Fortnite Patch V9.01: Tactical Assault Rifle Released

Fortnite released patch v.901, which adds the Tactical Assault Rifle to the arsenal. The weapon offers players a tight spread when it comes to close quarters. However, compared to other Assault Rifles, the Tactical Assault Rifle is not that effective at long range.

The rifle is offered in Rare, Epic, and Legendary variants and can be obtained from a variety of sources including Chests, Floor Loot, Supply Drops, and Vending Machines. The rifle is fully automatic and comes with a 30-round magazine. This weapon can deal 22/23/24 damage with a headshot multiplier of 1.75x.

The release of the Tactical Assault Rifle just heightened the excitement of players for everyone’s favorite assassin, John Wick. Recently, a data miner by the Twitter handle of Lucas7yoshi claims to have found a John Wick skin along with a gold coin cosmetic.

Going back to the recently released patch, Fortnite made adjustments to the gameplay, particularly to the Slipstream:

• Slipstreams no longer block building.
  • Trying to build up to get into a Slipstream should be an easy & intuitive experience. We noticed some cases where players would build up to the Slipstream, but due to build restrictions would take a ‘leap of faith’ and not make the jump. This should make getting into a Slipstream easier.
• Players flying in a Slipstream will destroy player built objects when they collide.
• Slipstreams are now disabled after storm phase 5.
  • We’ve seen a number of cases where Slipstreams caused issues during late game circles - primarily around getting pulled into the storm unexpectedly. Since the value of Slipstream mobility is limited in those scenarios, we felt it’s better to simply disable them.

Selected Weapons and Items have undergone changes as well:

• Reduced Baller health from 200 to 150
  • The primary goal of the Baller is to provide fun and exciting mobility. We feel that it still has a little too much defensive agency - this change should reduce the effectiveness there while not impacting its strengths.
• Drum Gun adjustments
  • Reduced base damage from 26/27 to 22/23
    • Since its unvaulting, the Drum Gun effectiveness has been slightly higher than we wanted. This change should reduce its combat effectiveness while still retaining its flavor.
• Vaulted Compact SMG
  • Due to the recent addition of the Drum Gun and the brand new Tactical Assault Rifle, we wanted to reduce the availability of high rate-of-fire weapons.

A complete list of the changes in Patch v.901 can be viewed here.