Auric/Havoc Allround Bulldozer
 Arbites Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

"You're up against the wall, and I am the fucking wall." 

Introduction

The core of this build, as with many meta Arbites builds is stagger. It provides you a reliable source of damage, toughness regeneration, and crucially, interruption of enemy actions. Some say the best defense is a good offense, some say it's a good defense, and some say it's giving your enemy repeated concussions until their skull (or any weakspot) resembles ground beef. I would argue it's all three, and this build revolves around giving you the tools to accomplish that. But while defending yourself is great, the only reliable way to keep the pain train rolling is to keep its passengers alive, your team. This build aims to at the very least postpone their unfortunate demise in a few ways and get them back in the fight if they do fall.

Talents

I'd divide the talents in this build into three categories: stagger synergy, allround utility, and support utility/panic buttons.

Starting off with stagger synergy, what is singlehandedly the most important talent and the foundation for all other stagger synergy is Concussive. As such you should make it your mission to make your enemies eat shield for breakfast, maul for lunch, and shield again for dinner, if they're not already dead at your feet. In this configuration you will kill faster with Soulguilt Scan, Target the Weak, and Strike Down. You're given even more durability through Forceful, Force of Will, Will of the Lex, Suppression Force, and Hold the Line meaning that you can keep up your barrage even if you start taking punishment. These all give you a cushion for if you make a mistake and mean you don't get punished as hard as you would normally be on Auric or Havoc. That being said, although you're a tough nut to crack without your shield up you're not invulnerable, so remember that. Judicial Force takes a double roll, falling into the category of another way to apply stagger on the offensive front but also give you a second to recover if things take a turn for the ugly.

Next, you provide allround utility for both yourself and your team through a few talents. Ammo Belt means you can use your Judg.. er.. I mean "Subductor Shotpistol" a little more liberally and go longer between ammo pickups, improving your team's ammo economy. Street Smarts reinforces your ability to always be dodging, a habit you should definitely pick up if you haven't already. It's great for staying situationally aware and those sweet sweet iframes. Your Cyber-Mastiff plays a triple role, firstly as a vessel for a generally better Zealot's Loner through Part of the Squad, for situations where you get separated from your team or your team all go down and just as another source of toughness damage reduction and regeneration. Secondly, it plays the role of interrupting opponents around you. Pouncing Cyber-Mastiffs will knock down enemies in their path, and with Go Get 'Em! this will typically be enemies that you want pinned. Thirdly, your loyal companion serves the role of guided missile to deal with snipers, gunners, bombers or other ranged pests you're too busy for or would be forced out of position to deal with with a simple "Sic 'em, dog!". Zealous Dedication comes out to what is essentially free crit chance, Monstrosity Hunter makes up for lost damage from Keeping Protocol in the Execution Order tree. 

Finally, let's illuminate your support utility/panic buttons. First off, Voltaic Shock Mine is your premier panic button, your "break glass in case of emergency" tool to get you or a team mate out of sticky situations at the press of a button. If a team mate goes down and their body is getting swarmed, if you're getting in a spot you really don't want to be, etc. etc., your blitz is there to bail you out. Your second panic button is Nuncio-Aquila with Inspiring Recitation, a less catch-all but still highly useful tool for providing yourself and your team with toughness regeneration, damage resistance, revive speed, attack speed, impact, suppression and enemies in its aura damage vulnerability. Useful for holding objectives, reviving team mates, making the wall that you are that much harder to crack. Your active talents, if correctly applied, can make any ugly situation significantly less difficult, because at the end of the day every single player in this game is prone to mistakes, bad luck, or getting overwhelmed, and having a get out of jail free card is invaluable.

Weapons

Moving on to your weapons, the Branx Mk VI Shock Maul and Suppression Shield and Judgement Mk IV Subductor Shotpistol and Riot Shield are my preferred combo and what I believe to be the best combo, but in theory as long as you have one shield from your primary or secondary you should be okay. The Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher with Skullcrusher synergizes well with your stagger synergy talents, and the Exaction Mk VIII Exterminator Shotgun fulfills the same role as the Shotpistol, though you trade the shield and ammo capacity for weakspot and carapace damage. You could also go for the Branx Mk XI Shock Maul and Suppression Shield if you really prefer that moveset, but I consider the Mk VI to be so much more comfortable and consistent that I don't really recommend it.

The Branx Mk VI Shock Maul and Suppression Shield is an excellent all around powerhouse of a melee weapon, it's light attacks being more than capable of dealing with most specialists/elites in a few hits, being exceedingly easy to target weakspots with too. The AoE stun is another nice to have when you're about to go in or if you need to give yourself some breathing room, though typically I'll leave myself enough charge for emergencies, another more available panic button for if things get hairy. You should only really use the heavy attacks for the shield bash to knock down enemies while triggering Hammer of Judgement and go to town with light attacks. For blessings, Hammerblow gives you a consistent source of more Impact, while High Voltage is essentially free damage since you're wielding a Shock Maul, made even better if you have a Smite Psyker on your team. Your dump stat can be either Power Output or Defences, depends on your personal preference and playstyle.

The Judgement Mk IV Subductor Shotpistol and Riot Shield is a really comfortable tight spread shotgun paired with a shield that pair up for a really comfortable combo against short-medium range enemies. You're constricted by only 5 rounds per cylinder (or 6 if you choose Priority Endowment), but this is typically enough to deal with at least 2 specialists/certain elites before you have an incredibly rapid reload that you can always briefly interrupt with a block if the situation demands it. I personally quite like the braced hold since you have an excellent sight picture (unlike some other ranged weapons in this game cough..Lucius..cough). The shield allows you to deal with gunners incredibly easily, just watch their rounds plink off your shield as you take aim, benefitting from Pinpointing target and dome them. Run 'n' Gun is primarily here for the reduced weapon spread, though the ability to shoot while sprinting never goes amiss. The Shotpistol makes for a fantastic weapon to deal with a Chaos Spawn, Plague Ogryn or Beast of Nurgle should you stumble across them thanks to the tight spread and high damage, further amplified by Monstrosity Hunter and the unyielding damage perk. Mobility is the classic dump stat, though I haven't been able to confirm if the Critical Bonus stat applies exclusively to your melee attacks as the wording is "Melee Critical Chance" in which case this should be your dump stat.

Curios

Your Curios probably come down to the most flexible part of this build, as personal playstyle, skill level and preference play the largest role for what truly is "best". I like a wound and two toughness stat curios since I feel like this gives you the best of both worlds before you start hitting diminishing returns on both. That being said, depending on your skill level you can either drop or add wounds and not go too wrong with that. The toughness perk on all three is probably the only one I would lock in, the rest are entirely up to personal preference. Gunners can shred you, but since the Subductor/shield combo means you can just pick them off the damage reduction isn't as crucial as with most other builds. Getting your Nuncio-Aquila cooldown down is equally useful but not necessary, and if you prefer HP, stamina regen, teammate revival, sniper damage reduction or any combo of those you're more than justified for taking those. 

Conclusion

So that's the build. Jack of All Trades, Master of None, though oftentimes better than Master of One. If you read all the way to this point, thanks for that, I hope you were able to gleam something of use from this build or it gave you ideas for your own. Hope you enjoy whatever you're up to and remember, the Emperor Protects.