Zero Build mode is a great new addition to Fortnite that adds a whole new realm of possibilities, but with this new game mode, comes some new mechanics and playstyles to adapt to. This guide aims to help you get your footing in Fortnite’s Zero Build Mode!
Fortnite’s identity and popularity have always been attributed to its unique mechanic that no other battle royale has: building. Today this still reigns true. However, with the addition of the Zero Build mode, the game has attracted an entirely new audience, and with this new game mode comes a whole slew of new possibilities. Here are some tips and tricks to help you start getting more Victory Royales in Zero Build mode!
One of the first decisions you will have to make each game is where you are going to drop on the map. This can be a pretty difficult decision on the fly, but let’s go over a few of the best places that you can land so that you can get a strong start.
Shifty Shafts is a really good place to land because it has a great amount of both floor loot and chest spawns for how big the area is. The main mineshaft area has a plethora of loot that you can obtain. What is also great about Shifty Shafts is the separate mineshaft area on the mountain just north of the main area. This makes for a great landing spot if you see a lot of other people landing at Shifty. Just be careful, while the loot is great here, it attracts a lot of other players to drop here as well, so be prepared to fight if you are going to this location.
The Rave Cave is a new spot in Season 3 that is huge and has tons of loot inside and outside of the Cave itself. The amount of loot isn’t the only thing that makes this place so great, there are tons of Slurp Kegs to break (not to be mistaken with the Shield Keg item) making obtaining one hundred shield a very easy task to do quickly. However, similarly to Shifty Shafts, this is a very popular landing spot so be prepared to run into other people along the way. Another thing to keep in mind is the Slipstream and the number of launch pads that the area has. This makes traversal from this area, especially when running from the storm a lot easier.
Now for a spot, some people might not expect to see on here: Sanctuary. What makes Sanctuary so good is its location on the map. It has four other locations nearby that you can go to once you get your footing: Rocky Reels, The Joneses, The Daily Bugle, and Coney Crossroads. Tilted Towers is also a bit further east of Sanctuary as well. Since Sanctuary isn’t the most popular landing spot, it’s also a great place to land for newer players since you won’t run into too many other players along the way. It’s also a pretty open area, so you will be able to spot other people easily, making fights a lot easier to take. If it isn’t too close to the direct flight path of the Battle Bus, Sanctuary is a great place to go for a quiet start with some solid areas to head off to after.
Ah, yes Tilted Towers who could ever leave it out of here? The iconic location has very good loot with all of the buildings that it has. Sort of the exact opposite of Sanctuary, Tilted Towers is an extremely popular landing spot with a lot of close-quarters interactions. However, this is also what makes Tilted Towers such a great place to land. With all of the interactions you will have with other players, Tilted Towers forces you to take fights and learn the game at a very fast pace. Similar to other shooter games, the more fights you take, the more fights you win, and Fortnite is no different here. To put it simply, taking more fights just makes people better at the game. It conditions you to an intense environment, which is great for when you are in a tame environment since it forces you to be ready for anything.
Learning the proper way to move around the map both quickly and safely is a must in Zero Build mode. Since you are unable to just build as you move around to protect yourself or to engage with others, being even more meticulous with your movement is extremely important in getting from point A to point B while mitigating as much damage as possible. There are items and plenty of other methods for doing so.
Using items like Shockwave Grenades or a Rift-to-Go is extremely useful and it’s always a good idea to keep either of them in your inventory. A Rift-to-Go is like a reset. If the storm is close or you don’t like a fight, using a Rift-to-Go is a very good option. With that being said, while being somewhat ok for initiating fights, they tend to be on the more defensive side since people can hear you gliding in if you try to get the drop on someone. Shockwave Grenades on the other hand are more versatile. While you do not cover as much distance with them, they make engaging and retreating fights very easy. Sliding right after landing from a Shockwave can help you cover some extra ground.
Speaking of which, utilizing the sliding mechanic is very important. When sprinting or when going downhill, you should almost always slide to cover more ground, and you can always cancel a slide by jumping or hitting the slide key again. Not only does it provide a much-needed speed boost at times, but it also makes you smaller, effectively making it harder for people to hit you. Vehicles are another way that you can move around the map faster, however, they do attract other players and make quite a bit of noise, so if you plan on using vehicles be aware that you become a big and loud target. They are best used when trying to retreat from players or the storm. Lastly, there have been launch pads added to some areas similar to how they are all over Rave Cave. Along with that, the Rave Cave also has the aforementioned Slipstreams as well as Rollers, making moving from that side of the map a lot easier and quicker.
With all of the different weapons and other items that the game has to offer and only five inventory slots, it can be a difficult decision on what to pick up and what to leave behind when making a good loadout. A lot of the time, it depends on the situation you are in, and what is available to you at the time. What weapons and items you use mostly will come down to personal preference, however, knowing what to grab and when to grab it in the right situation are what separates good players from great players.
For starters, if you watch any good competitive player, the usual loadout you will see when it’s full looks like three weapons with the remaining inventory space being for utility and consumable items. What you get to grab for your inventory is entirely based on what is around you and what you choose to pick up, but for newer players, some picks are better than others, especially in Zero Build mode.
Precision weapons like the Heavy Sniper and the Revolver can be difficult to use. They deal massive damage when you land your shot, especially when it’s a headshot, but tend to have smaller clip sizes and a slow rate of fire, so every shot counts. Other weapons tend to be both more forgiving and easier to use due to their accuracy and damage still being very solid. The DMR is a more forgiving long-range weapon than the Heavy Sniper. It has a faster fire rate and a larger clip size at the cost of some damage.
AR weapons like the Hammer AR, Ranger AR, and Striker Burst Rifle are all solid choices for mid to long-range encounters. The Hammer AR deals very good damage, but, past a certain range it can be hard to control recoil, and the Ranger AR tends to not have the damage output that the Hammer does, but the recoil is more controllable, and it is easier to tap fire. The Striker Burst Rifle is a scoped, two-shot burst that excels at longer ranges.
As always choose what you are comfortable with, and remember that every gun has pros and cons. The same goes for close-range weapons. The SMG variants tend to be more reliable than the Sidearm Pistol since tracking an enemy is a lot easier when using a fully automatic weapon instead of a semi-automatic weapon.
With Shotguns, the Auto-Shotgun tends to be a safe pick for newer players since the Striker Pump and the Two Shot are more high-risk high-reward kinds of guns. The Striker Pump when used correctly can be devastating especially when immediately followed up with an AR or an SMG. The Two-Shot Shotgun is an interesting gun that fires in a two-round burst. If you can land both shots and follow up it can also be a good choice. At the end of the day go with what you find the most success with. Just do keep in mind that some weapons tend to be easier than others to use for some players depending on skill level.
Well, like it was mentioned earlier, most players will have three weapons with the remaining slots being for utility or consumables. Typically, you will want a mid to long-range weapon, a mid to close-range weapon, a third weapon of your choosing, and utility or consumables for the rest of your inventory.
A good example of this would be Striker Burst Rifle, Striker Pump Shotgun, Combat SMG, and Shockwave Grenades or some sort of Shields or Healing consumables for the final two slots. This covers long, mid, and close range while having good utility, remember, the key is finding balance. Now of course this is just an example, you can use whatever weapons you see fit for your situation at hand, but you typically will want to be prepared for any sort of encounter from any range so it’s best to cover all your bases.
Another thing to keep in mind is the vaulting and unvaulting of different weapons both old and new. There are always weapons being added and taken from the game, so never be afraid to mix things up and try them out especially if they are only available for a limited time!
Now that we understand the weapons and loadouts more, it’s time to talk about how to use them in a fight. When you first start playing, it can be quite scary to take fights willingly and your first instinct may be to run away since the entire goal is to be the last one standing. However, while this is true, this mindset does not help you in the long run. As it was mentioned earlier, the more fights you take, the more fights you win, so let’s go over what to do in some different scenarios.
One of the first things to keep in mind is that in Zero Build mode, you start with and always have fifty free shield with the over-shield. Once it is broken, after taking no damage for a short amount of time, this shield will start to slowly regenerate. This is because you cannot protect yourself with builds, so guns like the Heavy Sniper that would normally one shot in some situations with a headshot will not kill a lot of the time. This is important to keep in mind both in offensive and defensive situations.
It is always best to take fights that are catered to your specific scenario and the environment you are in. If you are not comfortable with taking a long-range fight in a certain situation, force your opponent to come to you. Hiding in buildings to bait them, throwing aggressive utility, or closing the distance are all good options here. One key thing to remember is that you always want your opponent to be put in the most uncomfortable situation for them, and the most advantageous situation for you. For instance, if your longest-range weapon is a Hammer AR, and theirs is a DMR, it’s probably a good idea to try and take a closer fight.
When engaging in fights in close quarters it’s always important to remember that you may not have an escape route if you don’t have the proper utility on you. Remember you cannot build your way out of an unfavorable fight, a lot of the time if you are in a close-range fight, only one player will make it out.
Now of course if you are confident and think you will win, definitely take the fight. However, what if you are unsure about the outcome? Well, a good mindset is that you can always get closer to someone easier than you can run away. Now, this of course is not always true, but if you assess your situation like this before taking fights or being aggressive, you may want to rethink engaging with someone in close quarters.
However, let’s say that’s not an option and you are in a close-quarters interaction with someone, what now? Be unpredictable. Never do the obvious action in this sort of situation, it can result in you dying, or taking unnecessary damage if you still end up winning the fight.
Baiting out shots, using utility items to force them in a bad spot, or repositioning with good movement are all good options here (remember you can still fire weapons while sliding). If you just start firing or running at them with no plan or escape method in mind, a good player is always going to understand the situation and address it accordingly and you may end up dying. Now if you know for a fact you are better than this player through observation, or they have very low health then yes, go for the kill. Just always be on your toes and keep your head on a swivel when it comes to any sort of encounter with another player. The worst-case scenario when taking any fight is you ready up for another game and learn what you did wrong. Remember you always learn more from your losses.
One thing to tamper with at some point is your settings section. Some settings tend to make playing a lot easier or make things feel smoother, and some provide quite the advantage to have turned on. Consider changing a few of these settings if you have not already done so. Now of course there are the settings that vary from person to person like Sensitivity and Key Bindings, but here are some that you might want to consider changing when you hop into your next game.
If you don’t mind the game not looking the prettiest all of the time, and want to focus more on performance, make sure to lower all of your Graphics Quality settings or turn them off if applicable in the Video tab. However, if you can, try to keep your view distance on the higher end. This will help you get better frames if you are playing on a PC. It also just takes away some of the unnecessary things visually like bulky shadows and other unnecessary textures that can be distracting from seeing other players.
If you go to the Combat section of the settings, in the Game tab there are a few options for you to choose from there. I strongly recommend that you turn on Auto Sort Consumables To Right. It makes organization in your inventory a lot neater. While you are at it, you may want to configure your Preferred Item Slots. Doing this allows you to assign a certain kind of weapon to a specific slot in your inventory. So, say if you like having your shotgun in the second slot, you can assign shotguns to that slot so when you pick one up you don’t have to worry about organizing your inventory. While you are on the game tab, you may want to turn Auto Open Doors on. It just makes it so that when you get close enough to a door, you don’t have to use a key to open it, your character will do it on their own. It can make the game feel a lot smoother. Same with Toggle Sprint if you prefer to just hit the key once rather than holding it or vice versa, you can always mess with this setting to see what feels comfortable for you.
One last setting that I highly recommend trying out is in the Sound section in the Audio tab. Here, you can turn on Visualize Sound Effects. This setting is a borderline cheat code it is so useful. What it does is when certain sounds are heard in-game, an icon appears specific to that sound in a ring pointing in the direction that the sound came from, and the icon will appear more faint or solid depending on the distance. This is an extremely useful setting because it allows you to be aware of what is going on around you even if you cannot immediately hear it.
A lot of the time, you can see the footsteps indicator on the screen, before you even hear anyone around you. It indicates almost any sound, footsteps, chests, gunfire, people gliding in, and so much more. Trying this setting out can be extremely useful for people, especially newer players. Remember to always adjust any settings based on what is comfortable for you to play with, these are supposed to help you, not hinder you. So, if there are certain settings that you would rather keep off or turn on, don’t be afraid to do so!
Zero Build mode is a fresh new way to play Fortnite that many people have come to enjoy. It has that same classic Fortnite feel, but with a more basic game plan to go by. By utilizing these tips, I hope that you will gain the knowledge and confidence to start racking up more eliminations and wins when playing Zero Build mode!
