RSVSR Why barricades quietly hard counter Rocketeers in Arc Raiders
Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2025 7:36 am
There is a moment in Arc Raiders when you hear that high-pitched whine of a Rocketeer spinning up overhead and your stomach just drops, and it does not matter if you are loaded with purple gear or just chasing ARC Raiders Coins, because if you are stuck in the open you are basically already dead. You sprint, you dodge, you slide over some rock, and then a rocket lands at your feet and you are staring at the respawn screen wondering what went wrong. The funny part is you do not actually need some rare god-roll weapon to flip that fight, you just need to stop ignoring the Barricade Kit and treat it like the free, boring-looking item that quietly hard-counters one of the nastiest enemies in the game.
Barricade Kit Is Not Trash
A lot of players see the Barricade Kit in the loadout, shrug, and grab a flashier gadget, and you can almost tell who did that the second a Rocketeer shows up because they scatter like pigeons. The kit is basically a portable bunker wall with around 500 hit points, which is more than enough to soak a full barrage if you actually use it instead of panic-rolling in a field. Drop it and you turn that open space into something you can defend, and if the wall survives you just break it back down and stash it again like nothing happened. It feels cheap in the best way, because you are saving your limited consumables for when things really go off the rails.
Picking The Right Ground
The big mistake people make is trying to out-move a Rocketeer in open terrain, because that blast radius does not care how slick your movement tech is. Once you hear or spot one, you want to peel off towards a choke point fast, so think tunnel mouths, bunker doors, narrow gaps between containers, anywhere that funnels line of sight. As you hit that spot, pull the Barricade Kit and slam it down near the entrance, but do not seal the whole gap, leave a sliver of space on one side. That offset placement is the whole trick, because you are setting up a little murder hole without needing some perfect piece of map geometry.
Turning Panic Into A Shooting Gallery
With the wall slightly off-centre, you stand just inside the tunnel or doorway, hugging the safe side behind the barricade, and suddenly the Rocketeer's rockets are detonating harmlessly on the outer face or chewing up the bunker walls instead of your armour. You get this tiny angle through the gap where you can lean out, take quick shots, duck back, and the enemy AI just keeps dumping rockets into your cover like an idiot. It feels almost unfair when you realise you are deleting a flying threat with a basic rifle while your cheap little wall eats all the splash. As long as you keep your feet planted and resist the urge to ego peek too wide, the Rocketeer goes from "oh no" to "free loot" very fast.
Backup Plans And Staying Alive
Sometimes the fight still gets messy anyway, maybe another patrol wanders in or your barricade is down to its last few hit points and you can see it about to pop, but that is the other reason you set up inside a tunnel or bunker instead of out in the open. You can just fall back a few steps, use any internal doors or corners as a second layer of cover, reload, heal up, then step forward and redeploy if you have to. Once you start playing like this, the Rocketeer stops being that run-ending terror and turns into a predictable hazard you plan around while you chase better gear, level up, or grind through your ARC Raiders Battle pass in RSVSR.
Barricade Kit Is Not Trash
A lot of players see the Barricade Kit in the loadout, shrug, and grab a flashier gadget, and you can almost tell who did that the second a Rocketeer shows up because they scatter like pigeons. The kit is basically a portable bunker wall with around 500 hit points, which is more than enough to soak a full barrage if you actually use it instead of panic-rolling in a field. Drop it and you turn that open space into something you can defend, and if the wall survives you just break it back down and stash it again like nothing happened. It feels cheap in the best way, because you are saving your limited consumables for when things really go off the rails.
Picking The Right Ground
The big mistake people make is trying to out-move a Rocketeer in open terrain, because that blast radius does not care how slick your movement tech is. Once you hear or spot one, you want to peel off towards a choke point fast, so think tunnel mouths, bunker doors, narrow gaps between containers, anywhere that funnels line of sight. As you hit that spot, pull the Barricade Kit and slam it down near the entrance, but do not seal the whole gap, leave a sliver of space on one side. That offset placement is the whole trick, because you are setting up a little murder hole without needing some perfect piece of map geometry.
Turning Panic Into A Shooting Gallery
With the wall slightly off-centre, you stand just inside the tunnel or doorway, hugging the safe side behind the barricade, and suddenly the Rocketeer's rockets are detonating harmlessly on the outer face or chewing up the bunker walls instead of your armour. You get this tiny angle through the gap where you can lean out, take quick shots, duck back, and the enemy AI just keeps dumping rockets into your cover like an idiot. It feels almost unfair when you realise you are deleting a flying threat with a basic rifle while your cheap little wall eats all the splash. As long as you keep your feet planted and resist the urge to ego peek too wide, the Rocketeer goes from "oh no" to "free loot" very fast.
Backup Plans And Staying Alive
Sometimes the fight still gets messy anyway, maybe another patrol wanders in or your barricade is down to its last few hit points and you can see it about to pop, but that is the other reason you set up inside a tunnel or bunker instead of out in the open. You can just fall back a few steps, use any internal doors or corners as a second layer of cover, reload, heal up, then step forward and redeploy if you have to. Once you start playing like this, the Rocketeer stops being that run-ending terror and turns into a predictable hazard you plan around while you chase better gear, level up, or grind through your ARC Raiders Battle pass in RSVSR.