Fortnite‘s new Marvel-dominated season kicked off with a bang on Friday, flooding the island with all sorts of Marvel goodies like various weapons inspired by War Machine’s abilities, Captain America’s vibranium shield, and Doctor Doom’s gauntlets. Two of the items–Cap’s Shield and War Machine’s Arsenal, particularly when used in conjunction with the new hover jets–were overly difficult to fight against, which immediately led to a new meta in which you either had those items, or you were killed by someone who did.
Now, just five days into the new season, Epic Games has introduced several nerfs to Captain America’s Shield and War Machine’s Arsenal.
Hey everyone! We’ve made some balance adjustments to Absolute Doom, please see what’s changed below:
🎯 Sovereign Shotgun aims down sights more quickly and fires faster while doing so.
🥏 Captain America’s Shield does slightly less damage, will require more accuracy to ‘hone’… pic.twitter.com/bQzGUb8OXX— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) August 20, 2024
Captain America’s Shield will now break much more easily (by half, from 500 damage down to 250, according to dataminer FNAssist), its throw attack now does 50 damage instead of 60, and it will be more difficult to get it to hone in on an enemy at mid-range.
War Machine’s Arsenal, meanwhile, now does a little bit less damage to structures, and takes twice as long to reload–both in terms of the time it takes for the automatic reload to begin, and in how long it will take the rockets to fully reload after it starts doing so. There are no changes to the Hover Jets.
These nerfs should be pretty effective. For one thing, you should be able to reliably empty your weapon into Captain America’s Shield and expect it to actually do something–the shield had made regular guns impractical in most late-game situations because of how much damage it could soak up.
As an aside, FNAssist also notes that drop rates for these items have also been nerfed somewhat. All of War Machine’s items will now drop half as often from Avengers chests as well as regular blue chests, and the drop chance for Captain America’s Shield is now significantly lower from every source.
Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 4, dubbed Absolute Doom, launched on Friday with a battle pass full of Marvel characters and related cosmetics–including two Marvelizations of Fortnite characters Peely and Jonesy. The items on this battle pass are the first in Fortnite’s history not to be permanently exclusive to the pass–they’ll be available for the item shops starting 18 months after the season ends on November 2.
