what would be cool is if you could pull the shield onto a slot that already has a 1h weapon. And then every time you push that button you pull weapon and shield out.
@Nefrarya
What I just wrote would help you to, if you could setup "sets" of items. But I have to say... while the combat is ok on a controller... I would not play Valheim using one. Too awkward.