Best ARC Raiders Weapons in 2026: Tier List

Most ARC Raiders tier lists you’ll find are running a patch or two behind — plenty of them still rank against 1.33 or earlier, and the game has moved through 1.26, 1.29, 1.33 and 1.36 since April. More importantly, almost all of them rank weapons while ignoring the change that actually reshaped what’s worth carrying: rarity now decides how long your gun lasts. Here’s the tier list current to Live Update 1.36, and the durability maths you should be building around.

First: rarity stopped being cosmetic

The Riven Tides update (1.26.0, 28 April 2026) reworked durability, and it’s the most consequential thing to happen to ARC Raiders loadouts this year:

• Durability loss now scales by rarity. A legendary takes roughly 85% less durability damage per shot than a common.
• Average durability on a spawned weapon dropped from 50 to 30.
• Knockdown durability loss was halved, from 30% to 15%.
• Upgrading at the Workshop restores 25% of max durability on top of the upgrade itself.

Read those together and the conclusion is uncomfortable for tier lists: a legendary of an A-tier weapon will often serve you better than a common of an S-tier one, because it survives raids the common doesn’t. Tier ranks the gun. Rarity ranks how many times you get to use it.

The practical rule this produces: bring commons to raids you expect to lose, and legendaries to raids you intend to extract from. Contesting a hot drop with your best gun is now a materially worse idea than it was in March.

S tier — current to 1.36

Anvil. The closest thing to a consensus best weapon in the game. Enormous single-shot damage and strong armour penetration, and it works in PvP and PvE alike, which almost nothing else here does. Worth noting that not every community tier list agrees — a few rank it a tier lower on the grounds that it punishes missed shots harder than anything else in the roster. That’s a fair criticism and an accuracy question, not a power question.

Bettina. The biggest mover of the year. Riven Tides raised its base damage from 14 to 16, increased damage against ARC armour by 33%, cut per-shot dispersion by roughly 40% and improved dispersion recovery by 30%. Update 1.29.0 then raised its fire rate from 235 to 250. That’s a lot of buffs in one direction — it went A-tier to S-tier and is now both the best general-purpose AR and the correct answer for boss fights.

Renegade. The battle rifle that punishes anyone caught crossing open ground between points of interest. Consistent, and the least demanding of the S-tier picks.

Dolabra. Energy shotgun. Ends close-quarters fights and interiors decisively.

Venator. The other hand cannon. Similar logic to the Anvil, slightly more forgiving.

Vulcano. Semi-auto shotgun, and the pick if the Dolabra’s handling doesn’t suit you.

A tier — and often the right call anyway

Given the durability rework, this tier deserves more attention than it usually gets: an A-tier gun you can afford to run at high rarity beats an S-tier one you’re carrying at common.

Ferro. Battle rifle, and the best performance-per-coin weapon in the game. The default for anything you expect to lose.

Jupiter. The sniper option when your squad wants to open fights from outside contact range.

Aphelion, Osprey, Tempest, Bobcat. All entirely usable. None are the reason you lost a raid.

Stitcher. SMG, and the other half of the budget bracket alongside the Ferro. Cheap, effective in interiors, and expendable by design.

Building the gun

Two things worth knowing:

• Extended Barrel had its velocity bonus raised from 25% to 30% in 1.29.0, which makes it a stronger pick on the Renegade and Ferro than it used to be.
• Upgrading is now partly a repair. Since Workshop upgrades restore 25% of max durability, upgrading a weapon you already like is more efficient than it looks on paper — you’re buying stats and raid-time in the same transaction.

Loadouts that work

• All-purpose: Bettina + Anvil. Covers ARC, players, and the awkward middle distances where most raids are decided.
• Contest / expendable: Ferro + Stitcher, both common. Built to be lost without it mattering.
• Boss runs: Bettina, as high a rarity as you can field. The 33% ARC armour damage increase is the reason.
• Long-range squad: Jupiter + Renegade, with a shotgun on the third raider for when it inevitably closes.

The part no tier list covers

Here’s what’s actually ending most of your raids: it isn’t your gun. It’s getting third-partied at an extraction, or a squad that scatters when contact starts, or nobody carrying the loot that mattered. ARC Raiders is a trio game with an economy attached, and a coordinated three with B-tier guns beats three strangers holding Anvils more or less every time.

Random fill won’t teach you that, because random fill dissolves the moment the raid ends. What fixes it is running with the same two people often enough that the callouts get short and someone always has the revive.

That’s what PaxJax is for:

• Filter ARC Raiders players by region and playstyle — contest-heavy or quiet extraction runs
• See who’s online and looking right now, and send an Invite to Play
• Save a standing trio with a Looking-for-Team profile, so your squad reassembles for the next descent
• Keep the raiders worth keeping instead of losing them to your friends list

Find Your ARC Raiders Squad

Keep it in perspective

Learn one primary properly rather than chasing every patch. The durability rework means the most valuable habit right now isn’t gun selection at all — it’s matching the rarity you bring to the risk you’re taking. Run cheap when you’re contesting, run legendary when you plan to walk out, and put your energy into a trio that extracts together.

Want raiders who cover the extraction? Find ARC Raiders players & squads on PaxJax →