One of the most polarizing additions to Fortnite: Battle Royale, the X-4 Stormwing airplane, is apparently receiving a nerf in an upcoming patch.
Epic Games community coordinator Sean “MrPopoTFS” Hamilton said this week that the Fortnite developer will be making adjustments to the airplane, which many players have claimed is overpowered. The exact change will be an increase to the amount of damage a player loses when the plane blows up.
In the original implementation of the plane, only 25 health points were lost when it blew up. MrPopoTFS says that number will be increased to 50 in the 7.10 update, which will expectedly shy some low-health players away from hopping in a plane.
But how effective will the change really be? The plane, despite a slightly greater risk, is still very powerful. Players can still use the plane as a viable strategy to evade opponents and get to the late game. The armor that the plane has, and the fact that players can re-deploy their glider when they eject, makes the plane one of the most useful vehicles in the game.
There are obviously players who won’t touch the plane because it makes a lot of noise and it’s very easy to spot. But there are still a good amount of players who will take that risk for the advantages of a mounted machine gun on a very mobile and armored vehicle.
Related: Fortnite’s X-4 Stormwing Plane might spread chaos with a mounted machine gun
Even when the plane hits the ground, or player-made structures, it can just destroy them without taking excessive damage. The player doesn’t even take damage when ramming through buildings either, as long as the plane doesn’t explode.
The idea of a nerf is a welcome one, and after the removal of the Infinity Blade this week, it’s clear that Epic definitely listens to its Fortnite community. This nerf, however, just doesn’t appear to be enough to actually solve the problem that is the X-4 Stormwing.
