As the Fortnite skill gap grows wider, the loadout you use to match your competition becomes crucial. With the loot pool changing on a regular basis, it can be hard to pinpoint the essentials you need to stand a chance. This article will go through the best loadouts for each role in Fortnite.
Through Fortnite’s competitive history, players have wanted a ranked mode. A staple of almost every other competitive game out there, Fortnite has seemingly lacked this fundamental area of the game for several years. Instead, Fortnite’s Arena game mode and constant open-to-all tournaments has kept its competitive community alive through the different eras of the game.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Epic released a blog post, detailing an entirely new ranked mode, in addition to an overhaul of the current competitive loot system. The blog post unveiled the key points of the new update:
Let’s break down all of these additions in detail and explain how these changes affect the way you play Fortnite.
The addition of ranked utilizes a more traditional ranking system, spanning across Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Elite, Champion, and Unreal. From Bronze through Diamond, the ranks have three levels, with III (3) being the highest. Elite and Champion have a single level, and Unreal is the highest achievable rank in the game.
Upon reaching Unreal, you are unable to derank for the remainder of the season, and any further progression contributes towards your position on a global leaderboard, similar to reaching Radiant in Valorant or Predator in Apex Legends.
Ranked is offered for both Battle Royale (Builds) and Zero Build, each with their separate rank. Battle Royale offers Solos, Duos and Squads (all sharing the same Battle Royale rank), while Zero Build only offers Duos.
For this initial season of ranked (known as Season Zero), your initial rank gets revealed after playing just one match. For the majority of players, this is entirely dependent on your previous hidden matchmaking rating from playing the game prior. To give players an idea of where they stand, the majority of professional players were placed around Platinum 3 to Diamond 1. As an amateur competitive player, I was personally placed around Platinum 1. As for future seasons, it’s not known how your rank will reset, but it will likely be correlated with your ranked performance in Season Zero.
To activate ranked mode, you simply toggle the “Ranked” option when selecting your game mode. As a result, Epic has made the decision to make gameplay identical between unranked and competitive play. The new standard ruleset is as follows:
For those that enjoy playing tournaments, this has major implications on the meta. First, the uniform loot pool introduces the possibility for crazier items to be added to tournaments, something that has been missing for several seasons. Next, the removal of siphon changes early game fights in team game modes, as trading damage is now more impactful, as your opponent cannot get siphon. It also impacts clutches in the endgame, disincentivizing taking fights in the storm.
Possibly the most important question, how do players rank up? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t extremely clear. In the official blog post, it is stated that the progress bar changes based on two main factors: placement and eliminations. However, the exact details about the importance of the factors, and how much of a role they play in the changes of a rank are not transparent.
Your progress bar, along with your team eliminations and placement in the match
To make things more complicated, eliminations are further impacted by more factors. Eliminations are more valuable when obtained “later” in the match, and the ranks of players eliminated also determine the value of an elimination.
The first important detail is that matchmaking is determined by the highest rank in the party, rather than an average. Additionally, the team is considered to be a single unit; all members in the team will gain and lose the same amount of progress at the conclusion of the match.
In terms of how much you can expect your rating to change after a match, Fortnite’s ranking system has quite a large range. From watching streamers and personal experience, you can gain 0% to 80% in one game, or lose 0% to 30%.
What is the most important part about ranking up? There is no documented answer to this question provided by Epic. However, late game eliminations seem to impact progress the most. These are typically eliminations obtained in the 8th to 12th zone, with 8-10 players remaining.
From observing streamers and personal play, a victory with 5 to 7 late game eliminations can yield gains from 40% to 80%, depending on the ranks of players eliminated. However, a top 5 placement with little to no eliminations will only reward 5% to 15%.
When it comes to losing progress, the system is quite forgiving. At the worst case, getting eliminated off spawn will lose at most 30%, depending on the ranks of the players eliminating you. However, even simply getting top 10 with little to no eliminations will prevent any major losses.
Knowing all this, we can come up with a general gameplan to rank up quickly. First, we should recognize that the most consistent way to make progress is to get wins with several late game eliminations. Next, we should also recognize that early eliminations and subpar placement have a smaller weight on progress. Finally, remember that you can prevent losses by simply playing very safely for a decent placement.
1. Drop at an uncontested spot, and learn when to pull your glider for the optimal landing.
Since early eliminations are not worth much progress, it’s simply much more consistent to land at a spot that is rarely contested. Typically, these spots are smaller, with less loot. Thus, it’s important to know the best position to pull the glider to get an optimal drop, and to eliminate the occasional opponent quickly.
2. Loot and/or take smart fights until you have a win condition.
Since getting a top 5 placement isn’t worth much progress, you also need to play for enough loot to win the game. For different players, a win condition might vary. For all game modes, this typically includes having a mobility item and powerful weapons. For Battle Royale, it’s important to have maximum materials. For Zero Build, you need defensive utility such as Shield Bubbles. Depending on your confidence, you can get this loot from looting, or you can take early, isolated fights to rack up your arsenal. Once you have enough loot, playing for more eliminations has very little benefit.
3. Position yourself to win the game.
Once you have all the items you need to win, you simply need to execute. Arguably, the most important part about closing out a game is having proper positioning as the storm circle shrinks. With the new half-in-half-out zones, it’s important to be on the deadside, away from the outer edge. Since the majority of teams will be congested there, it’s extremely difficult to rotate amongst the chaos. Additionally, positioning yourself in zone early enables you to get late game eliminations on players rotating with the storm on their back.
Now that you know the fastest way to rank up, it’s time to practice in the game. Players who have never played Arena or Tournaments might not be as used to the pacing and playstyle of other players in the lobby. It’s important to try strategies out and review your shortcomings every match. As long as you follow the general playstyle, you should expect to see your rank increasing steadily as you play. Good luck grinding!
