There's a fun, slightly cursed way to deal with the ARC Raiders Matriarch that turns you into the main character of the lobby: you skip Deadlines, jump on top of the boss like a giga chad, and melt the core with a Torrent until your ammo or your health gives up.

Is it safe? Not really. Is it elegant? Absolutely not.

But if you do it right, it's one of the most efficient ways I've found to farm Matriarch Trial score, especially in solos, and in many games you'll end up topping the damage chart without ever touching Deadlines.

• 1. Loadout: What You Actually Need To Make This Work
• 1.1 Core Weapons & Gear
• 1.2 How Much Ammo Do You Actually Need?
• 2. Pre-Fight: When To Spawn And How To Read The Lobby
• 2.1 Early vs Late Spawn Choice
• 3. Step One: Break the Top Armor First (And Then Let Go)
• 3.1 Why Top Armor Comes First
• 3.2 When Falling Off Is Totally Fine
• 4. Step Two: Wait For The Smoke, Then Start Cooking The Core
• 4.1 Why Late Jumping Works Better
• 4.2 How the Damage Phase Feels In Practice
• 5. Trial Scoring: How Many Mags = How Many Stars?
• 5.1 Rough Conversion: Ammo to Trial Points
• 5.2 Why Not Just Stay On From Start To Finish?
• 6. Biggest Threats: It's Not Just The Matriarch
• 6.1 Damage From Other Players
• 6.2 Bastions & Falling Off
• 7. Is Aggression-Based Matchmaking Real? What My Runs Felt Like
• 7.1 Two Very Different Types of Lobbies
• 7.2 A Possible Way To Test It
• FAQ
• Wrap-Up: The Real Lesson Behind Cheesing The Matriarch

If you've been wondering how to farm 3‑star Matriarch Trials fast without being forced into a Deadlines meta, this is for you.

↖ 1. Loadout: What You Actually Need To Make This Work

The core idea of the strategy is simple:

get on top of the Matriarch, break armor, then beam the exposed core with a Torrent until your magazines turn into Trial points.

To do that consistently, your loadout needs to support two things:

1. Sustained medium-ammo damage;

2. The ability to reach and reattach to the boss.

↖ 1.1 Core Weapons & Gear

Here's the baseline setup that has worked best for me:

A few key notes from actually doing this dozens of times:

• Torrent + extended mag is non-negotiable for this specific cheese:
  • One full magazine on the core gives you roughly 2,000 Trial score (depending on attachment and hit consistency).
• Shotgun fills two important roles:
  • Efficiently helps with core damage when you're off the boss;
  • Gives you strong close-range defense if another player decides you're free loot.
• Snap Hook is what turns this from a once per fight gimmick into a repeatable method:
  • If you get knocked off, you can sometimes reattach mid-air or right after landing;
  • It also saves you when you misjudge distances and ledges.

↖ 1.2 How Much Ammo Do You Actually Need?

Here's where numbers matter. From my runs:

• With 600 medium ammo, I had multiple attempts where I simply ran out of bullets while still having core HP to burn.
• With 900–1,100 medium ammo, I feel much more consistent:
  • I can stay on the boss or re-engage multiple times;
  • I usually have enough ammo to push for high Trial score even if my first attempt isn't perfect.

In one of my better solo runs:

• I spent about 900 Torrent bullets on the core;
• That translated into roughly 8,000 Trial points;
• Technically enough for a comfortable 3‑star if you structure the rest of the fight decently.

If you notice that you frequently leave the fight with core still alive but zero ammo, that's your signal: up your ammo count, or accept that you'll have to rotate in more shotgun/core damage instead of relying almost entirely on Torrent.

↖ 2. Pre-Fight: When To Spawn And How To Read The Lobby

One thing that surprised me over many Matriarch attempts:

sometimes an early spawn is not actually ideal.

↖ 2.1 Early vs Late Spawn Choice

You might think spawn early, rush boss, profit. But in practice:

• Early spawn pros:
  • You can reach the Matriarch first;
  • You can control the initial armor phase and position.

• Early spawn cons:
  • It's harder to read the lobby:
    • Are people going to cooperate on boss?
    • Or are they just here to grief, hunt players, or ignore the boss entirely?
  • You can accidentally become the only person committing to the boss, which is risky.

The Matriarch cheese run where everything clicked for me?

I actually had an early spawn, but when I thought about consistency, I realized:

• For Matriarch Trials specifically, I sometimes prefer a slightly later spawn so I can:
  • See if anyone is obviously rushing the boss;
  • Gauge how aggressive the lobby is;
  • Decide whether this is a good game to commit to a long, risky boss climb.

If you constantly die to third parties while climbing or on the boss, you might want to experiment with not hard-rushing from the very first second.

↖ 3. Step One: Break the Top Armor First (And Then Let Go)

The first phase of the fight is not about maxing Trial score; it's about setting up your damage window.

↖ 3.1 Why Top Armor Comes First

My typical approach:

1. Reach the Matriarch relatively early;

2. Focus on breaking the top armor as the first priority;

3. Treat this as a setup phase, not a DPS race.

Why this matters:

• As soon as the top armor is gone, you no longer need to stay on her back permanently to get good value:
  • If you get knocked off after the armor is broken, it's fine;
  • You're not wasting your main damage window because you can always re-engage when the conditions are better.
• If you stubbornly try to stay on from full HP → zero in one go:
  • You risk running out of ammo on the core;
  • You give players and adds more time to punish you;
  • You often die with 600–700 spent ammo and a half-dead boss.

I had a run where I stayed on top for a very long time from early on, burned through huge amounts of ammo, and still ended up in a bad spot because I committed too early and too long. It was efficient in theory, but not in real survival terms.

↖ 3.2 When Falling Off Is Totally Fine

Once the top armor is gone:

• If you fall off while repositioning or during chaos:

don't panic.

• This stage is not about perfect uptime; it's about coming back at the right moment.

You'll see why timing matters in the next section.

↖ 4. Step Two: Wait For The Smoke, Then Start Cooking The Core

There's a specific moment where jumping onto the Matriarch goes from risky and inefficient to she's basically a training dummy.

That moment is when she starts visibly smoking.

↖ 4.1 Why Late Jumping Works Better

Here's the pattern I kept seeing:

• When the Matriarch is aggroed on someone else, she often:
  • Stands still more;
  • Moves less erratically;
  • Is less focused on shaking you off.

• When she's aggroed on you, she:
  • Moves more unpredictably;
  • Tries to shove, throw, or push you off;
  • Forces you to constantly adjust, which raises the probability of falling.

So the sweet spot is:

1. Let other players take some aggro and chip damage;

2. Wait until she starts smoking (mid‑to‑low HP range);

3. Then hook/jump onto her and start cooking the core with Torrent.

↖ 4.2 How the Damage Phase Feels In Practice

In one of my smoothest runs:

• I jumped on her when she was already smoking;
• Got myself positioned on the top, slightly near the edge;
• Started beaming the exposed core with Torrent, full magazine after full magazine.

Important micro details:

• When the Matriarch tries to tilt or toss you:
  • Stick closer to the edge so you don't get thrown straight off without a chance to catch;
  • Sometimes you get lucky and can grab a ledge or rehook with Snap Hook mid-fall.
• At peak damage uptime:
  • I literally had one hand on the mouse aiming at the core;
  • The other hand was drinking coffee;
  • I didn't need to press movement keys until she finally shook me off.

It sounds like a joke, but that's exactly what you're aiming for:

a window where she can't really shoot you properly, other ARC units don't bother you much, and your only job is don't press anything dumb, keep shooting.

↖ 5. Trial Scoring: How Many Mags = How Many Stars?

Let's talk numbers, because this is where the method becomes interesting for Trials.

↖ 5.1 Rough Conversion: Ammo to Trial Points

From repeated runs focusing on core damage, I've observed:

• One Torrent magazine on the core ≈ around 2,000 Trial score

(this can vary slightly with attachment and hit quality).

• The Trial score conversion seems roughly like:

2.84 points of XP → 1 Trial point (based on my experience, specifically when hitting the core, not counting armor).

Using that rough math:

In a solo run where I spent around 900 bullets, I saw roughly 8,000 points contributed toward the Trial from just that core damage phase. That's more than enough to angle for a 3-star, provided you don't completely waste the rest of the fight.

↖ 5.2 Why Not Just Stay On From Start To Finish?

The big lesson I took away from multiple perfect runs and multiple disasters:

• If you stay from early HP to death:
  • You risk running out of ammo;
  • You give the lobby maximum time to grief you;
  • You expose yourself to more Bastion spam, wolf packs, and stray shots.

• If you wait for the smoking phase and let others do some work:
  • You spend less time in the danger zone;
  • You use your ammo in the most efficient HP range;
  • You still get high Trial score because the game heavily rewards core damage.

So the rule I ended up following is simple:

Don't be greedy with your time on the boss. Be greedy with how efficient your time on the boss is.

↖ 6. Biggest Threats: It's Not Just The Matriarch

You might think the boss itself is the main problem. In this cheese setup, that's not entirely true. The scariest parts of this strategy are:

1. Other players;

2. Bastions when you fall off;

3. Wolf Packs and random AoE.

↖ 6.1 Damage From Other Players

In one of my perfect examples:

• I was taking damage mid-core melt, and I'm fairly sure it was from Wolf Packs thrown by other players;
• Despite that, I prioritized healing before continuing to beam the core and still finished the kill.

You need to accept that:

• As long as players are alive near the boss, you're never perfectly safe;
• Someone might treat you as a free kill while you're busy cooking the core.

So your mental model should be:

• Keep enough meds and awareness to pause DPS, heal, then resume;
• Don't tunnel vision so hard on the core that you ignore your HP bar.

↖ 6.2 Bastions & Falling Off

The truly sketchy moments usually come after you fall off:

• Bastions and other enemies tend to focus you while you're disoriented;
• If another player is nearby, you're an extremely easy third‑party target.

That's why I like:

• Having a medium shield as a buffer;
• Dropping a defib nearby before fully committing to a climb:
  • If you get knocked and then killed, you can crawl back to your own defib;
  • With a bit of luck, another player might revive you on it.

If you keep dying right after falling off, that's your signal to:

• Invest a bit more in defensive play around the boss area;
• Not overstay your welcome on top—better to leave slightly early than die with 600 ammo spent and no Trial score to show for it.

↖ 7. Is Aggression-Based Matchmaking Real? What My Runs Felt Like

After a lot of Matriarch games, one pattern kept poking at my brain:

some lobbies felt extremely aggressive, and others felt unusually peaceful and boss‑oriented.

↖ 7.1 Two Very Different Types of Lobbies

I had stretches of:

• Multiple games where nobody touches the Matriarch;
• Lots of deaths where I got hunted instead of boss-focused play.

Then I tried something different:

• I deliberately played very peaceful for a while:
  • Only shot in self-defense;
  • Often let people live or walk away;
  • Focused on objectives and boss more than PvP.

And suddenly I felt like my lobbies leaned in the opposite direction:

• More people interested in killing the boss;
• Fewer random grief deaths early on;
• More cooperative chaos rather than pure PvP.

Is this 100% proof of aggression-based matchmaking? No. It could easily be coincidence or personal bias. But the feeling was strong enough that it gave me a concrete idea for a more structured test.

↖ 7.2 A Possible Way To Test It

If I turn this into a full article experiment, I'd probably:

1. Play two blocks of games:

• Block A: intentionally aggressive, lots of PvP;
• Block B: as peaceful as possible, avoid unnecessary fights.

2. Record about 50 player interactions per block;

3. Present them anonymously to readers and ask:

• Which block do you think was the aggressive matchmaking set?
• Which one do you think was the peaceful set?

4. Only then reveal which block was which and see whether the perceived lobby behavior tracked with my playstyle.

The point wouldn't be to definitively prove anything, but to see if what many players feel as aggression-based matchmaker vibes holds up even when we try to blind our own assumptions.

↖ FAQ

Q1: Is this Matriarch cheese really doable without Deadlines, or am I trolling my own runs?

A: It's absolutely doable. You don't need Deadlines to achieve 3‑star Trials if you:

• Bring enough medium ammo (think 900+ instead of 600);
• Time your climb for the smoking phase;
• Focus on core damage with Torrent mags.

Is it the safest way? No. But it's very efficient when executed cleanly.

Q2: How safe is being on top of the Matriarch?

A: Surprisingly safe relative to being on the ground:

• The Matriarch has a hard time targeting you directly;
• Other ARC units also shoot you less reliably;
• The real danger is when you get knocked off and land near Bastions or hostile players.

That's why you should never ignore your HP just because the boss isn't hitting you much.

Q3: What if my lobby completely ignores the Matriarch?

A: Then you need to decide quickly whether:

• You want to hard‑commit solo (higher risk, slower kill);
• Or you pivot to a different game plan (more PvP, less boss).

If you repeatedly see no‑boss lobbies, try adjusting:

• Your spawn timing;
• Your early aggression;
• How obviously you behave as boss player in the first few minutes.

Q4: Do I really need 900–1,100 medium ammo?

A: Strictly speaking, you can get by with less—but you'll feel the limit.

• At 600, I've had multiple runs where I simply ran out of ammo mid-core phase.
• At 900–1,100, I can stay on the boss longer, re‑engage, and comfortably hit high Trial scores.

If you keep thinking I would have killed her if I had one more mag, that's your answer.

Q5: Is aggression-based matchmaking confirmed?

A: I can't claim confirmation. What I can say is:

• When I played very aggressively for many games, my lobbies felt more violent and less boss‑oriented;
• When I consciously played peaceful for a while, I saw more lobbies where people cooperated on the boss.

Whether that's system design or pattern-seeking brain is exactly what a more structured experiment should explore.

↖ Wrap-Up: The Real Lesson Behind Cheesing The Matriarch

This whole method boils down to a few simple ideas:

• You don't need Deadlines to farm 3‑star Matriarch Trials—you need smart timing, enough ammo, and a Torrent.
• Break top armor early, then wait for the smoking phase to climb and cook the core.
• Don't get greedy with how long you stay up there; get greedy with how efficiently you turn each magazine into Trial points.
• Expect the real danger to come mostly from other players and Bastions, not the Matriarch herself.

If you approach the fight with that mindset—calm, slightly cynical, and a bit greedy—you'll find that becoming the giga chad on the Matriarch isn't about being fearless.

It's about being disciplined enough to know when to jump on, when to back off, and how to squeeze the most value out of every bullet you fire into that glowing core.