Parry/block/dodge
The defensive triad: block absorbs damage at low risk and low reward, dodge evades with moderate timing demands, and parry — the tightest window — deflects an attack and opens the enemy to a counter. Layering all three creates a risk/reward ladder where players self-select their skill expression: cautious players block, confident players parry. Designers use the triad to give combat a defensive vocabulary as rich as its offensive one; Sekiro demonstrates the extreme where deflection is the primary verb and the whole game becomes rhythm combat. Key decisions: parry window size and reward (a huge posture hit or instant kill justifies the risk), whether blocking drains stamina or chips health (pure-safe blocking makes turtling optimal), attack design that mixes delays and feints to test all three options, and audio/visual clarity so failure teaches. Pitfall: if one option dominates, the other two are dead weight.
- Dev effort: Large
- Timing: Real-time
- Common in: action, soulslike, fighting