ARC Raiders Weapon Tier List: The Best Guns After the Frozen Trail Update
ARC Raiders Weapon Tier List: The Best Guns After the Frozen Trail Update
With Embark Studios’ Frozen Trail update now live, ARC Raiders’ weapon meta is worth a fresh look. This tier list ranks every craftable and lootable gun by raw PvP power — damage, ease of use, and how situational each weapon is — so you know exactly what to chase in the Workshop before your next extraction run.
S-Tier: The Meta-Defining Guns
Five weapons currently define the ARC Raiders meta: the Anvil hand cannon, Renegade battle rifle, Tempest assault rifle, Venator pistol, and Dolabra shotgun. What puts them here isn’t one stat — it’s that each is strong at its role while staying forgiving enough for inconsistent aim. The Tempest rewards full-auto spray at mid-range and is cheap enough to re-craft after a bad raid, making it the rifle most raiders should default to while they’re still unlocking rarer blueprints. The Anvil hits hardest up close and trades well against armored opponents, while Dolabra remains the pick for anyone clearing tight interiors like Buried City basements or Spaceport corridors.
A-Tier: Reliable All-Rounders
One step down, the Aphelion battle rifle, Bobcat and Canto SMGs, IL Toro and Vulcano shotguns, and the Jupiter sniper rifle all remain constantly useful without quite matching S-tier’s consistency. The Venator pistol deserves a special mention even though it’s technically S-tier on its own: pair it with any primary above as a lightweight backup, since its ammo is cheap to stockpile and it closes out fights when your main gun runs dry. The Bobcat and Canto SMGs are the best picks for raiders who prefer aggressive, close-range duels over holding a sightline, while Jupiter covers the opposite extreme for anyone willing to commit to long sightlines on open maps.
B-Tier and Below: Situational Picks
The Arpeggio and Kettle assault rifles, Equalizer, Osprey sniper, and Stitcher SMG round out B-tier — useful in the right fight, but outclassed once you have access to the weapons above. Below that, the Bettina, Burletta, Rattler, and Torrente LMG are C-tier niche picks for skilled players only, and the Hairpin pistol and Hullcracker special sit in D-tier, rarely worth crafting for PvP encounters. If you loot one of these mid-raid, it’s usually better as emergency backup than a weapon to build your whole loadout around.
Best Budget Loadout, Gear, and Where to Buy
If you’re still unlocking blueprints, a Tempest primary plus a Venator sidearm is the most cost-effective loadout in the current patch — both are cheap to re-craft at the Workshop bench, so losing a raid doesn’t set you back for long. Build the crafting bench early and prioritize scavenging ARC components over fighting ARCs directly; killing enemies for loot usually burns more ammo than it’s worth for new raiders. Always carry Shield Rechargers and Bandages alongside your ammo, since shields matter more than raw gun damage in most ARC Raiders firefights, and the Frozen Trail update’s new Outpost base and Skill Tree upgrades make it easier to keep your preferred loadout stocked between runs.
For a deeper breakdown of the win-rate data behind these rankings, see Dexerto’s ARC Raiders PvP tier list. ARC Raiders is available now on Steam. A Steam Wallet Code (US) covers the game and any cosmetic bundles, and our PC games and Steam categories have more extraction shooters worth checking out.
