Fortnite Double Pump Action Shotgun trick and weapon switch speed

Update 3 : Double pump returns to fortnite! As of fortnite patch 3.5 all weapons now have an equip time and the pump animation has been removed. Relevant lines from 3.5 patch notes that relate to double pump:

• Added a short equip time to many weapons (particularly, those with a slower rate of fire).

Essentially this means that the pump animation has been removed (which was played when switching back to pump) and the weapon swap time is replacing it. However the weapon swap time is faster than the previous pump animation, buffing double pump. Not to the level it was before but better than after the double pump nerf

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Update 2 : The new heavy shotgun (Epic and Legendary) has been added in patch V3.3.1. This is a slowish firing shotgun with longer range and higher damage than the Tactical. However as of late March players can now “double pump” with this new weapon for faster fire rate and improved DPS.

Update 1 : Double Pump has been officially nerfed. As of V.3.0.0 players must now repump the shotgun when switching back to it. Thoughts on double pump nerf

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Large streamers finally discovered double pump in Fortnite Battle royale, three months after the games release. This has irreversibly changed the meta of the game. Now everyone wants pump shotguns and everyone wants to +forward into opponents faces. The change on voice in squads with randoms is amazing – players getting two pumps then making comments that would lead one to believe the game is in the bag. Here is one of the first mentions of the phenomenon on reddit – posts about two shotguns were quite frequent after this. Shotguns are not affected by bloom in the same way as Assault Rifles so were perfect for this trick.

Daequan is credited with being the “first” to mainstream this, however players have been commenting on reddit since the games launch about it in one way or another. As a player who used this before it mainstreamed the difference is night and day. If you think it is good now, imagine what it was like when literally noone was using it. In around ~7 days /played I encountered two players doing it.

Fortnite double pump shotgun

The premise is simple and I have been using it, for more than just shotguns, since the games release. Some background is required to undersand how the double pump shotgun “trick&quot” works in FNBR. Fortnite weaponswitch time is quite fast, faster than the refire rate of the non-automatic weapons. This means that you are not at the mercy of the refire speed when using a slow firing weapon, which is typically how these weapons are balanced. Low rate of fire to punish missing and balance out high damage. At the very least with fast switch players can pull out another gun in place of nothing (reload time). The opportunity this offers seems lost on streamers and youtubers who are now pumping (pun intended) out tutorials for “How to double pump shotgun in fortnite” while overlooking that this applies to a large selection of Fortnites weapons. Or that they have been doing the same forever with sniper plus any other weapon.

Because the Fortnite weapon switch speed is fast the refire time can become the weapon switch speed when the refire time is slower than switch. This means that the low rate of fire weapons become much faster. The pump shotguns are likely the most popular because they hit for “the most” and are also relatively easy to land some damage with. You really only need one pump and another weapon to make use of the weapon switch speed in a meaningful way. Pump shotgun to open a fight into assault rifle, auto pistol or smg (of decent quality) is perfectly acceptable in order to avoid being a sitting duck. To be completely fair swapping to a high rate of fire weapon after hitting a solid pump shotgun hit is probably more reliable play anyway, provided you are in sub machinegun range. Think hittng rail or rockets and finishing with lightning gun in quake.

The slow fire rate weapons benefit from fast switching with higher rof weapons benefiting less. At some point it becomes a waste of time to switch between weapons to use the pump shotgun – switching to an smg (highest rof) for one bullet then back is an overall DPS decrease. Some examples that are good.

Weapon combos that benefit from swapping back and forth: Pump shotgun to pump shotgun. Pump shotgun to tactical shotgun. Pump shotgun to revolver. Pump shotgun to Burst Assault rifle (one burst). Pump shotgun to assault rifle for a few rounds. The revolver can replace the starting pump in any of these and for this combo it may be better to use the revolver for opening shot then sticking to the other weapon.

Some weapon combos benefit from starting on the pump and switching after landing significant damage. The low firerate could be negated by peeking corners until landing damage then swapping. Pump shotgun to Sub machinegun/assault sub machinegun/ Silenced sub machinegun. The assault rifle could also fall into this category once good opening damage has been landed. The higher rate of fire is potentially better for finishing. This means if you open a fight, land a high (70+) pump or tactical shotgun hit you only need to deal the remaining 30. Using and smg or assault rifle gives players have much higher rate of fire, meaning a single miss is less impactful. This was a common idea in older arena shooters.

Why this is interesting for shotguns, specifically pump action

How to double pump shotgun in fortnite battle royale.

It is very easy to use two shotguns. First you need to find two – a pump and tactical shotgun is a viable option until you find a second pump. Put both the weapons in slots that have easy to use binds, for example weapon slots 2 and 3. When you engage open with the higher hitting weapon for maximum front load. After the first shot swap to the second weapon and shoot, as you shoot swap back to the first weapon straight away and shoot again.. swapping back to the second weapon as you do so. Your character will diligently swap between weapons without playing the pump animation.

If the default weapon binds are not good then you could try binding individual weapons to mousewheel. Bind slot 2 to up and slot 3 to down. You can now scroll up/down to pick weapons 2 and 3 while shooting. It is a good idea to get used to individual weapon binds anyway so removing next/previous weapon from the mousewheel is good anyway.

The two main offenders for exploits are the pump shotgun and revolver. This is because weapon swap stops the refire animation from playing.

Does it matter if the shotguns are grey (common) or green (uncommon)? The quality of the shotgun barely matters. The grey pump shotgun deals 90 damage and the green deals 95. With 2.5* headshot modifier this gives 225 and 237 for full headshots. Less than 5% difference. Don’t sweat a grey pump.

Why fast switch is interesting for other weapons – RPG – sniper, etc
Fast weapon switch is interesting for other weapons, although not because it circumvents the refire animation.

Drawbacks to double pump – mechanical skill requirement – losing an inventory slot

Other mixtures that allow for interesting play – high hitting -> high rof low damage (rl/rail -> lg)

Firstly, in order to

Fortnite Double Pump Macro

Using a macro to double pump is not required. The action is gated by weapon switch speed which is (human speed wise) quite slow so macros do not make this more viable. Having said that it is easy enough to create a macro for double pump shotguns with most modern mouse or keyboard software. Logitech, Razer, Zowie, ASUS, Corsair, etc. There are two ways to go about this. Either create a macro that uses specific weapon slots or use next and previous weapon.

Is this balanced – can the weapons work without it, currently gives interesting mix, without much more limiting on weapons so maybe good

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Fortnite Bloom – Weapon Mechanics

Epic added first shot accuracy in patch 3.4 First shot accuracy details. This does not change how bloom/cone of fire explained below works but it does mean that you can now achieve accurate shots.

What is bloom in Fortnite? Fortnite weapon mechanics (overall) consist of two aspects. Weapons have a cone of fire “area” which grows and shrinks. The changing of the cone of fire area is incorrectly referred to as bloom. The fortnitebr reddit tends to use bloom to apply to all aspects of the crosshair cone of fire as well as boom, which can be confusing at times.

To make it simple :

• The cone of fire is messaged by the area between the crosshair arms.
• Bullets can land anywhere in this area.
• Bloom causers the cone of fire to grow or shrink depending on player behavior.

First shot is not more accurate than what is messaged via the crosshair arms. First shot does not hit center point with any more frequency than any other time. The effective range of weapons in Fornite BR is controlled by cone of fire and bloom as they do not suffer from damage falloff. Bloom is the primary mechanic for the majority of the bullet weapons. Sniper rifles are 100% accurate but are projectiles. Shotguns seem to have their own rules – for them use the center point.

How to lower bloom in Fortnite is a good question. Moving, jumping and shooting will raise bloom. To lower bloom a player needs to stand still or crouch. Tap firing automatic weapons allows the size of the cone of fire time to reset between bullets.

Bloom applies to the following weapons : Sub machine gun (SMG), Assault SMG, Silenced SMG, Automatic Pistol, Silences Pistol, Revolver, Assault Rifle (AR), Burst Assault Rifle, Scoped Assault Rifle. The scoped AR is a stand out because its bloom is not messaged with the crosshair while zoomed, however it does seem to offer less bloom than the other weapons while not being 100% accurate.

In Fortnite BR the inside of the crosshair arms denote “bloom” – the circle where bullets can land. This changes with movement, crouching, shooting. The usual suspects that lower weapon inaccuracy in FPS. In order to hit 100% this circle needs to cover the target 100%. The centerpoint of the crosshair is meaningless for the AR/bloom weapons. Bullets do not appear to favor the center more than outside parts of the bloom circle. A better way to describe this might be the cone of fire – however the fortnite BR community seem to have attached the term bloom to everything related to weapon inaccuracy.

Technically “bloom” is the aim area shrinking or expanding based on player behavior. Bloom simulates recoil in Fortnite, however beyond controlling the size of the shooting area (minimise bloom) players cannot control the recoil like in CounterStrike and similar games. There is no recoil pattern to speak of. Some weapons like the shotgun and revolver do “kick” like recoil but this is very minimal compared to bloom.

 

What is Bloom in Fortnite for weapons?

In Fortnite the crosshair messages effective range of the guns. This is best visualised with an example.

The picture below is taken from a frame of thisvideo. The player posted it believing they were on point for the shot.

At that range, with the target taking up 20-30% of the circle you are not going to hit all shots. In fact the target it so small in relation to the bloom area that you are unlikely to hit many.

Its not that you should build. If you want to hit all those shots you need to engage at a closer range. This is the primary difference between the AR weapon rarity. The amount of bloom allowing for engagement at longer ranges.

Somewhat unintuitively aiming for headshots with the center dot will lower your accuracy since there will be a large section of the “bloom area” above the players head.

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