Hello Raiders, Elias here from Rivalsector.com. In my time covering extraction shooters, I’ve learned that every game has its “project guns.” These are the weapons that look cool, have a “unique” mechanic, and fill your head with dreams of one-shot builds. They lure you in. They promise you that if you just invest enough time, enough resources, and the perfect set of Tier 3 mods, you’ll unlock a secret S-Tier monster.
In ARC Raiders, that gun is the Arpeggio. And I’m here to tell you to stop.
I’ve seen the guides. I’ve read the wikis. I see people trying to defend it, placing it in a “respectable” B-Tier or C-Tier. But after dozens of hours of in-field testing, of burning through components to craft mods, and of losing fights I should have won, I have to be the one to say it: The Arpeggio is a trap. It is, in my professional opinion, a bottom-of-the-barrel, F-Tier weapon.
It’s not just “situational.” It’s actively bad. It fails at the two core jobs a weapon in ARC Raiders must do, and it masquerades as a “high-skill” weapon when it’s really just a resource sink. Today, I’m not just ranking it. I’m giving it a eulogy. This is why the Arpeggio is one of the worst weapons in the game.
The Problem on Paper: What You Get vs. What You Think You Get
Let’s start with the basics. The Arpeggio is an Uncommon-rarity Assault Rifle. Its defining feature is a 3-round burst, and it uses Medium Ammo. It also comes with four mod slots, which is the main bait.
Its base damage is 9.5 per shot. Math-savvy players will immediately multiply that by three and say, “Wow, 28.5 damage per burst! That’s huge!”
This is the Arpeggio’s first lie. Its stats on paper are a complete misrepresentation of its performance in the field.
Here is a more realistic breakdown of what this gun actually does.
| Statistic | The Arpeggio’s “Promise” (On Paper) | The Arpeggio’s “Reality” (In Combat) |
| Damage | 28.5 damage per burst (9.5 x 3). | 9.5 or 19 damage. The high vertical kick means you will almost never land all 3 shots on a moving target. |
| Fire Mode | 3-Round Burst: High burst-damage potential. | 3-Round Burst: An awkward, high-recoil mechanic that forces a “click-reset-click” rhythm, killing your DPS. |
| Ammo | Medium Ammo: A common, all-purpose round. | Medium Ammo: “Moderate” penetration, which is completely useless against any serious ARC threat. |
| Mod Slots | 4 Slots: “Look at my potential!” | 4 Slots: A massive resource tax you must pay just to make the gun barely usable, not “good.” |
| Magazine | 24 Rounds. | 8 Bursts. This is a tiny number. You will be reloading constantly in any real fight. |
As you can see, the gun’s entire identity is flawed. That “28.5 damage” is a fantasy. In practice, you are hitting for 9.5, and then your reticle is at the ceiling.
The PVE Dealbreaker: An F-Tier “Robot-Killer”
This is the most important part of my argument. ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter. The number one, non-negotiable job of your primary weapon is to kill ARCs. If your gun cannot reliably clear the AI, it is a failure.
The Arpeggio is a categorical failure.
Its Medium Ammo only has “Moderate” armor penetration. This means it is fine for killing Wasps and maybe a few other low-tier bots. The second you run into an ARC with real armor, like a Snitch, a Rocketeer, or a Bastion, you are dead. You will empty all eight of your bursts into its chassis and do nothing. You are, quite literally, “tickling it.”
I ran an experiment. I took a base Arpeggio into a medium-threat zone. I was ambushed by a single Snitch. I aimed center-mass and began firing. The recoil, the low damage, and the “Moderate” penetration meant I had to reload twice to kill it, all while it was beaming me and calling in friends. I barely survived. The very next run, I took a Heavy Ammo Anvil pistol, which one-shot the same enemy.
This is not a “PVE weapon.” It’s a liability. Taking this gun on a run is actively griefing your teammates, as you are forcing them to deal with 100% of the armored threats.
The “But It’s a PvP Gun” Myth
This is the last line of defense for Arpeggio fans. “Elias,” they say, “you’re using it wrong! It’s not for ARCs, it’s a PvP shredder!”
No. It is not. It is, once again, one of the worst options available for fighting other players. The reason? Consistency.
In a one-on-one PvP engagement, the winner is often decided in less than a second. Your Time-to-Kill (TTK) is everything. The Arpeggio has, in my experience, one of the most inconsistent TTKs in the game.
Here is why it will fail you in a PvP fight:
- The Recoil Gamble: Your entire “28.5 damage” burst depends on you landing all three shots. On a real player who is sprinting, sliding, and shooting back, this is a gamble. The gun kicks hard. You will click, hit one shot, and the other two will hit the wall behind them. You just lost the DPS race.
- The “Click-Reset” Problem: Unlike a full-auto rifle, you cannot simply hold the trigger and track your target. You must click, manually fight the recoil to reset your aim, and then click again. Your opponent, using a simple Rattler or Tempest, is just holding their mouse button down and hosing you with a steady stream of damage. You are playing a mini-game while they are just playing the game.
- The 8-Burst Mag: You have eight pulls of the trigger before you are empty. If you miss two of those bursts, you are already at a massive disadvantage. If you are fighting a duo? It’s impossible. You will get one kill, be forced into a long reload, and the second player will clean you up.
It fails at close-range, where a Vulcano shotgun will delete you. It fails at long-range, where a Ferro will one-tap you. And in its supposed “sweet spot” of mid-range, it is outclassed by every stable, full-auto rifle in the game.
The “Mod Trap”: A Black Hole for Your Resources
“But Elias, it’s good when it’s fully modded!” This is the Arpeggio’s final lie.
Yes, if you find or craft Tier 3 versions of a Compensator, a Vertical Grip, and a Padded Stock, you can tame the recoil. You can make it usable. But here’s the problem: you just spent a mountain of rare components to turn an F-Tier gun into what is, at best, a C-Tier gun.
This is the “resource trap.” Compare this to the ARC Raiders meta weapons.
A base-level Anvil is S+ Tier. A base-level Ferro is S-Tier. They are already amazing. When you put mods on them, they become god-tier. You are investing in strength.
Investing in the Arpeggio is investing in weakness. You are spending the same (or more, since it has 4 slots) resources just to fix its fundamental flaws. Why would you spend 10,000 components to make a junker car run, when you could spend 1,000 to add a turbo to a sports car? The opportunity cost is insane.
What to Use Instead
I tried to love the Arpeggio. I really did. I wanted the burst-fire fantasy to be real. But it’s not. It’s a gun with a massive identity crisis that is bad at PVE, bad at PvP, and a drain on your hard-earned resources.
Do not be fooled. Leave it on the ground. Scrap it for parts. Give it to an enemy you’ve downed to insult them.
If you’re looking for a real weapon, here’s what you should be using.
- The Anvil: The S+ Tier hand cannon. Uses Heavy Ammo, cracks open ARCs, and three-taps players. It is the definition of a meta weapon.
- The Ferro: The other S-Tier king. A Heavy Ammo break-action rifle that one-shots most ARCs and players.
- The Rattler: The Arpeggio’s direct competitor and a much better choice. It’s a full-auto, Medium Ammo rifle. It’s stable, reliable, and does both PVE and PvP with predictable, consistent results.
- The Vulcano: If you want a “shredder,” use this. The semi-auto shotgun deletes players and staggers ARCs at close range.
Just… Don’t
The Arpeggio is the definition of F-Tier. It fails the PVE test, it fails the PvP test, and it fails the “mod investment” test. Its only job is to look “kind of cool” and trick new players into wasting their components.
I know this might be a hot take for the two Arpeggio fans out there, but the numbers and my KDA (Kill/Death/Assist) do not lie. This weapon is a certified “stash-filler” and nothing more.
For more deep-dives, build guides, and to see which weapons are actually worth your time, make sure you’re checking out our other guides in the ARC Raiders category right here on Rivalsector.com.
Now, I want to hear from you. Am I being too harsh? Have you actually found a secret, god-tier build for this thing, or are you like me and think it’s just scrap metal? Let me know in the comments below.
