You drop into an ARC Raiders Trial and everything feels fine for about ten seconds. Then the alarms start, your team splits without meaning to, and you're suddenly sprinting on half ammo wondering where the timer went. If you're chasing consistent 3-star clears, it helps to treat each run like a job, not a sightseeing tour, and having your kit planned around the route matters just as much as aim—some folks even pre-plan around what they've got from ARC Raiders Items so they're not scrambling mid-match.

How the score really gets away from you

A lot of players think they're missing damage, but it's usually missed time. Time leaks in tiny ways: opening one extra crate, doubling back for a teammate, taking a "quick" fight that turns into a two-minute mess. And deaths are brutal. Not just the score hit—it's the stop-start rhythm, the revive animation, the awkward regroup. You'll notice it most on weeks with nasty modifiers, where one bad push turns into a chain of downs and you limp to extraction with a 2-star you can't argue with.

Run it like a route, not a brawl

Go in with a simple order and stick to it: 1) clear the closest pressure so you can move, 2) touch the objective early so you're not doing it under panic, 3) rotate through safe cover lines, not straight lines, 4) cash out and leave when the run's still clean. The weird thing is you don't need to fight less, you need to fight on your terms. Pull enemies into choke points. Break line of sight. If someone's ego-peeking an angle, call it out and move. Trials reward the squad that stays boring and alive.

Small habits that flip 2 stars into 3

Most "almost" runs die on details. Reload before you're empty, because empty reloads always happen at the worst moment. Share ammo and plates early, not when someone's already red. If there's a bonus asking for gadget kills or headshots, don't force it in the final room—work it in during the early, easy waves. And keep comms short. "Two left, pushing." "I'm healing, cover." That's it. The cleanest teams aren't louder, they're faster.

Once you start thinking in splits—seconds saved here, one revive avoided there—those weekly resets feel less like a coin toss and more like a routine. You'll still get scuffed runs, sure, but you'll know why, and you'll know what to fix on the next drop, especially when your setup and timing are built around ARC Raiders weapons instead of whatever you happened to grab five minutes before queueing.