The Current Fortnite Meta is a Mess, Again

The Fortnite meta is always a delicate balancing act. Trying to please the more casual players, and the serious ones. Sometimes Epic finds a decent mix. But just as often, it gets a bit messy. The current Fortnite meta was looking good for the opening of the season. Then, we got some wacky items added. Now, even the dull items have broken.

As tends to happen the second Epic stops watching the game for more than a minute, it breaks. There’s only two times a year where Epic actually steps away from the game and takes the shortest break. Just two weeks. It’s not even completely on its own anymore, just without major Fortnite updates. It happens once at Christmas and once in the summer.

But these breaks are often the times when major bugs are discovered, like we’ve just found before the Fortnite summer break started. What’s gone wrong?

Current Fortnite Meta Busted by Myst Gauntlets

Right as the summer event started and bugs no longer could be fixed so easily, a big one was found. One of the Fortnite items that’s been floating around the game since the start of the season is the Myst Gauntlets. Not fantastic, but they had a use.

They’re one half of a combo item. On their own, it’s an item which sends out ravens for an up close attack. Not very useful against players. Really good at blasting through bosses to unlock those Exotic Weapons though. However, as the FNCS Divisional Cups are winding on, a much bigger bug has been found.

Players have figured out how to use these Ravens in competitive environments. Specifically, spamming their way through builds to overwhelm enemies. It particularly works well in the stacked late games you see in Fortnite tournaments. It’s looking a bit messy. A Trio can utilize them to overwhelm builds and their teammates can walk directly into boxes. It’s already caused problems in FNCS Divisional Cups this season.

This could be an intended feature, but anything that neuters builds like this isn’t normally in tournaments. There are bigger problems though, especially outside of tournaments.

Pubs and Ranked are Still a Mess

At this point, noticing there are wacky items which make encounters in pubs a 50/50 isn’t exactly difficult. But they’re always in Ranked too.

Increasingly, Fortnite players are noticing that every season is utilizing this kind of item. The “mobility” item. Providing a free or cheap way to rotate. But coupled with an attack which does block damage and essentially turns the game’s skill system into a hold a button and hope set-up. Not a Fortnite meta that’s balanced and fair for a Ranked mode.

These kinds of items just seem to be getting worse and worse though. The Katana would be good for rotation, but easily countered in builds. The Kneecapper caused a lot of problems. But again, anyone in builds really shouldn’t have a major problem in blocking it. Now we’ve got the Beast transformation… which has the mobility of those items, the melee attacks, and it gets its own mega health bar. It essentially makes you an invulnerable tank for a while.

Having this loot pool in all modes feature really makes Ranked frustrating. The game would be more playable competitively if we went back to Ranked featuring the competitive loot pool, not the pubs one.

The Landing Spot Problem

Looking ahead to FNCS Major 3, there’s also the problem of landing spots. We’re increasingly seeing players sticking to just a handful of spots, given their over-the-top power in the Fortnite meta. Spots close enough to the spire bosses to get the exotic weapons, plus the medallion spot at Demon’s Domain. Both are considerably better landing spots than anywhere else.

We’re seeing this play out in competitive events too. With half of the top players hot dropping each other. Leading to loads of the best competitors dying early. As we reach the Major, we’ll likely see more teams mixing it up to avoid wasting too many games. However, it’s clear the Fortnite meta is far from healthy right now.

In other modes, when certain spots are much more powerful, we see real players concentrated in a tiny section of the players. With half the actual players dying early, most of the game is bots for the reminder of the round. We’ve seen the number of bots dialled down to maximum 65 per game recently. But an uneven map for most of the game causes major problems.

Hopefully, we can see a more balanced Fortnite meta in the future. The last few season have all started well, before being taken way off the rails by poorly thought out mid-season additions.