After all of Speranza banded together for the monumental task of excavating a path to Stella Montis in Arc Raiders, everyone is eager to begin exploring the long-isolated facility and see what treasures it holds. Even if it doesn’t contain the secret to defeating ARC, everything it has is useful in some way.
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Unfortunately, ARC has infested Stella Montis just as much as any location, though, and hiding within its technology-filled halls is a new enemy that the Speranzans have yet to encounter: the Shredder. These machines look relatively harmless compared to the others, but they’re not to be trifled with – they hide some devastating firepower.
What Are Shredders?
Shredders are medium-sized, floating ARC enemies that specifically appear in Stella Montis, and you’ll most often find them slowly patrolling large rooms or hallways, especially on the northern and eastern sides of the map. Some locations they spawn at include:
- The Business Center, near the entrance to the Lobby.
- The hallways above the Sandbox.
- The Assembly and the Assembly Workshop.
- Cargo Docks A and B.
- The Lobby Metro platform.
- Culture Archives.
Instead of having a machine gun or a missile launcher, the Shredder’s entire body is their weapon. Upon noticing you and becoming hostile, the Shredder will become significantly faster and try to rush to your location so it can let loose an AOE salvo of four shotgun blasts in a massive circle around it after a short delay.
This AOE blast does massive damage very quickly, and can easily tear through 80 percent of a Medium Shield or more, depending on how close you are to the blast, as it becomes less accurate the farther away you are from the Shredder. The same close-range blast will take out a Light Shield and 80 percent of your health, while a Heavy Shield will take around 40 to 50 percent damage.
Their weak point is their thruster, located on the bottom of their body, and damaging it ruins their ability to float quickly. A damaged thruster also makes them start falling to the sides, making it easier to take them out safely.
Once killed, Shredders drop their unique Shredder Gyro, other basic ARC loot, such as ARC Powershells, Simple Gun Parts, and ARC Alloys, and Shotgun Shells.
At the time of this article, the Shredder Gyro does not have a particular function outside of being recycled or sold. We will update this at a later date if it’s required for any crafting recipes, upgrades, or quests.
Strategies For Dealing With Shredders
The most important thing to do when fighting a Shredder is to keep your distance. They don’t have a long-range attack, only their short-to-medium range blast, so as long as you can outrun or put distance between you, they will keep chasing instead of attacking.
Use an Adrenaline Shot when getting chased by a Shredder or other enemy to not only fully restore your stamina, but also temporarily boost your stamina regeneration.
You can also run to a room and close the doors behind you if a Shredder is chasing you. If you close the door quickly enough, its shotgun blasts will get blocked, and this breaks its line of sight to you, so you also get the chance for it to return to patrolling.
Use Weapons With Arc Penetration
While some other enemies can be handled fine without armor penetration, the Shredder is almost entirely armored, and its only weak spot is its thruster, which can be difficult to aim for while it’s moving, thanks to how it positions its body.
Not only do weapons with Arc Armor Penetration do more damage, but their shots do a small amount of knockback to the Shredder, especially if you’re using one with strong armor penetration, such as a Ferro or Anvil.
The extra distance you get from the knockback can be the difference between surviving its blast and dying, and damaging it enough will temporarily stun it as well, especially if you hit the thruster.
Get Above The Shredder
Since the Shredder can’t fly, it won’t be able to reach you unless there’s a ground-based path to your location that it can take instead, and it can often get stuck trying to reach you or stuck alternating between hostile and patrolling.
Being close to it will still cause it to attack, and if you’re close enough, its blasts can still hit you, but standing on shipping containers or even shooting it from a different floor helps block most of the gunfire.
If you’re planning to kill the Shredders at the Cargo Docks, make sure the Bastion that almost always spawns there is dead first, or else you’ll have two tough enemies to fight instead of one.
This strategy isn’t as viable in some locations unless you lure or bring the Shredder to an area with more verticality, but it can help save you if you get caught too close to it.
The best spot for this strategy is their spawning locations around Cargo Docks A and B or the Assembly Workshop, as there are tons of things to climb on or ziplines that bring you to different floors or high locations.
How To Kill Shredders Easily
The best way to kill a Shredder safely is to use Trigger Nades. These grenades are some of the best anti-ARC weapons in the game, especially for how cheap they are to craft, and it only takes two Trigger Nades to kill a Shredder.
You’re given the recipe for Trigger Nades as a reward for completing the quest, Sparks Fly, from Apollo. Each one only costs one Crude Explosive and one Processor, and Stella Montis is an amazing map for farming both of these items, especially Processors.
Multiple Trigger Nades can be thrown directly onto the Shredder while it’s not facing you or onto a surface near it, then detonated from afar to kill it instantly.
If it notices and starts rushing you while you’re trying to kill it, you can throw down two Trigger Nades on the floor near your feet or in its path instead and retreat.
The Shredder won’t attempt to avoid the grenades, and you can detonate them while you’re running, killing the Shredder, or at the very least, heavily damaging it and blowing it away to the side, giving you a chance to recover if needed.
Crafting Trigger Nades does require you to have a Level II Explosives Bench, but doing so doesn’t require killing any of the more difficult ARC enemies.
You only need 50 Chemicals and six ARC Alloys to craft an Explosives Bench, then three Synthesized Fuel, five Crude Explosives, and five Pop Triggers to upgrade it to Level II.
As long as you can keep up with the costs of crafting them, bringing two to four Trigger Nades per trip to Stella Montis is going to help keep you safe from Shredders, and they can come in handy if you have to deal with hostile players or the Bastions that spawn in places like the Cargo Docks.
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