Ninja Showcases The Power of SMG’s in Fortnite Following Recent Patch – “I absolutely love the Drum Gun”

In the most recent patch, v4.5, Epic Games made changes to all SMG’s in Fortnite Battle Royale, and Ninja has rejoiced at their improved viability.

Epic Games has been vocal about their intentions to balance out weapons in the BR mode, discussing in official communications about issues with reliance on shotguns and explosives particularly.

SMG’s were considered by many players to be considerably the weakest class of weapons, immediately dropped in favor of almost any other weapon when possible.

But with the addition of the third SMG type, the ‘Drum Gun’, Epic has made improvements to all three SMG’s with buffs to various stats.

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Ninja, as the best known Fortnite player, has a certain influence on opinion and he too was vocal about improving the balance of weapons and equipment in the game.

The Drum Gun was immediately powerful upon release, with good range and damage, but in order to keep the other SMG’s competitive accuracy increased and accuracy when sprinting penalties reduced.

And Ninja has made it clear he is now very satisfied with the changes, posting a clip with him using both the drum gun and the tactical SMG to wipe out a squad.

Currently, shotguns remain powerful but with the increased viability of SMG’s at long range as well as still holding up when close and personal makes them strong challengers.

The full SMG buffs from the v4.5 patch notes:

• We’re making the following changes to further solidify the identities and strengths of Tactical and Silenced SMGs.
  • Tactical SMG
    • Removed first shot accuracy.
    • Increased base accuracy by 25%.
    • Lowered the sprinting accuracy penalty by 15%.
    • Lowered the ADS bonus by 10 %.
    • Increased damage by +2.
  • Silenced SMG
    • Increased base accuracy by 10%.
    • Increased ADS accuracy bonus by 20%.
    • Increased damage by +2.