@Mango True, you can often get an unblockable hit in, but can't you usually get in a light attack after a successfully timed parry as well?
Maybe I'm just scratching my head because I spent 30 min against a training dummy trying to master deflections and only got it right like, 20% of the time. Parries + counter was significantly easier for me. That said, did anyone find deflections easy to pull off regularly?