Fortnite Season 7 unvaulted either the most loved or most hated weapon in all of Fortnite: The Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle. This killer Sniper Rifle is either overpowered or broken, depending on which Fortniter you speak to. Should it be removed from competitive play or do you just need to get good?
Let’s dive into this polarizing topic: Are Sniper Rifles massively overpowered?
The topic of overpowered weapons is apparent in every season of Fortnite, and it wasn’t too long ago that we were complaining about bows in Season 6 and how OP their one-shot capabilities were. Epic vaulted Bows in the end, and it was only a matter of time the bad players & haters turned their gaze towards the Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle.
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Are Sniper Rifles Overpowered in Fortnite?
The complaints about Sniper Rifles being overpowered are not completely unwarranted because snipers do kind of counter the nature of competitive Fortnite: Box-fighting.
What is Box-Fighting in Fortnite?
Box-fighting is the part of a lobby where the remaining squads build massive towers and battle over high ground and space on the ever-shrinking map as the deadly storm closes in.
Sniper rifles drastically shift the box fighting meta because you no longer need to get into close-range combat to land a kill. Now, you can kill your target before they quickly bunker up and heal back up behind a literal wall of concrete and steel. Most of the time, you need to outbuild your opponent and get in close and finish them off with a shotgun. But, with the Bolt Action Sniper Rifle, you can achieve the same thing from much, much, farther away. Since sniper rifles shift the way you can win, it surprises a lot of players who do not have the skill for quick-scoping and head-shotting.
Why are Sniper Rifles a problem in Fortnite?
Bang, you are suddenly dead! There is a lot of running through giant open fields in Fortnite because the storm forces you out of cover. When you choose to rotate to a new place to loot, chances are, someone is going to snipe you. A well-hidden sniper can pick you off while you are trying to rotate and there is very little you can do to counter it.
If sniper rifles were not bad enough, we also have to contend with the OP UFOs in Fortnite Season 7.
Sniper Rifles make 3rd Partying Easy
It is very easy to 3rd-party people with a sniper rifle. They will already be weak from fighting and maybe even ducking behind cover, trying to heal until you snipe them in a single shot.
As we can see, there are a lot of reasons to call sniper rifles overpowered in Fortnite. You will simply not have enough time to react before you are eliminated.
However, is it a matter of just getting good? Since sniper rifles returned in Season 7. That means you need to play more safely and stop taking fights in wide-open spaces, rotate early and with a car, and stop running into open fields. In addition, you can start to build boxes that cover 360 degrees of cover and not the normal 180-degree coverage you are used to building. Play safe, and play around this overpowered weapon, to reduces its impact on you.
- Looking for a loadout for Fortnite Season 7? We go over some of the best ways to win your lobby.
How Can Epic Fix Sniper Rifles?
We cannot deny the Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle is perhaps a little too powerful and maybe even slightly overpowered. Here are some ways Epic could nerf the sniper rifle instead of flat out removing it from the game.
- Two Slots: Make the Bolt Action Sniper Rifle take up two loadout slots instead of one. It’s not a crazy idea! Remember the Bandage Bazooka in Chapter 2 Season 1? It worked this way, taking up two slots
- Reduce Damage: Make it, so you cannot kill a player in just one shot at a more reasonable effective HP threshold. Anything in the 180 damage range is more reasonable than the current 200 plus.
- Louder Bullet Impact Sound: The number of times a player never even notices you have missed your first shot is crazy. They need to make it much more obvious that someone is trying to snipe you off.
- Limited Ammunition: In fact, I wish this was applied to all weapons in Fortnite to some degree. Ammo is just never an issue in Fortnite, and players just spray and pray.
- Bullet Drop: Make it harder to snipe someone at max distance and apply better bullet physics to the Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle, so it doesn’t feel like you are shooting a laser beam.
Our verdict on Sniper Rifles in Fortnite: Snipers will never be removed from Fortnite, so learn to live with them and against them. It’s okay if every lobby doesn’t end with a shotgun to the face.
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