Fortnite Battle Royale Beginner Tips

Fortnite Battle Royale Beginner Tips by Jebediah_Storm

I haven’t really seen much of tips for beginners, so I figured I’d post some… I love this game, been playing about three weeks, and If I try-hard, I can get into the top 5 pretty much every game. A lot of times I go into the crazy places, and work at surviving the initial chaos in those areas, as I truly believe that this is the best way to learn gunfights and get good. I don’t always go for the try-hard, 100% win attempt each time I play, but I’ve got all my umbrellas in each game-mode, so I think can offer some advice…

So without further ado, here’s some tips:

1. If you want some time to get looted up and have guns/ammo/meds before you start to see people, drop into areas surrounding the big hot-spots. Example: there are farms around the fatal acres that have weapons. Get a kit, then run in to the acres and pick your fights with the survivors of the initial gib-fest. There’s a trailer park just outside of Retail that allows you to get set up with weapons and building materials, and timing-wise, you can run to retail and get there right as the survivors start considering their exodus out of town. Experience will allow you to get a sense for the timing and positioning of this. Meaning: don’t run right into the middle of town, rather, find a ridge overlooking town from where you can spot people leaving, and then pick a vector of travel where you can come up behind them or flank.

2. Always prioritize high ground.

3. IF you drop into a hot zone, learn to time your descent from the bus to where you can drop straight down from your initial point of exiting the bus, and then glide such a way that you hit the ground EXACTLY where you prefer to start your loot run. I’ve got my drop into Retail timed to where I can be the first one to land right at the house with the dog-house crate before anyone else. That gives me the leg up right away. I run inside, listen for anyone potentially on the roof, and if there is, I prioritize killing them. I ALWAYS close doors to houses behind me so I can hear them being opened up. When I move to the second floor, I break the stairs behind me so I can loot the upstairs in peace. I once killed an entire team of 4 because they tried to run in after me and gang-bang me. They got stumped by the missing stairs. They were all trying to shoot up the hole the missing stairs had created when the nades started raining down on top of them. Hilarious. Doing these things will make you much more confident you can survive those early game scrambles.

4. Before you move on to a different section of town, or into a smaller circle, get some high ground and look around. Be patient. After I loot one house, I get to the roof, look around, figure out where other players are, and then move accordingly. I build towers (late game) to look around, and wait until the circle begins to close before I move. Optimally, I know where the other players are before I make any move.

5. When running mid-game, constantly look 360 degrees around. You honestly can’t do this enough. Jump and try to avoid running in straight lines. Assume there is always someone somewhere behind you ( as there often is), and just assume the have a sniper rifle and are a good shot. This will keep you honest.

6. If you DO get shot from behind, learn to very quickly turn around and spam walls, in as chaotic a pattern as you need to to break their line of sight so they don’t know where you are. Once you’ve lost the direct agro, build a ramp and get above them and turn the tables.

7. For the love of GOD, please learn to loot smartly. When you kill someone, wait and look around for a bit before you run in, drooling, eager to pick up that gold scar. I typically build around the pile quickly if there’s weapons I’m going to grab, and if I’m only going for the consumables and ammo, I switch to pickaxe and run over the pile in a crack-monkey figure-8 until I have it all. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve killed standing still in loot piles, shopping. If you go for supply drops (I do), ALWAYS build walls around the crate before you open. These WILL attract other players. Most people tend to be too scared to open them, and they will use them as bait to gank bad players who don’t use the strategies I just listed.

8. Learn the map. Drop into various areas and develop loot routes. It’s always best, if you want to super try-hard, to work from the outside of the map, in, and to drop near the end of the bus route versus early-on where all the lemmings like to drop en-masse. Let time weed out 50% of the players, and get prepared for the long fight.

9. Know your storm timing. Not much else to say here. If you get screwed by the storm, and always have to be on a mad rush, it’s nearly impossible to win those games. By contrast, you can get into the top 10 pretty much every time just using the storm and rotating in with the closing wall. Which brings me to my next tip:

10. If you look at the circle, the side that has less distance to travel to the next circle will move slower. This is why sometimes you can outrun the storm, and other times you can’t. It is thus advantageous to keep this in mind, and since I usually rotate counter-clockwise (pro tip: this means you will often engage from the right flank, which helps considering your pov is over the right shoulder.) moving in to the smaller circle by rotating, as opposed to running in a straight line, you will reduce risk of being back-stabbed or flanked, and you, instead, will come across players running straight lines. Having the storm wall (or the coast) to one side of you, always, will at least mean that flank should be less likely to be used by your opponents.

Tips for duos and squads:

1. Storm/circle pacing. This is currently my biggest gripe with this game, as I feel it should be timed according to each mode (solo, duos, squads), but the rate at which the circles close is the same across the board. Knowing this, and how long engagements can last in duos, and squads especially, you have to ALWAYS be considering the fight you’re about to pick, and if it will leave you with enough time to even loot the team you’re targeting. Consider all the things that can go wrong: downed squad mates, being flanked by another team, etc. In solo it’s easy to pick a fight, kill someone, loot them, even kill another player draw to the gunfire, and move on with quickness. Not so much in squads. It’s better to chase a team for a bit and engage at the next circle border, for example.

2. Be aware that, in duos especially, a fight always attracts nearby teams to come in and try to poach kills. Me and my partner used to be very aggressive, picking fights with any team we saw running across nearby fields. We would often get sandwiched, and even if we killed the other team(s) that agro’d, the storm would catch us, as we wasted too much time. It’s better to be the team that jumps into a fight between two others, and murder the winner as they loot, for example, than to be the team who it happens to. It’s a vulture way to play, yes, but it works.

3. Always, ALWAYS, take the time early game to farm materials. Building is essential in duos and squads, and getting to the mid or late game with no materials will nearly always mean you’ll lose. Build when looting, build if a team-mate is down, and build when in fights. Build late game, and build early game to block off blind spots. Basically, always use building, and thus you need to take any second you can to whack a tree or car in passing. It’s super important. Use wood in the early and mid game, for ramps and quick shelters, and save your brick and steel for the late game bunkers or sniper towers.

4. Don’t be a greedy guss. Share resources, weapons, ammo and heals. Don’t be that guy that slobs down a shield potion when you’re already at 50% and the rest of your squad has none. Communicate, and if you’re low on medium bullets, ask team-mates if they have any to share. Giving someone a potion early will probably ensure they are more inclined to give you stuff down the road. This might seem like common sense, but playing with randos, I can’t tell you how may times I see people be loot-whores and not share.

5. Pick your landing spots wisely. Moisty Mire, Tomato town, are goodspots in solo, possibly maybe duo, but there’s not enough loot to go around for a whole squad. If you land in a big town like Retail or Pleasant, I advise the buddy system. I see tons of teams mess this up. I’ll land on dog house with my buddy, and some idiot will come running in, thinking he can solo us both. Newsflash, you’re not Ninja.You’re going to die in a one vs. two most of the time, so don’t be that guy. I like the team to pick two houses, side by side, drop 2 per house, and go to the next together. This way, in that early scramble, if one team gets into a fight, the other is close enough to help.

These are some specific tips, but many of the solo tips apply too. Hope it helps.

Extra Tip: How to Land faster

Alright so as most of you know the faster you can hit the ground the sooner you can start looting, and due to the pesky auto deploy of the glider sometimes you end up in the air longer then you would like, watching other people loot buildings while you are stuck drifting towards the ground, But i found a way to land much much faster.

The trick has to do with keeping the glider from auto deploying, to do this what you want to do is jump as soon as the bus signals you can, aim for the edge of the island, find a house close to the cliffside, the small houses here and there usually aren’t looted and don’t have a lot of population as most people by nature flock to the bigger housing areas, but I’ve found at least 80% of the time these houses on the edges that are secluded tend to have rare, epic, and even legendary guns.

Now you want to get yourself over the water outside of the map, the glider deploys when you are so close to the ground, being over water throws this off and lets it not deploy, as soon as you are almost level with the ground while over the water hit your button to deploy your glider and swing yourself back over the land, doing this right will make you be able to basically drop at full speed and only use the glider for a second before you’re on the ground running. just a neat trick i picked up, figured it out by accidentally killing myself, but after i got the hang of it i was able to loot 2-3 houses, barns, towers etc while most people were slowly coming to the ground.