Fortnite buildings buffed and SMGs nerfed in new update

Some brand new changes have gone live in Fortnite: Battle Royale this morning, and they could have a big impact on the game’s meta.

The new changes are something of a rollback of recent updates. Over the past few months, Epic Games has nerfed shotguns, buffed submachine guns, and nerfed building health in an effort to shake up the meta. It worked, but a bulk of the community were not happy about it.

For building materials, initial HP of walls have been buffed across the board for each material type. Wood wall initial HP has been buffed from 80 to 90, stone wall initial HP from 80 to 100, and metal wall initial HP from 80 to 110.

“We’ve seen various discussions about SMGs, building material changes, and general weapon vs. structure interaction,” Epic said. “We agree that weapons should have a unique purpose and that building should feel great as well as show off your tactical skills in the heat of battle. Your feedback in combination with internal testing has shown that previous changes in these areas were not achieving the goals we had set out for. The new changes are aimed at allowing for strengths and weaknesses between the SMGs, shotguns and structures during close range combat.”

The other changes are to SMGs, which has been significantly scaled back. The Compact SMG has seen a damage nerf from 22/21 to 21/20, and its magazine has been cut by 10, down from 50 to 40.

The biggest nerf was to the Drum Gun. The Tommy Gun has had a number of changes, including a reduction in falloff range damage, a five percent decrease in jumping accuracy, a ten percent decrease in targeting accuracy, and a whopping 40 percent spawn rate reduction in chests and floor loot.