So, I dunno if this was noticed before, because i've been staying waaaay the fuck back from spoilers for weapons and mechanics.

But I picked up Valorheart, fell in love with it, and then fought one of the crow people. Specifically, the one under that first bridge when you're entering the creepy bird fetus village.

I dunno if this is a mechanic of the weapon, or of the enemy, but I swing wildly at it to stun lock it into place, and it attacked at the same time I was in the middle of the shield bash animation on the R1. The result was I parried it. This has happened repeatedly now on these crow enemies, where they'll attack during a specific point in my animation and it will actually parry them.

I can't get it to work on any other enemy, the big-ass crows just seem to have perfect timing to get parried when you're just mindlessly smashing R1.

Is this a known thing? It seems just begging me to get gud with it.