Weapon balance in ARC Raiders requires solving two completely different damage formulas: high-velocity penetration to crack the heavy alloy plating of ARC machines, and rapid burst damage to defeat energy-shielded human raiders. Equipping weapons that excel at only one domain leaves your squad helpless during contested extractions.
Key Takeaways
- Armor Penetration vs Flesh TTK: Kinetic heavy rifles shred machine joints but suffer from high hipfire spread against agile enemy players.
- Ammo Inventory Economy: Medium caliber rounds offer the highest damage-to-slot ratio for prolonged subterranean looting runs.
- Gadget Synergy: Grapple hooks and jump pads are mandatory equipment for reaching high-ground vantages above heavy walker mortar barrages.
Weapon Class Meta Tier List
| Tier | Weapon Name | Ammo Type | Primary Strength | Recommended Muzzle Attachment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S-Tier | Ferro AR-4 | Medium Rifle | Flawless recoil control, high DPS vs raiders & drones | Compensated Flash Hider |
| S-Tier | Rancor Heavy Sniper | Heavy AP | One-shot kill on Snitch drones, cracks walker joints | Heavy Suppressor |
| A-Tier | Torino Submachine Gun | Light Pistol | Devastating close-quarters DPS inside elevator rooms | Extended Mag III |
| A-Tier | Vulcan Combat Shotgun | Shotgun Shells | Instant neutralization of Tick explosive swarms | Choke Tightener |
| B-Tier | Scrapper Pistol | Light Pistol | Ultra-low craft cost, silent drone headshots | Tactical Silencer |
Raider Kit Blueprint: The High-Yield Scavenger
- Primary Weapon: Ferro AR-4 with Extended Mag II, Holographic Sight, and Recoil Stock.
- Secondary Weapon: Rancor Heavy Sniper for long-range surveillance and one-shotting aerial drones.
- Tactical Gadgets:
- Zip-Line Deployer: Grants rapid rooftop traversal across Calabrian village ruins.
- EMP Disruptor Grenades: Freezes machine squads for 5 seconds, opening vulnerable joint cores for primary weapon focus fire.
- Shield Recharger Siphon: Quickly regenerates body armor without consuming medkit bandages.
Modding Optimization Tips
Always prioritize magazine capacity upgrades over reload speed perks. Reloading behind cover is manageable, but exhausting a magazine mid-spray against an aggressive Leaper will result in fatal counter-punishment.
How Attachment Slots and Tiers Work
The tier list above tells you which guns to chase; the attachment system decides what you do once you own one. Mods in ARC Raiders are crafted at the Gunsmith in your Workshop, scavenged Topside, or bought from Tian Wen, and they slot into a weapon’s dedicated attachment points rather than replacing its permanent upgrade track. The wiki lists the slot families as muzzle, underbarrel, stock, light, medium and heavy magazine, and a weapon-specific tech mod, and notes that “Different Weapons have different slots available for mod types” - so a shotgun’s muzzle point and a rifle’s muzzle point do not accept the same parts. Mods also differ from the permanent I to IV upgrades in one useful way: they can be added and removed freely.
The three-tier ladder. Every mod family climbs a three-step ladder, but the station requirement is not a fixed tier-to-level rule: Silencer I, for example, is a Gunsmith 2 craft, while Silencer III needs no station at all. A higher tier is not automatically better. Tier III parts carry a drawback: the third-tier angled and vertical grips slow aim-down-sights, Compensator III, Muzzle Brake III and Silencer III raise a weapon’s durability burn rate, Stable Stock III lengthens equip and unequip time, and the Lightweight Stock trades heavy recoil penalties for a far faster ADS. Extended magazines follow the same I to III ladder by ammo class, from +5, +4 and +2 rounds at Tier I up to +15, +12 and +6 at Tier III.
What 1.17.0 changed. Embark’s Shrouded Sky patch (1.17.0, 24 February 2026) rebalanced five weapons, and the dev notes explain the intent: the team wanted to address feedback that “some low tier weapons outperform our higher tier weapons at significantly reduced cost”. The official changes are:
| Weapon | Official 1.17.0 change |
|---|---|
| Stitcher | Headshot multiplier 2.5 -> 1.75; base damage 7 -> 6.5; per-shot dispersion up ~50% |
| Kettle | Base damage 10 -> 8.5 |
| Venator | Headshot multiplier 2.5 -> 2; base damage 9 -> 8 |
| Jupiter | ADS magnification ~1.9x -> ~2.2x; equip 1.2s -> 1.05s; unequip 0.9s -> 0.75s |
| Aphelion | Reload 4.5s -> 3.5s; time between shots 0.9s -> 0.7s; vertical recoil down ~50%; ADS settle speed up ~35% |
The same patch made Energy Clip available “by default in the Workbench”, widening the pool of weapons a fresh Raider can mod.
What it means for a loadout. The Stitcher and Kettle lost body-shot damage and the Stitcher blooms faster, so a dispersion muzzle and a recoil grip carry more of those fights than they did before, and the Venator’s lower headshot multiplier rewards the same centre-mass discipline. Jupiter and Aphelion gained handling across ADS magnification, equip and reload times. Noise is the other half of the decision. Steam’s store page warns that “the noise of battle carries. Other Raiders may be listening; eager to claim what you leave behind”, which is the argument for spending a muzzle slot on noise reduction instead of recoil. Silencer I is a Gunsmith 2 craft, so stealth is available long before the Tier III parts. Official 1.36.0 notes also confirm that a dropped weapon now displays “their installed mods”, so the gun you lose tells the next Raider exactly how it was built.