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.
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 dam.