Arbites
5-20% Damage Bonus vs Staggered enemies.
10-25% Damage vs Electrocuted enemies.
5-6.5% Strength for 3.5s on Close Range Kill.
As of game version 1.8.4 Execution Order is bugged and only triggers on marked kills made by your dog. The next hotfix 1.8.5 should fix it. It's planned for AUGUST! So until then I suggest playing a Forceful build.
This build is very safe thanks to the trusty doggo, extremely tanky, and dishes out wild DPS with good boss damage. You’ve got multiple answers for everything the game throws at you. It’s kinda busted.
§ 1 BUSTED - No Escape can be freely swapped with Withering Fire or Hammer of Judgement.
§ 2 BUSTED - Force of Will and Walk It Off both offer excellent toughness replenishment. Together, they’re enough to make us frontline tanks. To get Walk It Off, though, we also have to take Up Close. This talent doubles our toughness replenishment on melee kill and also gives us 5% toughness replenishment with every ranged kill within a 12.5 meter radius around us. Nice.
§ 3 BUSTED - The damage nodes might help hit certain breakpoints. However, the +10% toughness damage reduction is universally good and one of only three unconditional toughness DR nodes the Arbitrator gets. The others are Part of the Squad with 7.5%, which we are also taking, and Lone Wolf with +15%, which we can't take. The other two auras, Ruthless Efficiency and Breaking Dissent, work well with our weapon loadout, but again, toughness damage reduction is universally good. And stacking damage reduction makes it busted.
§ 4 BUSTED - Voltaic Mandibles Augment ups your furry sidekick's damage considerably. Razor-Jaw Augment is not as powerful but taken together the dogs ttk feels much better. The splash bleed is nice too.
§ 5 BUSTED - Concussive lets us stagger without needing to actually stagger. Invaluable for so many other talents.
§ 6 BUSTED - Take Ammo Belt into high Havoc. It’s optional everywhere else.
§ 7 BUSTED - In the same talent node cluster, we’re also picking two of the four present conditional damage reduction talents. To reach the Part of the Squad aura, we have to choose between Canine Morale and Imposing Force. Both are good picks and work well together. The uptime on Suppression Protocols seems better, though, since we’re constantly staggering enemies. If you’re filling the boss-killer role, Suppression Force is also strong.
§ 8 BUSTED - We’re not picking any dog keystones. The damage and specialization aren't needed.
§ 9 BUSTED - Castigator's Stance is our temporary immortality button. Oops twenty gunners? Hit the button, hit the gunners, hit the bar back on the Mourningstar. Keyword is temporary though. Don't get caught by a dozen ragers with your pants down.
§ 10 BUSTED - Arbitrators are like pigs, once they start hitting innocent citizens/killing lex breakers they go into a violent frenzy: Arbites Revelatum, Justified Measures, Hold the Line, Zealous Dedication, Soulguilt Scan, Drive them Back and Weight of the Lex all richly reward us for doing what we’re already doing.
§ 11 BUSTED - Rebreather lets us ignore Pox Gas (Tox Bomber). We lean into the corruption resistance with an additional 15% on a curio. While Castigator's Stance is active Poxburster explosions should deal minimal health damage if any. I have great fun activating Castigator's Stance and briskly walking into Poxburster trains.
§ 12 BUSTED - Target the Weak is a nice damage buff for the whole team.
§ 13 BUSTED - True Grit lets us make big mistakes. Super valuable in high Havoc. I take The Emperor's Fist everywhere else.
§ 14 BUSTED - Finally the keystone Execution Order! Great uptime with all the good stuff: toughness, damage, attack speed. We're also getting needed boss damage with Keeping Protocol. But the truly busted node is Malocator. Because the one thing better than Castigator's Stance.. is more Castigator's Stance. With our Curios and if we maintain Malocator, we can hit the button again 16.4 seconds after Castigator's Stance ends. In other words, we become immortal for 10 seconds every 27 seconds.
Edits: Serrated Maw -> Target the Weak, Writ of Execution -> Razor-Jaw Augment
