Arc Raiders Leaper Guide: Weak Points, Ammo and Spawns

The Leaper has 1,100 health and Heavy armor, and its leap tracks Raiders who are already sprinting. Weak points, the ammo that works, spawns, and when to walk.

Category: ARC Machines, Every Enemy · Updated 2026-08-03

Arc Raiders Leaper Guide: Weak Points, Ammo and Spawns

*Meta description: The Leaper has 1,100 health and Heavy armor, and its leap is accurate enough to hit sprinting targets. Weak points, the ammo that works, spawns, and when to walk.*

The Leaper catches players who thought they had enough distance. Heavy armor, 1,100 health, and a jump accurate enough to hit a Raider who is already sprinting.

What it is

The community wiki calls it an agile, four-legged brute: armor class Heavy, 1,100 health, Leaping as its primary attack, Shockwave as its ability. Threat labels vary, Critical at Dexerto and Extreme at Beebom, but the three sources that publish an armor class (the wiki, Dexerto and Beebom) all say Heavy, and that is what decides your ammo. Heavy is the armor class, not a tier. The wiki and Dexerto say four legs, TheGamer and Atlas say spider-like, so multi-legged is the safe read.

How you know one is there

The tell is the crouch animation before it jumps, flagged by Dexerto. That crouch is your whole warning: move to cover, do not line up the shot. Beyond that, the wiki describes it as often found stomping around open areas, so open ground is where you should already be scanning, though that is where it lives rather than a cue that one is nearby.

Do not assume a piece of geometry is Leaper proof. Embark's Machine Learning Research Lead Martin Singh-Blom told 80.lv the machine learning is strictly for locomotion, how the robot places its feet and moves, and that the machines correct themselves as they go. He names the Leaper: an internal video showed one inside a dome, and "we didn't even know it could get in there." Game Rant's write-up agrees they reach places previously thought impossible. More on ARC movement on /ai.

How it attacks

• The leap. It jumps at Raiders to crush them for heavy damage, and it tracks well enough to hit a sprinting target. Game Rant describes leaps from great distances that often knock a player out in one hit. Sources say huge distances, not map-scale ones.
• The shockwave. The wiki lists it as a separate ability, Dexerto and Atlas both frame it as a pulse that follows the landing. No source gives its radius, damage or windup. Dexerto recommends cover or a dodge roll without claiming the roll beats it.
• Rockets mid-leap. TheGamer alone says it can light you up with its rockets while leaping through the air. Treat that as a possibility, not a fact.

The kill is the combination: it lands, then the pulse finishes the job.

Where to shoot it

Two weak points, agreed by the wiki, Dexerto, Beebom and ScrappyHQ: the eye and the leg joints.

• Legs throw it off balance and make its jumps far less effective. That is the mobility answer.
• Eye: a good shot sends it flying and buys you time. Guides also use an eye shot to pull its attention on purpose.

Scavenge XP splits the same way, +600 for the eye and +500 for a leg, on top of +500 for the kill, so a full clean-up is 1,600 XP. Nobody publishes a multiplier for either spot, or how many hits disable a leg. Aim there because four sources agree, not because there is a tested number.

What to bring

Heavy Ammo penetrates ARC armor better than Medium or Light and is itself outclassed by explosive Launcher Ammo, per the wiki. Heavy weapons: Ferro, Anvil, Bettina. Launcher weapons: Rascal, Hullcracker. Game Rant recommends the Anvil or Ferro, TheGamer prefers the Hullcracker (Tian Wen sells one per day for 30,000 coins). Neither has been measured against a Leaper, so heavy is the floor, launcher the ceiling.

• Blaze Grenades. Read the wiki's strategy in full, because it is a two grenade method: throw one directly onto the Leaper and wait for it to burn out, throw a second once the burn stops, then finish it with one or two shots from a Heavy Ammo weapon. That is why Game Rant says carry at least three and calls fire its main weakness. Caveat: the Blaze Grenade's own page lists a modest burn over several seconds, no armor bypass and no fire multiplier, which does not obviously account for 1,100 health. Guides recommend it consistently; none explains the mechanic.
• Stun Grenades or Hornet Cores to immobilize it, then concentrate fire into the eye.
• Heavy weapons and explosives break its armor and can interrupt the leap animation, the window the whole fight is about.

Builds are on /loadouts, throwables on /items.

Where it spawns

Four maps, agreed by the wiki and Dexerto, with named areas from the wiki:

• Dam Battlegrounds: Hydroponic Dome Complex in the southeast, the Water Treatment Control elevator, the Red Lakes areas. Game Rant calls the first two the reliable spots.
• Buried City: Marano Park, Plaza Rosa, Santa Maria Houses, plus the southern solar panels per TheGamer.
• The Spaceport: south of the Launch Towers.
• The Blue Gate: Barren Clearing, Ruined Homestead, Reinforced Reception, south of the gates, plus the ruined villages and orchard.

No source puts a Leaper on Stella Montis or Riven Tides, and spawn conditions are undocumented: nothing says whether one is guaranteed, how many per raid, or how respawns work. Map overviews are on /maps.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Fighting it in the open and treating distance as safety. It lives in open areas, hits sprinting targets, and closes gaps faster than players expect. Game Rant documented a player who stunned one with a Showstopper and planted a Deadline mine: the Leaper closed the gap before the timer ran out, landed on him, and the mine went off afterwards.

The fix is terrain, not range. Game Rant says find a doorway or enclosed space the Leaper cannot enter, then throw Blaze Grenades at its eye while shooting. Dexerto and TheGamer both say keep your distance instead. Every one of them names the same error: standing where the jump has a clean line.

Is it worth fighting

Conditionally, and the condition is the Leaper Pulse Unit. It is Epic, comes from scavenging a destroyed Leaper, and is required for the "Into the Fray" quest, the Utility Station level 2 to 3 upgrade, and the Expedition 1, Expedition 2 and Trophy Display projects. Budget accordingly: the wiki's item page puts Into the Fray at one unit but the Utility Station 2 to 3 upgrade at four, so that upgrade alone is four Leaper kills, not one. It is also a throwable that creates a violent singularity for 100 damage, recoverable afterwards as a Damaged Leaper Pulse Unit. Put it in your safe pocket immediately.

Add 1,600 XP for the kill plus both scavenges, plus ARC Alloy, ARC Flex Rubber, ARC Motion Core, ARC Performance Steel, Advanced ARC Powercell, Explosive Compound and Mechanical Components.

Against it, aggregators rate the fight hard and say engage only when prepared or near escape structures. So fight a Leaper on purpose, kitted, next to a building, when you want the Pulse Unit, and never opportunistically. Sort the drops on /keep-or-sell.

What is not confirmed

Embark has published nothing about the Leaper, and the patch index from 1.2.0 through 1.39.0 names it nowhere, so the patch that introduced it and any balance changes are unknown. The wiki's trivia says it was called the Bison until the Server Slam test, community sourced only. Also open: why fire works, multipliers on the eye or legs, whether the shockwave is its own ability or purely a landing effect, the rockets, and the single-source claim that a Matriarch calls one in. TheGamer's general roundup even claims it has no armored weak points, against four sources naming eye and legs. This is a fan-run companion site with no connection to Embark Studios.