The Aphelion is ARC Raiders' Legendary battle rifle: Energy Clip ammo, a 10-round magazine, a 2-round burst, 25 damage per bolt, a 2.0x headshot multiplier and Strong ARC armor penetration. Frozen Trail 2.0 made it amplifiable, and a question players keep asking on r/ArcRaiders is simple: which nodes do you need before one burst can down a Raider? This Aphelion amplification guide answers it with the actual numbers. It covers all four nodes (Bigger Mag, Charged Burst, Increased Burst and Incendiary Rounds) with their exact tooltip values and costs from the ARC Raiders Wiki amplified-weapons table, the research behind each one, and the burst math against every shield.
Quick answer (TL;DR): The Legendary Aphelion needs one Amplification Module Mk. V to reach Level 5, after the Gunsmith and Research Station both hit Level 4. All four nodes can stack on one gun. Charged Burst (2 Queen Reactor) lets you charge the trigger to fire up to 4 bolts at 22.5 damage each. Increased Burst (2 Pressure Regulator) adds 2 more, for up to 6 bolts, and it can only be taken after Charged Burst. On body shots alone you need both: a full 6-bolt charge lands 135 raw body damage, which on paper downs a 100 HP Raider with no shield or a Light Shield, falls about 3 HP short against a Medium Shield and about 12 short against a Heavy. One headshot bolt fixes the Medium case; a Heavy needs that headshot to land after the shield charge is gone, or two headshots.
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What is Aphelion amplification?
Weapon Amplification arrived with Frozen Trail 2.0 on October 8, 2026. Amplified weapons can be pushed to Level 5, which opens amplification slots that change how the gun works (Amplified Weapons, ARC Raiders Wiki). The module has to match the weapon's base rarity. The Aphelion is Legendary, so it takes an Amplification Module Mk. V, the top tier. Level 5 also adds +70 Max Durability to every amplified weapon before you pick a single node.
The Aphelion is unusual among the amplified guns. Its own wiki page still notes it "cannot be upgraded": there are no Aphelion II to IV tiers. The Amplified Weapons table lists it as Aphelion V, so the Mk. V module takes the base gun straight to Level 5. Check the Gunsmith screen before you spend the module, but that's how the current data reads.
Its base profile explains the nodes. Each 2-bolt burst does 50 body damage, so a no-shield Raider takes two full bursts. Patch 1.17.0 already cut its reload from 4.5s to 3.5s and halved vertical recoil. The amplifications go after the one thing still holding it back in PvP: bolts per trigger pull. If you're still deciding which gun to invest in, the best weapons tier list and the amplified weapons hub compare the roster.
What are the Aphelion amplification nodes?
The Aphelion has four nodes and none of them conflict. The only lock is an order: Increased Burst requires Charged Burst. ARC Tracker's upgrade tree matches this, listing a build with all four nodes. Here's each node from the wiki's Battle Rifles table:
| Node | Effect | Research | Materials | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bigger Mag | +6 magazine size | None listed | 3 Pressure Regulator | None |
| Charged Burst | Charge-and-release trigger: +2 max bolts per burst, +2 magazine size, -2.5 base damage, +60% vertical and horizontal recoil | High-Voltage Exposure | 2 Queen Reactor | None |
| Increased Burst | +2 max bolts per burst | Extended Burst Cycles | 2 Pressure Regulator | Charged Burst |
| Incendiary Rounds | Sets targets on fire: +5/s burn damage, +2s burn duration | Thermite-Tipped Rounds | 3 Fossilized Lightning | None |
One wiki inconsistency is worth knowing about. The general "System Mechanics" paragraph on the Amplified Weapons page gives "Charged Burst requires Increased Burst" as an example, the other way round. The Aphelion's own row says Increased Burst requires Charged Burst, and ARC Tracker's tree shows Charged Burst as a first-tier node with Increased Burst only reachable after it. The research fits too: Extended Burst Cycles, the project that unlocks Increased Burst, asks for damage with a Charged Burst Aphelion (or a Burst Burletta).
What does Charged Burst do to the Aphelion?
The tooltip reads: "Changes the firing mode to charge and release. The longer the charge is held, the more projectiles are fired upon release." The +2 max bolts take a full charge from 2 bolts to 4. Each bolt drops from 25 to 22.5 damage, so a full charge is 90 body damage instead of 50. You also get +2 magazine size (10 to 12). The price is control: 60% more vertical and horizontal recoil, on a gun whose whole appeal was a stable, tight burst. Charged Burst is the backbone of the PvP build and the gate to Increased Burst.
What does Increased Burst do?
It adds +2 max bolts per burst with no damage or recoil penalty of its own, taking a full charge to 6 bolts. That's 135 raw body damage per release. The research description sums it up: "A burst has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The middle could probably use more bullets." (Amplified Research, ARC Raiders Wiki).
What do Bigger Mag and Incendiary Rounds do?
Bigger Mag is a flat +6 magazine size for 3 Pressure Regulator, with no research listed. Stacked with Charged Burst's +2, the magazine goes from 10 to 18. Longer bursts drain a magazine faster, so it gets more useful the more burst nodes you add.
Incendiary Rounds sets targets on fire for +5/s burn damage and +2s burn duration. It's the most useful anti-ARC node, and it's the one that might finish a Raider your burst leaves on a sliver. The wiki doesn't publish the base burn duration or how shields interact with burn, so treat any "burn finishes it" claim as unconfirmed.
Do you need Charged Burst and Increased Burst to one-burst?
On body shots, yes, both. Headshots change the picture (two headshot bolts from even the stock 2-bolt burst make 100 on an unshielded Raider), but you can't plan a fight around landing every bolt on the head. The numbers below use the wiki's shield formula: while a shield has at least 1 charge, it cuts the HP damage of each hit by its mitigation percentage and loses charge equal to the full damage. A Raider has 100 HP. Every row assumes all bolts land as body shots on a Raider at full health and full shield (Shields, ARC Raiders Wiki).
| Target | Stock (2 bolts x 25) | Charged Burst (4 x 22.5) | Charged + Increased (6 x 22.5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No shield | 50 | 90 | 135, downed |
| Light Shield (40 charge, 40%) | 30 | 72 | 117, downed |
| Medium Shield (70 charge, 42.5%) | 28.75 | 51.75 | 96.75, about 3 HP short |
| Heavy Shield (80 charge, 52.5%) | 23.75 | 42.75 | 87.75, about 12 HP short |
What the table says:
- Charged Burst alone can't one-burst on body shots. Four bolts top out at 90, short of 100 even with no shield.
- Charged + Increased Burst downs unshielded and Light Shield Raiders with a full charge, all bolts on target. That's the build the community means when it says the Aphelion "drops a Raider in one burst."
- Medium and Heavy Shields survive a full body-shot burst on paper, by a few HP. The 2.0x headshot multiplier applies to HP, not shield charge. Against a Medium Shield, any one headshot bolt adds at least 12.9 HP of damage and closes the gap. Against a Heavy Shield, a headshot on one of the first four bolts (still mitigated) only adds about 10.7, which isn't quite enough; it takes a headshot on bolt 5 or 6, after the shield charge is gone, or two headshots anywhere in the burst.
- Incendiary Rounds adds burn on top, which may finish a Medium Shield target left at 3 HP. It isn't needed for unshielded or Light Shield targets.
Two caveats. The wiki says most weapons gain baseline improvements at Level 5, but it doesn't list the Aphelion's, so the real per-bolt damage could be slightly higher than 22.5. And these are perfect-accuracy numbers: with 60% more recoil from Charged Burst, landing all six bolts is the actual skill check, and it gets much harder on a moving target at range.
Which Aphelion amplification build is best?
Nothing conflicts, so the real question is order. Every node is permanent once activated, but taking one never locks out another.
- PvP: Charged Burst, then Increased Burst, then Bigger Mag. This is the one-burst build. Charged Burst is useless on its own for one-burst purposes but it's the required first step. Bigger Mag goes third, because six-bolt releases empty a 12-round magazine fast.
- Mostly ARC: Incendiary Rounds and Bigger Mag first. The Aphelion already has Strong ARC armor penetration. Burn damage and a deeper magazine help more against machines than a slower charge-and-release trigger does.
- Short on Research Points: Bigger Mag first. It's the only Aphelion node with no research listed in the wiki's tables, so it can go on the day the gun hits Level 5.
Our verdict: if your Aphelion is a PvP gun, go for all four in the PvP order above. You've already sunk a Mk. V module into the gun. The six-bolt burst is what makes it a one-release threat. If you can't live with the extra recoil, stay on the ARC build and skip the burst nodes.
How do you unlock Aphelion amplification?
The chain is the same for every amplifiable weapon (Amplified Weapons, ARC Raiders Wiki):
- Get the Aphelion. You craft it at Gunsmith 3 from 3 Magnetic Accelerator, 3 Complex Gun Parts and 1 Matriarch Reactor, after learning the blueprint. The blueprint drops in Stella Montis (moved there from the Matriarch in patch 1.7.0). You can also skip crafting: the Furtive Meetings quest and Trophy Display stage 5 each reward a finished Aphelion. Our Projects guide covers the Trophy Display route.
- Raise the Gunsmith to Level 4.
- Raise the Research Station to Level 4. The Outpost build guide covers the order.
- Upgrade the Aphelion to Level 5 with one Amplification Module Mk. V.
- Finish the research and activate your nodes. Bigger Mag has no research listed. The other three need theirs done first.
The research projects
Every Amplified Research project has two steps: a challenge, then 5,000 Research Points plus ARC components (Amplified Research, ARC Raiders Wiki). Once one is done, the node is permanently available on every eligible Level 5 weapon.
- High-Voltage Exposure (Charged Burst): destroy 5 ARC Turbines, then submit 5,000 Research Points and 5 Leaper Pulse Units. Leaper Pulse Units come from scavenging destroyed Leapers.
- Extended Burst Cycles (Increased Burst): deal 10,000 damage with a Burst Burletta or Charged Burst Aphelion, then submit 5,000 Research Points and 10 Comet Igniters. Comet Igniters come from Comets that were destroyed without exploding. If you already have a Burst Burletta, you can clear the challenge before your Aphelion is amplified.
- Thermite-Tipped Rounds (Incendiary Rounds): destroy 30 Fireballs with Explosive Mines, then submit 5,000 Research Points and 5 Firefly Burners, scavenged from destroyed Fireflies.
That's 15,000 Research Points for the three research nodes. If points are your bottleneck, see which research pays best.
The materials
- Queen Reactor (Charged Burst, 2 needed) is Legendary, scavenged from destroyed Queens or the leg armor segments blown off mid-fight. It's the most expensive part of the build. Our Queen and Matriarch kill guide and reactor guide cover the fight and the drop.
- Pressure Regulator (Bigger Mag 3, Increased Burst 2: 5 total) is an Epic Topside Material. The wiki lists the Harvester Payload as its source. Our Pneumatic Actuator and Pressure Regulator farm guide covers the run.
- Fossilized Lightning (Incendiary Rounds, 3 needed) is Epic and only appears at lightning strike points during the Electromagnetic Storm map condition.
Where do you get an Amplification Module Mk. V?
The wiki lists two sources for the Mk. V: the Fallen Emperor on Pendola Pass, opened with an Emperor Gateway Conduit, and the cargo inside the ARC Frigate during the ARC Frigate event. The Amplification Module farm guide compares the two. One module per Aphelion is all it takes. The nodes cost the materials above, not more modules.
Plan for losses too. Level 5 weapons can only be repaired with Amplified Fragments, and an amplified weapon drops at 10% durability when you're knocked out. ARC Tracker lists the Amplified Aphelion's sell value at 35,200 against 27,500 for the stock gun, so a four-node Aphelion is one of the most expensive things you can lose on a raid. Don't take it into a fight you can't win.
Is amplifying the Aphelion worth it?
For PvP players, yes. Charged Burst plus Increased Burst is the only build that downs a Raider in one release on body shots alone, and the math backs the community's claim against unshielded and Light Shield targets. It's expensive. The full four-node set costs a Mk. V module, 2 Queen Reactors, 5 Pressure Regulators and 3 Fossilized Lightning, plus 15,000 Research Points, 5 Leaper Pulse Units, 10 Comet Igniters and 5 Firefly Burners for the research. That's on top of the gun itself, which costs a Matriarch Reactor to craft unless you earned it from a quest or project. If you mostly fight ARC, Incendiary Rounds and Bigger Mag make a cheaper, sensible build. Whatever you pick, you can grow into the full build one node at a time.
For how the rest of the roster compares, the ARC Raiders amplified weapons hub lists every amplifiable gun and node, and the Jupiter and Kettle guides cover two cheaper options.
Skip the Aphelion grind? timesaver.gg can handle the blueprint, the Queen Reactors and the research for you:
- Aphelion Blueprint: skip the Stella Montis blueprint hunt.
- The Queen Kill: a guaranteed Queen kill for the Queen Reactors that Charged Burst needs.
- Outpost Research Boost: push the Research Station to the level that unlocks amplification.
FAQ
Does the amplified Aphelion need both Charged Burst and Increased Burst to one-burst a Raider? On body shots, yes. Charged Burst alone fires up to 4 bolts for 90 body damage, short of a Raider's 100 HP. With Increased Burst a full charge fires 6 bolts for 135 raw damage, enough to down an unshielded or Light Shield Raider if every bolt lands. Headshots can get there with fewer bolts, but that's not something to rely on.
Can the Aphelion one-burst a Medium or Heavy Shield? Not on body shots alone, on paper. A full 6-bolt burst does about 96.75 to HP through a full Medium Shield and about 87.75 through a Heavy. Any one headshot bolt covers the Medium gap. Against a Heavy it takes a headshot on bolt 5 or 6, after the shield charge is drained, or two headshots.
What module does the Aphelion need to amplify? The Amplification Module Mk. V, because the Aphelion is Legendary and the module has to match the weapon's rarity. Mk. V modules come from the Fallen Emperor on Pendola Pass and from ARC Frigate cargo.
Can you put all four amplifications on the Aphelion? Yes. None of the four nodes conflict. The only rule is that Increased Burst requires Charged Burst first. Once activated, a node can't be removed or changed.
Does Aphelion Bigger Mag need research? The wiki's Amplified Weapons and Amplified Research tables list none. It costs 3 Pressure Regulator once the Aphelion is at Level 5, and stacks with Charged Burst's +2 for an 18-round magazine.
How do you unlock Increased Burst for the Aphelion? Complete Extended Burst Cycles at the Research Station: deal 10,000 damage with a Burst Burletta or a Charged Burst Aphelion, then submit 5,000 Research Points and 10 Comet Igniters. Activating the node costs 2 Pressure Regulator.
