ARC Raiders Weapon Durability

The Riven Tides update (patch 1.26.0), released April 28, 2025, rewrote how fast weapons lose ARC Raiders weapon durability based on rarity tier. Prior to this patch, maintaining a high-tier weapon was disproportionately expensive compared to its longevity advantage over grey trash. In other words: you paid a premium to own something that broke just as fast. Brilliant.

Embark's stated goal is to fix what they called a "chronic state of weapon accumulation" among passive players, while giving PvP-focused players a reason to actually invest in rarer firearms. Whether this achieves that or simply accelerates the destruction of your Common Stitcher is, frankly, both.

The percentage changes below are relative to the previous durability loss per shot, not absolute values. A "+75%" on Common means Common weapons now lose 75% more durability per shot than they did before the patch. Not 75% per bullet. Read carefully before posting in the forums.

Alongside this, weapon spawn durability ranges were expanded: weapons found on map outskirts can now spawn as low as 15 durability, while central and locked-room weapons sit around 60. The average spawn dropped. If you are hoarding guns from the fringes expecting full-health loot, stop.

Durability Loss By Rarity: The Table

This is the weapon rarity durability comparison you came for. Every tier, every delta, no commentary padding.

Epic and Legendary weapons received a buff. Everything below Rare took damage. The best weapons for durability ARC Raiders are now definitively Epic and Legendary: which should surprise absolutely no one, and yet here we are writing a guide about it.

Testing across weapon tiers confirms the following approximate ARC Raiders gun durability per bullet values. All weapons tested at level 4, 130 max durability unless noted.

The Anvil breaks down faster in raw shot count than the Stitcher simply because it fires fewer rounds per minute. Per raid, you will fire fewer Anvil shots: so the Anvil vs Stitcher durability ARC Raiders debate is largely a matter of fire rate. The Stitcher empties magazines faster; the damage to durability accumulates faster in time, but the Anvil costs more to repair per bullet fired due to material scarcity. Enjoy the tradeoff.

KTO Note

The KTO's insane fire rate compounds the ARC Raiders weapon degradation rate problem. Attachments that further boost fire rate will accelerate durability loss beyond these baseline numbers. If you love burning through 200 rounds of Rare-tier weapon in a single engagement, the KTO is your soulmate and your financial ruin simultaneously.

Low-rarity weapons break faster now. They also cost significantly less to repair. This is not a coincidence. The system is designed so that your ARC Raiders weapon repair cost scales with the actual value of what you are maintaining.

Repairing a Tempest costs materially more than repairing an Anvil. Before Riven Tides, the Tempest also degraded at roughly the same speed as the Anvil, making it a financially questionable life choice. Now it lasts longer. Congratulations, the how to repair weapons ARC Raiders question finally has a meaningful answer: repair the weapon that costs you more to fix, less often.

Upgrading Now Repairs 25% Max Durability

When you upgrade a weapon to the next workshop level, it automatically restores 25% of its maximum durability. A weapon at 11% durability upgraded from level 1 to level 4 can recover over 100 points of durability across those steps. This removes the obligation to fully repair before upgrading: a loop that was previously making upgrades feel unnecessarily expensive.

This is arguably the most practical change in the entire patch for resource-constrained players. The ARC Raiders upgrade weapon durability restore mechanic means hoarding a half-broken gun specifically for upgrading is now a legitimate strategy, not a desperate one. Find a low-durability rare weapon, upgrade it, and you have a serviceable tool without burning through your repair materials beforehand.

Practical example: An Anvil found at 11% durability, upgraded from level 1 to level 4 across three steps, can reach approximately 110 durability purely from upgrade restoration: with zero manual repairs required.

PvP Durability Loss On Knockout

Separate from the per-shot changes, Embark also reduced the durability penalty applied to weapons when their carrier is knocked out. Previously a knockout inflicted 30% durability loss on the downed player's weapons. That number is now 15%. This specifically targets heavy PvP playstyles and makes ARC Raiders PvP weapon management less punishing for players who die a lot: which in an extraction shooter with ARC machines, players, and a new floating Arc Turbine boss, is everyone.

Combined with the rarity-based durability buff, Epic and Legendary weapons in PvP loadouts are now meaningfully more sustainable than they were seven days ago. If you have been reluctant to bring your Tempest into contested zones because one death cycle would cripple it, the math has improved in your favor.

What You Should Actually Do

• Stop treating Common and Uncommon weapons as free-use inventory. They break faster now. Repair them or accept that they are consumables.
• If you are running an Anvil as a primary, upgrade it rather than repairing it first. The 25% restore per upgrade level makes the math work.
• Attachments that increase fire rate accelerate durability loss proportionally. Do not slap a rate-of-fire mod on a Common weapon and then complain it broke.
• Weapons now spawn with much lower durability on map outskirts. Do not loot a 15-durability Kettle and expect it to last through three engagements.
• Epic weapons like the Equalizer now have genuinely excellent per-raid longevity. Thirty-plus magazines before breakdown is sufficient for any reasonable raid session.
• The Betina specifically received a separate buff: slower fire rate but more damage per shot and 33% bonus damage to ARC armor. The durability change compounds this into a much more viable sustained-use weapon.
• Legendary weapons are only obtainable through crafting with boss-drop Legendary Reactors. If you have one, it now lasts 10% longer per shot than before. Treat it accordingly.