Arbites Cyber-Mastiff & Talent Feedback

[Jord]

Arbites Cyber-Mastiff & Talent Feedback

I want to give some focused feedback on the Arbites cyber-mastiff and its surrounding talents. Overall, the dog path feels heavily constrained by point cost, fragmentation, and inconsistent performance. In its current state, it is often more effective to skip the dog entirely and invest those points into personal damage, which suggests a balance and cohesion issue rather than a playstyle preference.

Note: I used AI assistance only to help clean up grammar and improve readability. The feedback itself is my own. Please read the post in full, even where you may disagree. The goal here is discussion, and I am interested in hearing where others agree, disagree, or have better or alternative solutions.

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Augments / Talents

Razor-Jaw Augment

This talent feels over-nerfed due to issues and bugs at launch, where bleed was applied on jump, during the dog’s trajectory, and again on landing. At the time, damage talents also applied to bleed, allowing the effect to stack heavily. Those interactions are no longer possible.

In its current state, Razor-Jaw applies 6 bleed stacks, which in practice fail to even kill basic enemies like groaners. The stacks also drop off too quickly to be reapplied reliably unless using a bolt pistol. From testing, it still appears to have a small AoE component, but the application is very inconsistent.

Suggested changes:

• Increase bleed stacks from 6 → 8

• Add or clearly define a 2.5m AoE on application

This would improve reliability without pushing the talent into overtuned territory.

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Man and Cyber-Mastiff

Not bad in isolation, but poor in practice if you want to actively use the dog. Most priority targets are rarely within the current 8m requirement, which significantly limits usefulness. This talent is also the one most negatively affected when paired with Go Get ’Em, further restricting when it can realistically trigger.

Suggested change:

• Increase range from 8m → 10m

I do not think increasing the range much beyond 10m would be healthy, as it could become too strong when combined with other cyber-mastiff interactions. However, an increase to 10m would meaningfully reduce friction and improve consistency without changing the talent’s core behaviour.

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Voltaic Mandibles

In a good place. The stun utility is more valuable than the damage and gives it a clear role.

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Canine Morale

A solid talent overall, but slightly underwhelming.

Suggested changes:

• Duration 5s → 8s

• Toughness 10% → 12.5%

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Target Selection

Difficult to justify in its current form. Specialist/elite-only damage is too narrow.

Possible improvements:

• Change to a flat 15% damage bonus, or

• Make it a team-wide buff

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Serrated Maw

Brittleness is valuable, but being limited to a single target holds this back.

Suggested change:

• Add a 2.5m AoE to improve impact and synergy.

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Aura

Part of the Squad

Feels undertuned compared to alternatives.

Suggested change:

• 7.5% → 10%

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Keystone & Branch Talents

Unleashed Brutality / Go Get ’Em

These feel intended as passive damage nodes, but they lack impact for their cost.

One possible direction would be to increase their damage bonus when manually tagging enemies, reinforcing active play and intent rather than passive uptime. I am unsure what Fatshark’s stance is on tying power to manual tagging, but it could help differentiate these talents without simply inflating baseline damage.

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Execution Order – Malocator

Feels very strong due to cooldown reduction.

Suggested change:

• Cooldown reduction 50% → 40%

This would keep it powerful without over-centralising it.

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Not Far Behind

This is a strong keystone in itself and performs well in high-density scenarios. However, it struggles on difficulties or missions with lower enemy density, where maintaining uptime becomes inconsistent.

A balanced adjustment would be to increase the duration from 5 seconds to 8 or 10 seconds. This would smooth out performance across different encounter densities without increasing its peak power or changing its core behaviour.

Abilities

Nuncio-Aquila (Missing Cyber-Mastiff Synergy)

One notable gap is that Nuncio-Aquila currently has no meaningful interaction with the cyber-mastiff, despite both being core Arbites identity tools. This makes dog-focused builds feel disconnected from the kit.

Proposed talent:

Exemplary Enforcement
While Nuncio-Aquila is active, elite or specialist kills by the cyber-mastiff cleanse 10 corruption from all allies within the aura radius, up to a maximum of 60 corruption per activation.

This would:

• Shift the dog’s value toward team utility rather than raw DPS

• Scale naturally with higher difficulties

• Avoid kill-chasing incentives

• Give Nuncio-Aquila a clear role in dog-focused builds

• Reinforce the Arbites command-and-control fantasy

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Castigator Stance – Bloodlust

Currently does not feel worth picking.

Possible improvements:

• Remove the tax node or

• Increase buff duration to 15–20s

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Break the Line – Kill Order

Feels good in terms of damage and duration, but is rarely picked due to being point-starved. The opportunity cost feels too high. I am not certain what the best fix is here, but it is difficult to justify in current builds.

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Blitz

Blitz: Remote Detonation

Remote Detonation currently feels decently balanced overall. I do not consider it weak, but at higher difficulties it can feel somewhat lacking, particularly during scenarios with large numbers of armoured enemies (for example, Crusher- and Bulwark-heavy spawns). In those situations, you often run out of charges very quickly, and a large part of that pressure comes from limited clarity on the cyber-mastiff’s exact position, which increases the risk of mistiming or outright wasting charges.

Reducing the cooldown could be one option, but I am not convinced this would address the underlying issue. Increasing the number of charges would likely reintroduce previous balance problems, such as excessive boss stun potential (for example, chain-stunning a boss multiple times).

Given this, I am not certain that Remote Detonation needs direct changes in isolation. Its performance may improve naturally depending on how other Arbites talents are adjusted. For that reason, it may be best to re-evaluate this Blitz after broader talent changes, rather than making reactive adjustments now.

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General Observation / Summary

The main issue is opportunity cost. Investing into the cyber-mastiff and its supporting talents often results in less overall impact than investing directly into personal damage. The dog feels thematic and interesting, but inconsistent and underpowered in practice.

Additionally, the cyber-mastiff talent path feels over-fragmented, with many small, situational talents competing for points. Combining some of these talents could improve build cohesion and reduce point pressure, though this would need to be handled carefully to avoid making the build too powerful. I am open to alternative approaches or suggestions here.

Short-term, improving scaling, reducing friction (range, uptime, AoE), and adding ability-based utility synergies such as Nuncio-Aquila interaction would already go a long way toward making the cyber-mastiff a meaningful and competitive choice rather than something players rationally skip.

Long-term, another possible direction would be a system similar to Hive Scum’s stim lab, where Arbites gains a comparable mechanic to enhance or support the cyber-mastiff. While this could be strong conceptually, I recognise it would likely require significantly more development resources and may not be realistic in the short term.

Notes

• This feedback is based on play experience from Heresy difficulty and above, including Havoc, though Havoc is not used as a primary reference point.

• I generally prefer talents that reward active play and decision-making (for example, manual tagging and target selection) rather than purely passive bonuses.

• I am very interested in hearing where others agree, disagree, or have better or alternative solutions.

[Hitman]

i dont agree, everytime i play arby in high havoc i always play dog, lone/mines is such a crutch for players so i never play/take them into lobbies. every time i play i heavily outperform everyone on my team and think dog is wayy stronger now with shock mines nerf

[Jord]

That’s interesting. Could you share the build and key talents you’re running? I’d like to understand which interactions you find most impactful with dog right now.

[Hitman]

off course, here is the build im running Arbites Dog Havoc 40 - Arbites Build for Darktide - Darktide WH40k

There is no reason to not take Part of the squad when running dog since its right below imposing force which is one of the best talents in the game, providing 25% damage resistance against everything.

Since ur not taking Suppression protocols for the TDR, the 7.5% tdr is very nice for primarily you but also for your team, not taking into account that the dog counts towards coherenyc and can start passive toughness regen for you and other teammates in high havoc, where small ranged shooters are very prominent and annoying.

The bleed talent is very good since it deals damage to everything around itself which is very good in high havoc where there are so many enemies and everything is very crowded. I usually spam the dog ping on targets i need its pounce and “stun” for so it constantly jumping around boosts the talents damage, though not as much as before. Still if im taking the dog ill take it since its a good talent for clearing groups of trash mobs and still dealing damage to other enemies.

Exe order is very good, gives u xray basically so most of the time as the only melee frontliner i can see whats ahead and strategise how i need to approach those enemies and what i need my dog for (to kill or to stun with voltaic mandables). Gives your dog an INSANE 150% boost for 8 seconds!

Voltaic mandables significantly boosts the dogs dps against everything, but i use it the most to stun distant reapers and bulwark trains that are coming in close. Dog explosion is self explanatory its a must in dog builds and provides huge stagger, massive cc and very good damage and clearing stacked waves of trash and elites.

Target selection im the most iffy about because people are bad and usually kill the thing ur dog has pinned down, so it doesnt have the best uptime (around 30% for me) and it kinda sucks because of that, also selective damage only, which is kinda niche (im currently running the same build but with strike down instead of target selection and have been liking it more since most enemies in high havoc are armored).

Not far behind is definitely the best dog talent in the entire tree since it has permanent uptime (more than 70 percent for me) which means permanent speed and damage boost which is really really good.

Since im kinda starved for points i run keystoneless since they dont provide as much, they just give better a.i to the dog to prioritise elites/specialists or ranged enemies, but since im constantly taging my dog on things i like that it returns to my side and doesnt run around further away from me

EDIT:

Brittleness node is bad doesnt do anything, dont really care about castigator or nuncio since those abilities are just bad in comparison to BtL

Canine morale is decent but i would never take it instead of imposing force because of reasons mentioned above

Malocator is good but it doesnt need nerfs since it only triggers when you kill the enemy, while other cdr talents in the game also trigger when allies in coherency kill them as well

[WhereIsBaoDur]

Hey, read halfway through. I’ve got a question about canine morale: does it work when the dog itself kills a pounced target? When a teammate does? or only when you do?
I never figured that out

[Pedronga1337]

i think you forgot Not Far Behind

[temp]

@Hitman

dog is wayy stronger now with shock mines nerf

From the perspective of a not-particularly strong player, the dog has always been far more powerful than the shock mine. +200,000 to the dog’s damage feels completely routine, almost guaranteed

[Hitman]

in 40’s it always ends up doing more damage than my shotgun

[Jord]

Correct, thanks ill add it.

[Jord]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown, that is genuinely helpful and exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. I will try to keep this short.

I think this highlights where our perspectives differ rather than contradict each other. You are clearly getting strong results with dog in high-density Havoc through constant manual tagging, frontlining, and deliberate dog management, and in that context many of the dog talents can perform well.

Where my feedback differs is that I am not arguing the dog cannot be strong. My point is that the dog path carries a higher input and talent tax than alternative setups, and that this cost is not always matched by its output unless you are actively playing around it at all times. My focus is less on raw damage and more on opportunity cost, friction, and talent investment.

To make that more concrete, a few examples from your build choices:

• You are taking Break the Line but not Kill Order, which suggests that even within the same branch, point pressure forces you to skip otherwise synergistic options.

• You are taking Walk It Off while Man and Cyber-Mastiff sits directly adjacent. My assumption is that this comes down to consistency, as the mastiff is often not within the current 8m radius, making that talent unreliable in practice. That choice itself highlights the friction I am referring to.

• You are still investing four talent points into Hold the Line, Target the Weak, Drive Them Back, and Weight of the Lex. Those points could otherwise go deeper into mastiff talents, but the mastiff options competing with them often do not feel strong or consistent enough to justify that trade.

• You also mention running keystoneless due to point starvation, which implicitly suggests that keystones are functioning more as luxury picks rather than build-defining choices in dog setups. Given that, I am genuinely curious how you would suggest these issues be balanced or addressed.

On specific talents:

• Not Far Behind having high uptime in dense Havoc aligns with your experience, but it becomes much less consistent in lower-density missions or calmer phases. That is why I suggested a duration tweak rather than a power buff (which I have since added to the original post).

• Razor-Jaw clearly benefits from constant retargeting and high enemy density. From personal testing using this mod:
  https://www.nexusmods.com/warhammer40kdarktide/mods/573
  it actually has decent to high uptime, but the bleed damage itself feels lacking compared to other available options (for example, Weight of the Lex providing a flat 15% damage bonus or justified measures).

• Part of the Squad being taken largely because it sits below Imposing Force reinforces the opportunity-cost concern rather than refuting it.

• Your comments on Target Selection also line up with my concern that it is too conditional and easily invalidated by team behaviour, which is why one of my suggestions is to make it a team-wide talent.

On a few additional points:

• Regarding Serrated Maw, I agree that in its current form it feels underwhelming. That is why I suggested a small AoE application, rather than increasing stack count, which would likely become too strong when combined with constant manual retargeting.

• On Castigator Stance and Nuncio-Aquila, I largely agree that, as abilities, they struggle to compete with Break the Line. That said, my intent here is not to rebalance Arbites abilities overall. I am deliberately keeping this feedback focused on cyber-mastiff talents and their opportunity cost. That said, I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed changes to their sub-nodes, or what you think would be a more sensible direction there.

• As for Malocator, my suggestion was not about raw power but about centralisation. I take your point that it only triggers on your own kills, unlike some other CDR effects. If it is already self-limiting in practice, that is useful context. Still, based on past balance trends around cooldown reduction, I would not be surprised if it is among the first talents reviewed if CDR tuning becomes necessary. (Malocator combined with Targeted Brutality)

So overall, I do not disagree that dog can be strong in the right context. My concern is that it currently asks more of the player (awareness, tagging, micromanagement, and encounter density) to reach parity with alternatives that deliver similar results with less friction.

That is why my suggestions focus on reducing friction, smoothing consistency, and improving talent efficiency, rather than pushing raw damage numbers. The goal is not to make dog overpowered, but to make it competitive by default rather than conditional on very high input and density.

[Jord]

@temp

From the perspective of a not-particularly strong player, the dog has always been far more powerful than the shock mine. +200,000 to the dog’s damage feels completely routine, almost guaranteed

Where my feedback differs is that I am not arguing about whether the dog can deal damage. My concern is about opportunity cost and consistency. High damage totals do not necessarily mean the investment is efficient relative to other options.

More simply put: you can invest in shock mines with a single talent point (lw), while the remaining points can be spent on personal damage, toughness, cooldown reduction, and other universally valuable stats. The dog, by comparison, requires a much heavier talent investment to reach its ceiling.

Outside of that, shock mines also fill a different role (area denial, control, emergency stagger), so a straight damage comparison does not fully capture their value either.

[Jord]

To my knowledge, this only triggers when the pounced target is killed by either the dog or the player, not your teammate.

[temp]

@Jord

Outside of that, shock mines also fill a different role (area denial, control, emergency stagger), so a straight damage comparison does not fully capture their value either

My personal experience (I am not a strong player; I have only completed Havoc 21 once, as an Ogryn, and I was not the top contributor) is as follows: with the dog, I was able to carry Auric HISTG missions and even dip into Maelstrom. Without the dog, I get carried on Auric HISTG missions, and if I stick my nose into Maelstrom, I very quickly become the guy in trouble waiting to be rescued.

Flamers in particular — the dog helps a lot against them (not always, but often). Without the dog, they pin me into a corner where there is not a single square centimeter of ground left that I can stand on, and that is the end of it.

[Jord]

@temp

My personal experience (I am not a strong player; I have only completed Havoc 21 once, as an Ogryn

Completing a Havoc 20+ as an Ogryn is already an achievement in itself; many players struggle to do that consistently, so congratulations on managing it.

I am not denying that the dog helps, particularly against specials or elites. My point is that in many situations, those threats can also be handled through positioning, target prioritisation, and faster removal. That makes the dog feel more like a safety net than a uniquely efficient solution, which is where my opportunity-cost concern comes from.

[MarxistDictator]

Rounds are lost in the few seconds things aren’t going entirely to plan, that’s literally the design of these games. Nobody cares you were balling for 30+ minutes doing just fine if you died in the stress test. If just being the most efficient killer and not-getting hit was the main goal Executioner Stance would be the most popular Veteran ult, not Voice of Command with specifically the gold toughness modifier that gives only uber safety for 10s and no buffs to damage. The dog is able to take a target out of commission with no commitment from you. It is free and in addition to whatever damage and CC you’re doing elsewhere. And because of how long the knockdown is, you can spread the effect over quite a few enemies just retagging them after it leaps, which it will stagger over an area. I also disagree with there being a high cost to running the dog since voltaic mandibles is the only one you need. You can stun lock 3 ogryns at the same time with it. That’s 1 node.

[Jord]

I think we’re talking past each other a bit, so I want to ground this in mechanics rather than philosophy.

I agree that Darktide rewards clutch tools and recovery options. My feedback is not “damage over safety,” it’s about efficiency and opportunity cost.

The dog is not “free.” Choosing it means giving up Lone Wolf (+15% TDR, +10% damage, +10% attack speed, and an extra Blitz charge). That is a meaningful trade when discussing efficiency.

As for “locking down an area”: the dog’s control is mechanically constrained. The leap has a ~1.5s internal cooldown, pounce effects are single-target, and Voltaic Mandibles talent applies a single-stack electrocution lasting 5 seconds. Factoring in travel time and retagging, this does not realistically translate into simultaneous or persistent stun-locking of multiple Ogryns.

Finally, saying Voltaic Mandibles is “the only node you need” actually reinforces my point. If most of the dog’s value is concentrated in one augment, then the rest of the dog talent path is comparatively inefficient, which is exactly the opportunity-cost issue I’m raising.

[ramrod_ikarus]

Imo all damage reduction talents of arbi are small value and situational, dogless and with dog, so there is not much opportunity lost.
Arbies tankiness comes from high innate stats and good replenishment options. If that does not suffice one can invest into the tanky keystone which has great synergy with the dog because the dogs stuns count towards it.
Taking execution order as keystone is where the point starvation comes from because the nodes leading to it are uninspiring and numerically weaker than those from other parts of the tree/ other classes. I love execution order on a dogless Arbie and I am point starved as well.
Lone wolf giving grenade regen is fair because the dogsplosion also regens. Giving up the free damage and cc of the dog calls for some kind of recompense hence a boost to stats is perfect. I see no issue here.
I see a big issue in the scullbreaker blessing and it’s interaction with concussive, the buff is too strong for the uptime with the skill. Note that this interaction also further boosts dog damage.

[MarxistDictator]

How does opportunity cost not apply to lone wolf, and then also not having the dog? You can send the dog at a line of bulwark shields and it opens them all up for hits while stunning the target for 5s. You can send the dog into screen-blocking and hitmass buffed mobs to disable trappers and the like with no worry. If none of these things are good to you then sure go nuts on 90s recharge shock mines (even buffed arbites grenades are dogpoop and inferior to the electric dog bomb).

This is starting to sound a lot like the ‘combat shotguns are always terrible’ crowd who put zero effort into learning what it can do and what situations it is unique in, and then just writing it off for not being the bolter. Yes, if you don’t bother to pay attention to what the dog is doing or where its located its pretty mid. The only thing I’d agree with is it would make more sense to have some kind of ‘dog garage’ tree for its buffs instead of making nodes compete with buffs for Arbites. That is the main design issue, not those nodes having low value.

[Aballaster]

That’s a bad joke. 80 seconds is acceptable 90 is too long. Arby is the class that’s been nerfed the most since the game’s launch. Yes, there were changes to be made, but it’s good now, thank you for fixing these very urgent problems. And for many people we just don’t like the dog we aren’t interested by an autoplay mode. Or work on it way more like the stim lab. You launched the way for scum make it a different way for every class zealot a faith path veteran a doctrine Ogryn a ration class I dunno you can work on the character more I think.

[Jord]

I do agree that opportunity cost applies in both directions. That is exactly why I am framing this as an efficiency discussion rather than a “dog good vs dog bad” argument. Choosing Lone Wolf is a trade. Choosing the dog is also a trade. My point is that the dog’s trade-off is heavier and more conditional than it is often presented.

The Bulwark example is a good illustration of that difference. Yes, the dog can open Bulwark shields and disable specific threats like Trappers or Flamers, and I am not disputing that utility. What I am questioning is how consistently and efficiently that utility can be delivered relative to the talent investment required. In practice, the mastiff opens one Bulwark shield at a time, and only in very specific edge cases will a second shield be affected. I re-tested this again this morning, and it does not function as a reliable “line opener.” Once you factor in travel time, leap cooldowns, positioning, and the fact that the dog can only meaningfully interact with one priority target at a time unless Remote Detonation is available, the idea of this being “free” or broadly repeatable value does not hold up. Those constraints matter when evaluating free versus situational value.

On the shock mine comparison: I am not arguing that shock mines are universally better or that the dog is inferior in all cases. The comparison is about cost structure. Shock mines ask for a single talent point and then scale with the rest of your kit. The dog asks for a much deeper and more specialized investment to reach its ceiling. That difference is the core of my opportunity-cost concern, not a dismissal of the dog’s utility.

Regarding the “combat shotgun crowd” comparison: I do not think that analogy fits here. I am not writing the dog off because it is not a bolter-equivalent or because it requires attention. I am explicitly engaging with what it does well, where it is strong, and where its value is conditional on density, micromanagement, and point allocation. Acknowledging those constraints is not the same as refusing to learn the tool.

Where I do agree with you is on the structural issue. Having dog buffs directly compete with Arbites personal power nodes is the main design tension here. That is precisely why so much of my feedback focuses on talent tax, fragmentation, and opportunity cost rather than raw power. Whether through a separate “dog garage” path or by consolidating existing nodes, the current structure makes the dog feel expensive to justify unless you fully commit to playing around it.

So to be clear: I am not saying the dog is bad or useless. I am saying it is strong in specific scenarios, expensive in talent terms, and more conditional than alternatives that provide comparable stabilization with fewer constraints. That distinction is important when discussing balance and design, not just outcomes.

For completeness, I also re-tested your Bulwark example. The results are shown in the video below with ai off and clipping:

Warhammer 40000 Darktide 2025 12 19 test bulwark

With manuel tagging:

Warhammer 40000 Darktide 2025 12 19 10 15 42 07

VS BTL:

Warhammer 40000 Darktide 2025 12 19 09 57 59 06 BTL test

And for reference, this guide documents Arbites talents and mechanics in detail:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3472722314