Not finicky and Arch-based don't really go together well.

Just go with Bazzite or something, the exact distribution doesn't matter (as long as it's not Arch). The more important choice is the desktop environment, which is the user experience and looks of the distro. If you're moving from Windows, I assume you'll like KDE Plasma. It's basically Windows 10 but modernized, with a more aesthetic and clean look. (It's also paralyzingly hypercustomizable, so I would recommend using the default settings initially and slowly learning the settings, rather than diving into the settings headfirst the moment you install)

I personally use Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE Plasma), but it's slightly more annoying to set up than something like Bazzite

You don't want finicky but want an Arch based distro? Okie dokie.

Bazzite enjoyer here:

I mean... you are free to have your preferences and opinions and such, but... I've been running Baz on my Deck for nearly a year now, works great?

Like yeah there are some oddities from trying to use it as laptop/pc via docking in more like, dev oriented scenarios, in that you need to / really should make some kind of distrobox type env to directly fuck with dependencies or try to compile something more esoteric, due to being immutable and flatpak oriented... but its generally been awesome?

I dunno, not trying to fanboy, but maybe I could answer some questions or concerns you may have?

Bazzite for the past two days has not been as easy as everyone makes of sound, and I say this as a software engineer that works with Linux 5 days a week. Some of the UI choices are just weird and VR support with Nvidia is so horrible I may end up having to dual boot.

I hope you like Indy games cuz that's all that's on there. Not a single thing looks good to me really.

Arch is Arch-based, btw

Windows 10 EOL is a problem for future me, having just signed up for free extended support.

And I've got CachyOS in my back pocket. Initial experiments have been somewhat positive.

I use ChimeraOS on my stepson's computer. A few more thing integrated into it for other gaming and I rarely have to touch it. (Thankfully cause that place always needs cleaning)

It's not arch based but it's of the immutable variety.

I daily drive ubuntu cinnamon 24.04LTS. I rarely buy cutting edge hardware and I edit video as well. 4K 60 fps scuba diving footage for those wondering and gaming had been fine for the most part. Mainly standard fixes similar to those on steamos outside of that is been hardware related and minimal.

Try Bazzite first. It really is the best beginner Linux distro, especially for gaming.

If you decide you want more control, switch to Fedora KDE.

Bazzite and Fedora, in my experience, are the two distros that “just work” best for new users on the widest variety of hardware.

Cachy is fantastic, but I wouldn’t recommend switching to it unless you need even more control and have become very comfortable on the command line. It’s not a distro I would recommend anyone start with.

You will also see Mint recommended often, but I’ve had problems with hardware support — usually on newer builds — and I absolutely hate Cinnamon, its default desktop environment. I would honestly only look at distros that include KDE Plasma out of the box, and Mint does not.

A word of warning: Garuda is kinda cool and allows you to try lots of stuff you would normally have to set up yourself. It is great if you want to experience what Arch is like. That said, it has not exactly been a stable experience for me. You are probably better off just running EndeavourOS or plain Arch (via archinstall) in the long run.

I used Garuda, and garuda is cool, seriously the first time user experience is fancy, but it's also a lot and if you need more than basic support you're probably going to be headed over to the Arch community who is going to treat you different because you're not really fully on Arch. You're also definitely going to forcibly learn a lot picking anything arch based as your first Linux distro.

Skipping ahead, of the choices you've listed and for someone new to Linux who just wants an OS to use I'd go for Bazzite.