If you are jumping into Arc Raiders for the Flickering Flames event and you care about squeezing value out of every run, you are going to spend a lot of time staring at Candleberry counters and thinking about routes rather than fights, and that is where planning around the Cold Snap modifier and treating Candleberries as proper ARC Raiders Items really starts to matter.
Surviving Cold Snap
Cold Snap is the whole reason Candleberries show up, but it is also what kills most runs, especially when people try to brute force it and stay in the open too long, so you want to treat the frostbite bar like a second health bar and build your route around anything that counts as shelter, domes, hangars, half collapsed warehouses, whatever lets you reset the chill before it eats through your meds.
When you pick missions, always check for the little snowflake icon, then think in short sprints, from cover to cover, instead of a long scenic tour of the map, and if you are running with randoms it is worth pinging the nearest building as soon as the bar starts ticking because someone always gets greedy, stays outside to loot one last crate and ends up downed in the open where you can not really help them without throwing your whole run.
Best Spots For Candleberries
The Dam Battlegrounds still feel like the most reliable place if you just want raw berry count fast, as long as you can handle some traffic, and the Hydroponic Dome Complex on the north side is usually loaded with bushes, but you will almost always bump into other squads there, so if you are solo or just not in the mood for PvP, heading down to the Scrapyard or the Wreckage in the central south part of the map is usually calmer and gives you a handful of consistent bushes with enough cover to reset Cold Snap mid fight.
A lot of players sleep on Buried City, but if you can deal with tighter spaces and more ambush angles it can be crazy efficient, with squads walking out with 60 plus Candleberries in a couple of raids by looping around the Church Ruins, cutting across to Plaza Rosa and then diving indoors whenever the frostbite meter starts going wild.
Loot You Should Not Ignore
On the way between the big berry clusters, do not just sprint past the background clutter, because the small stuff keeps adding up; Wicker and Fruit Baskets look like filler but can drop a few berries at a time plus side materials like Moss that you will end up needing anyway, and once you get into the habit of cracking every basket in sight your total per run jumps without really slowing you down.
It is also worth opening every Raider cache you see, even if you are trying to keep a low profile, since those surprise drops of 10 Candleberries pretty much feel like skipping a whole chunk of the grind, and if you spot a downed Arc Courier on your route, always detour to loot it because the extra mats help keep your gear moving while you chase that Bettina III and the Red Light Stick blueprint.
Finishing The Banquet
To actually finish out the Candleberry Banquet project before the January 13 deadline, think of your runs as quick in and out jobs rather than epic marathons, queue into Cold Snap missions, hit a high density spot like Dam or the Spaceport trenches, grab what you can carry, then bail before frostbite or a third party squad flips your whole raid, and do not stress too much about inventory space because berries stack to ten per slot so you can stay lean on meds and ammo without feeling cramped, and if you get to the point where the grind feels like work more than a game, it might be a good moment to check out what RSVSR offers if you would rather shortcut a bit of the farm and get back to actually playing fights instead of just chasing bushes.
