ARC Raiders Weapon Tier List — Update 1.39.0
Live version is Update 1.39.0, dated 28 July 2026, following 1.36.0 on 7 July which brought the Fourth Expedition, Trials Season 5 and solo, duo and trio matchmaking.
Here is the thing most weapon tier lists published this month get wrong: the guns have not been rebalanced. Neither 1.36.0 nor 1.39.0 changed a single gun statistic — 1.39.0 fixed Seeker and Wolfpack grenade damage consistency, and 1.36.0 made mods visible on dropped weapons and buffed ARC Turbine loot. July's patches were matchmaking, quality of life and economy. The last change that genuinely moved the gun meta was the Bettina buff in 1.26.0 on 28 April 2026. So if you read that some gun was buffed into the meta last week, that did not happen.
The second thing worth internalising: rarity is not tier. The best-value weapon in the game is an Uncommon (Anvil). One of the worst is a Legendary (Aphelion). Several Legendaries cannot be upgraded at all, which is precisely why cheaper guns overtake them. Chasing colour is how people waste an expedition's worth of materials.
Bands below come from two dated tier lists — Beebom (1 July 2026) and ArcRaiderMap (July 2026, post-1.36) — with both shown wherever they split.
All 24 Weapons Ranked
Twenty-four weapons. Filter by class with the chips; the Rarity column is there to show you how little it predicts.
| Tier | Weapon | Rarity | Class | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Anvil | Uncommon | Battle rifle | The best value gun in the game. Enormous single-shot damage and strong armour penetration, and upgrades take it well past its rarity. Both tier lists agree on S. The blueprint is the hard part, not the rarity. |
| S | Renegade | Rare | Battle rifle | Lever-action, long range, and a big headshot multiplier once upgraded. Consensus S, and it makes most snipers redundant. |
| S | Dolabra | Legendary | Shotgun | Energy shotgun with two firing modes — hipfire spread and an ADS beam. Meta since the Flashpoint era. Cannot be upgraded, which matters less than it sounds. |
| S / A | Bettina | Epic | Assault rifle | Split: ArcRaiderMap promotes it to S on the strength of the 1.26 buff — damage 14 to 16, roughly a third more armour damage against ARC, about 40% tighter dispersion, fire rate down from 285 to 235. Beebom still had it at A on 1 July. |
| S / A | Tempest | Epic | Assault rifle | Split: Beebom calls it the best assault rifle outright; ArcRaiderMap has it at A after the Flashpoint buffs landed elsewhere. Full-auto, medium ammo. |
| S / A | Vulcano | Epic | Shotgun | Split: ArcRaiderMap S, Beebom A on range falloff and weakness against ARC. Semi-auto burst damage. |
| A | Bobcat | Epic | SMG | The best SMG for fighting players — fire rate and magazine size. Poor armour penetration against ARC keeps it out of the top band. |
| A | Canto | Rare | SMG | Medium ammo, so it sustains across a raid better than the Bobcat does. Both lists agree at A. |
| A / B | Stitcher | Common | SMG | The free-loadout SMG and craftable from nothing. Still usable after its nerfs, which makes it the right answer while you are broke. |
| A / B | Ferro | Common | Battle rifle | The budget king. Genuinely strong armour penetration for a trivial crafting cost — the single best gun-per-material in the game. |
| A / B | Jupiter | Legendary | Sniper | Energy railgun with a high headshot multiplier, leaning heavily toward PvE. Cannot be upgraded. |
| A | Hullcracker | Epic | Launcher | The best anti-ARC launcher there is. Beebom rates it A; ArcRaiderMap drops it to C on blended lists because the projectile bounce makes it unreliable against players. Both are describing the same gun honestly. |
| A | Equalizer | Legendary | Special | A very strong armour-penetrating beam for ARC, weak against players, and not upgradable. Same PvE-versus-PvP split as the Hullcracker. |
| A | Rascal | Rare | Sidearm | A budget Hullcracker for ARC clearing. Beebom rates it A; it is not on ArcRaiderMap's main grid, so treat this as one source only. |
| S / B | Venator | Rare | Pistol | The widest split on the page: ArcRaiderMap rates it S for PvP on the dual projectile and headshot multiplier; Beebom has it at B after the nerfs the wiki records — headshot multiplier cut from 2.5 to 2 in 1.17 along with a damage reduction. Given the nerfs are documented, the lower band is the safer read. |
| B | Il Toro | Uncommon | Shotgun | A pump shotgun that used to be S tier and has been heavily nerfed since. Guides still calling it top tier are old. |
| B | Torrente | Rare | LMG | The only light machine gun. Its job is clearing ARC and laying down support fire. |
| B | Burletta | Uncommon | Pistol | Consistent light pistol, poor armour penetration. |
| B / C | Arpeggio | Uncommon | Assault rifle | Three-round burst. A niche accuracy pick rather than a main. |
| B / C | Kettle | Common | Assault rifle | Once a strong budget AR, since nerfed on fire rate and damage. |
| B / C | Osprey | Rare | Sniper | The longest conventional sniper range in the game, and outclassed by the Renegade for nearly everything you actually do. |
| C | Rattler | Common | Assault rifle | Small magazine and an awkward reload. Underperforms even for its cost. |
| C | Aphelion | Legendary | Battle rifle | A Legendary at C tier. Energy two-round burst, outclassed on value, and like several non-upgradable Legendaries it simply sits below cheaper guns. |
| D | Hairpin | Common | Pistol | Silenced, and that is the whole pitch. Low damage and very weak armour penetration. |
ARC Raiders blueprints →Anvil, Bettina, Dolabra — all gated behind cache luck or Gunsmith 3 plus Exodus Modules. Blueprints delivered so you build the gun instead of farming for the chance to.
Where the Tier Lists Disagree
Four weapons are rated differently by the two lists, and the reason matters more than the letter.
| Weapon | The split | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Venator | S on ArcRaiderMap, B on Beebom | The wiki documents real nerfs — headshot multiplier from 2.5 to 2 in 1.17, plus a damage cut. When one source is bullish and the patch history says the gun was nerfed, trust the patch history. |
| Bettina | S on ArcRaiderMap, A on Beebom | The opposite case: ArcRaiderMap is pricing in the 1.26 buff, which is documented and substantial. The higher band is the better read here. |
| Tempest | S on Beebom, A on ArcRaiderMap | Both call it a top-two assault rifle. Not worth agonising over. |
| Hullcracker and Equalizer | A on one list, C on the other | Not a disagreement about power, but about what you are shooting. Excellent against ARC, unreliable against players. If your list blends PvE and PvP into one letter, these two are where it breaks. |
A structural point about this game: you should be running two answers, because the same raid contains armoured machines and other Raiders, and almost no gun is the best choice against both.
ARC Raiders weapons →The S-tier weapons above, delivered directly. No cache RNG, no Advanced Mechanical Components grind, no expedition lost to a bad drop.
What the Top Weapons Actually Cost You
Rarity gates go Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary — but the real gate is the blueprint and the materials.
- Anvil — the blueprint drops from caches, so it is pure luck. Once you have it, the gun itself is only Uncommon to build. This is the widest gap between demand and drop rate in the game.
- Epics — Bettina, Bobcat, Tempest, Vulcano, Hullcracker — need Gunsmith 3, the blueprint, and Advanced Mechanical Components, Magnetic Accelerators or Exodus Modules.
- Legendaries — Dolabra, Jupiter, Equalizer, Aphelion — rare drops plus expensive crafting, and several cannot be upgraded afterwards. Weigh that before committing materials.
- Ferro and Stitcher — craftable from almost nothing, and the reason a broke Raider is not a helpless one.
Which is the honest summary of the economy: the top of this list is gated by luck and materials rather than by skill, and the bottom of it is free.
Best Budget Loadout
Before you have a workbench worth using:
- Ferro for anything at range. Real armour penetration at effectively no cost.
- Stitcher up close — it comes in the free loadout and it still works.
- Rascal as the cheap answer to ARC, standing in for a Hullcracker you cannot build yet.
- Canto once you can afford it, over the Bobcat, purely because medium ammo lasts the raid.
Skip the Hairpin and the Rattler entirely, and do not spend a Legendary drop on the Aphelion expecting it to carry.
Sources and Methodology
Beebom — weapon tier list, updated 1 July 2026, covering 24 weapons.
ArcRaiderMap — weapon tiers, July 2026, stated as post-1.36.
Embark official — Live Update 1.39.0 (28 July 2026) and 1.36.0 (7 July 2026) patch notes, plus 1.26.0 Riven Tides (28 April 2026) for the Bettina buff numbers.
ARC Raiders wiki — patch note index (page modified 28 July 2026), per-weapon balance history including the 1.17 Venator nerf, and crafting requirements.
Methodology and limits. No large publisher — Game8, Pro Game Guides, Dexerto — had a full July 2026 ARC Raiders weapon tier list at the time of writing, so this page rests on two dated community lists cross-checked against official patch notes and the wiki. Where they split, both bands are shown and the patch history breaks the tie. Weapons that behave differently against ARC and against players are labelled rather than averaged into one letter. Version identity is confirmed by two independent dated sources. This page describes 1.39.0 and will be revisited when a patch actually touches gun statistics.
FAQ
Crafting materials boost →Epics need Gunsmith 3 and advanced components; Legendaries need both plus luck. Crafting materials farmed for you so the workbench stops being the bottleneck.