What Flashpoint Changed
Flashpoint (1.22.0, March 31 2026) shipped two new weapons, a crafting resource called Surge Coil, and zero balance changes to the loadouts that already ruled raids. entity:canto SMG slots into B tier behind entity:stitcher and entity:bobcat. entity:dolabra energy shotgun is a Legendary drop, untested at scale, and the tier lists that exist for it disagree wildly. Everything else plays the same way it did in 1.21 (per arcraiders.wiki patch notes).
entity:anvil still stacks headshot kills. entity:bettina still wins mid-range AR fights. Heavy shields keep Combat Mk. 3 brawlers alive through two or three bad trades. Light shields let Looting Mk. 3 scavengers outrun anything that would pressure them. The reason to pay attention now is Riven Tides: it almost certainly will move the meta, and loadouts not locked in before the drop will have to be rebuilt on patch day.
Weapon Power Ranking
S tier
entity:anvil is the best secondary in the game. Heavy-ammo hand cannon, 40 damage at 16.3 RPS, two-taps any Raider who has not layered Heavy shield over entity:combat-mk2 or 3. Every PvP loadout worth running puts entity:anvil in slot two (per gamesradar.com).
entity:vulcano is the highest burst weapon once pellets connect. 49.5 per pellet at 26.3 RPS. Inside 15 meters it beats every AR off the draw; outside 26 meters it is useless.
entity:bettina is the fight-winning Heavy AR. 14 damage at 32 RPS, 51.3 meter effective range. It out-trades the lighter ARs at any distance where lightness does not matter, and Heavy ammo shreds Rocketeers and Bastions without a swap.
entity:ferro is the Common-rarity S tier, and that is the whole story. 40 damage at 6.6 RPS, break-action, cheap to craft, output scales with the player not with rarity. Veterans drop a entity:ferro on every loadout because risk-adjusted value per raid is unmatched.
entity:jupiter handles anti-ARC long range alone. Energy Clip, 60 damage, 71.7 meter effective range. Covers most sight lines on Buried City and Stella Montis and deletes Bastions on the first shot.
A tier
entity:tempest beats entity:bettina for players who prefer fire rate over per-shot damage: 10 damage at 36.7 RPS, highest DPS per Medium-ammo AR. entity:il-toro one-shots full-health Raiders at point blank but punishes misses hard. entity:torrente holds choke points; 58.3 RPS sustained LMG fire is the second-best PvE clear in the game. entity:osprey is the budget sniper, cheaper to feed than entity:jupiter. entity:renegade is the patient lever-action Medium battle rifle. entity:hullcracker strips boss plates and contributes nothing outside that role (per scufgaming.com).
B tier
entity:arpeggio, entity:rattler, entity:stitcher, entity:bobcat, entity:canto, entity:hairpin, and entity:venator all function. None dominate a slot the S and A weapons already cover. entity:arpeggio's 3-round burst is accurate but slow. entity:rattler is a weaker entity:tempest. entity:stitcher, entity:bobcat, and entity:canto are light cheap SMGs that looters run to save weight.
Niche
entity:aphelion and entity:equalizer win specific PvE fights and lose general PvP ones. entity:burletta is the starter pistol. entity:kettle is outclassed by entity:tempest and Bettina before Act 1 is finished. entity:dolabra is the Flashpoint Legendary whose stats were not published on arcraiders.wiki at the time of writing; treat tier claims about it as provisional.
Augment Power Ranking
S tier
Looting Mk. 3 (Cautious) is the looter meta. 24 backpack slots, 70 weight, 5 quick-use slots, integrated entity:binoculars, weak entity:adrenaline-shot on shield break. The only Mk. 3 that beats every other Mk. 3 at extracting loot. Light shield only, which is a real restriction, but a Cautious runner who gets caught brawling made a bad decision before the fight started.
Combat Mk. 3 (Aggressive) is the brawler meta. 65 weight fits Heavy shield plus Bettina plus Anvil plus heals. +2 HP per 5 seconds (paused 30s on damage) means the Raider recovers between fights faster than chip damage accumulates during them.
Tactical Mk. 3 (Defensive) is the anchor meta. Integrated entity:shield-recharger that works while running, Heavy-compatible, 60 weight. Squad play is built around this augment because shield uptime at a held angle beats raw output (per iggm.com).
A tier
Looting Mk. 3 (Survivor) has the highest weight cap in the game (80) and regen-while-stationary. Medium shield ceiling prices it out of contested extractions but it is the best solo-looter pick on long raids. Looting Mk. 3 (Safekeeper) is the insurance policy: Safe Pocket protects one item across death, Heavy shield compatible. Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing) is the squad medic, 20 HP revival cloud. Combat Mk. 3 (Flanking) is the pistol-swap specialist, Light shield only, only works when the player can out-position rather than out-trade.
B tier
Tactical Mk. 3 (Revival) integrates a entity:defibrillator which is niche. entity:combat-mk2 and entity:looting-mk2 are stepping stones. Everything Mk. 1 and the Free Loadout are filler.
Shield Meta: Why Light Dominates
Light shields sit on most competitive loadouts. The reason is compatibility, not mitigation. Light works with every Mk. 3 in the game. Heavy locks the player out of every looting augment except Safekeeper, so any Heavy loadout is by definition committing to Combat or Defensive play.
Per-hit mitigation differences are smaller than the tier list implies. A 40-damage hit does 24 health through Light (40%), 23 through Medium (42.5%), and 19 through Heavy (52.5%). The real difference is total charge: Heavy's 80 absorbs twice the hits of Light's 40 before breaking. That matters in sustained fights, not in first-trade-wins windows (per neonlightsmedia.com).
Heavy is worth it on exactly three loadouts: Combat Mk. 3 (Aggressive), Tactical Mk. 3 (Defensive), Looting Mk. 3 (Safekeeper). entity:used-to-the-weight offsets the -15% movement penalty for 5 points, which is why PvP brawlers spec Conditioning instead of Mobility.
Medium shield is the worst of both worlds. Lower charge and mitigation than Heavy, slower than Light. Any augment that allows Medium also allows Heavy, so the slot is strictly dominated.
Skill Tree Meta
Three branches (Conditioning, Mobility, Survival), roughly 60 points across a full progression. Community patterns cluster into three shapes.
Looter allocation is Survival heavy. entity:looters-instincts and entity:looters-luck reveal container contents and rarity, entity:silent-scavenger drops noise, entity:broad-shoulders raises weight cap, entity:security-breach is the capstone. Mobility takes entity:marathon-runner, entity:youthful-lungs, entity:effortless-roll. Conditioning is empty unless the player runs Heavy, in which case entity:used-to-the-weight is the one required point.
Combat allocation is Conditioning heavy. entity:used-to-the-weight cancels Heavy shield slowdown. Fight or Flight, entity:loaded-arms, entity:survivors-stamina, and the entity:back-on-your-feet capstone sustain the Raider through firefights. Mobility takes the two movement basics plus Carry the Momentum. Survival stays empty.
Solo allocation splits across all three. Mobility for silent movement (entity:calming-stroll, entity:sturdy-ankles), Survival for stealth looting (entity:silent-scavenger, entity:in-round-crafting), Conditioning for the Heavy fallback. Solo Raiders cannot afford to be heard or caught out of heals.
PvE bruisers spec entity:sky-clearing-swing and entity:flyswatter in Conditioning to clear Bastions faster. That is a specialist pattern, not a general one.
What's Likely To Shift
Riven Tides is the next major drop on the public roadmap: new map, new large ARC (entity:vaporizer), new map condition. New content reorders PvE weapon rankings. If entity:vaporizer is a flying plate-armored threat, entity:hullcracker climbs and any build that cannot handle multiple entity:rocketeer-class enemies falls.
entity:dolabra is the placement wild card. Legendary rarity means consensus has not settled, and three Flashpoint guides placed it in three different tiers (Niche to A). Once crafting recipes are datamined, the real rank surfaces.
The last thing to watch is Bettina. It has held S tier for three patches. A 5% fire-rate reduction or a Heavy ammo economy change would drop it a full tier. If Riven Tides touches Heavy ammo drop rates, the shockwave hits Bettina, Anvil, and entity:ferro at the same time.