Patch 1.22 landed on March 31, 2026, and the ARC Raiders flashpoint grenade tier list looks different enough from 1.3 that hauling in stale loadouts will get you killed faster than the Vaporizer's laser ever could. The Flashpoint update did not detonate the grenade meta entirely, but it adjusted the chessboard in ways that reward paying attention. Embark did not push sweeping damage nerfs this time. Instead, the changes arrived sideways: new enemies, reworked AI, map restructuring, and a pair of targeted bug fixes that quietly elevated two grenades from "fine" to "mandatory."
The headline fix that matters for ARC Raiders best grenades in 1.22 is the Trailblazer and Shrapnel Grenade achievement bug. Eliminations with both tools previously did not register for the "Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" achievement, which quietly discouraged players from running them in serious sessions. That is corrected now, meaning both grenades get a second look from the crowd that defaulted to Trigger setups exclusively. The Shrapnel in particular benefits, because its cost-to-damage ratio was already solid and the achievement fix removes the only reason to feel bad about using it.
Before the full breakdown, here is the at-a-glance breakdown for the ARC Raiders grenade ranking patch 1.22. Every grenade earns its placement from real gameplay performance across PvE and PvP, factoring in crafting cost, consistency under pressure, and whether the Flashpoint changes affect the tool at all.
|
Tier |
Item |
Modes |
Damage/Stat |
Key Features |
Performance Notes |
|
S |
Trigger Grenade |
PvE + PvP |
90 dmg |
Remote Det / 7.5m |
Unchanged and "disgusting." Stack three on a Bastion for instant loot. |
|
S |
Showstopper spiceport |
PvE + PvP |
EMP Stun |
Instant EMP |
Still mandatory; follow-up is now required for Rocketeers. |
|
A |
Wolfpack |
PvE |
Anti-Air |
Tracking Swarms |
Crucial for the new Vaporizer meta; keeps you at a safe range. |
|
A |
Shrapnel Grenade |
Both |
60 dmg |
6m Radius |
Achievement bug fixed. High-value budget S-tier option. |
|
A |
Snap Blast |
Both |
70 dmg |
Sticky Contact |
Reliable finisher; attaches to both ARC and Raiders. |
|
A |
Lure Grenade |
PvE |
Aggro Pull |
50m Range / 15s |
Essential squad slot for managing Shredders on any map. |
|
A |
Smoke Grenade |
Both |
20s Cloud |
Sightline Cover |
Pure function. Carries runs by enabling revives and safe extracts. |
|
B |
Blaze Grenade |
Both |
5 dmg/s |
10m Fire Tick |
Still suffering from 1.3 nerfs. Effective on Leapers but weak vs. big ARC. |
|
B |
Trailblazer |
PvP |
~50 EHP |
Gas + Blast |
Achievement bug fixed. Loot-only item with high upside in hallways. |
|
B |
Heavy Fuze |
PvP |
80 dmg |
3s Fuze / 7.5m |
Great for forcing repositioning, though the crafting cost is steep. |
|
B |
Li'l Smoke |
Both |
6s Cloud |
Stackable |
Perfect for budget runs; cheap enough to spam without regret. |
|
B |
Seeker Grenade |
PvE |
50 dmg |
Homing (ARC) |
Specifically relevant now as a hard counter to the flying Vaporizer. |
|
C |
Gas Grenade |
PvP |
Stamina |
20s Area Ctrl |
Smart Raiders escape easily; functions mostly as a cheap alarm. |
|
C |
Light Impact |
PvP |
30 dmg |
2.5m / Instant |
Tiny impact but nearly free to craft. Success depends entirely on spam. |
|
C |
Tagging Grenade |
Both |
10s Tag |
Wall Pierce |
Sounds tactical on paper, but the fuse delay limits actual utility. |
|
D |
Lightstick |
Neither |
0 dmg |
Cosmetic |
Strictly for aesthetics. Bringing this is essentially a "win-rate" penalty. |

Nothing changed for the Trigger Grenade in Flashpoint 1.22. Embark did not touch it. It does 90 damage with manual detonation across a 7.5-meter radius, and it is still the best PvP grenade in the ARC Raiders pvp grenades 1.22 meta by a comfortable margin. The reason it stays untouched is probably the same reason someone keeps a loaded weapon in the room and hopes nobody picks it up: it works, it is known, and addressing it would require actually thinking about it.
The correct usage remains unchanged. Throw two or three at a Bastion, position yourself, and detonate when you have optimal hit overlap on the weak points. In PvP, pre-place them on extraction routes, chokepoints, or doors your enemies have to open. The remote detonation means you are not gambling on timing the way every other grenade demands. You choose when it explodes. That is an unfair advantage and the tier list reflects it accordingly.
Loadout Note Trigger Grenades are rare and cannot be reliably crafted on demand. When you find them, you run them. When you do not, Snap Blast Grenades are your next-best consistent damage option.
The ARC Raiders showstopper grenade 1.22 discussion comes down to one change: Rocketeers survive stun collisions now. Previously, a Showstopper against a Rocketeer could cascade into a wall death for the machine. That shortcut is gone. The Showstopper still stuns the Rocketeer, still disables its weapons, and still gives you a window to deal damage. The window just no longer closes itself. You have to close it. Bring a gun. That is the entire adaptation required.
In PvP the Showstopper is as dominant as it has always been. Two-second stun on impact, instant detonation, works in tight rooms and open spaces. If a Raider is behind cover and you have a Showstopper, the cover no longer matters for two seconds. Learn what two seconds buys you in a gunfight and this grenade becomes the best investment in the ARC Raiders grenade guide 2026.

The Wolfpack enters Flashpoint with a new premium target. The Vaporizer is a flying ARC that uses laser attacks and erratic movement patterns. It is the kind of enemy that makes aiming with conventional weapons frustrating and makes rocket swarms look like the correct answer. The Wolfpack fires a swarm of homing rockets that track flying machines, which means the Vaporizer, Wasps, Snitches, and Rocketeers all get handled by the same tool. Running the ARC Raiders wolfpack grenade flashpoint means your anti-air slot covers the entire threat spectrum now instead of just one enemy type.
Worth noting: the Wolfpack crafts from Explosives Station III with Explosive Compounds and ARC Motion Cores, so it is not a budget option. Treat it as a serious investment that covers a specific problem category. Do not bring it to PvP runs expecting anything useful. It will fly straight past every Raider it meets and target the nearest ARC unit instead, which is a bad time if you are in extraction.
The achievement fix for the Shrapnel Grenade in ARC Raiders best grenades flashpoint is a minor change on paper that carries more psychological weight than the numbers suggest. Players who track completionist progress were quietly avoiding this grenade because kills did not register. That friction is gone. The Shrapnel now does its job with full acknowledgment: 60 damage in a 6-meter radius, cheaper to craft than its S-tier cousins, and effective on both ARC groups and Raiders who cluster.
The Lure Grenade spent its entire existence as a Stella Montis specialist. It pulled Shredder attention, redirected rocketeer aggro, and turned chaotic ARC packs into a single orderly queue for your bullets. That job was only relevant on one map. Flashpoint changed the math by deploying Shredders across all five maps in the Rust Belt. The Lure Grenade is now a universal PvE tool rather than a Stella Montis curiosity. If your squad is running without one, someone in the squad will regret it when a Shredder pack ignores the intended path and eats them from behind.
Flashpoint Map Note Shredders appear on all maps in 1.22. Dam Battlegrounds gets them during specific map conditions only. Blue Gate, Buried City, Spaceport, and Stella Montis have them in general rotation. The Lure Grenade is now a baseline PvE consideration on every map you queue into.
The Smoke Grenade generates 20 seconds of cloud in a large radius and has no damage, no stun, no tracking: and it still earns A tier on both sides of the combat spectrum. Map geometry does not always provide cover. Extractions do not always have walls to hide behind. Revives do not happen under sniper fire without smoke. The ARC Raiders pve grenades flashpoint environment added new objectives in Close Scrutiny where the Assessor is guarded and your squad has to move through open space. Smoke answers questions that explosives cannot.

The Blaze Grenade still carries the scars of the 1.3 nerf. Fire tick stacking on multiple hitboxes was tightened, so large ARC like Bastions and Allipers now require three to four Blaze hits instead of the old one-to-two combo for meaningful results. The tool still burns rooms, still torments Raiders through doorways, and still stacks DOT when you connect. In enclosed Stella Montis corridors or the restructured Spaceport areas in Flashpoint, a Blaze corner trap remains one of the cruelest PvP experiences you can create for a pushing Raider. It just requires more patience and more grenades per large PvE encounter to justify the slot.
The Trailblazer exists in B tier partly because the achievement bug fix in 1.22 removed the last active penalty for using it. It rolls a gas trail that chains into layered explosions: roughly 50 effective health against shielded Raiders: and it is genuinely excellent in narrow hallways where targets cannot sidestep the trail. The problem is its delay, which rewards smart targets with a free dodge window, and its loot-only availability, which means you cannot plan your loadout around it. When you find one, run it in PvP. Do not build a strategy around finding one.
The Seeker Grenade is a homing throwable that locks onto the nearest ARC unit and delivers 50 damage on impact. In prior patches, this was B tier in PvE and useless in PvP: that split remains, but the ceiling on the PvE side got higher. The Vaporizer is a flying ARC that attacks with lasers and requires either excellent aim or a guided solution. The Seeker is that guided solution. It does not replace Wolfpack for pure anti-air efficiency, but it is cheaper, easier to craft, and gives squads without Wolfpack blueprints a serviceable option for Vaporizer pressure during the Close Scrutiny operation.

The Gas Grenade's stamina drain works fine in theory. In practice, every Raider with legs, which is all of them, walks straight out of the cloud before their stamina drops far enough to matter. You get a soft zone-denial tool that creates stalemates rather than kills. At vendor credit prices it serves as a cheap flanking alarm, and nothing more. Calling it a fight-winner requires a level of optimism that the ARC Raiders pvp grenades 1.22 meta does not reward.
The Tagging Grenade offers wall-piercing intel for ten seconds. Smart players running third-person already have most of that information for free. The fuse delay before the tag arms gives enemies who are paying attention a comfortable gap to move out of the tagged zone. The tool trades at best, meaning it sets up a kill only if your target makes a mistake, which is a bad dependency to build a loadout around.
The Lightstick earns D tier not because it is undertuned but because it contributes exactly zero to surviving the Rust Belt, winning fights, or extracting with loot. It glows in dark rooms. It is a wonderful product. It belongs in D tier with a gentle pat on the back and no apologies.
PvE: Standard Raid (All Maps)
PvE: Close Scrutiny Operation
PvP: Aggressive Push
PvP: Budget / Survival
Crafting Improvement: Flashpoint QoL Patch 1.22 introduced direct material fulfillment from the crafting view. When you are missing components for your grenade of choice, you can now recycle, refine, or purchase the gap in a single window without jumping between tabs. This reduces the time tax on keeping grenade slots stocked significantly.

The Vaporizer is Flashpoint's headline new ARC unit. It is a flying enemy with laser attacks and an attack pattern that the patch notes describe as idiosyncratic: which is developer language for "we made it weird on purpose." The key grenade interactions are straightforward. The Vaporizer is a flying ARC machine, so Wolfpack and Seeker Grenades both track it. Wolfpack does more damage at better range. Seeker is cheaper and still connects reliably on a target that stays airborne.
The Showstopper stuns the Vaporizer the same way it stuns other ARC. That stun window is your best opportunity to deal burst damage with conventional weapons. If your squad runs ARC Raiders pve grenades flashpoint setups without a Showstopper, you are trading that window for a pure DPS race, which the Vaporizer wins while its laser is active. Bring a Showstopper. You were already supposed to be bringing one anyway.
Flashpoint added one small but meaningful change adjacent to the grenade ecosystem: Remote Raider Flares can now be disarmed using the Mine Sweeper skill. This does not change any grenade ratings directly, but it affects how Raider trap setups interact with enemy clear options. If you were running the Mine Sweeper skill as a defensive investment, it now covers a broader range of placed threats. Build your loadout understanding that the tool has expanded scope in 1.22.
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The Trigger Grenade. Remote detonation, 90 damage, unchanged in Flashpoint. Stack them on Bastions or PvP chokepoints.
No direct damage changes. The main grenade-related fix was the Trailblazer and Shrapnel achievement bug correction.
Wolfpack for sustained anti-air damage. Showstopper to stun and open a burst window. Seeker Grenade as a budget alternative.
Shredders now spawn on all maps, not just Stella Montis. The Lure redirects them universally and earns a slot every run.
Yes. It still stuns Rocketeers, all large ARC, and every Raider it hits. Follow up with burst damage and it remains S tier.