Protip:
Parry is overrated. It’s all about kara throws. 
Parry is useful… but practicing your parries is a waste of time, honestly. How you deal damage: look for quick rolls and learn to throw chain off of them, playing mind games so you get attacks in that the player doesn’t block, parry, or anything… they just think you’re going to throw again.
If you ever watch high level Ken, for example… Look for it… corner shit is usually like… throw, c.lk whiff, they quick roll, kara throw… c.lk whiff, meaty c.mk xx super.
3s online play is here to stay brah. After all its on the xbl/psn now. Theres plenty of people playing old games. I fired up my old call of duty 3 recently and was surprised at how many people were still playing. Got in a match within a few seconds. That was the first game I got for my xbox, over 5 years ago.
Knowing when to parry is key. If you can parry a jump in attack, most of the time; you can combo from that. Also whenever you’re in a pinch, parrying can easily save your butt.
Those are fine and dandy for low level play. Honestly, when it comes to top players, they WANT you to parry some bullshit and open you up.
What my post was more geared towards was getting away from the idea that you can’t win without it. You can… You can also win without throws… but the likelihood of doing so is slim.
For example - if you’re fighting a Yun, it’s better to know when to throw than parry, because GJ makes parrying so much more difficult, a well-placed / timed throw is going to eat their meter, and cause them damage. Of course… mixing them up is very important as well.
TLDR is:
Parry’s a major component to defense, and that’s fine, but blocking still exists.
Throws are essential to offense.
Thanks for the support so far. 3rd Strike is just too fun.
I will really try to go to Summer Jam 5, Aug 27th. Last year was awesome even though I didn’t know anyone. Thanks for the offer to help me learn, Ken in Black. I’ll have a final answer next week.
J.scogz thanks for the tips.
Private Eyeball and ChinNuts, great minds think alike!
Sorry if I cluttered up the main page, I will recreate this in the Ken subforum. Do I just PM a mod to get this deleted?
New post update - GGPO is an excellent place to learn to block, as “almost” everyone just goes all out, as well as my starting to understand how ken can be most effective, and even getting super exposed by Alex!