Why Aim Is Now More Important Than Building In Fortnite! Fortnite Good Aim vs. Fast Building

in this article today we're gonna be discussing an interesting little debate I've seen recently throughout the fortnite community, aim vs. building. I'm a believer that the skill of every Fortnite player can more or less be broken down into 4 major categories. Building, aim, positioning, and general game sense/IQ. Obviously this doesn't cover every thing done in a Fortnite game, but, it's a good little summation of roughly what determines an individuals skill level. And although positioning and game sense are undeniably incredibly important and never get enough attention. 

The majority of people agree that the 2 MOST important skills in Fortnite are being a good building and having good aim. But, the question that many people ask is which is MORE important? And what's interesting is that I think over the past few months, as Fortnite has changed, the answer to this question has actually changed as well. So, it should be an interesting discussion, and without further ado let's get right into it. So let's start this off by discussing the current state of building in Fortnite, and how it's changed pretty dramatically over time. Let's just take a quick trip down memory lane real quick. 

To a time period in Fortnite where the game was very different than the Fortnite we play today. If you guys played Fortnite back in season 1, 2, 3, and maybe even a little of season 4 you may recall how incredibly powerful building was during that time. Being able to build structures to aid you in both offensive and defensive ways was a mechanic that, at least to my knowledge, has never really been seen before in any shooter video game. Because of that, it took the community a very long time to actually learn and use the building mechanic as intended. 

Fortnite games back then were absolutely nothing like Fortnite games right now, very few people even built at all in fights, and the people that did, well, it was on a very basic level. I remember back in season 2 or 3, ramp rushes started to become a popular and "meta" building technique. It may seem funny to look back on this now, but seriously, back then a guy that could do a single ramp-wall ramp rush would strike fear into anyone he fought against. Because of all of this, becoming a decent builder was hands down the quickest and easiest way to become a good Fortnite player. All you had to learn were most of the super basic building techniques that are now basically second nature to 99% of players, and you would be able to dominate. 

Maybe that's going a tad bit overboard, but, that's sure what it felt like back then. And on top of not many enemies even knowing how to build, back in those earlier seasons, there were very few items/weapons that countered building. Off the top of my head: obviously you had the rocket launcher and grenade launcher, there were regular grenades, and I believe the minigun was added towards the very end of season 2. I possibly could be forgetting something, but, that was pretty much it. Therefore, if you were able to build yourself into a position of high-ground, you would basically just go to town on the majority of players. And although that probably sounds great to most of you, compare that state of building, to the way building is now. I think I mentioned about 3 or 4 different item/weapon counters to building that were available in the first 2-3 seasons of the game. 

Here's a list of all of the current, what I would consider "counters" to building, that were added during or after season 3 of Fortnite, and lemme tell ya, this is a long list. The light machine gun, the heavy sniper rifle, the drum gun, the quad launcher, clinger grenades, dynamite, C4, the mounted turret, the guided missile, planes, and finally the newest addition to the list, the boom box. And, those are only what I would consider to be the "hard" counters to building. You could make an argument that weapons like the compact SMG and deagle also belong on that list. And even items like the grappler and stink bombs as well, they may not actually destroy structures, but, the grappler is basically a free high ground re-take without even needing to build, and stink bombs are a way to deal damage through structures. On top of that, we're at a point in Fortnite where the large majority of players in any given lobby know how to build. 

And not only do they just know how to build, it's pretty common now for even average players to know very advanced building techniques. Early on in Fortnite (probably about the first 2 and a half seasons), I would describe the average build battle as: whoever builds wins, as simple as that. Then, from maybe season 3 to the beginning of season 5, it became the race for high ground. Most of the time both players in the build fight would almost mindlessly build for high ground, and whoever didn't get it would be kinda clueless on what to do next. Making them a pretty easy kill for the player who did get high ground. Now, high ground definitely wasn't as powerful as it was in the really early seasons, because between seasons 3-5 a bunch of structure countering items/weapons were already added to the game. So, it was still a huge advantage in fights, but, if a player had a C4, clinger grenade, or something like an LMG, you probably weren't able to keep high ground for all that long. But then, starting sometime right around season 5, building and build fights turned into something so much more complicated, than JUST building or JUST winning high ground. 

What you see now, is that players have become so much smarter. No longer are good players just going to mindlessly push for high ground over and over again, even if it means certain death if they don't get it. Now, players will protect themselves on all angles while pushing, they'll turtle in the middle of the build fight and wait for you to make the mistake, they'll make edit plays, and if all of that fails, they can rely on one of the numerous item/weapons that counter building. 

You could be the best player in the world at taking high ground, but if an enemy throws a boombox, or shoots 4 rockets from a quadlauncher, or flies a plane straight through your structure, how much does it really mater? That is where the importance of aim comes. What's interesting is that, as we've all seen, over the past few months Epic has made so many changes that are obviously intended to counter building. Therefore, the effectiveness of building as a whole has taken a pretty major hit. But, it's been practically the opposite for the effectiveness and importance of having good aim. One of the biggest things that people always complain about in Fortnite is bloom, and I don't blame them because it is a very frustrating mechanic. 

It basically makes it so that most fully-auto weapons in the game rely on an aspect of luck to consistently hit shot. You could be putting your cross-hair square in the middle of your enemies body on every shot, but, if bloom doesn't go your way you could end up missing most, if not all of those shots. So I believe that Epic has made it an emphasis recently, to add and buff certain weapons that don't rely on bloom. For example: The heavy AR, a weapon that does have a large bloom, but is basically designed to be shoot as almost a single shot weapon. Along with that, the hand cannon, which was recently tweaked to be a high-damage-dealing single shot weapon. 

Also, the scoped AR, even though it still isn't great, Epic tried to give it a buff likely because they wanted another non-bloom option at AR. And even though shotguns don't have bloom, they also really highlight the rise in importance of aim. Up until recently, there were 4 different shotguns available in Fortnite. The pump, the heavy, the tac, and the double barrel. Out of those 4 shotguns, the 2 that least require good aim, are pretty clearly the tac and the double barrel. I don't think it's a coincidence that here we are now, and the double barrel has been vaulted, and the tac shotgun is practically unusably underpowered. On the flip side, the heavy has remained pretty much untouched, and the pump not only received significant damage buffs, but, also had a purple and gold version of the weapon added to the game. Now, obviously there are always going to be weapons in Fortnite that are designed so that players with bad aim can be successful with them. 

But, it seems like since SMGs were patched and the drum gun was removed in season 5, Epic is making it a priority to add and buff weapons which reward players who have good aim and punish players who have bad aim. And that really play into the way that building has shifted over time. Gone are the days of taking high-ground and just raining down on players who stare up at and watch it happen. With how good and smart the Fortnite community has become, especially with building.You need to take advantage of the few opportunities you're gonna get in a fight to hit a clean shot on an enemy. And obviously building still is, and always will be incredibly important when it comes to being a great fortnite player. 

I don't want people to think that I'm saying building is not needed anymore, because that couldn't be any further from the truth. But the main takeaway from this article should be the following: Building no longer singlehandidly wins you fights, what is does now is it gives you more split-second opportunities to land high-damage shots. And at this point good aim may actually be more important than good building. And if not, well, then they're definitely as close to equal as I've ever seen.