As Zealot I can reliably, almost 100% of the time, dodge Mutants, as long as there’s room.
But hounds ? I’ve given up on trying to dodge them. It never works consistently. I do it either too early or too late, I just can’t tell. I just try to hit or shoot their head as they charge at me to stagger them.
The crappy netcode doesn’t help.
In Darktide(this doesn’t happen in VT2 with assassins or hooks) when dealing with a special that lunges at you for its pin attack there is an immediate failure rate regardless of how well you dodge. I’ve completely dodged out of the path of both a hound and a mutant and a split second later end up in the grappled animation. It didn’t appear to me that I was lagging in any way. None of the usual signs of lag appeared to be going on in that moment but the game decides that I needed to be hit.
There is definitely a skill aspect to dodging specials and also a big chaos aspect. Until Sh**Shark goes optimizes the game it wont change.
Poxhound are not dodged. Simply switch to melee and PUSH when they jump you.