ARC Raiders Augments Guide: Best Cybernetic Enhancements & Character Builds

I’ll be straight with you: my first twenty runs in ARC Raiders were a disaster. I sprinted into Dam Battlegrounds with a rusty pistol and a backpack full of optimism, and I got deleted by a Bastion before I’d finished looting my first crate. Embark Studios built something nasty and beautiful here. The Rust Belt wants you dead, the machines hunt by sound, and the other Raiders are often scarier than the robots.

Aim doesn’t carry you in this game. What carries you is how you set up your character before the elevator drops you topside. This guide covers what I learned the hard way: how Augments and pockets work, how to spend your skill points without regretting it, and three builds I’d run again tomorrow.

Forget Classes. Your Build Lives in Your Gear and Your Points

ARC Raiders has no class screen. You don’t pick “Tank” or “Sniper” and get locked in. Your identity comes from three things stacked together:

• Augments (the gear modifications that shape your pockets, shields, and slots)
• Your skill tree allocation
• The loadout you carry into the raid

Change any one and the whole character feels different. I love this because experimenting never feels like starting over. I also hate it, because one bad Augment pick can quietly ruin a run you thought was going fine.

Augments: The Boring-Looking Stuff That Wins Raids

Augments run from Mark 1 to Mark 3, and the jump between tiers is bigger than the numbers suggest. A Mk.3 setup is a different game from Mk.1. Here’s what each system actually does for you.

Quick Slots and Gadget Slots

Quick access sounds like a minor perk until a Tick swarm is on you and you’re fumbling for a Stitcher. Higher-tier modifications give you more room on the quick-select wheel and cut the dead time between swapping items. Your Crowbar is the clearest example. It’s the tool for cracking open low-tier ARC units like Pops and Ticks, and when you need it, you need it right now.

Safe Pockets: Your Insurance Policy

This is the single most important thing to understand in the game. Anything in your regular inventory is gone if you die, and some other Raider is going to enjoy it. Anything in your Safe Pocket survives, even through a full squad wipe.

So the real decision every run is how much to carry versus how much to protect. If you’re hunting blueprint materials for weapons like the Dolabra or Canto, you want that pocket as large as you can get it. I’ve lost a run’s worth of good loot because I got greedy with backpack space. Don’t be me.

Shield Tiers

Health needs Stitchers. Shields heal themselves, and that’s why they matter so much. A higher tier gives you a bigger buffer and a faster recharge, which means you can eat a few hits from something nasty like a Vaporizer overhead or a Bastion on the ground without touching your health bar.

Here’s the tradeoff nobody mentions enough. Heavy shields are great, but they eat into the gear budget you’d use for pockets or mobility. Every Augment slot is a choice, so decide what kind of raid you’re running before you equip anything.

The Three Skill Trees

You can reach level 75, which gives you up to 76 skill points across 45 skills. Respecs are restricted, so treat every point like it’s permanent. I wasted a handful of early points on stuff I never used, and I still think about it.

Survival

This is the tree for people who treat extraction like a job. Faster container breaching and better foraging mean more loot per minute, and the detection upgrades let you read incoming ARC patrols by sound and thermal cues before they lock onto you. For new players I’d call this the safest place to start putting points, because it keeps you alive by keeping you unnoticed.

Mobility

Movement in this game is physical and a bit floaty in the best way, and Mobility makes it sing. Cheaper dodge rolls, faster sprinting, and better slides add up. Late in the tree you can chain a slide into a vault, or use an emergency roll to cancel fall damage when you bail off a roof. On maps like Buried City and Stella Montis, with their vertical layouts, this tree can be the difference between a clean escape and a loud, embarrassing death.

Conditioning

Conditioning is your fighting tree. More health, faster reloads, less recoil, and a quicker shoulder swap (the X key by default) when you’re peeking around cover. If you want to contest busy interior zones or take down boss-class machines like the Queen or Matriarch, you can’t skip it. Going into those fights without it feels like bringing a butter knife to a tank.

Three Builds I’d Actually Run

These aren’t theory. They’re the setups that keep showing up in community threads, and each one fits a distinct playstyle. Pick one per raid and commit.

1. The Phantom Scavenger (Solo Loot Build)

This is my comfort build, and honestly the best way to learn the game. You go in quiet, you take what’s valuable, and you leave before anyone knows you were there.

Loadout:

• Silenced small-caliber weapon
• Crowbar
• Sound decoys
• Smoke grenades

How it plays: Stay on the edges of maps like Dam Battlegrounds and loot containers as you go. Move anything valuable straight into your Safe Pocket so a bad turn can’t cost you the run. Your Mobility points let you slide down hills silently and move faster with your weapon holstered, and Survival keeps your sound footprint low enough that ARC acoustic detectors ignore you.

If a team ambushes you, don’t fight. Throw smoke, roll to break line of sight, and head for a secondary extraction without looking back. A good Phantom run ends with full pockets and zero bullets fired, and that’s a great feeling.

2. The Vanguard Dreadnought (Squad PvE and Boss Farming)

Someone on your squad has to be the wall, and this is that person. You take hits, you hold ground, and you make the machines care about you instead of your friends.

Loadout:

• Heavy anti-material rifle
• Laser weaponry
• High-grade Stitchers
• Deployable cover

How it plays: Big shields and a fat health pool let you stand in rocket fire and laser drone barrages that would flatten anyone else. Against bosses like the Queen or Sentinel, your Conditioning perks steady the recoil so you can place shots on the exposed engine fans and glowing weak points.

A squad with one Dreadnought up front is a squad that gets to extraction. The others can handle the exit call while you keep the machines busy. It’s not a glamorous role, but I’ve never regretted taking it.

3. The Rust Belt Assassin (PvP Hunter)

This is the build for people who think the real boss is the other Raider. It’s aggressive, fast, and a little mean.

Loadout:

• High-burst shotgun or assault rifle
• Crowbar
• Thermal vision scope
• Active decoy traps

How it plays: The half-Mobility, half-Conditioning split gives you both closing speed and dueling power. Slide into range, then use the shoulder swap while aiming to keep awkward angles around cover.

The best trick is patience. Don’t camp the extraction elevator itself. Set up about 50 meters out on a high spot and turn your flashlight off. Wait for another team to start the loud extraction sequence, because they’ll be staring at the countdown instead of the treeline. Then hit them from the flank. It’s cruel, it’s effective, and I’ve done it more times than I’d like to admit.

Field Habits That Matter More Than Any Build

Even a perfect setup falls apart if your habits are sloppy. These are the ones that changed my results the most.

• Use free loadouts when you’re broke or learning. They protect your main stash from losses. They don’t come with a Safe Pocket, so keep these runs short, 5 to 10 minutes of grabbing basic scrap and learning the map.
• Track your blueprint materials. Mark what you need in the workshop tracker and ignore the rest. When your stash fills up, expand it with trader credits at Speranza or recycle junk into metal and mechanical parts out in the field.
• Respect your noise. Machines and rival Raiders track you by sound, and sprinting, jumping, and vaulting are loud. In hot zones, holster your weapon for the speed boost, crouch-walk, and use terrain to hide your silhouette.

ARC Raiders Nanite Farming Guide: Best Methods for Fast Skill Upgrades

Final Thoughts

What I love about ARC Raiders is that the build system rewards decisions instead of grinding. You’ll never have the perfect setup for every situation, and that’s the point. Every raid asks whether you want to be rich, safe, or dangerous, and you can rarely be all three.

If you’re new, start as a Phantom Scavenger. Get comfortable with Safe Pockets and sound control, then branch out once you know where you die and why. If you want to feel like a hero, find a squad and become the Dreadnought. And if you’ve got a mean streak, the Assassin is waiting.

Now go topside. Watch the skyline, and keep your flashlight off.

Augment Guide for Solo Players | ARC Raiders