What This Build Is For
Solo Raiders cannot afford to be heard. The Solo Stealth kit is built around silence, single-shot accuracy, and breaking line of sight the moment a trade starts. item:looting-mk3-cautious for the 24-slot backpack, item:light-shield for zero movement penalty, item:ferro as the panic-button one-shot, item:stitcher when the first shot misses, and the Nomadic Envoys item:photoelectric-cloak rework brings the cloak back as a real quick-use option at 5/s power cost. You loot in silence, walk past fights other Raiders are picking, and extract while squads kill each other on the pad.
Run this if you queue solo. The 24-slot pack carries the loot a solo player has time to find, integrated Binoculars cost zero quick-use slots, and the item:adrenaline-shot trigger on shield break gives a free stamina spike at the exact moment you need to sprint (arcraiders.wiki Augments). This build is the solo variant of the looter spine in our Pure Looter Build Guide.
It is not a fight kit. Light shield's 40 charge breaks in one clean Heavy Ammo trade, Ferro fires once and then eats a break-action reload, and a coordinated three-stack in the open ends the run. The whole game-plan is to never be there when the shooting starts.
Weight floor: Ferro 8.0 + Stitcher 5.0 + Light shield 5.0 = 18.0 of the 70-weight cap. That leaves 52 for ammo, heals, smoke, the cloak (3.0 if slotted), and loot. Broad Shoulders 5/5 raises the cap to 80.
Core Loadout
| Slot | Item | Key Numbers |
|---|---|---|
| Augment | Looting Mk. 3 (Cautious) | 24 backpack, 70 weight, 5 quick-use, Light only, integrated Binoculars, Adrenaline Shot on shield break |
| Shield | Light | 40 charge, 40% mitigation, 5.0 weight, no movement penalty |
| Primary | Ferro | Heavy Ammo break-action, 40 dmg, 6.6 fire rate, 1 mag, 53.1m range, 2.5x headshot, 8.0 weight, Strong ARC pen |
| Secondary | Stitcher | Light Ammo SMG, 6.5 dmg, 45.3 fire rate, 20 mag, 42.1m range, 1.75x headshot, 5.0 weight |
| Quick-use 1 | Medkit | Run-home heal |
| Quick-use 2 | Bandage | Top-up between rooms |
| Quick-use 3 | Shield Recharger | Refills the 40-charge bar in one cast |
| Quick-use 4 | Smoke grenade | Breaks line of sight when caught |
| Quick-use 5 | Photoelectric Cloak OR Hornet Driver | Cloak for stealth-pure routes (5/s drain), Driver for Bastion stuns at extract |
For the full augment pool this build sits inside, see the ARC Raiders Augment Tier List (Cautious is the lead Looting Mk. 3 pick) and the ARC Raiders Weapon Tier List for where Ferro, Stitcher, and the swap weapons sit post Nomadic Envoys.
Why Each Slot
Augment: Looting Mk. 3 Cautious
Cautious is the only Mk. 3 looter augment that stacks all three structural advantages a solo Raider needs: 24-slot backpack, 5 quick-use slots, integrated item:binoculars (arcraiders.wiki Augments). The Light-only restriction is a feature: solo players cannot afford the -15% penalty on Heavy or the -5% on Medium, and walking past patrols at sprint speed is half the build.
The Adrenaline Shot trigger is the panic eject. Light shield's 40 charge strips in two clean hits, which is when you most need to sprint, and the augment fires the spike free of the slot a manual one would cost. Crafted at Gear Bench 3 from 2 Advanced Electrical Components plus 3 Processor. A solo Raider who skips scouting dies on the extract pad to a brawler who was sitting there the whole time.
Shield: Light
Required by Cautious, so the choice is made. The shape fits anyway: 5.0 weight, zero movement penalty, 40% mitigation, 40 total charge (arcraiders.wiki Shields). The 40-charge ceiling is the smallest in the game, but the looter's plan is to leave before the trade starts. One item:shield-recharger refills the bar in 10 seconds at 4 charge per second. The right number is move speed, not per-hit mitigation: a Raider on Light runs at the same speed as the Raider hunting them. A Raider on Heavy does not.
Primary: Ferro
Heavy Ammo break-action battle rifle, 40 damage at 6.6 fire rate, 1-round mag, 2.5x headshot, 53.1m range, 8.0 weight, Strong ARC armor penetration (arcraiders.wiki Ferro). One headshot lands for 100 raw damage, a one-shot kill on most Raider head HP pools. TheGamer's PvE tier list slots Ferro at S and notes the ammo economy is so tight you can run a full raid on two stacks of Heavy.
The 1-round magazine is a stealth feature, not a drawback: one report, one kill, no muzzle-flash spam giving away your position. Strong ARC pen punches through Bastion plate at extraction range, so the rifle that finishes a panicking Raider is the same one that ends a Bastion. Crafted at Workbench with Gunsmith 1 from 5 Metal Parts plus 2 Rubber Parts. The failure mode is missing the first shot, which is exactly why the Stitcher rides shotgun.
Secondary: Stitcher
Light Ammo SMG, fully-automatic, 6.5 damage at 45.3 rounds per second for ~294 raw DPS, 20-round mag, 1.75x headshot, 5.0 weight, very-weak ARC penetration (arcraiders.wiki Stitcher). Stealth rating 19 keeps the audio profile lower than item:bobcat. 73.8 agility swings the gun up fast when a Raider rounds the corner inside 15 meters and the Ferro is mid-reload. Not a primary kill weapon: it is the gun you spray into the Raider who heard your Ferro shot, did not die, and is sprinting at you. A 20-round burst empties in under half a second, long enough to deploy smoke and reposition.
Quick-use: Medkit, Bandage, Shield Recharger, Smoke, Cloak or Hornet Driver
Two heals because there is no medic rotating to you. item:shield-recharger casts in cover at 2-second deploy plus 10-second channel, never in the open (arcraiders.wiki Shield Recharger). Smoke is the most important slot on this build: 20-second duration, 7.5 meter radius, 0.2 weight (arcraiders.wiki Smoke Grenade). Trader Apollo sells item:smoke-grenade for 3000 coins with a 6-per-day cap.
The fifth slot is the routing decision. On stealth-pure runs where the plan is to leave before any fight starts, slot item:photoelectric-cloak in that spot. The 1.29.0 Nomadic Envoys patch dropped the cloak's power cost from 10/s to 5/s, which doubles the active window per powercell and puts the gadget back in the rotation as a real option, not a novelty. Weight stays at 3.0, so it costs you 3.0 of the 52 you have free under Cautious. The cloak's value is highest on extract-pad crossings and Security Locker approaches where breaking line of sight for five to ten seconds turns a contested route into a clean one. Powercell management still matters: pop it for the crossing, drop it the instant you reach cover, and re-cast only when the next sightline is unavoidable. On routes that touch Bastion-spawn zones, swap the cloak for item:hornet-driver (7-second ARC stun, 0.75 weight, enough to walk past or land two Ferro headshots into an exposed core) and pick up the cloak on the next run.
Skill Tree Allocation
Cap is level 75 with 76 skill points across three trees (arcraiders.wiki Skills page). The Solo Stealth spine is Mobility plus Survival, with zero Conditioning. Conditioning skills assume you take hits long enough for them to matter; a stealth Raider taking sustained hits has already lost.
Level 20 (21 points): item:marathon-runner 5pt (sprint stamina cost), item:youthful-lungs 5pt (~24% max stamina), item:looters-instincts 5pt (25% faster container reveals), item:silent-scavenger 5pt for the audio-cone reduction that defines the archetype, item:carry-the-momentum 1pt capstone for free sprint after dodge roll. Silent Scavenger plus Looter's Instincts is the stealth-loot loop; Mobility is the escape valve when stealth fails.
Level 40 (41 points): item:calming-stroll 1pt (Sturdy Ankles plus 15 Mobility prereq) for stamina regen at a walk, on the clock the entire raid. item:effortless-roll 5pt so a desperate roll does not lock you out of the next sprint. item:broad-shoulders 5pt for plus 10 weight, turning a "leave it" into a "take it" on Cautious's 70 cap. item:in-round-crafting 1pt capstone for field-craft topside, since a solo Raider cannot return to Speranza mid-run.
Level 75 (76 points): item:slip-and-slide 5pt (cover-to-cover slide distance). item:looters-luck 5pt (double-reveal chance per container). item:security-breach 1pt capstone (36 Survival prereq) unlocks Security Lockers, the highest-value loot tier in the game.
Skip Conditioning entirely. item:used-to-the-weight is for Heavy kits, item:fight-or-flight is for kits that plan to be hit, item:loaded-arms saves weight on weapons over 5.0. Overgear's Solo Build leads with Looter's Instincts and Silent Scavenger, matching this allocation point for point.
Routing After the Nomadic Envoys ARC Perception Rework
1.29.0 retuned how ARCs perceive you, and the change is asymmetric. Sound perception was buffed in open outdoor spaces and nerfed indoors and through geometry. Vision through bushes and smoke is now more granular: positioning behind cover matters more than just being near cover (arcraiders.wiki Update:1.29.0). The Firefly grazing-fire fix is a side bonus, and Rocketeer's missile spread is consistent across a wider area.
Translated to routing on this build:
Prefer indoor approaches to objectives. Sound through walls and geometry is nerfed, which means an indoor crouch-walk past a patrol that used to alert through a wall now slips by. Container clusters inside buildings are the new highest-throughput stops for a solo looter, and the indoor stretch of the route is where Silent Scavenger pays the most.
Treat outdoor stretches as transit, not work. Outdoor sound perception was buffed, so sprinting between buildings is louder relative to what it used to cost. Crouch the gaps you used to walk, walk the gaps you used to sprint, and never sprint past an ARC patrol in the open if there is any cover-line to use instead. Calming Stroll plus crouch-walk is the default outdoor pace.
Use real cover, not "near cover." The bush and smoke vision change means a Raider half-tucked behind a bush is now spotted at angles that used to break the line. Pick cover that fully obscures your silhouette from the ARC's eyeline, and re-pick cover when the patrol pivots. The two-meter rule of thumb: if you can see the ARC's torso through the cover, the ARC can see yours.
Cloak when the outdoor cross is mandatory. A stretch with no cover-line and an active patrol is exactly when the rebalanced item:photoelectric-cloak earns its slot. Five seconds of cloak at 5/s burns 25 from the powercell and gets you across the gap with no audio cost beyond your footsteps.
Sound Discipline
Hearing matters more than seeing in this game, and the 1.29.0 outdoor sound-perception buff sharpens that. A Raider who hears your reload from two rooms away pushes before you finish the swap. A Raider who sees you at 80 meters but heard nothing has to commit to the angle without knowing if you are alone.
Calming Stroll regenerates stamina at a walk so you never need to sprint between containers, and sprint footsteps are the loudest sound a Raider makes. Crouch-walk inside buildings only, and walk the outdoor stretches by default now that outdoor sound carries further to ARCs.
Smoke is the eraser, and the 1.29.0 granular-vision change makes it more positional, not less effective. ARCs read smoke as soft cover rather than a hard wall, so placing the cloud between you and the ARC's eyeline matters more than throwing it in the rough direction. The instant you take fire from another Raider, deploy between yourself and the source and reposition under it. Do not heal in smoke; heal after you have moved through it. A Raider who pushes the smoke expects to find you in the middle of the cloud.
Solo PvE Patterns
Ferro one-shot economy on small ARCs. Wasps and Shredders die to a single 100-damage headshot; Strong ARC pen punches through their light plating. Two stacks of Heavy ammo cover a full raid, the same trait TheGamer's PvE tier list calls Ferro's signature.
Hornet Driver for Bastion stuns. Seven seconds is the window to plant two Ferro headshots into an exposed core, or walk past if the route allows. The driver costs 0.75 weight, the right trade for any route touching a Bastion-spawn zone.
Firefly grazing damage is no longer a route-killer. The 1.29.0 fire-application rework means brushing the edge of a Firefly's cone now costs you a tick of HP instead of a half-bar. The Firefly itself still wants to die to a Ferro headshot, but a sloppy crouch past the cone is now survivable.
Skip more fights than you take. Three Wasps in an open courtyard is six rounds of Heavy and 30 seconds of audio; the same patrol walked around at crouch speed costs zero of either. The build kills cleanly when it has to; it wins by not having to.
When the Build Fails
Snitches and Spotters. Snitch ARCs negate Silent Scavenger because Snitches broadcast on a separate channel from audio detection. Pre-clear them before looting any room, or use Hornet Driver to disrupt mid-broadcast.
Coordinated three-stack flanks. Three pairs of ears beat audio stealth because one is always in the right room. The 40-charge Light shield does not survive simultaneous fire, and Ferro's one-round mag is a death sentence in a 1-versus-3 push. Switch maps or run off-peak; this is not a loadout problem.
PvP Brawler hunters at extracts. item:combat-mk3-aggressive on a item:heavy-shield with a item:bettina out-trades you at every range. The Nomadic Envoys 1.29.0 fire-rate buff lifted Bettina from 235 to 250 RPM, its second consecutive buff and the reason it is the lead S-tier pick on the ARC Raiders Weapon Tier List for any Raider who wants a PvP-first gun. Their 80-charge Heavy shield eats a full Stitcher mag and still has charge left. The answer is not being there: route to the second extract, wait for the pad to time out, or slip through during a third-party fight. If you want a backup PvP gun on this build instead of pure stealth-loot, Bettina is the gold standard to swap into the Ferro slot for raids you expect to fight. For the build that hunts looters on those pads, see the PvP Brawler Build Guide.
Cornered without smoke or cloak. Tight room, one exit, Raider pushes while smoke is on cooldown and the cloak powercell is dry, you lose. Keep one smoke unspent until extract phase and treat the cloak as a single-use crossing tool per powercell. Map a back-out route for every container cluster before committing.
Long-range Osprey or Jupiter snipers. Light shield's 40 charge dies to one clean item:jupiter headshot. Route through interiors, smoke when crossing open ground, and never sprint a sightline you have not glassed first with the integrated Binoculars. The cloak is a band-aid on a long sniper-lane; the real answer is the interior route.
Variant: Healing Augment for Short Raids
item:tactical-mk3-healing is the swap for short, squad-adjacent runs. The 1.29.0 rework changed the Cloud of Renewal from single-target 20 HP on a 30-second cooldown to an AoE 45 HP cloud on a 45-second cooldown (arcraiders.wiki Update:1.29.0). For a duo, that math now heals both Raiders for 45 each on a single revival cast, which is a real squad-support upgrade even with the longer cooldown. The augment still gives 16 backpack, 55 weight, 4 quick-use, and Light or Medium shield. Keep Ferro plus Stitcher, keep Light shield, drop one quick-use slot.
Eight backpack slots and 15 weight is a lot of loot economy gone, and the 4-slot quick-use cuts either smoke, the cloak, or Hornet Driver. The upside is the new AoE revival cloud, which makes the build viable in duos where a teammate goes down within hug distance. A item:defibrillator in the freed slot turns a bleed-out into a stand-up. Healing also opens item:medium-shield (70 charge at 42.5% mitigation), which with Used to the Weight adds real cushion when stealth fails.
Run Cautious as the daily driver. Run Healing the raids you queue with a friend on a short timer. Healing is a worse solo augment than Cautious in any fight past 30 seconds, but the post-1.29.0 AoE cloud makes it the strongest short-raid duo pick the looter pool (item:looting-mk3-survivor, item:looting-mk3-safekeeper) can put up against it.
Quick Reference
Total loadout weight floor: Ferro 8.0 + Stitcher 5.0 + Light shield 5.0 = 18.0
Photoelectric Cloak adds 3.0 if slotted (post-1.29.0 weight unchanged; power cost 5/s)
Looting Mk. 3 Cautious cap: 70 weight, 24 backpack slots, 5 quick-use slots
With Broad Shoulders 5/5 applied: 80 weight cap
Remaining for ammo + heals + smoke + cloak + loot: 49 to 62 weight
Light shield math:
Total charge: 40
Mitigation: 40%
40-damage hit through Light: 24 health damage, 40 charge consumed
Number of 40-damage hits before break: 1
Shield Recharger refills full bar in 10s at 4 charge per second
Ferro one-shot math:
Headshot: 40 * 2.5 = 100 health damage before mitigation
Strong ARC pen punches through Bastion plate
Mag size: 1 (break-action reload between shots)
Stitcher panic dump:
Raw DPS: 6.5 dmg * 45.3 fire rate = ~294 per second
20-round mag empties in ~0.44s
Photoelectric Cloak math (1.29.0 Nomadic Envoys):
Power cost: 5/s (was 10/s in 1.26.0)
Weight: 3.0 (unchanged from 1.26.0)
5-second crossing: 25 powercell, no audio cost beyond footsteps
10-second window: 50 powercell, enough for a Security Locker approach
Skill point spend (76 total at level 75):
Mobility: 26 points (Marathon Runner, Youthful Lungs, Carry The Momentum,
Calming Stroll, Effortless Roll, Slip and Slide)
Survival: 27 points (Looter's Instincts, Silent Scavenger, Broad Shoulders,
In-round Crafting, Looter's Luck, Security Breach)
Conditioning: 0 points
Other: 23 points spent on prerequisite chain skills
Citations: arcraiders.wiki per-page sources for Ferro, Stitcher, Looting Mk. 3 Cautious, Shields, Smoke Grenade, Shield Recharger, Hornet Driver, and Photoelectric Cloak; arcraiders.wiki Update:1.29.0 for the Nomadic Envoys ARC perception rework, cloak power cost change, Tactical Mk.3 Healing rework, and Bettina fire-rate buff; arcraiders.wiki Skills page for skill effects and prerequisites; TheGamer PvE tier list for Ferro S-tier ammo-economy validation; Overgear Solo Build for skill spine cross-validation.