Arc Raiders is the sort of recreation for which establishing strict metas goes to show troublesome. Your goal is to get out alive and with good loot; abstaining from violence is as legitimate a “technique” as indulging in it. Is your death-machine construct “higher” than my stealthy saboteur who can simply outrun you and conceal, getting away with all of the stuff I collected, thereby “profitable”? Arc Raiders’ gameplay has extra happening, extra various “win situations” than simply who can kill who quicker in a straight shootout.
However some weapons do have real benefits over others. A strict showdown would reveal whose weapon and construct choices gave them the clear benefit. However we’re hardly operating in perpetual circles capturing at one another on a regular basis in Arc Raiders, nor are all of us anticipated to kill each other till the final particular person declared standing is the winner. So one’s arsenal can serve many functions, with a variety of room for stylistic preferences.
The number of weapons obtainable in Arc Raiders helps you to plan and construct a number of completely different shooter archetypes, so let’s get into how these weapons work.
What sorts of weapons are on this recreation?
Arc Raiders breaks its weapons down into eight broad classes: Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles, Submachine Weapons, Shotguns, Pistols, Mild Machineguns, Sniper Rifles, and “Particular.”
The weapons in these classes additionally differ when it comes to which of the 5 ammo sorts they use (Mild, Medium, Heavy, Vitality, and Launcher), in addition to their firing mode, harm, firing price, and vary.
Firing modes particularly are essential as they decide the tempo at which you’ll hearth. Semi-auto fires with each pull of the set off, full-auto continuously fires, and the three-round burst is relatively self explanatory. Numerous different weapons function “actions,” that means your character should function the gun in a roundabout way after every shot (that is typically distinct from reloading), so your photographs shall be sluggish, however often fairly highly effective. Maybe the most typical instance throughout quite a lot of completely different video games is the bolt-action firing mode, which sees your character working a bolt after every shot (simulating the operation of real-life bolt-action rifles).
Why is all of this essential? Effectively, if you wish to run and gun, one thing like a Ferro, which is a heavy break-action rifle and requires you to load every spherical, received’t be as appropriate as one thing like a Stitcher, which is a completely automated submachine gun. However that Stitcher received’t assist you to nail a high-powered shot from an excellent distance; that’s the Ferro’s speciality.
For every of those broad gun sorts, there are completely different rarities too, with rarer objects being extra highly effective: grey is for widespread weapons, inexperienced for unusual, blue for uncommon, purple for epic, yellow for legendary.
And except legendary weapons, all weapons might be leveled up thrice to a max of stage 4. Numerous components of a firearm enhance as you stage them up. Some will see elevated journal dimension and elevated sturdiness, others will see elevated sturdiness and fire-rate, and so forth. I’m discovering this Arc Raiders wiki to be a wonderful useful resource for the uncooked numbers.
So let’s type these weapons into some use instances, of which you’ll discover there’s some overlap.
The most effective weapons for close-quarters fight
Shotguns on common promise wild quantities of excessive harm with exceedingly poor vary. Nice for instances while you’re nervous somebody may soar out from a nook mere toes away from you. For these, you get two choices:
Il Toro: Unusual shotgun, pump-action (fairly superior when leveled up and kitted out effectively) Vulcano: Epic shotgun, semi-automatic (the one time I had an opportunity to make use of this, I intestine jumped and barely fired a shot off earlier than it was lengthy gone)
Following that, submachine weapons will fare effectively given their excessive firing price comes at the price of vary, however you additionally don’t want to fret about having pinpoint accuracy.
Stitcher: Widespread submachine gun, totally automated (fairly superior when totally leveled up and kitted out with good mods) Bobcat: Epic submachine gun, totally automated
Lastly, assault rifles aren’t horrible in some instances, supplied they’re totally automated (for my playstyle, anyway—when you can precisely place semi-automatic photographs whereas experiencing the panic of a close-quarters gun struggle, extra energy to you). Absolutely automated assault rifles embrace:
Rattler: Widespread assault rifle (irritating to make use of at low ranges, for my part) Tempest: Epic assault rifle Bettina: Epic assault rifle
The most effective weapons for medium-range fight
These are the conditions through which your enemy isn’t up to now off you want a scope to see ‘em, however they’re nonetheless far sufficient away to render one thing like a shotgun fairly pointless. When you can management the recoil effectively and shoot in managed bursts, the Rattler, Tempest, and Bettina are good choices right here too. In any other case, the next semi-automatic weapons and the lone three-round burst rifle will serve you effectively:
Kettle: Widespread assault rifle, semi-automatic (I don’t get together with this weapon, FWIW) Arpeggio: Widespread assault rifle, three-round burst (it’s just like the FAMAS from Steel Gear Stable and the battle rifle from Halo 2 had a child)
The most effective weapons for long-range fight
Whereas the assault rifles above can actually show helpful in some restricted long-range conditions, you could have much better choices for delivering high-damage, precision photographs from a distance in case your marksmanship is as much as snuff.
Ferro: Widespread battle rifle, break-action (utilizing that is the very best a part of dropping all the best way to subsisting on Widespread weapons) Renegade: Uncommon battle rifle, lever-action (like a quicker although barely weaker Ferro) Osprey: Uncommon sniper rifle, bolt-action (for while you wish to be her) Jupiter: Legendary sniper rifle, bolt-action
Word that the one gun with a scope in any respect on this recreation is the Osprey sniper rifle. Even the legendary Jupiter sniper rifle simply has the display screen zoom in a bit when ADS-ing as an alternative of shifting to a scoped view.
What about these pistols?
Pistols and handguns are humorous issues in lots of shooters. On one hand, they’re maybe most practical as sidearms–excellent for these “oh, shit” moments while you don’t have sufficient time to reload your most important weapon, and so fall again to one thing a bit speedier although much less highly effective. On the opposite, they’re typically too cool to only be weapons you fall again on.
When you’re after the theater of being that particular person with the fast set off finger on a pistol, begin with the Burletta for coaching wheels and graduate to the Venator.
These are your 4 pistol choices:
Hairpin: Widespread, slide-action (completely silenced) Burletta: Unusual, semi-automatic (undoubtedly essentially the most side-armed of sidearms) Anvil: Unusual, single-action (Arc Raiders’ hand cannon) Venator: Uncommon, semi-automatic
And the toys
Every little thing above will cowl your bases. However if you wish to pack a ton of warmth to take down the sport’s largest threats or present different gamers you’re not messing round, listed here are your choices:
Torrente: Uncommon gentle machine gun, totally automated (the bullets actually go brrrrrrr) Equalizer: Legendary beam rifle, totally automated Hullcracker: Epic armaments launcher, pump-action
And there ya have it, roughly 5 completely different broad shooter archetypes unfold out amongst Arc Raiders’ current arsenal. Naturally, the upper tier of rarity, the higher the gun is on the factor it does. Although you continue to may discover, for instance, that whereas the Ferro and Renegade occupy very related territory, they’ve some clear variations which may nonetheless make the Ferro extra interesting for some (specifically the upper harm per shot).
Additionally, all of those weapons at stage 4 are the very best variations of themselves. As for modifications, muzzle attachments, rear inventory choices, and so forth, these are a topic for one more day since they might help information any certainly one of these weapons down a extra specialised path.
