Arbites Axe Man | +AAA Melee | +AAA Ranged | +AAA Mobility
 Arbites Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Arbites Axe Man (This is a mid-to-high Havoc build)

Overview:

The Arbites Axe Man is all about speed and crit dmg. With high mobility and high single target burst dmg, your job is to fly around the frontlines, killing Elites, Specials and shooters of all kinds. Our best mobility tool is our primary: Tactical Axe Mk VII. This will be our #1 killing weapon and our movement crutch. Your secondary is the Exterminator Shotgun Mk VIII, which will kill in 1 to 2 shots most of the time. We still want a dog with this build because you're vulnerable if you're caught out of position, so Remote Detonation and Break the Line are your cc tools to get out jail. You're a single target Terminator who can dish out death with speed, so take advantage of your crit and high mobility; that's how you stay alive.

Primary Weapon: Tactical Axe Mk VII

This axe has the best stats of all the tac-axes, albeit not the fastest of the marks (in terms of attack speed). That said, this weapon is still fast and excels at weakspot dmg, crit weakspot dmg and crit dmg. So in order to take full advantage of this, we want to lean into crit chance and dmg; i.e. Strength (a combination of cleave, dmg and impact) . As a result, we take 25% Flak Dmg and 5% Crit Chance for our perks; the former is flexible if you want another dmg perk, but Crit Chance is mandatory. For our blessings we take Headtaker: 5% Strength for 3.5 secs + Stacks 5 Times and then we take Relentless Strikes: 10% Strength for 2 secs (same enemy) + Stacks 5 times. You can consider Shred, Decimator or Brutal Momentum, but Shred is my least favorite as it only applies crit chance and is easy to lose stacks with the hectic swinging of this build. So Dmg > Crit Chance as it applies to this blessing slot. Aim for the heads!

Secondary Weapon: Exterminator Shotgun Mk VIII

When we're not chopping heads, we're shooting pellets into them. Our shotty is how we deal with Gunners, Specials, Ogryns and trash shooters. Because we're a crit build, we also want to lean into crit here too. So for our perks we take 25% Flak Dmg and 5% Crit Chance. For our blessings, we take Punishing Salvo:  20% Dmg on 2nd, 3rd & 4rh Shots and Sustained Fire: 50% Weakspot Dmg on 2nd, 3rd & 4th Shots. Our mag only holds 4 shots, so as long as we aim for heads, we will always be dishing out 70% additional dmg from 3 of our 4 shots. This compounds greatly with our crits and dmg nodes via the talent tree - which also helps strengthen our 1st shot. 

Blitz: Remote Detonation

Since we're a frontliner and a bit vulnerable to surrounds and range fire, our dog's shock nade is our get out of jail card; this allows us to stun tough groups and axe them down. We use this on ourselves and our teammates, since it can get them out of jams too. Map the tagging action to a button with quick access. My mousewheel has three separate buttons, so I map it to the wheel, but instead of pressing down, I simply nudge the side of the wheel and it counts as a button, so I can tag targets fast. Choose a fast button for the same ease of function. Use these detonations as often, since they refresh, negating the need of nades from loot boxes. 

Ability: Break the Line

We want to be dashing into the fight as often as we can. And doing so gives us 25% Dmg and 50% Impact for 6 secs, which is generous. We also want CDR to use this even more often than we already can. It has one of the fastest CDs in the game, but we push this further via Targeted Brutality (Restore 0.5 Ability CD for each hit, increased to 1 for every Elite, Special or Monstrosity) and curios. Engage (BTL increased to 7.5m)  and Kill Order (50% dmg to dog for 12s after using BTL)  are optional. I don't see much utility is giving up a whole point for more distance and the dog is already very strong via Unleashed Brutality (Dog Prioritizes Elites and Specials, deals 25% dmg to them). Like Remote Detonation, this ability can get us and teammates out of jams when the hordes get too thick with Elites and Ogryns. This ability can also stop a Mutant dead in its tracks. 

Keystone: Execution Order

This keystone will synergize perfectly with our frontline position since killing marked targets will give us 15% Toughness, 15% Dmg and 10% Attack Speed. We also get a total of 16% Crit Chance (at max stacks) from Zealous Dedication. The branch to the right also gives us 16% Weakspot Strength for 10 secs, via Soulguilt Scan. Naturally, this extra strength brings our weapon blessing strength to a whopping 86%. Further down the tree, we take Efficient Killer for 10% Crit Chance and 25% Crit Dmg for 8secs after killing a marked target - this is a big one for our build. Malocator will give us 50% cooldown reduction for 8secs by killing marked targets; great choice for keeping our ability up. Keeping Protocol is our last node for that juicy 30% Dmg + 30% Dmg Resistance vs Bosses (at max stacks - lasts the duration of the mission).  

Curios      

Since our build is about speed and requires being exposed on the frontlines, two of our Curios have 17% Toughness Blessings and the third has +3 Stamina to give our Tactical Axe more block chances. All three Curios have the 4% Ability CDR, since we want to use our ability often. We then take three 12% Revive Speeds and three 5% Toughness Perks. That said, you can choose whatever you want for the revive and toughness. For my playstyle, I want to help teammates get back in the fight cause my speed can avoid a lot of dmg and in Havoc players go down often, so I prefer revive, but pick whatever you want. 

This is a build I made up by myself because I like the speed of the Tactical Axe and the Arbites tree has good crit and attack speed that can really amp this weapon up. I've clocked 50% crit in game, which is massive. So every other swing is dishing out tons of dmg. So worth it and so fun to play. If you like to play fast, then this is the build for you. I'm a West Coast player, so catch me on most nights at 5PM PST. I wish this site had comments so I can hear feedback from the community.