Arbites
19-25% Impact for 1.5s on Hit. Stacks 5 times.
10-25% Rending vs Staggered Enemies.
30-60% Rending on Critical Hit.
10% Critical Chance for every 0.3-0.45 second while aiming. Stacks 10 times. Discharges all stacks upon firing.
To serve the Lex Imperialis is to stand unyielding amid Havoc’s (40) dark tide. This build—the Grand Provost Marshal—is a righteous incarnation of order through control, fortitude, and execution. You enforce the Emperor’s Law through unmatched death, stagger, suppression, and endurance, breaking the back of every heretic advance. Each strike, each judgment, makes the battlefield more stable, you and your team more deadly, and your presence a beacon of the Lex.
At the heart of this build is Forceful. Each melee stagger—whether from your shield bash, Maul swing, or weapon special—grants you a stack (up to 10) of +5% impact and +2.5% damage resistance, lasting 5 seconds. These stacks are not mere buffs—they're the engine of your durability, offense, and crowd control. You maintain these stacks constantly with your melee, aided by Concussive (which ensures weakspot hits count as stagger, including on unyielding, monstrosities, and bosses), Force of Will (which grants +10% toughness on every stagger), and the combined attack speed boosts from Hammer of Judgement, Targets Acquired, and Lone Wolf, which let you swing faster, stagger more often, and keep your Forceful engine running at full pressure.
With every blow, you're gaining impact, resistance, and regenerating toughness. The synergy here is deliberate: Suppression Protocol grants 20% toughness damage reduction when hitting 3+ enemies (a common occurrence with your cleave); Hold the Line gives further damage resistance on your next melee hit taken after each stagger (stacking to 5); and Walk It Off ensures spending stamina regenerates toughness over 3 seconds—particularly effective when blocking or dodging.
Your weapon of judgment is the Branx Mk XI Shock Maul and Suppression Shield. Light and heavy swings hit wide arcs and stagger most enemies in one. Be disciplined—keep your enemies in front of you, where you control them: the dam that holds back the Darktide and keeps the Lexbreakers at bay.
The weapon’s special stores energy through blocking or time, then discharges a stunning electric cone that not only disables enemies but also counts as stagger for every synergy tied to Forceful, Toughness regen, and damage resistance. With Hammerblow, every hit builds even more impact, stacking to +125% over time. Opportunist ensures all staggered enemies (which is everything) take extra rending damage.
The shield itself is not just for bashing—at the cost of stamina, it provides reliable cover against incoming gunfire, allowing you to temporarily hold position under ranged assault while simultaneously building energy for your weapon's next special action.
This synergy makes the weapon not just a CC tool, but a self-sustaining buff source. You want to be surrounded—the more you’re attacked, the more energy you charge (when you're not swinging), the more you stagger, the stronger and more untouchable you become.
The Zarona Mk IIa Quickdraw Stub Revolver is your answer to distance. With Surgical, you build +10% crit chance per 0.3-0.45 seconds of aim, up to 100%. Hand-Cannon gives massive rending on crit, turning a precise headshot into a one-hit execution on most specialists and elites. In addition, the revolver’s speedy draw animation allows for seamless transitions to ranged combat from melee, letting you snap into action mid-brawl with practiced precision.
When drawn, its mobility gives you a subtle but meaningful speed boost while moving or sprinting—perfect for repositioning or closing gaps between engagements. Most importantly, revolver shots can stagger. That means even ranged suppression feeds and reinforce your Forceful stack loop, especially if there are no mobs within melee range.
Your ultimate decree comes through Break the Line. This forward dash and bash inflicts massive stagger in a cone and grants +25% damage and +50% impact for 6 seconds while also giving you limited additional maneuverability to either close the gap with a distant enemy or to quickly reposition. When leveraged with the Branx Mk XI Shock Maul and Suppression Shield, it can be activated while bracing the shield—a useful measure when approaching assaulting enemy gunners. When paired with Arbites Vigilant, it consumes your Forceful stacks for an immediate additional +2.5% strength per stack—to a total of +25% damage spike lasting 10 seconds. This ability has a low base cooldown (20s), and thanks to Targeted Brutality, it recharges quickly—0.5s per hit, or 1s on elites/specials/monstrosities. Utilizing the cumulative 12% ability cooldown perks in defensive curios, this is reduced further to expedite the next burst window.
The key is restoration: your Forceful stacks return is almost instantaneous. Just restart melee, throw your Voltaic Shock Mine directly before or after the burst, or use the Shield Special—any of these, when employed in the direction of a high concentration of enemies, will instantly restack Forceful and restore your durability loop. Commendation from Condemnation helps here too, granting up to 100% toughness and 75% stamina instantly when hitting clustered elites or specials. When facing a boss or monstrosity without nearby mobs following a burst, aim for its weakpoint with melee—each direct hit builds a Forceful stack via Concussive, albeit at a slower pace, while also giving allies an additional 25% bonus to melee damage against that enemy.
Melee Engagement: Lead the charge and control the crowd of enemies. Emphasize the environment and chokepoints. Aim for weakpoints as your wide attack arcs stagger multiple foes. Frequently leverage dodges and push-blocks to trigger bonuses to weakpoint and cleave damage. As you attack each enemy, each stagger fuels your Forceful engine—escalating durability, attack speed, movement, and raw damage. Near maximum stacks, the combined rending and stagger bonuses allow you to dispatch elites, specialists, and mobs in one to three strikes—provided your aim is just.
Attrition: When pressure surges, deploy the Voltaic Shock Mine or activate your shield’s special to reassert control. Both are tools of area denial, but the mine—when placed with intent—becomes a momentary stronghold. Use it to secure a revive, lockdown a pack of poxhounds, seal off a flank or chokepoint, create breathing room when surrounded, or buy time for you or an ally to safely interact with objectives or puzzles.
High Offensive Burst Cycle: Activate Break the Line to consume your Forceful stacks, unleashing a burst capable of clearing elites and specialists or inflicting considerable damage on monstrosities. Immediately rebuild stacks through cleaving nearby mobs, using your blitz, or unleashing your shield’s special—allowing the cycle to repeat without interruption. If no mobs are present, maintain pressure on the boss by striking weakpoints to restore stacks and sustain your offensive momentum.
Ranged Combat: Use the revolver against ranged threats or isolated targets to maintain stack uptime and battlefield control.
Durability: Never relent. Your offense is your defense—Forceful, Will of the Lex, and Walk It Off sustain you deep in the melee. Conversely, you are at your most vulnerable when out of melee or facing sparsely spread enemies, as the lack of consistent staggers interrupts your stack loop—greatly reducing your damage resistance, toughness sustain, and overall durability. Therefore, as long as you keep swinging, you can endure sustained gunfire and withstand all but the deadliest blows. And remember—staggered enemies don’t strike back. In addition, regarding defensive curios, we prioritize toughness and damage resistance (gunners) for high survivability at higher levels of Havoc.
Summary: With compounded attack speed, layered damage and cleave bonuses, and the ability to strike through multiple foes in a single swing, you maintain relentless pressure in the heart of battle. Your durability lets you anchor the frontline, while your sustained and burst potential allow you to contend for top damage output—all while controlling the flow of combat for your allies. Importantly, you are a damage multiplier for your squad—your staggers can increase the damage dealt by your party to a maximum of +25%.
*With such overwhelming durability and control, you may be tempted to rush headlong into the fray ahead of your squad—but doing so risks overextension, isolation, and entrapment. Even the Arbites do not enforce the Lex alone.
They may run, scatter, and hide. Your advance will not waver—their sins, blinding, give them away.They may beg for mercy or offer compromise. The Lex grants none, and neither shall you.They may raise arms in defiance. You will break their spirit, rend their flesh, and silence their treacherous lives.
Where Law is absent, heresy festers. We are the Lex made manifest—the God-Emperor’s judge, jury, and executioner. Where we tread, the filth of society trembles, and Terra’s will endures. Let those who defy the Lex—Lexbreakers—be broken beneath it.
