I don’t understand your logic.
You started with “Arbites being OP” and ended up with “yeah, others do better DPS, but he got tools too”.
So the only thing Arbites is being OP-guilty for is staying alive?
Or are we just arguing for the sake of arguing?! 
I would replace the shotgun with the Arbiter’s exclusive one. Outside of that, the build is solid.
If he still struggles with that setup, he could reallocate the point from Forceful into Execution Order → Malocator → Efficient Killer → Keeping Protocol. ( for Boss dps and abilty spam )
It depends on the person, right. If you’re actually a good shot, it’s better for sniping for the clutch. He doesn’t struggle with this set-up, because he stagger locks everything with it & mines whatever comes in his path, lol. Don’t worry, your pretty little head, I’ve thought it through. It’s literally 90% light spamming. You could replace Flak for Unyeilding on the Maul, but I feel he does enough damage anyways with this, plus you’ll be missing too many break-points without Flak. The reason why this path is for stagger & the strength synergy between the nodes & blessing.
If you prefer that setup, that’s fine. The point was simply to offer an alternative for someone who said they were struggling.
I do point this out in my description section.
Is this build: https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a08cd3da-e482-4aa0-9042-d65f47f68f60/axe-and-shotgun (with the axe blessings: Brutal Momentum and Headtaker) suitable for Auric Maelstrom I–II, I–II–V–E–G, A–I–II, J–I–II–IV—in general, for all monster-heavy missions? Should I fix this wonky build or tryhard with it?
Hans, bring ze coffee out. Nein! Ze large one….
The best way to play Arbites against bosses, if you’re not comfortable with melee, is to send the dog after the boss, use dog explosion blitz to interrupt their grabs when they focus you, and shoot the boss from afar.
Arbites is in a way a discount Vet, meaning with weapons like Shotgun, Bolter, Bolt Pistol and even Autoguns they can deal good damage to bosses, especially with Execution’s Order bonuses.
The safest melee weapon to fight against Bosses is the Arby’s shield which lets you swap into block between attacks (push attack into two lights does the trick). There’s a tech with Arbites shield where you press the button to block constantly (spam it to “fan” the shield) to reduce stamina usage by forcing perfect blocks.
You can also spec Arbites Maul strictly into boss damage by getting both Thunderous (brittleness helps a lot against bosses) and any of the power perks. You spam heavy into light for constant overheads, while dodging boss attacks.
arbi outside of havoc is pretty much op with the forgiving playstyle and tools it offers.
there, worded better? 
the topic at hand is him being bad at killing bosses and outside the meta-set and optimized environment that is havoc 40 and its participants, no he doesn’t struggle and has it pretty easy facerolling through up until auric maelstrom.
so one dude knowing his stuff has no problem dominating a match against randos (and we both know the wide array of “performance” that comes along with it)
putting this experience against a premade havoc isnt just a different ball game, its a universe in between
The build you use it nothing wrong with, just some min-maxing, and less easy to play than the one linked below.
Brad posted a good build just above, ill qoute it:
For most axes, and to a lesser extent some other weapons, it’s important to understand the attack patterns. The shock maul is a lot more forgiving in that regard and is where I would start. When you’re doing better, you can always try out other weapons whenever it feels comfortable for you. I like the arbiter exlusive shotgun more, but try them both out with said build and see which one you like the most.
Your build is very flawed if you want to be good against bosses.
No unyielding perks on both weapons. Execution blessing on the shotgun sucks against bosses, because bosses get staggered rarely. The best damage blessing is the one that gives 50% power on repeat weakspot hits, but requires the headshots. You’re also using the incorrect shotgun mark (if you want to kill bosses faster), this shotgun mark is better VS crowds, the other one has a much higher DPS at any range because of less spread.
Also if you want to be good against bosses, you should get Soulguilt Scan and Zealous Deadication. These two talents bring way more boss damage than any of the melee perks from the Forcefull part of the tree which also require specific conditions to activate (stagger, heavy etc). Arbites lacks crit compared to Psyker and Zealot, and a lot of good boss damage comes exactly from crits activating often on the weakspots.
Adamant Will and Target Aquired are trash talents with awful uptime. Don’t bother using them. Not using Arbites Vigilant is also better for survivability, since you’ll remain at 10 stacks of Forceful for longer. Targeted Brutality is a bad talent, a waste of a talent point. Arbites charge already has the lowest cooldown amongst his abilities, what’s the point in reducing it even further? Are you spamming the charge off cooldown right away? If not, you should remove it and get some other damage talents.
I would say that any match with premades/randoms is a huge difference, yet I never had a premade group in Havoc (always randoms).
And being “OP” outside of the only endgame we got [Havoc], but not there - feels like hypocrisy.
If it’s more forgiving for less skilled players, but does not overperform other classes in skilled hands - how can it be OP?!
So, I do want to mention something about ‘Execution Order’ & ‘Forceful’ just to clarify. Technically, that is correct that ‘Execution Order’ can pump out a bit more damage at the end of the day, but after testing both variants, honestly… It’s not much more damage on the Scoreboard after my testing in 40’s. I say that because with ‘Forceful’ I find it more of value in my eyes. The reason why is because if you’re constantly stagger locking everything, they don’t have much of a chance to fight back at all to even damage you. Survival-wise, it makes you into an unkillable monster, just about is the reasoning behind it. But yeah, of course this post is obviously about monstrosity damage… So, of course, take ‘Execution Order’ with ‘Unyeilding’ on weapons. My set-up is more of the best of all worlds, kind of build, rather than a tunnel vision of monstrosity damage. Just to clarify.
I’ve tried the Shock Maul! Both tests and actual gameplay, more than once, have shown me that the axe is more effective. Much more effective, in fact, when it comes to weak melee fighters: groaners, poxwalkers, bruisers. Using the Shock Maul, I get completely overwhelmed by them. But when using the axe: they don’t even accumulate around me in large numbers.
This applies to Crushers as well, though to a lesser extent. If I try in the Psykhanium to first hit a Crusher with a light headshot, then a special attack to the head, followed by heavy headshots—it turns out slower than just using simple heavy headshots with the axe, and along the same trajectories (unlike the Shock Maul). The maul is only faster with the heavy attack mod while holding the special attack button simultaneously. But that’s not something I can reliably pull off in real matches.
I’ve tried that shotgun too. It seems to fire slower than the standard one, has less spread, but no more damage. As a result, per shot it deals less damage to groups of enemies than the standard one, and I somewhat doubt it deals more to monsters
Zealot or Arbites. Heavy Bolter + unyielding perk = 3x Reloads. 2 reloads with red stim. Then easy melee finish. Can solo it with this gun.
Don’t need to be in kissing distance. Know the reach of your weapon. Relic is 5 steps, smaller weapons is 3 steps. Use buff icons to gauge distance from enemies relative to their feet. That’s advantage of relic, the weapon reach is long enough you can backpedal instead of dodge.
Chaos Spawn/Plague Ogryn. Block, follow up. So watch for their single and combo attack pattern, soon as they throw their last hit, follow up and repeat. Nurgle only until it aggros someone else to turn it’s back, don’t go head on.
Don’t corner yourself. Find an area to allow you to continuously loop kite in terms of stairs, ledges to go up then drop to force it to go around or slow it down.
Box/Pillars. Free shield. Your weapon can clip through, so can play ring o roses around it to keep obstacle in front of you.
Or find a door to close onto monstrosity for instant kill unless that has been patched out
Don’t be too concerned to take it backwards in the map to get it stuck in pathing, so then you can zig zig through doorways back to rescue, not straight path. This is where 3x revive curios + class revive node, 2 secs rescue. I rescued 2 players whilst being chased. Tanked then let them rescue 4th player.
the only “hypocrisy” i’d see was calling havoc the “only endgame” when it artificially bloats stuff up by switching numbers and forcing people into a more or less fixed setup.
personally I’d rather see auric maelstrom solo runs as “endgame” cause it revolves truly around the personal input of a player rather than what your mates are obligated to contribute, plus on a more free approach base when it comes to classes/talents/loadouts, but thats yet a nut for me to crack.
I don’t take pride or feel achieved when a whole team is mandatory to get a match through, I rather enjoy singular over the top performances where one dude outshines em all by superior skills
different strokes then
like I wrote, you take one “good dude” in a random match and he goes off like chuck norris on speed without regards to taking damage or heading into unfavorable encounters (dog as disabler being nullified for example, so only trapper remains as a show stopper)
that in itself is the example of players being able to play above their pay grade thanks to the abilities not them, but the class brings with it.
take the same guys on scum and they complain of him being “weak” in comparison.
lets continue to disagree
it suits more “easy to learn, hard to master”, and yet “mastered” arbites is nowhere near OP 
I believe you, but I can assure you the shock maul outperforms the axe. There can be more than one reason why it felt different to you. It could be the build, the blessings and perks on the weapon, how you handle hordes, whether you use light attacks, whether you aim for the head, what difficulty you play on, and so on. If you use this setup, it performs better on Auric difficulty, and you’ll have shock mines as well so you won’t be overwhelmed as quickly.
As for the shotgun, you’re right. Brad and I talked a bit about it. He prefers the Agripinaa and I prefer the one you like. Like he said, the Agripinaa is better for sniping. ( think bombers etc ) You can choose whichever you prefer, but for the Exterminator Mk III you should use Deathspitter and Execution as blessings.
If you like your current setup more, then of course you can keep using it, but this is the general advice to follow if you want a better overall experience.
Sidenote: Just to be sure, are all the weapons you’re using leveled to 500?
Yes.
I’ll need to muster the strength to record two gameplay videos: one with the axe and one with the maul. The difference in the number of weak melee units accumulating around me will be plain to the naked eye
You need to get good at both dodging the chaos spawn grab, which honestly I suck at and only manage about 50% of the time but thats on me 
…
…and dodging the Beast of Nurgles puke, which is actually quite easy most of the time. He can only eat you while under the effects of his puke after being puked on, otherwise he wont eat you at all ever.
Have you ever looked on youtube for how people build Arbi to kill bosses? Watching other good players is a great way to learn and copy until you get comfortable with your own playstyle.
Every single class has monster killing ability, its just a case of finding ones that you like. For me:
Ogryn: Gungryn with ranged talents and the fastest twin linked stubber.
Psyker: Brainburst with kinetic resonance and venting shriek
Vet: Krak
Zealot: Thammer
Arbi: I dont actually have a comfortable boss build because Iv never tried, so I just wail on them and dodge like a semi-pro 
