ARC Raiders Weapons Stats Guide: Every Gun, Ranked (2026)

Fan trackers rarely agree with each other on ARC Raiders weapon numbers, and most of them haven’t been touched since the spring patches.

That makes picking a loadout harder than it needs to be.

We pulled every weapon’s stats into one table, cross-checked the numbers against the official patch history, and dated the whole thing to Live Update 1.39.0 so you know exactly how current it is.

Table of Contents

• Full ARC Raiders Weapon Stats Table
• Weapon Classes Explained
• Ammo Types and Armor Penetration
• Upgrade Tiers and Crafting
• TTK vs. Shield Tier
• Weapon Balance History
• [Ammo Economy: What You Can Actually Afford to Run]> (#ammo-economy-what-you-can-actually-afford-to-run)
• Best Weapons Against Specific ARC Enemies
• Key Takeaways
• FAQ

Full ARC Raiders Weapon Stats Table

A note on how we built this: two of the biggest ARC Raiders fan trackers report different fire-rate and DPS figures for at least one weapon in this list (the Anvil, specifically).

We built this table from the most internally consistent dataset available and cross-referenced weapon mechanics against the ARC Raiders Wiki, but we’d rather tell you that than pretend every number here is beyond dispute.

If a number looks off to you in testing, that’s worth reporting, not ignoring.

Weapon Classes Explained

ARC Raiders splits its arsenal into nine classes, and each one has a clear identity once you’ve used it a few times.

Pistols are backup weapons first, but the Anvil and Venator both hit hard enough to run as a primary in the right hands.

Assault Rifles cover the widest range of playstyles, from the budget-friendly Kettle to the heavy-hitting Bettina.

SMGs live and die by close-quarters TTK and mobility.

Battle Rifles trade fire rate for range and per-shot damage, making them strong at mid-to-long engagements.

Shotguns dominate room-clearing and close-range duels but fall off hard past 20-25 meters.

Sniper Rifles reward patience and precision at the cost of a small magazine.

LMGs exist for one job: sustained fire against groups of ARC enemies.

Launchers are the outlier class, designed specifically to detonate on ARC machines rather than players.

Special weapons are the odd ones out, mechanically unique guns that don’t fit cleanly into another category.

Ammo Types and Armor Penetration

Ammo type determines how a weapon performs against ARC armor as much as, or more than, raw damage does.

Light Ammo weapons like the Stitcher and Bobcat melt unarmored players but barely scratch ARC plating.

Heavy and Energy Ammo weapons are the opposite trade: slower to acquire and craft, but built to punch through armor.

If your raid plan is ARC-heavy, a Light-Ammo loadout is going to waste a lot of magazines.

Upgrade Tiers and Crafting

Every weapon in ARC Raiders (with a small number of exceptions, like the Aphelion and Dolabra) can be upgraded through four tiers, marked I through IV in the weapon’s name.

Each tier boosts damage, handling, or magazine size depending on the weapon, and each one costs more materials than the last.

Common upgrade materials include Metal Parts, Rubber Parts, Plastic Parts, and Gun Parts in increasing complexity (Simple through Complex), along with Steel Springs, Wires, Magnetic Accelerators, and Oil.

The rarest upgrades ask for specialty drops like Queen Reactors and Exodus Modules, which only come from high-risk encounters.

Weapons enter your loadout three ways: looted from caches and secret rooms, bought from a Trader, or crafted at the Gunsmith workbench once you’ve found the blueprint.

Crafting is generally the most reliable path for higher-rarity weapons, since loot drops are random and blueprint-gated crafting isn’t.

TTK vs. Shield Tier

Raw damage numbers only tell half the story in PvP, because every shield tier absorbs a different percentage of incoming damage.

These charge and deflection values come from community testing, not an official Embark-published spec, so treat them as a working model until they’re cross-checked in-game.

Deflection eats a percentage of each hit before it lands, so a weapon that drops a Light-shield opponent almost instantly can take noticeably longer against a Heavy shield.

Community-tested time-to-kill figures against Heavy shields put fast-firing weapons like the Vulcano and Bettina near the top of the PvP pack.

Slower, high-damage single-shot weapons like the Anvil and Renegade trade that speed for one-hit stopping power instead, landing further down the TTK ranking even though they’re still considered top-tier picks.

Because deflection scales down as shield tier drops, every weapon’s TTK against Light and Medium shields is faster than its Heavy-shield number, though the exact per-weapon figures need in-game verification before we publish them as hard numbers rather than estimates.

There’s also a distinction worth understanding: cyclic DPS is raw fire-rate times damage, assuming infinite ammo and no reloads.

Effective DPS factors in magazine size and reload time, which is the number that actually matters in a real fight.

A weapon with blistering cyclic DPS and a tiny magazine can lose a sustained fight to a slower gun that just keeps firing.

Weapon Balance History

Weapon balance in ARC Raiders moves in bursts, usually tied to a major content patch rather than every weekly update.

Here’s the confirmed history, most recent first.

The 1.26.0 and 1.17.0 entries are confirmed directly against Embark’s official patch notes.

The 1.29.0, 1.22.0, and 1.20.0 entries are drawn from secondary trackers summarizing the official notes and should be checked against the source patch pages before you treat them as gospel.

Ammo Economy: What You Can Actually Afford to Run

The highest-DPS weapon on paper isn’t always the one you can sustain in practice.

Light and Medium Ammo are generally the easiest to keep stocked through looting and crafting, which is part of why budget picks like the Ferro (Heavy Ammo, but cheap to craft outright) and Stitcher stay viable well into the mid-game despite lower raw damage.

Heavy, Energy, and Launcher Ammo are scarcer and more resource-intensive, which matters more the longer your raid runs.

Exact Trader prices shift with updates, so treat this as a directional framework rather than fixed numbers, and check current Trader stock before you commit to a Heavy or Energy-Ammo loadout for a specific raid.

Best Weapons Against Specific ARC Enemies

• Queen and Matriarch: High armor-penetration weapons that can sustain damage over a long fight. Hullcracker and a buffed Bettina are both commonly used here.
• Bastion and Bombardier: Weak-point targeting matters more than raw damage. The Jupiter’s magnification buff makes it a strong pick for hitting exposed weak points at range.
• ARC Turbine: A flying, defensively-equipped ARC that punishes players who engage at close range. Heavy or Energy Ammo weapons with real range, like the Osprey or Aphelion, hold up better than close-quarters guns here.

Launchers deserve a specific callout: the Hullcracker and Rascal don’t detonate on players at all, which makes them useless in PvP but purpose-built for exactly these encounters.

Key Takeaways

• ARC Raiders currently has roughly two dozen weapons across nine classes, and the full stats table above reflects the game state as of Live Update 1.39.0.
• Ammo type determines armor penetration as much as raw damage does. Match your ammo type to whether you’re fighting players, ARC machines, or both.
• Shield deflection means TTK against a Heavy shield is always slower than against Light or Medium, even with identical weapon stats.
• Effective DPS (accounting for reload and magazine size) matters more than cyclic DPS for real fights.
• The Bettina’s 1.26.0 buff and the 1.17.0 Kettle/Venator/Stitcher nerfs stand out as two of the largest balance shifts in the confirmed patch history so far.
• Check official patch notes directly before trusting any single tracker’s exact numbers, including this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many weapons are in ARC Raiders?

ARC Raiders currently has roughly two dozen weapons spread across nine classes: Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, SMG, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, LMG, Pistol, Launcher, and Special.

New weapons have been added with major content patches, like the Canto and Dolabra in the Flashpoint update, so this number grows over time.

What is the strongest weapon in ARC Raiders?

There’s no single “strongest” weapon since performance depends on range, ammo economy, and whether you’re fighting players or ARC machines.

The Anvil, Bettina, Renegade, Vulcano, and Dolabra are consistently ranked among the top performers across both PvP and PvE.

What ammo type is best against ARC enemies?

Energy and Heavy Ammo generally offer the strongest armor penetration against ARC machines.

Light Ammo weapons are effective against unarmored players but underperform badly against ARC armor.

How do I upgrade a weapon in ARC Raiders?

Build a Gunsmith workbench, then use crafting materials like Metal Parts, Gun Parts, and Steel Springs to push a weapon from Tier I through Tier IV.

Higher tiers require rarer materials, including specialty drops like Queen Reactors for top-end upgrades.

What’s the difference between cyclic DPS and effective DPS?

Cyclic DPS is raw fire rate multiplied by damage, assuming unlimited ammo and no reloads.

Effective DPS factors in magazine size and reload time, which better reflects how a weapon performs in an actual sustained fight.

Was the Bettina nerfed or buffed?

The Bettina was significantly buffed in the 1.26.0 Riven Tides patch: base damage rose from 14 to 16, and damage against ARC armor increased by 33%.

A minor fire-rate adjustment followed in 1.29.0, but the weapon remains stronger overall than before Riven Tides.

What’s the best budget weapon in ARC Raiders?

The Ferro is the standard budget pick.

It’s craftable from cheap, common materials yet offers armor penetration comparable to weapons that cost far more to acquire.

Do weapon stats change between PvP and PvE?

Base weapon stats stay the same across both modes.

What changes is effectiveness, since ARC armor penetration and shield deflection mechanics only come into play in their respective contexts, so a weapon’s PvP tier and PvE tier can differ significantly.

What shield tiers exist and how do they affect TTK?

There are three shield tiers: Light, Medium, and Heavy, each absorbing a different percentage of incoming damage through deflection.

A Heavy shield absorbs roughly half of each hit’s damage, which means TTK against Heavy shields is meaningfully slower than against Light or Medium.

Which weapon is best against the Queen?

High sustained-damage, high-armor-penetration weapons perform best against the Queen and Matriarch.

The Hullcracker and an upgraded Bettina are both common picks for this fight.

How often does Embark patch weapon balance?

Weapon balance changes tend to arrive with major content patches rather than every routine update.

Recent examples include the 1.26.0 Riven Tides update and the 1.17.0 Shrouded Sky update, while several patches between those saw no direct weapon stat changes at all.