ARC Raiders 1.3 Patch Notes – Massive Venator Nerf, Item Prices Balancing, Stella Mortis Spawn Changes
RIP Venators.
ARC Raiders 1.3 patch brings one small change in the meta, but quite an impactful one – a Venator nerf. To those who haven’t used a fully-upgraded Venator, you sure did miss out. Here are all the changes to ARC Raiders in the 1.3 update.
The Venator Nerf – Is it Still Viable?
The biggest change coming to patch 1.3 is a massive fire rate nerf from Venator upgrades. When upgraded, the Venator gets 22/44/60% increased fire rate per level, which has now been reduced to 13/26/40%.
That is a massive decrease, but is it still viable? The short answer is yes. The Venator was completely overtuned on release, boasting one of the highest TTK (time-to-kill) stats, only behind the Vulcano. To put that into perspective, that makes the Venator stronger than fully-upgraded epic-tier weapons such as the Bobcat, Tempest, and Bettina. The only reason the Vulcano holds a faster kill time rate is that it is a semi-automatic shotgun.
This doesn’t account for accuracy and range. Since the Venator is also one of the most accurate weapons in the game while also being decent in mid-range fights, that really puts it over not only epic weapons, but every weapon in the game.
While the 20% fire rate is a massive nerf to the Venator, it should still be more than decent, especially since its damage remains the same, still making it possible to wipe squads with one magazine.
Stella Mortis Spawn Changes
After the North Line update, Stella Mortis has become a haven for PvP players. Since the map is extremely small and tight, players are finding fights everywhere they go. You can win fights against two or three squads and still end up losing in the end.
It is fun, but there are some changes needed. The 1.3 update changes two player spawns/spots that are too close to ARC spawn areas, which puts them at a disadvantage immediately.
My theory is that these spawns are most likely in the Medical Lab or the Lobby (near the metro), since they are so close to many ARC enemy spawns. This should still make the Stella Mortis map a PvP haven.
I do wish there were some more balancing, such as making it easier to extract. The map really incentivizes free loadouts, making players who bring their hard-earned loadouts at risk against multiple squads at a high rate.
Item Price Changes and Crafting Changes
There are only two big changes to item prices:
- Buy value: From 8,100 to 15,000 Coins
- Sell value: From 3,000 to 5,000 Coins
- Crafting:
- Old: 2 Explosive compound + 1 Synthesized fuel
- New: 3 Explosive compound + 2 ARC Circuitry
- Deadline trader stock: From 3 to 1
- Buy value:
- Old: 10 launcher ammo for 6,000 Coins
- New: 6 launcher ammo for 4,500 Coins
- Sell value: From 200 to 250
- Crafting:
- Old: 6 launcher ammo for 4 Metal parts + 1 Explosive Compound
- New: 6 launcher ammo for 1 ARC Motion Core + 2 Crude Explosives
- Launcher ammo crafting is available at the Workbench without needing a blueprint.
The Deadline has proven to be very efficient in dealing with strong ARC enemies like Bastions and Bombardiers, so making it more limited and expensive was to be expected.
The launcher ammo being more expensive makes it even harder to set up for a Matriarch or Queen raid. Players are already going into Matriarch and Harvester raids with 70,000 – 100,000 Coins worth of loadouts, and the launcher ammo is a big part of that expense.
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