Is parrying just high-risk-no-reward unless you're built around it?
Enemies are so fast and have so much poise that it's likely you get one safe hit in before they restart their combo, and it's also unlikely going for another hit will interrupt their combo, which you will then soak to the face.
I've played a couple characters up to lvl ~20 and it's almost always better to just dodge and reposition. I guess you could gear your whole character around on-parry and on-stagger but seems way more effective to just do anything else lol