Easy Fortnite Building Tips: Make Your Own High Ground FAST

While other Battle Royales come and go, Fortnite has stood the test of time by including creative gameplay mechanics. Its most unique feature, by far, is the building skill. Typically, your only hope of avoiding a spray of bullets is to run and duck behind existing cover. In Fortnite, you can just build your own cover!

The problem is, building anything useful in Fortnite is tricky and the steep learning curve can be off-putting to new players. It’s not just about putting down a wall or some stairs — you have to know what you’re doing and think on your feet to beat other players in Fortnite build fights. Want to become a master Fortnite builder? Check out our Fortnite building guide for the best tips and tricks to get started.

Do You Need to Be Good at Building to Be a Fortnite Pro?

People have wildly different opinions about building in Fortnite, and whether it’s really even necessary at all. Some claim they’re able to win enough games without ever building a single ramp while others claim you can’t get better at the game without it. The truth is, building is an important part of the game and if you want to become a top Fortnite player then you need to know how to build well.

You can compensate for not knowing how to build by being a great shot and anticipating what your opponents will do. If you’re playing against the majority of Fortnite players, who tend to be casual gamers, then you might win most of your matches. This tactic can only carry you so far though.

If you don’t improve your building skills and come across players who are very good at building in Fortnite, you’re going to have a much harder time. 

Why It’s Hard to Win a Build Fight in Fortnite

While the controls for building in Fortnite aren’t too hard to master, building effectively is the real challenge. When you’re facing off against another player and panic starts setting in, it’s easy to get confused. That’s when you start spamming the build controls, hoping your safety lies somewhere in the chaos. 

You might get lucky, but most players will easily outsmart your randomly placed cone and 1×1 walls. The only way to make building work for you in Fortnite is to build with a plan in mind and to do it faster than your opponents. Because, like most other battle royale games, Fortnite is fast-paced so your building speed has to match that pace. 

If you’ve put time into improving your aiming and shooting skills in Fortnite, you’ll know it takes practice to get better at it. Building is the same — you won’t get better unless you keep trying.

Is It Easier to Build on PC or Console in Fortnite?

Thanks to aim assist, most people will tell you fights are easier when you’re playing Fortnite on console. This is probably true, but building in Fortnite is definitely simpler on PC because it’s easier to navigate the keybindings on a keyboard. You also have more key customization options since you can bind the keys yourself to get your setup just right. Panning the camera with precision while building is also easier using a mouse compared to a thumbstick.

9 Fortnite Building Tips to Improve Your Game Fast

Want to be so good at building in Fortnite that salty players start to accuse you of cheating? Building structures isn’t just useful for avoiding getting shot at in the game. They also give you a chance to get the high-ground advantage and or land on hard-to-reach places in the game. 

1. Adjust Your Building Controls (PC and Console)

Even though Fortnite’s building mechanic is revolutionary among battle royales, the controls for this part of the game feel quite clunky. That goes for both PC and console controls. 

If you’re playing on console, you can change your control scheme to Builder Pro to swap the button mapping to a more fluid setup for building. Instead of using the shoulder buttons to cycle through different structures, Builder Pro controls map each structure to its own button. Just head to your in-game settings (before starting a match) and find it under Controller Configuration in the controller settings.

If you’re playing on PC, you have a lot more options when it comes to customizing your controls because you can set your own key bindings. While you’ll find plenty of people online claiming to have the “best keybinding” setup, what works for you will depend on your reach and preferences. Head to your in-game settings and look for Keyboard Controls to get started.

Just keep in mind that having a perfect setup is great, but it’s even more important to practice until your setup is part of your muscle memory.

2. Mine Early and Choose Your Materials Carefully

Generally, you want to max out all of your materials (mats) during the early game after you’ve left the bus and gotten a couple of weapons. You won’t get a lot of opportunity to mine for materials during the mid to late stages of the game — unless you’re willing to risk getting shot while you’re distracted.

Which materials you use is also important. Currently, you can build walls, floors, ramps, and pyramid-shaped roofs (cones) in Fortnite using either wood, brick, or metal. Wood is the easiest material to find and mine; it’s also the weakest of the three. Metal is the hardest to find but your best bet in a tough fight.

Generally, you want to use wood for the early- to mid-game, and as that runs out switch over to brick. Metal is, well, precious, so you want to save that for the last stretch when everyone’s on top of each other with Mythic weapons. Sometimes you need to use stronger materials early in the game to get out of a tough spot, and that’s okay too. Learning which materials to use at the right times is just as much of a skill as building itself.

3. Hone Your Building Skills in Creative

The best builders in Fortnite aren’t the players who build complicated structures, impressive as they are. It’s the ones who honed their skills to the point where they can spam the build keys without hesitation while using creative ways to position structures for maximum benefit. A smartly placed cone and ramp can be way more effective than a whole tower — and you’ll waste fewer mats in the process too.

Creative mode provides the perfect place to hone these skills. While it certainly counts as practice, the heat of battle isn’t the best time to figure out how to build structures. Using Fortnite’s Creative maps to get comfortable with your keybindings and practice different building techniques makes for a much easier learning experience. 

Other players have also shared tons of extremely useful building courses on their own public Creative maps. Just load one up, follow the instructions, and see if you can get it done faster every time you try.

4. Build Fast, Edit Faster

One of the toughest things to master in Fortnite is to keep from building yourself into a situation you can’t get out of. It’s easy to panic when a fight starts, making it harder to build strategically. Luckily, Fortnite also lets you edit your structures, giving you a way to quickly change your strategy if you’re backed into a corner. To edit a structure, simply point your cursor at it, hold the build button, and if it turns blue you can start editing. You can remove any number of blocks from a structure to change its shape, and even create doors or windows in walls.

Players can’t edit enemies’ structures in Fortnite, but you can edit your teammates’ structures. If your team works well together, you can use the editing feature to overwhelm other players in fights. One popular tactic is to break down an enemy’s walls and quickly put up your own, then edit it to give yourself the best angle to shoot them down. Editing is tricky, though, because it takes time. It’s only effective if you’re able to edit faster than the enemy can react.

5. Build 90s But Make Them Taller

Those boxy towers you see other players whipping up at lightning speed are one of the fundamental building techniques in Fortnite because it’s a way to quickly get both cover and the high ground. The most basic way to build a 90 starts with placing a ramp, then building a wall at the top of the ramp and turning 90 degrees to place another wall on the side of the ramp. If you want to go up, you’ll have to jump and add a floor, then add another ramp and more walls.

Most players don’t build massive towers, especially for every fight. It’s easier to quickly surround yourself with some walls for cover while you position yourself to fight back. Most people also only build their boxes one wall high. This was good enough for a long time, but since Fortnite added the mantling (climbing) movement mechanic, smart players have been combining it with sprinting to quickly climb walls and take out enemies. 

The solution is to simply build higher walls. Since every fight is situational, it might not call for a full-on tower, but if you do decide to build 90s, make sure your walls are at least 2×2 blocks high instead of 1×1.

6. Mastered 90s? Try Boxing Your Opponents Instead

Even though it’s simple on paper, boxing in your opponents with walls and a roof is hard to master. If you do manage it, though, it’s one of the more powerful building tricks in Fortnite — especially against less skilled players as they’ll get confused and freeze up. 

The key to boxing is to get your opponent into a situation where you can quickly start placing walls around them before they can react. The easiest way to do this is by starting when you already have at least one wall up and there’s another player on the other side. As fast as you can, place more walls around them and a cone both above and below them. 

The other player can’t build or edit their way out so will have to take time to shoot down one of your walls to free themselves. You can use this time to edit a window into one of your walls (remove the center square on a wall) and shoot your opponent down as they scramble to get out.

7. Ramps: Roof up and Slide Down

Ramps are pretty useful for a number of reasons in Fortnite. One of the most popular ways to use ramps is to get to higher places that are otherwise unreachable, like the roofs of buildings and tops of mountains. Ramps are deceptive because it’s tempting to just build one going straight up to reach your destination, but that makes you an open target. 

While it’s impossible not to be exposed while using ramps, you can use crafty ways to make ramps work for you and protect your back. When going up a ramp, the easiest way to add some extra protection is by building another ramp above you, creating a roof. It’ll take some practice to get used to this way of building as you have to spam the ramp button while running and pan the camera up and down to build ramps below and above you.

Adding the “roof” ramp provides protection from above as you’re going up, but if you need to go down quickly it might not be worth your time. The sliding movement mechanic was added in Chapter 3 and while it won’t make you faster on flat surfaces, it’s the quickest way to get down an incline. You’ll go even faster if you use ramps. 

You’ll have to rotate the ramps down and place them while sliding (unless the ramp is already there) so it might be best to bind a key to rotate your structures by 180 degrees for when you need it. This trick is very situational but can help you rotate away from the storm or quickly get into a close-quarters fight with less chance of being shot.

8. Target Enemy Structures to Keep the High Ground

Winning skilled build fights in Fortnite often comes down to who’s able to keep the high ground. As important as it is to focus on improving your own building skills, a fight isn’t one-sided and you’ll also need to learn how to read and counter your opponent’s building methods. 

You’ll typically want to keep them from making their buildings higher by shooting out supporting structures. Sometimes, it’s as simple as blocking their path by building a cone above their ramp so they have to pivot and build somewhere else which wastes precious time. Cones are a great option for this because they’re hard to build on top of and navigate around.

This isn’t something you can practice on your own, though, so the only way to get better is to keep going up against other players.

9. Build While Falling for a Quick Escape

Building tricks come and go, but this method has stuck around for a long time because when you need it, it’ll save your (in-game) life. You’ll find different opinions on how to build while falling, but a popular method is the “waterfall trick.” Start by building 3 walls as you’re falling, followed by a ramp. Then jump off the side of the ramp to build 3 walls again, followed by another ramp. Stick to 3 walls or less because you can safely fall that length without taking any damage.

While it sounds simple enough, this method is extremely tricky to execute properly because you have to build quickly and time it just right. Depending on your playstyle, this Fortnite building trick might not be something you use often but it’s still a handy skill to have in your back pocket.

Build Your Way to Victory!

Whether you’ve just started learning how to build in Fortnite or you’ve been playing the game for a while and want to get better, building tips will only get you so far. The key to dominating in build fights is to keep practicing so you can build faster than your opponents can.

Like any other online game, your ping will also affect your ability to beat other players in fast-paced build fights. If lag is getting in your way, you can try different ways to improve your ping. We have several tips for reducing latency on our CS:GO guide. 

For a potentially quick solution to high ping, just connect to a VPN server near the game’s servers and see if it helps. Sometimes, your ISP will route your connection along a congested path or throttle your gaming traffic. CyberGhost is a top gaming VPN that can help you avoid these problems by rerouting your connection and encrypting your traffic. Your ISP won’t be able to see what you’re doing so won’t throttle your connection to Fortnite’s servers.

You can get CyberGhost VPN and connect to one of our gaming-optimized servers in the country of your choice to improve your ping in Fortnite. 

Get CyberGhost VPN

FAQ