The 5 Elements In Fortnite: Save The World

Water. Nature. Fire. Energy. Physical. Long ago, ... - Oh wait, wrong elements. Still, Fortnite's paid PvE mode Save the World also has various elements that influence your gameplay. In this guide, we'll tell you what to pay attention to.

The Five Elements

First of all, there are five different elements in Fortnite: Save The World:

• Physical, represented by a broken grey wall
• Energy, represented by a blue energy blob with orbiting spheres
• Nature, represented by a lightning bolt
• Fire, represented by a flame
• Water, represented by three waves

These elements can influence weapons, traps, enemies, and building structures, so it's important to pay attention to them.

The Elements In Enemies

Husks and Mist Monsters can have an element. However, they can only be Physical, Water, Fire or Nature – not Energy. Also, the only Mist Monster type that can have an element is Smashers, so the elemental weapons are overall more relevant for Husks.

Normal enemies without an unusual appearance automatically have the element Physical. Fire Enemies burn, Water Enemies are bluish with icy mist around them, and Nature Enemies have a yellow shimmer with lightning around them.

All of them have specific traits that make them greater risks than Physical Enemies:

• Fire Enemies apply Affliction when they deal damage, damaging Shields and then Health.
• Water Enemies slow you down when they deal damage.
• Nature Enemies apply Affliction to your Energy, causing it to drain for a brief period.

The Elements In Weapons

Weapons can have all five of the elements, and which one they have is shown to you when you inspect either the weapons themselves or their schematics.

Why is it important to pay attention to your weapons' elements? Certain elements deal more or less damage depending on what enemies they're used on:

• Physical Enemies get 100% damage from any element
• Fire Enemies get:
  • 100% damage from Water Element Weapons
  • 75% damage from Energy Element Weapons
  • 67% damage from Fire Element Weapons
  • 50% damage from Physical Element Weapons
  • 25% damage from Nature Element Weapons

• Water Enemies get:
  • 100% damage from Nature Element Weapons
  • 75% damage from Energy Element Weapons
  • 67% damage from Water Element Weapons
  • 50% damage from Physical Element Weapons
  • 25% damage from Fire Element Weapons

• Nature Enemies get:
  • 100% damage from Fire Element Weapons
  • 75% damage from Energy Element Weapons
  • 67% damage from Nature Element Weapons
  • 50% damage from Physical Element Weapons
  • 25% damage from Water Element Weapons

As you can see, Physical Weapons deal 100% damage to Physical Enemies but only 50% to all other Elemental Enemies, making them arguably the weakest weapons. However, when Physical is perked Legendary, it provides a 44% damage boost, an advantage over the other elements' 20%.

You might also notice that Energy weapons deal 75% damage to all elements but Physical. This means that they're not the most effective weapons against any specific Elemental Enemies – but also never the weakest, always the second strongest. Therefore, Energy weapons are recommended for rounds with mixed Elemental Enemies or for when you don't have enough resources to level up multiple different elemental weapons.

If you need your weapon to have a specific element, you can change the elements of most weapons in the Perk Recombobulator. Just go to "Armory" in your Homebase, click on "Schematics", select the weapon you want to modify, then click on "Upgrade/Inspect", and choose "Upgrade" on the bottom of the screen and "Modify Perks".

One of the perks you can modify is the weapon's element. To do so, you need these materials:

• RE-PERK! to change to Physical
• FIRE-UP! to change to Fire
• FROST-UP! to change to Water
• AMP-UP! to change to Nature
• Change a smaller amount of FIRE-UP!, FROST-UP! and AMP-UP! to change to Energy

The Elements In Traps

Contrary to weapons, not all traps have an element, and if they do, the element typically can't be modified (some can alter between Nature and Energy). Here are the traps that belong to a specific element:

• The Ceiling Zapper, Wall Dynamo and Ceiling Electric Field can only be Nature or Energy.
• The Flame Grill Floor Trap and Tar Pit are locked to Fire.
• All other Traps are locked to Physical.

The Elements In Building Structures

When building structures in Save the World, you can choose between wood, stone and metal. But did you know that each of these materials is weak against enemies of a certain element?

• Wood is weak against Fire, so stone or metal is recommended
• Stone is weak against Water, so metal is recommended
• Metal is weak against Nature, so stone is recommended

If you are in a Water storm in Metal Corrosion modifier missions, you run into a problem: Wood is generally the weakest material, your Elemental Enemies are strong against stone and metal is also weaker in this mission. However, it's generally recommended to still build with metal as it's the most stable option between the three – the damage output for metal corrosions is not as much as the damage output for brick walls against water enemies.

Have you encountered Elemental Enemies in Save the World before? Did you know about all of these measures you can take to weaken them?