Parrying

>What is parrying?
Parrying occurs when your attack's active hit-frame collides with an enemy attack's active hit-frame. All melee attacks with hit-frames can parry (including V's cane, Tomboy's activation, the punch where Nero sends out Punchline, and many more), but not every attack can be parried. The easiest moves to use for parrying are those with persistent hit-frames such as Cerberus' Ice Age and Rawhide's Side Winder, and those with the shortest animations such as Balrog's Light Blow and Overture's Battery.

>The difference between parrying, blocking, buster-counters, and reflecting/deflecting
Since I sometimes see people get mixed up. Very simply parrying is as described above, blocking is done via Royalguard only (and though similar in execution it has entirely its own uses and properties), buster-counters are their own unique thing for Nero, and reflecting/deflecting is done against projectiles (see bottom)

>Mobs
Testing done in the void DMD, generally if an attack can phase through Ice Age and Shredder I consider it unable to be parried
>Hell Caina, Empusa (normal, Green, and Red), Chaos, Pyrobat, Hellbat, Baphomet, Lusachia, Hell Judecca
No attacks can be parried. Some are so easy to stagger there would be no point, and some don't have melee attacks at all (Hellbat has one, but you can't parry it). Judecca is a fun one, sometimes you will hear the sound effect for parrying but this is actually him parrying you
>Hell Antenora
Only Antenora's rush attack after being knocked back can be parried, and only the ground variation, not the jump
>Empusa Queen
Her big overhead swings and jumping attack can be parried.
>Riot
All attacks that use their claws (except their Vega wall-jump) can be parried; this has the added benefit of breaking their claws, and leaving them wide open when they grow new ones
>Nobody
Only the jumping grab attack with the long wind-up while wearing the dreadlock mask can be parried, and parrying it will automatically knock off the mask (a Nobody who runs out of masks is harmless)
>Fury, Death Scissors, Scudo Angelo, and Proto Angelo
All attacks can be parried. Parrying Death Scissors will make them reveal their face allowing attacks which hit it (both melee and ranged) to kill them outright, though attacks with V's summons will just put them into stalemate instead. Parrying Scudo Angelo's shield will immediately destroy it. Parrying Proto Angelo will make him completely vulnerable to launching, and may be the most effective method of fighting him (Nico tells you this in the enemy gallery, pay attention)

>Bosses
Most bosses can't be parried by conventional means, so I'll just skip over them completely. This section needs the most work and is currently done from memory; I'll go through testing as much as I can before finalising it. Let me know if you know anything I don't.
>Qliphoth Roots
???
>Nidhogg
???
>Geryon
I'm pretty sure sword swings can, will need to run it again
>Cavaliere Angelo/Miraggio Angelo
Cavaliere's normal sword swings can be parried. Need to test whether teleport swings can too.
>Malphas
When not enraged the chicken will try to headbutt the ground in front of him if that's where you're standing; this attack can be parried, and parrying it will open lil chicky to being taken for a walk (wire snatch with Rawhide equipped)
>Vergil
As far as I know all of Vergil's unsheathed Yamato swings can be parried. If you try to parry him on an attack where he uses Yamato's sheath, he will parry you instead. Need to test whether you can parry him while he's DT and you're not.

>Overture special parries
Overture can parry as any other attack with the added bonus of being able to parry rush attacks by bosses; when Goliath, Artemis, and enraged chicken Malphas charge at you a well-timed Battery can stop them dead (and in Artemis' and Malphas' case leaves them vulnerable to a buster attack; Goliath gets blasted away too far for one, though takes a lot more damage than normal). I've tried using Overture against Vergil's jet plane as well but I can't get it to work and have never seen it done, so I'm assuming that one's impossible.

>Quick note about reflecting/deflecting
Some projectiles can be reflected/deflected in the same manner as parrying, such as Goliath/Urizen's large fireballs, Pyro/Hellbat's small fireballs, Baphomet/Lusachia's ice spikes, and Vergil's summoned swords. Large fireballs will always reflect to the boss. Smaller projectiles won't always reflect perfectly (Ice Age will deflect small fireballs in random directions, Shredder will always reflect them back; Light Blow will deflect SSwords in random directions, Payline will always reflect them back). Gerbara will always reflect back to the source. Some projectiles (like Green Empusa's and Chaos' spit attacks) cannot be re/deflected, even by Gerbara (though GrEmpusa's spit can be destroyed before it hits you). I'll leave testing every projectile with every attack to somebody else, because fuck that noise.