Is a shield fighter build viable in solo HR? Dark and Darker 

Yo I’m the first guy you killed !!

Bro I cannot tell you enough how awesome these videos are. Your so thoughtful, thorough, and tactical about your defense-first play style. You aren’t trying to show off. You’re honest and approach everything very smart in the time you spend in the dungeon. Keep this video line going good sir. I watch all the D&D players youtube and you are BY FAR the D&D RU-vidr of the people!!!

The last I heard about Buff Duration for Fighter, its helpful for some skills like increasing the duration of Sprint, Taunt, or Adrenaline Rush but can also affect you negatively as extending Second Winds duration actually makes the heals come out SLOWER as its the same amount of health being healed over a LONGER duration. Higher health totals is the best way to improve Second Wind. Great video as always, this has to be my favorite Fighter playstyle.

Really liked how you broke down each decision in the fight, good to unravel those really intense moments where alot is happening!

here's my recommendation: get rid of the sword+lantern secondary and get a crossbow. you aren't the kind of person who is going to chase people anyway. even when you were playing in the dark, you didn't use the sword+lantern combo. when you were running after the barb, you didn't use the sword+lantern combo. when you were running after the slayer fighter, you didn't use the sword+lantern combo. since you're someone who likes to sit in the dark and wait, and you don't like to make risky plays, and your build has a lot of dex, you are the ideal crossbow user. you could have opened on the warlock with a 90 damage shot to the head while he was opening that box. if you played it cool after that, it's hard to imagine how you could have lost.

Dude your videos are amazing. Keep up the phenomenal work. Love the detail and analytics. I 100% copied your patented block 1st technique and am having a great time.

Hey man -- love your videos. I'm trying to get better at DnD and your stuff is really helpful. I also think it's great that you opened up about gear fear and such. I've played Tarkov as a main game for like 3 years now, gear fear is a universally paralyzing experience. That said, the best advice I can offer is to focus on your capabilities from a bigger picture perspective. The outcome of any individual raid doesn't matter, I always assume I'll lose my gear when I go into a raid. But what I do know is that no matter what I can make money and buy new kits. It's definitely a mindset thing. But if your back is against the wall you can always grind regular lobbies for a couple hours and make a bunch of money. So no sweat. Anyway, hope this made some sense. Thanks again!

You are really good at analyzing the fights before it goes down, looking forward to your future videos 💪

Hey brother. Another nice video with great fights. I quite like following the thought process in your naration style and im glad to see you having not only success, but fun with sword and board in HR. Im glad my comment was well recieved, the DaD community can be so passionate and opinionated that it often disolves to snarky or toxic comments (I have been guilty in the past and trying to do better). If i may offer my thoughts. - The first run against the Rondel fighter is likely the 'racecare fighter' build popularised by Firebox (Check out his YT), although his uses the fine cuirass and crusader helm to get close to 70% PDR - Personally i think a crossbow in your secondary will really help out when chasing people down and ending up in a position when you dont want to drop down to full commit, like agaisnt the Rogue on the catwalk. Nor do you need to initiate a fight with it because you like to be a sneaky snake (although i dont know how you resist the temptation toa free headshot). Additionally your build is so quick that you tend to keep the sword and shield out when chasing anyway (and in case they turn to fight you have your main playstyle out and ready to block). In the case of the OP Warlock when they can just phantomise to reset BOC and the completely busted Dark Reflection its gives you another tool so you dont kill yourself attacking them. IM please nerf already. - Gear fear. I totally get it, and im exactly as you describe. which is why i also preffer seing how far i can go from base kit. But gear come and gear go might as well use it to see if you can better roll the dice to take someone elses lunch money. - Have you considered looking for gear with Add true phys damage or Armor pen? I think this would really work for your style as lots of people are rolling high armour rating and it means each trade you will punching through so they panick even more. The buff duration bonus will not affect your Second wind as it doesnt change the 40% recovered ( maybe takes longer?). When i get back to my gaming station i am totally trying sword and board with high dex thanks to you. Looking forward to following the growth on the channel and game. Peace.

So much fun to watch. Thanks for walking us through it. I was so invested that warlock landing the last falchion hit actually made me jump lol

kind of seems dex that high is not really necessary when you only do 1 counter attack swing back into block, move speed or resistances or vigor are probably more preferable

Amazing video. Id love to see more like this. Explaining your gear, thought process, etc. during the fight is incredibly helpful. I like live commentary, but like you said it can be difficult to focus, and hindsight will reveal more. Keep it up bro!

good timing, just finished your shield guide a few hours ago and have already been seeing a lot more success with it as a new player

Been itching for another Bliinn video since the last one dropped. keeping it consistent, keeping the quality high. love it.

That's exactly what i needed to see bro! Thank you for all the help!

Really cool analysis! i know you dont like it, but i think that you really need to start using a crossbow to deal free initial damage or finish off the runners. also using the franziscas a little bit more could come in handy. great video!

TL;DR buy cheap gear to conquer your gear fear! in respect to gear fear, i find that with your choice of base stats on gear, if you look for only a single stat to stack on green gear, you can stack some good numbers for only 300-400g. sure it wont be a competitive gear set but its going to make it so you dont just get demolished immediately by geared players. stacking all phys bonus, move speed, vigor etc in some use cases can be better then spreading your stats thin. conversely you can find all epic gear with desired base stats and all bad attributes for fairly cheap and reach some crazy base stats for a similar or better result. as for your defeat, from what ive seen there is a very small delay (something like 200-300ms) between what you see when blocking and what the enemy sees which is why it seemingly went straight through the shield. it was pretty cool to see your shield playstyle in HR, maybe you try out the low price gear stacking and boost that morale!

By far the best dark and darker videos. Very insightful

Really liked this video. U did a great job breaking everything down. Don't worry I also get the same way when I wear my best gesr

as a longsword fighter, your videos are nice to watch as I can still learn some tricks and adapt the gameplay to the tiny shield that is my sword

Appreciate your videos as they got me back into the game (I quit a year ago when blocking fighter and fighter in general was terrible). Really think a crossbow would help you, and for gear fear, find some people to play with to distract you from it. I think you’d rock in 3s with a crossbow! Blocking PvP and pve for the team is your #1 role and #2 is sniping clothies with a crossbow. Also if a rogue opens on a teammate, the windlass used to one shot them.

Hey, i'm back with more fighter data and what works for me - Shield tech is very good in solo/duo normals, Slayer fighter works really well in HR solo/duo, and full PDR fighter works in Norm/HR trios. I tried using shield perks in trios as well but it kinda takes away some of the other perks i would like to have in that chaos situation. As always, great vid, keep making content.

Nice video! I can learn how to fight from this explainer video Thank you and hope you can do more these

15:10 you really need to look through those boards very carefully when you enter here, they removed the lower floor mines module + upper floor mines module simul spawns, but they did not remove upper floor mines + west hallways simul spawns, and getting headshot from behind with a windlass crossbow here would have been a bad way to find out. it isn't out of the question for someone to tab in or come back from the bathroom and still be standing there. since you seem like such a slow and defensive player, i was shocked to see you didn't check

great video. The more you do HR in good kits the less nervous you will be I believe.

Love this content. Exactly what I want to see

Lolol the high speed sippies at 14:04

15:45 Is that Jay? Good vid

its appreciated that you cover the normals queue, since thats where most of the fun is. theres no end of people making videos on 'highroller builds' that just don't work in normals. high roller is just inferior in terms of game balance, which is where the cookie cutter metas start to play a bigger role. it's just a completely different game when you factor in the insane curves on gear, not very fun.

Good stuff, bro. Good content, good advice, thoughtful comments, just need to find a way to comment without stopping the video, kinda breaks the flow. Cheers

Just in time baby!!!!

Looks really fun to be a blocking Boss fight

If you hit show details under your character you can see in depth stats like buff duration bonus

hey great vid but i was wondering how good the other shield skills are. For me when i was broke i would use the round shield with perfect block just wondering what your thoughts are on it?

are you wearing gloves in real life? and if so is that an important part of the build?

4:45 There's a "Open Details" button under the stats so you don't have to calculate the buff duration bonus you got haha

31:42 he is probably one tap, large delay when pulling wepeon out of phantomise, if u stick to him u most likely kill him especially if u drink a prot potion when hes in phantomise and he has BoC down, if u commit to the reset play its much better to grab a prot potion than a healing one, also i think the falchion is just the better wep overall.

With shield mastery and counter attack. Playing block first strat I’d highly recommend not stacking dex, I’d focus str or vigor or agi. With those two perks you don’t need anymore action speed.

6:43 how did you change your shirt so fast

would really like to see a buff to the barricade perk for higher resistances when blocking since the mechanic of blocking itself is super janky and sometimes doesn't work like how it's supposed to.

Daggers have no reason to be that difficult to block imo

Against that Warlock, the falchion passed right through your shield. I don't know what happened after pt2, but they broke shielding. I used to block almost every attack, now it's 50/50 whether or not the attack will hit me despite having the shield positioned correctly. It's sad because it's one of the only mechanics that add skill to the melee of this game.

I like to do a lot of hr, zero to hero runs

Think you're the only defensive fighter I've seen play so slowly, disabling each light lol I would see you in game and assume I'm running up into a rogue not a shield wielding fighter!

I think this playstyle has a big problem that the thrust attack of a rapier and a crystal sword can just go through the shield's model and hit you most of the time. Also it's influenced too much by desync.

buff duration bonus doesnt work on skills only on spell buffs

Who tf turns off every single torch dude. lol

if you ever want to run duos let me know brother.

dark reflection needs to be removed from the game entirely. free damage for doing nothing is completely antithetical to this game.

pause = dis

BRUH! That barbarian at 1:30 cannot stop getting bullied by fighters. I've run into them at least 2 times recently.

your vids are great man

Good video as always man keep it up hope you and dark and darker blow up soon!

I really want to get good at blocking but random lag at point just makes me never pick it up sad