This is why I don’t condemn shield use because you still need to be cognizant of your stamina usage. Just because you blocked an attack, that attack you blocked took a chunk of stamina and also exposed the player to further vulnerability if they are attacked in succession. Movement and timing are as vitally important when using a shield in the same skillset of two handing or using no shield.
Parrying although requires correct timing to pull off which puts some vulnerability on the player because if a parry is timed wrong you can get hit but you also lose stamina on the hit, the timing is generally forgiving in all souls games and the only focus is really on understanding attack windows and nothing more. With that successful parry you trivialize the game by effectively taking advantage of the parry’s advantage which is being able to riposte the enemy for a large chunk of their health. Rinse and repeat until they are dead.
Parrying is a skill lacking technique which trivializes the games
And that’s why I just don’t play stamina bar games. You shouldn’t still be able to get a punish off on me just because you wore down a bar when I was perfectly timing my parry inputs. If the parry and dodge mechanics aren’t on Dante timing, I’m really just not about it.