Not every gun in Arc Raiders breaks down the same way, and most durability guides skip past that.
Patch 1.26.0 rewrote how weapon durability works, and Embark has only ever published exact shot-to-break numbers for eight weapons.
This guide covers those eight in full, plus an honest look at what’s known, and not known, about the rest.
Table of Contents
How Durability Works, Quick Version
Durability is a meter every weapon carries.
Firing a shot drains it. Getting knocked out in PvP drains it too, though less than it used to.
Once it hits zero, the weapon cannot fire until you repair it at the Workshop.
Since the Riven Tides Patch 1.26.0 rework, how fast that meter drops depends on rarity:
| Rarity | Per-Shot Durability Loss Change |
|---|---|
| Common | +75% |
| Uncommon | +50% |
| Rare | +35% |
| Epic | -5% |
| Legendary | -10% |
These are changes relative to pre-patch values, not the total percentage lost per shot.
Common weapons now burn through durability fast enough that a single sustained fight can wreck one. Epic and Legendary weapons barely notice the difference.
One detail that trips people up: durability doesn’t affect how a weapon performs. No accuracy loss, no jamming, no damage falloff.
It fires exactly the same at 5% as it does at 100%. The only thing that changes is whether it fires at all.
Durability By Weapon: The 8 Confirmed Guns
When Embark walked back part of the durability nerf in Patch 1.29.0, coverage of the patch documented exact before-and-after shot counts for eight weapons Embark identified as breaking too fast.
These are the only weapons in the game with an official, developer-confirmed durability figure.
| Weapon | Class | Shots to Break (Current) | Change From 1.26.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torrente | LMG | 1,113 | +25% |
| Canto | SMG | 784 | +18% |
| Bettina | Assault Rifle | 759 | +25% |
| Renegade | Battle Rifle | 269 | +54% |
| Jupiter | Sniper Rifle | 222 | +33% |
| Anvil | Hand Cannon | 188 | +25% |
| Ferro | Battle Rifle | 151 | +18% |
| Osprey | Sniper Rifle | 148 | +33% |
All figures are for tier 1 (unupgraded) weapons at their base rarity.
The Renegade got the single biggest percentage buff of the patch at +54%, well ahead of the next-largest increases of +33% for the Osprey and Jupiter.
The Torrente’s raw number looks dominant, but its low damage per shot and high fire rate mean it burns through that pool faster in real time than the table alone suggests. More on that in the fire rate section below.
Osprey owners got the short end here. Even after the buff, it’s the most fragile weapon in this table by shot count, and its slow bolt-action fire rate doesn’t make up the difference the way it does for the Ferro or Anvil.
What About the Other Weapons
This is the part most guides gloss over.
Roughly sixteen other weapons exist in Arc Raiders, including the Stitcher, Kettle, Rattler, Arpeggio, Tempest, Venator, Il Toro, Vulcano, Dolabra, Hairpin, Burletta, Rascal, Hullcracker, Equalizer, Bobcat, and Aphelion.
None of them have an officially published durability figure. Whatever number a guide gives you for these weapons is an estimate from unofficial testing, not a confirmed value.
Some limited testing exists. One post-patch testing pass put the Stitcher at roughly 10 stacks of light ammo before breaking and the Kettle at roughly 9 stacks. Take those as rough estimates rather than settled numbers.
The same testing round also produced an Anvil figure of 215 shots to break, which conflicts with Embark’s own confirmed number of 188 shown above.
When unofficial testing disagrees with a number Embark has actually published, trust the official figure, and treat that source’s other numbers with extra caution.
For every other weapon on this list, there simply isn’t reliable data to report. If a durability number for the Venator or the Il Toro shows up somewhere with total confidence and no caveats, that confidence isn’t backed by anything Embark has said.
Fire Rate vs. Durability: Real Numbers
Durability drains per shot fired, not per second, which means fire rate multiplies how fast you actually burn through a weapon’s pool during a fight.
The game’s listed fire rate stat makes the gap obvious even without converting it to real-world units.
Fully automatic weapons like the Torrente and Canto sit far higher on this stat than break-action or bolt-action weapons like the Ferro and Osprey.
A Torrente or Canto emptied into a fight spends its durability pool far faster in clock time than its raw shot count suggests, because the trigger is being pulled that much more often per second of engagement.
This is why the Torrente’s 1,113-shot pool doesn’t automatically make it the most durable weapon to actually own. Its fully automatic fire rate means those shots get spent quickly once a fight actually starts.
The Ferro and Osprey, despite smaller shot pools, stretch further across a raid because their break-action and bolt-action firing modes force a pause between shots. Fewer shots get fired per second, so the pool lasts longer in real time even though it’s smaller on paper.
Put a rough number on it: if the Torrente’s fully automatic fire rate lets you empty a fraction of its 1,113-shot pool in the time it takes to land a handful of aimed Ferro shots, the effective advantage of that larger number shrinks fast once a real firefight starts.
Shot count alone doesn’t tell you how long a weapon survives a session, only how many pulls of the trigger it can technically take.
Attachments that boost fire rate compound this further. A fire-rate mod on any of these guns increases real-time durability drain beyond what the base shot count suggests, even though the per-shot cost itself doesn’t change.
If you’re stacking a rate-of-fire mod on a Canto or Torrente for extra DPS, budget for more frequent repair trips than the raw numbers imply.
Repair cost scales with this too. Higher-rarity and higher-shot-pool weapons generally cost more materials per repair, but because you’re visiting the Workshop less often with something like the Torrente or Bettina, the total material spend per raiding session tends to come out lower than repeatedly patching up a Common weapon that breaks every other encounter.
The exception is exactly the scenario above: a high fire rate weapon run hard in sustained PvP can burn through its advantage faster than the shot count alone would suggest.
The Upgrade-Repair Trick
Upgrading a weapon at the Workshop restores 25% of its maximum durability automatically, on top of whatever stat improvements the upgrade grants.
This restoration is always calculated from max durability, not current durability, which means a weapon at 10% gets the exact same amount back as one sitting at 90%.
The practical result: always upgrade before repairing if you’re planning to do both. Repairing first wastes materials on durability the upgrade would have restored for free.
Found a badly damaged Epic or Legendary weapon in the field? Bring it back and run it through available upgrade levels before touching the repair bench.
Two or three upgrade steps can bring a heavily worn weapon back to a usable state without spending a single repair material.
Budget vs. Premium Durability Loadouts
Rather than generic advice to “match your gear to the zone,” here’s what that actually looks like using the confirmed weapons above.
Budget loadout (easy zones, quick extracts): A Ferro or Anvil at tier 1 is genuinely fine here. Their shot pools are the smallest of the confirmed eight, but easy zones don’t demand many shots fired, and low repair costs mean losing one isn’t a real setback.
Premium loadout (hard zones, boss fights): Torrente or Bettina, upgraded, hold up through sustained engagements far better than anything in the budget tier. Repair before pushing into a fight with the ARC Turbine or Queen specifically. A weapon breaking mid-fight against either of those can end the run outright.
Middle ground: The Renegade’s Patch 1.29.0 buff makes it a legitimately strong pick for players who don’t want to commit to a full Epic or Legendary loadout but need more staying power than the Common tier offers. Its lever-action fire rate also keeps real-time durability drain lower than a fully automatic weapon with a similar shot count would have.
One planning habit worth building regardless of loadout: check a weapon’s durability before committing to a contested zone, not after.
A Common or Uncommon weapon that looked fine at the extraction menu can already be sitting under 50% by the time you’re deep in a fight, especially if it’s one of the eight confirmed weapons above with a smaller shot pool.
Knowing which of your guns falls into that lower tier means you can plan a repair stop or a weapon swap before durability becomes the reason a raid ends early, rather than finding out mid-fight.
Key Takeaways
- Only eight weapons have official Embark-confirmed durability numbers: Ferro, Anvil, Canto, Osprey, Renegade, Torrente, Bettina, and Jupiter.
- Torrente has the largest confirmed shot pool at 1,113, but its high fire rate burns through that pool faster in real time than the number alone suggests.
- Renegade received the biggest percentage buff in Patch 1.29.0, going from 175 to 269 shots.
- Durability loss scales by rarity since Patch 1.26.0: Common weapons lose 75% more per shot, Legendary weapons lose 10% less.
- Unofficial durability testing for other weapons exists but is inconsistent, and in at least one case directly contradicts Embark’s own published numbers.
- Always upgrade a weapon before repairing it. The 25% durability restoration from upgrading is calculated from max durability regardless of current state.
- Fire rate compounds real-time durability loss even when the per-shot cost stays the same.
FAQ
What is weapon durability in Arc Raiders?
Weapon durability is a meter that drops every time you fire a shot or get knocked out in PvP. It has nothing to do with damage or accuracy.
A weapon performs identically at 90% and at 5% durability. Once it hits zero, it stops firing entirely until repaired at the Workshop.
How much durability does a weapon lose per shot, by rarity?
Since Patch 1.26.0, per-shot durability loss scales by rarity. Common weapons lose 75% more durability per shot than they did before the patch, Uncommon lose 50% more, and Rare lose 35% more.
Epic weapons lose 5% less and Legendary weapons lose 10% less.
Which weapons have official durability numbers from Embark?
Only eight. When Embark partially reversed the durability nerf in Patch 1.29.0, it published exact before-and-after shot counts for the Ferro, Anvil, Canto, Osprey, Renegade, Torrente, Bettina, and Jupiter.
No other weapon has an officially confirmed shot-to-break figure.
Which weapon has the best durability to repair cost ratio among confirmed weapons?
Torrente, by a wide margin, with 1,113 shots to break at tier 1.
Renegade is the best pick among weapons that were previously considered fragile, after jumping from 175 to 269 shots in Patch 1.29.0.
Should I repair a weapon before or after upgrading it?
Upgrade first. The 25% durability restoration from upgrading is calculated from max durability, not current durability, so a weapon at 10% gets the same free restoration as one at 90%.
Repair only what the upgrade doesn’t cover.
Do high fire rate weapons burn durability faster in real time?
Yes, even at an identical per-shot cost. Durability drains per shot, not per second, so a weapon that fires several times faster than another burns through its durability pool proportionally faster in real time.
Fully automatic weapons drain fastest in clock time; break-action and bolt-action weapons last longer per magazine emptied.
Why don’t all Arc Raiders weapons have published durability numbers?
Embark has only released numbers for the eight weapons it specifically rebalanced in Patch 1.29.0. For every other weapon, durability values exist in the game’s code but haven’t been shared publicly.
What happens when a weapon’s durability hits zero?
It stops functioning immediately. You cannot fire it again until you repair it at the Workshop in Speranza using crafting materials.
Do floor loot weapons spawn with lower durability now?
Yes. Since Patch 1.26.0, weapons found on map outskirts can spawn as low as 15 durability, while weapons in central areas and locked rooms spawn around 60.
Is community-tested durability data reliable?
It varies. One widely cited round of post-patch testing put the Anvil at 215 shots to break, which conflicts with Embark’s own published figure of 188.
Treat any unofficial number as an estimate, especially for weapons Embark hasn’t commented on directly.
Does getting knocked out in PvP damage weapon durability?
Yes. Patch 1.26.0 cut this penalty from 30% to 15%, specifically to make aggressive PvP less punishing on your gear.
