A new set of balance changes have hit Fortnite and it’s clear that Epic Games are trying to reduce the overwhelming power of the Drum Gun. Released today with the Week 5, Season 5 challenges, these alterations should make the Drum Gun less oppressive in fights. Since the meta has been mainly focused on the high rate of fire weapons, reducing their overall effectiveness should give other guns a chance to shine.
Building has also been slightly buffed, as the health for some tiles has been increased. This tweak should give some players a better chance in firefights, especially since a lot of the new weapons are great for taking down structures. The Compact SMG has also had its fall off damage reduced along with its clip size, which marks the second round of nerfs this gun as endured.
Here are the complete August 9 Fortnite balance changes:
BUILDING CHANGES
By increasing initial wall health values based on material type, material strength should feel more intuitive when making decisions
- Wood wall initial HP increased from 80 to 90
- Stone wall initial HP increased from 80 to 100
- Metal wall initial HP increased from 80 to 110
SMG CHANGES
Dropping SMG effectiveness – they should feel good against structures, but not consistently be the best option in multiple scenarios.
Compact SMG
- Reduced damage from 22/21 to 21/20
- Reduced clip size from 50 to 40
Drum Gun
- Reduced falloff range damage from 80% to 70% at 3500 units
- Reduced falloff range damage from 65% to 55% at 5000+ units
- Added environmental damage fall off matching player damage fall off
- Decreased jumping accuracy by 5%
- Decreased targeting accuracy by 10%
- Reduced spawn rate from chests and floor loot by 40%