Epic Games released the v11.20 update for "Fortnite Battle Royale" Wednesday, November 20. This was a bigger update, requiring downtime, and it has brought with it several gameplay changes and user interface updates and, most importantly, some weapons have, once again, been changed. Besides the things that have come to live servers, the video game developer has added a lot of new files to the game data, indicating the content that will be added at some point in the season.
One of the weapons that was affected by the latest update is the Tactical Shotgun. This weapon was buffed with the v11.11 update which was released a week before the v11.20 patch. However, the last patch has nerfed the weapon, making it more balanced in comparison to the Pump Shotgun. Epic Games has most likely released even more weapon changes, but they haven't been covered with patch notes.
The nerf is drastic
Shotguns have gone through numerous changes in "Fortnite Battle Royale," and right now, players can only use the Pump and the Tactical Shotgun. Other shotguns, such as Combat, Drum, and Heavy, had been vaulted and may not come back to the game anytime soon.
Chapter 2 has made Tactical Shotguns powerful and most players opted to use them instead of Pump Shotguns. However, this might change after the last patch.
With the v11.20 patch, Epic Games has refused headshot multiplier for Tactical Shotgun to 2.00, down from 2.25. The original headshot multiplier had been 2.5 until a Season 4 hotfix, but it was nerfed to 2.25 in the late seasons of Chapter 1. Now, it was further decreased all the way down to 2.00, which means that the maximum damage for the Legendary Tactical Shotgun is now 174 instead of 195.
"Adjusted the headshot multiplier of the Tactical Shotgun so it's now in line with the headshot multiplier of the Pump Shotgun," is what Epic Games posted in the v11.20 patch notes.
This was the first time that the game developer released patch notes in Chapter 2, and players are hoping that will be the case for the upcoming updates.
New damage
Due to the nerf, each variant of the Tactical Shotgun now has a reduced headshot damage. Here are the new values for these weapons:
- Gray (Common) variant: 160 headshot damage reduced to 142
- Green (Uncommon) variant: 169 headshot damage reduced to 150
- Blue (Rare) variant: 178 headshot damage reduced to 158
- Purple (Epic) variant: 187 headshot damage reduced to 166
- Gold (Legendary) variant: 195 headshot damage reduced to 174
As you can see, from the numbers above, headshot damage for the Tactical Shotgun has been reduced by around 11 percent. After this change, many players should try the Pump Shotgun or the Submachine Gun for close-range combat, although the Tactical Shotgun is still quite effective.