Lies of P how to parry and guard

Wondering how to parry in Lies of P? Parrying, also called blocking or guarding in-game, is a time-honoured mechanic in Souls-likes. Neowiz Game’s dark fantasy RPG is no exception. But although it can seem simple on the surface, there’s a significant depth behind this feature.

Here then, we’re going to go through how to parry in Lies of P, how to perfect parry, and explain the guard system in detail. If you’re intent to improve your knowledge of all the game’s important mechanics, be sure to brush up on the level up system and how to repair weapons.

How to perform a parry in Lies of P

To parry or guard an attack, press and hold the left bumper (L1) on controller, or the left Shift key on PC/mouse & keyboard when the attack is incoming. When you block an attack in this way, you’ll take reduced damage and avoid being knocked prone by some moves. This type of guard is only half the picture however.

Guard Regain in Lies of P

When blocking an attack normally, you’ll still lose some health as damage from the enemy attack bleeds through. However this isn’t necessarily lost health. Taking some inspiration from Bloodborne, Lies of P allows players to regain health lost while blocking by performing attacks against the enemy in the immediate moments following a successful block. You’ll see the potential maximum health you can regain by a faded red section of your health bar. The more you attack, the more of this you can heal back. If you want to improve this ability though, there’s a way to do it. Put levels into your Vitality stat, as this will increase your Guard Regain sub-stat.

How to perform a perfect parry in Lies of P

While guarding is great, the ideal counter to enemy attacks is a perfect parry. This is a parry performed with such precise timing that it cancels out any damage taken from an attack, leaving you perfectly unscathed.

To perform a perfect parry, you’ll need to simply practise your timing with different enemies and their attacks. In most cases, you want to aim to trigger your guard just as their attack animation begins coming towards you. For example, if an overhead attack is incoming, press the guard button just as the enemy’s arm begins to move downwards.

Ultimately, it comes down to experience, and the more you practise the better. Try fighting the training puppet in the yard at Hotel Krat if you want a safe way to get familiar with it. Another good alternative is to test out your skills against certain bosses. In our playthrough and subsequent Lies of P review, we found that the Scrapped Watchman made for an excellent foe to learn perfect parries on, due to his slow but relatively routine attacks.

That covers everything you should need to know about how to parry in Lies of P, and how to make the most of this mechanic overall. Be sure to keep your skills sharp if you want to take bosses like the King’s Flame Fuoco down with ease.