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The Inner Game of Fortnite – Health, Fish, and Shield
In America, Thanksgiving is upon us. If you’re in Canada, happy belated. As I was watching some FNCS this weekend, I watched a few players do something really smart: carry Floppers into the late game. (If I remember correctly, I think it was Bugha in Saturday’s Game 1 if you want to review the game). For the uninfishiated (sorry), Floppers are orange fish that you pull out of bodies of water that are quick to consume and give you 50 health, regardless of your current health bar. Minnows, on the other hand, the little silver fish, don’t work if you have 75+ health.
Bugha was carrying four fish and hung back with about seven people left in the game so that he was squarely in the storm, behind everyone. Rather than panicking, he confidently took some storm damage, ate a flopper, and took out an opponent so he was getting 50 health and then 50 heath and shield every few seconds. He was shooting opponents who weren’t even paying attention to him because they were just looking around for people inside the margin of safety, inside the zone. It was a brilliant little piece of meta engineering.
With little mobility in Chapter 2, Season 1, it’s important that we carry some kind of health and some kind of shield at all times. If you land closer to the corners of the map, the chance that you don’t get first zone is pretty good (by an estimate I saw on Reddit, there’s about a 40% chance that you don’t get first zone). So you have to start running early and forgo early game kills in order to not take storm damage.
Health and shields are plentiful in this meta so leaving health in favor of only shield feels to me like you’re leaving some Marginal Advantage on the table.
Consider two midgame scenarios where you’re carrying a shotgun, an SMG, and an AR:
You’re carrying four Floppers and two Minis
You’re carrying two Half Pots and two minis
You get caught in a build fight near the edge of a zone, end up in the storm, the next zone gets placed and you have a hike ahead of you, depending on your position. In Scenario 1, you have 200 health to help you get into the next zone. In Scenario 2, you have 150 shield that can’t help you in the storm at all, and can only help if you take additional enemy fire on the way to next zone.
I’ll take Scenario 1 every day.
In this meta, there are few times that I personally choose any non-essential weapon to health. That means I’ll leave rockets, grenades, pistols, and more on the ground in favor of at least bandies, if not Floppers or Med Kits. If you have two open slots, I’d consider:
Health and Shield of some kind
Shield and harpoon/fishing rod then swapping that for whatever you fish out of the water
Slurpfish in both slots if you can for maximum optionality (RIP Chug Splashes aka Chuggies. I loved those things)
Sub-Skill Drills – Giving Yourself Space in a Build Fight
We’ve all been in the situation where we’re climbing the structure that another player built. Maybe someone’s in a 1x1 a few layers up and we rotate around to the left 90 degrees, placing a ramp on the outside of the other player’s structure as we ascend. This is a dangerous position. We should give ourselves space so we’re not playing our opponent’s game.
What we’re going to do in this drill is the following:
Build a 3-5 high 1x1 in Creative that’ll represent an existing enemy structure.
Starting at the bottom of the 1x1, practice building away from the 1x1, switching from a ramp away into a few 90s to get to the same height while not being on top of your imaginary opponent.
Then drop down and do it again.
Do this 5-10 times in practice, then 2-3 times in game.
What we’re getting into our head here is giving us breathing room to take our opponent out how we want, rather than relying on their structure, which they have full edit control over.
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That’s it for today. Fortnite Fundamentals will be in your inboxes Wednesday and Friday this week. It’s prime Fortnite season as the work and school years wind down so let’s keep getting into it.
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See you Wednesday.