Arrogant by the numbers
Read the tooltip and you’d file Arrogant under “personality flaws to avoid.” Read the coefficients and you find the largest courage bonus in the entire dataset: courage +0.3, ahead of Unbreakable Will at +0.25 and double Dauntless at +0.18. The catch is what comes bundled with it: recklessness +0.15 and protectiveness −0.2.
That bundle is what separates Arrogant from the honest bravery traits. Brave, Iron-Willed, Dauntless and Unbreakable Will all pay for their courage with a threat multiplier: the hero stands firm and the enemy notices. Arrogant pays inward instead. No extra enemy attention at all, but the hero takes worse risks and scores “help a party-mate” options lower when the combat AI weighs its round. The engine’s reading of arrogance is precise: this hero is certain nothing can go wrong for them, and not especially interested in whether it goes wrong for anyone else.
The protectiveness cut, at −0.2, is deeper than Greedy’s (−0.15) and shy of Vain’s (−0.3). Unlike those two, Arrogant carries no kill hunger; it isn’t selfish about targets, just about attention.
Delve behaviour: fearless, careless
Courage is the parameter that decides whether a hero keeps functioning when a delve turns bad, and +0.3 of it is transformative in exactly those delves. Where a neutral hero falters, hangs back, or breaks formation to preserve themselves, an Arrogant one keeps executing. In fights that swing on one hero holding their nerve through the ugly middle rounds, this trait wins reports that the rest of the sheet says you should lose. On curse-heavy floors where fear-adjacent conditions chip at resolve, the oversized courage pool is worth more than any single attribute.
The bill arrives in two currencies. The recklessness rider means the certainty extends to danger the AI would normally route around: the Arrogant hero takes the exposed line, accepts the bad trade, stands in the thing. And the protectiveness cut means that while they’re gloriously not-retreating, they are also not covering. With four heroes and no more, a party-mate who never guards is a quarter of your roster opting out of half the job. The characteristic Arrogant delve report is a hero who fought superbly, took avoidable damage doing it, and let a wounded ally take a hit they were standing right next to.
Party fit for Arrogant
Arrogant wants roles where holding your nerve is the whole assignment and guarding was never on the menu. A damage dealer who must keep output flowing during collapse rounds is the natural home. A solo-flavoured skirmisher works too, since the trait is thematically and mechanically adjacent to Lone Wolf (−0.5 protectiveness, nothing else), and everything that keeps a Lone Wolf viable applies here, with a courage engine bolted on.
The anchor slot is the tempting mistake. Yes, a tank with +0.3 courage never gives ground, and that’s genuinely valuable. But anchors are also your default cover for the back line, and a −0.2 protectiveness anchor guards less than the role demands. If you run it anyway, pair it with a high-protectiveness partner such as Loyal or Team Player at +0.4 restores the party’s guarding budget from the other side. Healers and supports should never carry Arrogant; every coefficient on it points away from their job.
Keep it to one per party. Two Arrogant heroes means two people certain the plan bends around them, and a formation with nobody volunteering to cover.
Market value and oath maths
Pricing Arrogant is where most managers get it wrong, in both directions. Scared money passes on the biggest courage coefficient in the game because the trait name reads like a warning label; enthusiastic money pays bravery-trait prices without discounting the riders. The sane position is between: value it above Brave and friends for the specific roles that want it, and below them everywhere else, because Brave’s threat rider is a cost your tank might actually want while Arrogant’s protectiveness cut never helps anyone.
Ageing works in your favour. Courage is most precious on veterans: an older hero’s declining attributes make bad delves more likely, and bad delves are precisely where courage pays out. An Arrogant veteran is a hero whose most valuable coefficient matures while the rest of the sheet declines. Keep that hero, provided the role fits.
At the oath table, expect the personality to show up in the negotiation the way it shows up in the fight: this profile tends to rate itself. Model the renewal in the oath negotiator with a realistic ceiling in mind, and remember that a hero who never falters also never doubts what they’re worth.
Patch record
Nothing about Arrogant has moved between v1.9.6 and v2.1.8: courage, recklessness and protectiveness all sit where they’ve always sat. You can plan a roster around this trait without watching the patch notes for it.