Our Fortnite building tips and tricks guide will walk you through the most important aspects of building and improving your skill. Building is one of the most important and skill-intensive parts of the game, so focusing heavily on this will allow you to win more fights and games the better you get at it!
Fortnite Beginner Building Tips
Re-Bind Your Keys
If you want to start building better and faster you'll want to change your keys as soon as possible. If you have a mouse with extra buttons like the Logitech G502 for example, it's best to use at least a couple of these for your building. It's much faster to hit the buttons to switch between your ramp and wall for example on the mouse rather than having to juggle different keys. However, if you don't have this kind of mouse then using your keyboard is fine too.
Here is a great example keybind set up for keyboard and mouse players:
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Crouch While Building: | Left Shift |
| Wall: | Q |
| Floor: | Mouse 4 |
| Stairs: | E |
| Roof: | Mouse 5 |
| Trap: | T |
| Place Building: | Left Mouse |
| Repair/Upgrage: | H |
| Rotate: | R |
| Change Material: | Right Mouse |
| Building Edit: | F, Mouse Wheel Up |
| Crouch While Editing: | Left Shift |
| Select Building Edit: | Left Mouse |
| Reset Buidling Edit: | Mouse Wheel Up |
Controller Settings
Fortnite players using a controller should set their controller options to "Builder Pro" mode in order to make building easier for themselves.
Enable Turbo Building
If you go into "Settings > Game", you can enable "Turbo Building". The difference between normal building and turbo building is that you can press and hold your build key and it will automatically place your next structure. Normal building requires you to press your build key whenever you are looking to place something. This is just much faster and allows you to spin around to place a bunch of walls or just hold down the key while you are ramping up to continue placing ramps.
Understand the Benefits of Each Resource Type
When you build any piece of structure it takes a certain amount of time to complete. Each potential resource type (wood, brick, metal), has a specific amount of hp making each one better in some situations.
Wood
Wood used to be the best material for an early fight, but this is no longer the case. It starts with 90 hp when it is initially created which is now the lowest of the materials. Wood is still strong but is mostly because of how easy it is to harvest. You'll still be using Wood as your primary building material, but it's no longer the most obvious option in most situations.
Brick
Brick might now be the best material. It's fairly easy to harvest with lots of boulders around the map, and it starts with 100 hp when initially created. It also has a higher top-end hp than Wood, making it farmable and stronger overall. While this might be the best material, you'll still likely find yourself using mostly wood due to how easy it is to harvest and how much drops from people you eliminate.
Metal
Metal has gotten a lot better now that it starts with the highest hp when placed. They also made it complete faster (but made the max health lower), so it's not as slow as it once was. However, the one glaring flaw with metal is that it's hard to harvest. You can hack away at cars and metal fences all you want, it's still going to take forever to gather enough to make it worthwhile.
| MATERIAL/STRUCTURE | HEALTH (START) | HEALTH (MAX) | HEATH RATE | TIME TILL COMPLETION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood Wall | 90 | 150 | 16/s | 4s |
| Wood Stairs, Floor, Roof | 84 | 140 | 16/s | 3.5s |
| Stone Wall | 99 | 300 | 18/s | 11.5s |
| Stone Stairs, Floor, Roof | 93 | 280 | 16/s | 12s |
| Metal Wall | 110 | 500 | 16/s | 24.5s |
| Metal Stairs, Floor, Roof | 101 | 460 | 16/s | 22.5s |
Always Be Harvesting Materials
One thing people get lazy about is harvesting materials. You want to have at least 600 wood in most cases because fights against competent players can go for a long time and you will quickly run out of resources. This is more of an extreme when you really get deep into building, but whenever you are rotating from an area to get into a circle, it's a good idea to be harvesting.
For wood, trees are obviously the best, but you can also harvest wooden palettes that are frequently in areas that don't have trees. Another underrated thing to harvest now is fences, they were recently buffed to give more wood, so they can be a nice boost if you are struggling.
Brick can be easily harvested by hacking away at the boulders that are across the map. You can find mine areas that have a lot of boulders, don't overlook these in the early game because you will need at least enough resources to put up a ramp or two.
Metal can now be harvested by smacking cars, dumpsters, steel girders, and many other metallic objects in-game. It takes a while to gather but can be worth it in the end.
Related: How to get Madcap’s Crescent Shroom Pickaxe for Free in Fortnite
Always Ramp or Wall When Being Shot
If you are just starting out, always immediately try to build a ramp or a wall once you start taking shots. You want to get in the habit of building once the action starts going because in 90% of cases it is your best move. Ramp is better if the player doesn't have a huge height advantage over you, and a wall is better if they do.
Learn to Build the Ramp Box
The first thing you want to get down quickly is something I call the ramp box. All it really takes to make one of these is four walls and a ramp. You are surrounding yourself with walls to protect yourself from harm on any side. You then have a ramp on the interior of these four walls so you can peak out and take shots at anyone who is exposed. You'll want to work on building this as quickly as possible because it is the easiest way to protect yourself while staying somewhat offensive.
Learn Some Basic Edits
While you don't need to know every single edit, you'll need to know some basics just in case you run into situations where you get stuck. To learn more edits, check out our Fortnite Editing Guide!
The Wedge
Three boxes in any corner will open up a triangle in part of the wall. This is normally used to just get out from the wall quickly. It's a quick and easy way to get out from behind a wall, and it opens up a big space which can make it easier to run through if the wall is in an awkward spot.
The Door
If you do two boxes stacked on each top of each other on the bottom six boxes you will get a door. This is better if you want to keep an easy escape route open without immediately exposing you. However, your enemy can also just open the door, but you'll have an advantage in that case. The door can be a bit awkward if the wall is awkwardly placed, so just be careful that you might not be able to get in and out of the door.
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Half Wall
If you do the top three of a wall you'll get a half wall. This is really useful if the wall is sunk into the ground (which can happen more than you think) and you need to get out.
Half Ramp
If you highlight three boxes in a ramp you'll get a half ramp. This is useful for getting out from under a ramp (this also happens more than you think).
Practice Building Creative Mode
There are many great building and edit courses in Fortnite Creative to help players get some solid practice in. Even running through these for 15-20 minutes a day will drastically improve a player's building performance!
Fortnite Advanced Building Tips
1x1 Template
One of the most templates needed to master many advanced techniques is building the classic 1x1. A 1x1 is 4 walls with a ramp in the center. This template forms the foundation for many other builds, and is also a great way to get the height advantage quickly over an opponent.
With practice a player should be able to spin in a circle to build the 4 walls and then quickly jump and place a ramp under their feet.
Ramp and Wall Towards Enemies
If you are pushing up towards an enemy you will want to quickly alternate between ramps and walls under the ramps. This gives you the ability to push without being knocked down as easily. If you are just ramping, they can just shoot one portion out and knock you down. Also, be sure this is a double-wide ramp when possible, this gives you even more ability to avoid being shot down.
Immediately Edit if You Over Build Someone
If you out-build someone then you should immediately look down, hit the edit key and remove part of the structure. You can then switch to your shotgun or close ranged weapon and shoot at them while they are trying to escape. This is a common situation when you get better at building, so you will want to get as fast as possible at this.
Got Out-Built? Floor Below and Double Ramp Up
If you get out built when you were ramping up, immediately put a floor below you and ramp upwards. If you have the resources you'll want to double ramp-up. This means putting a ramp below you and a ramp above you to protect yourself from shots. You'll then want to quickly turn around and start trying to build above your opponent again.
Learn to do 90s
One of the fastest ways to take high ground and important maneuvers you will need to advance your builds is getting faster at these 90 degree builds. Start with a wall directly in front of you and to the side. You will then build a floor and a ramp and then repeat. If you learn the timing correctly, you will boost yourself up the ramp with the momentum from the build and can quickly get height on any enemy. These are probably the most important part of building for high ground at the moment.
Learn more about these with this video:
Use the Power of the Pyramid
If you are running at someone aggressively or you are above someone that might be trying to shoot you down then you will want to add pyramids to your floors. This gives you double protection against someone trying to shoot you down and should give you enough time to get where you need to go.
The pyramid is also useful if someone is running on a ramp above you. You can place the pyramid above them and they'll get blocked off by it and slowed down. This could give you the time you need to get back to the high ground.
Block Off Your Opponent's Advances
If you are above your opponent you will want to take shots at them when possible, but also block off their advances. Put a floor right on top of their ramp so they can't push up, then build on it or edit it so you can sneak a shot in. Most of the time you are just popping them whenever they are exposed, and once they try to get above you block them!
If All Else Fails, Knock Down the Structure
If you are just getting consistently out-built by someone, try to edit down or just go to the bottom of the structure. If you can play this right, you can get to the ground and shoot out the supports and knock the whole fort down. You might be able to get the elimination or do some heavy damage. This will even out the playing field and allow you to have a chance to get back into the fight.
Knock Down Walls and Replace With Your Own
This is a common tactic to do if you have the enemy locked into a box. Hack down their box with your pickaxe and immediately when it's going to break on the hit, place a wall in this spot. This can be difficult sometimes if they are holding down their own key, so practice it to get faster. Once you own the wall, you can edit a window and fire off a shot.
Counter to Wall Knock Downs
If you are the one in the box and someone takes out their pickaxe to break it, you should just quickly edit your wall to fire a shot at your enemy. They won't always expect this and you can get a quick kill or damage on them if they are slow to react. You can also just wait for them to make their edit and fire the shot before they can switch back to their gun.
For more Fortnite guides, check out All Fortnite Game Modes, Explained on Pro Game Guides.
Media personality Rob “Devar-TTY” Kalajian has been a staple in the board game world for many years. Dev now focuses mostly on video games and TTRPGs. A self-proclaimed geek, Dev loves all things toys and games and even helps raise his four kids in his spare time.