The current ARC Raiders Trial, built around throwing Snowballs at Bastions, asks a very specific question: how many throws do you actually need to hit the top reward tier? The answer is clear: you need to land 20 snowballs on a Bastion to reach the 3-star threshold of 4,000 score.
Snowballs at Bastions Trial basics
The Trial objective focuses on hitting Bastions with Snowballs to build score. Every successful snowball hit on a Bastion adds to your Trial total. You can throw Snowballs at Bastions under normal conditions, but doing it during Cold Snap weather multiplies the value of your time because Snowballs are more readily available, and the event is tuned around that environment.
For this rotation, the important checkpoints are:
- Target enemy: any Bastion
- Scoring action: throwing a Snowball that successfully connects
- Top reward threshold: 3 stars at 4,000 score
- Required hits for 3 stars: 20 Snowballs landed on Bastions
Once you understand that the Trial is essentially counting up to 20 valid hits, the rest of your strategy is about feeding that counter as efficiently as possible.
How many Snowballs to carry and why 20 matters
The Trial tracks score, not inventory, so you do not have to hold all 20 Snowballs at once. You only need to ensure that across the run, you land 20 throws on Bastions. Practically, players stack up Snowballs in batches, unload them on a single Bastion, then restock and repeat if needed.
The key figures are:
- Snowballs needed for 3 stars: 20 landed hits on Bastions
- Stacks commonly used: groups of six Snowballs are a popular working unit
Running with around six stacks at a time gives enough throws to make a Bastion encounter efficient without constantly going back to gather more. With that setup, a single full round of throwing can take you most or all of the way to the 20-hit requirement if multiple players are contributing.
Gathering Snowballs efficiently
Cold Snap conditions significantly reduce the friction of this Trial, because Snowballs are abundant and grouped in predictable clusters. The general pattern that has emerged is to load up on Snowballs, then cycle in and out of a Bastion-heavy activity to keep the loop tight.
One effective pattern uses the Matriarch event on the spaceport:
Step 1: Enter a Cold Snap instance and move through the spaceport area, collecting Snowballs until you hold roughly six full stacks. Focus on dense clusters so you spend more time gathering and less time moving between piles.
Step 2: Once your inventory is full or close to it, move to the Matriarch event on the spaceport. Join the event instance that has an active Bastion presence.
Step 3: After unloading your current Snowball supply into Bastions, leave the event and re-enter to refresh the encounter and repeat the process. This keeps a steady flow of Bastions available for throws.
With multiple raiders doing the same loop, the event space can fill with players perched at elevation, all dedicated to pelting Bastions with Snowballs on spawn.
Scoring and the 3-star (4,000) target
The scoring curve for this Trial is designed so that 20 successful Snowball hits on Bastions equals 4,000 points and therefore 3 stars. The math behind each individual hit is abstracted away; what matters in practice is the total count of landed throws.
That means you do not have to chase hidden conditions or special targets. As long as the game recognizes your throws as valid hits on Bastions, every Snowball you land moves the Trial closer to completion. Missed throws simply waste time; they do not penalize the score directly, but they do increase the number of Snowballs and encounters you need.
Solo vs squad approaches
There is a noticeable difference between playing this Trial solo and running it with a dedicated group.
Solo play centers on reliability. You collect Snowballs, find a Bastion, and slowly grind out hits. The requirement of 20 landed throws is still manageable alone, but each missed Snowball has a larger impact on your time. Solo routes often revolve around known Bastion patrol paths and repeatable event spawns, with the player doing their own loop of gathering and throwing.
Squad play shifts the focus to coordination. When several raiders are stacked with Snowballs and focused on the same Bastion, the 20-hit requirement can be met quickly, often within a small number of spawns. Players commonly share positions and timing so everyone has clear sightlines without blocking each other’s throws.
The Trial does not split or dilute the score per player; each person’s contribution of landed Snowballs pushes their own total forward. That keeps cooperation straightforward: everyone benefits from a stable, Snowball-friendly environment where Bastions are controlled rather than immediately destroyed by conventional fire.
Practical checklist before you start
Before committing time to the Snowballs at Bastions rotation, it helps to lock in a short mental checklist so you do not waste the early minutes of each run.
- Confirm that a Cold Snap environment is active, so Snowballs are easy to farm.
- Identify at least one reliable Bastion spawn source, such as the Matriarch event on the spaceport.
- Decide whether you are playing solo or with a group and adjust your Snowball stack target accordingly.
- Keep the core metric in mind: 20 landed Snowballs on Bastions equals 4,000 score and 3 stars.
Once those pieces are in place, the Trial becomes a simple repetition of a single clear action: stack Snowballs, find Bastions, land throws until you hit 20. Everything else is optimization, not requirement.
