A lot of Raiders load in thinking movement is the whole game. Light kit, light gun, sprint everywhere. Then a heavy ARC shows up and the “fast” plan turns into panic. You’ll figure it out quick: if you can’t break armor on demand, you’re just buying time. Before you start chasing some perfect meta, it helps to sort your stash and plan around what you can actually field, especially if you’re already browsing ARC Raiders Items for the stuff you’re missing.

Why light weapons keep letting teams down

Light guns feel nice. Snappy reloads, easy recoil, you can keep your crosshair tidy. But on armored targets they tend to do this awful thing where you’re “doing damage” without really changing the fight. You dump a mag, the ARC barely flinches, and now you’re stuck reloading while your teammate’s getting pressured. Medium and Heavy weapons don’t just hit harder, they shorten the window where you can make a mistake. That’s the real value. Less time exposed. Less time hearing rockets whistle past your head.

The two picks most squads end up trusting

1) Renegade. This one’s the workhorse. It’s the gun you bring when you don’t know what the match is going to throw at you, but you still want to be relevant when a Bastion stomps in. It holds its line at range, it doesn’t feel like it’s lying to you on armor, and it lets you stay calm. You can take smart angles, tag weak points, then reset without feeling like you wasted half your ammo pool.

2) Anvil. If the Renegade is “stay alive and keep pressure,” the Anvil is “end the argument.” It’s heavier, yeah. You feel that weight when you’re rotating. But when you commit to a fight, you can actually see the health bar move in chunks. Against high-threat stuff, that matters more than comfort. If your squad plays around it—covering reloads, holding lanes—it’s nasty.

Strong backups that still feel worth carrying

Hull Cracker is the armor answer when you want something that bites hard and punishes big targets for staying in the open. It’s the kind of weapon that makes you change how you peek, because one sloppy swing can cost you. Betina is the “I want power but I also want control” option. Not everyone loves the feel of the heaviest guns, and that’s fine. Betina tends to keep you consistent when the fight gets messy and you’re shooting from awkward cover.

The honest take on the Venator and what to prep

Venator can be fun for cleaning up lighter threats, and the burst is satisfying when it lands. But if your goal is deleting heavy ARCs before they pin your team, it often comes up short. You can make it work, sure, but it asks for cleaner situations than you’ll usually get. If you’re gearing up for hard targets, build around a Renegade or Anvil, keep one reliable backup, and don’t be shy about stocking the right ammo and mods from ARC Raiders Items buy so your loadout doesn’t fall apart mid-raid.