What Are The Best Fortnite Keybinds?
In this article, I discuss the importance of keybinding. Keybinding plays an integral role in your success as a PC gamer. Keyboards fulfill a greater purpose than simply filling a blank page. It is the practice of assigning various actions to a specific, unique key on the keyboard or mouse, or to a unique combination of keys. The benefits it offers are substantial. It saves time and effort. Quicker, faster actions per minute and higher response times will become your new norms.
Why are keybinds important?
Fortnite: Battle Royale's a unique mixture of survival, shooter and builder. There are quite a few controls to master. Fortifying your positon with an impromptu defensive structure to shield you from enemy fire is strange. What’s even stranger is also entering into a long distance shootout with rifles while you’re still stuck on the first engagement. You’re trying to balance offensive and defensive actions in a short period of time. Such a herculean task requires a special set of skills. And since most of your competitors have likely adopted the skill-set already, you’re at a significant disadvantage if you neglect to learn it.
When you’re versed in the art of keybinding, and then master it, you become a superhuman gamer. Additional appendages or fingers will not be needed to perform multiple actions. Doing it correctly, and then steadily building up your muscle memory, will elevate your gaming experience to the next level.
Trust the process
What are the best keybinds?
For players who have never made use of keybinding before, I recommend keybinding only one or two actions to start with and then adding more only after those keybinds have been mastered. I also recommend that these one or two actions be the most commonly used, in order to force the player to make use of the new keybinds.
The basic logic behind which action to bind to which key is rather simple: the most important and most used actions should be bound as close to your natural hand position on the keyboard as possible, without modifiers or special combinations. They need to be close to hand and easy to use.
To modify your keybinds, launch Fortnite and then swing over to ‘Input’ settings from the Main Menu. This page is going to demand careful attention. First, let’s briefly cover things that you will not need to change. Leave your movement inputs alone.
W or Up – Move Forward | A or Left – Move Left |S or Down – Move Backward | Down D or Right– Move Right | |Jump – Spacebar | Sprint – Left Shift
Also, I recommend you leave your Fire, Target and Reload inputs unchanged.
Fire – Left Mouse Button | Target – Right Mouse Button | Reload – R
Now, once we scroll down to E this is where the magic happens and your real training begins. E – Use
But why is E best for this function?
E is the pick-up function in Fortnite. Some pros use the F key, but I’ve been conditioned my whole life to use E for, well, use. It’s hard to break long habits. For me, the genuine allure of keybinding is developing a system that streamlines your gaming mechanics. A big part of developing that system is determining natural tendencies. Keybinding is a process that best serves your gaming needs if it requires less thinking. It’s all about maximizing reaction and response time. To curate actions that require little-to-no thinking, you need to rely on fundamental movements. Keeping E for Use is a prime example of this process.
For Building Edit I use G because of its proximity to WASD. Same goes for Repair/Upgrade. For Rotate/Building I use R because it’s easy to remember. For Auto Run I use the = sign because it’s a function I seldom use.
That's what I call a loaded arsenal
These next keys are very important and lay the foundation of your keybinding system. They will determine how quickly and easily you switch your weapons. For the Harvesting Tool I use 1. For Weapon Slot 1 I use 2, Weapon Slot 2 I use 3, Weapon Slot 3 I use 4, Weapon Slot 4 I use Z, and Weapon Slot 5 I use X. These are the same keybinds used by Ninja. The reason I prefer to use these inputs specifically, though, is because of my insistence on keeping everything in proximity to WASD. Maintaining comfort and minimizing finger movements are pillars of my approach. For Weapons Slots 5 and 6, I tend to use these for healing items or rocket launchers and grenades.
Focusing the rest of our attention on Building Slots is where we’ll wind down our discussion of keybinding in Fortnite. For the Wall, Floor and Stairs functions I keybound to my mouse using the three extra buttons on the side. You’ll need a certain type of mouse to accomplish this task. I use the Logitech G502. For building a Wall I use Thumb Mouse Button 2, Floor L (using extra mouse button) and Thumb Mouse Button for Stairs. For the Roof and Trap functions I leave them at default (Roof – F4, Trap – F5) because I don’t use them often nor do I see any need to spam them.
Build it and they will come
Building carries huge significance in Fortnite. These keybounds have served me well in my experience because of the muscle memory I’ve built up using them. Mastering these functions will aid you in high-stress, frantic situations. You need to be highly reactive. These keys have given me the best response time.
Finally, let’s close out our discussion of keybinds by mentioning some final inputs. For the Switch Quickbar function I like to use Q. This is your menu to switch between your walls, ramps and general building supplies. It’s for convenience because it allows for quick adjustments in the heat of battle. For Slot Up and Slot Down it’s intuitive to just use Mouse Wheel Up and Mouse Wheel Down. For Toggle Map I use M and Toggle Inventory I use I. Again these are areas on the keyboard where I feel most comfortable. Finally, for Crouch I use C, Push to Talk Y and Chat Enter.
Excelling at Fortnite requires a multitude of actions to be mastered. Whether it’s shooting, building, or unleashing sporadic movements to keep your enemies from landing clean shots, there’s no doubt that juggling multiple actions adroitly is essential to your survival. Honing a mechanism that will enable you to perform these various actions in the fastest time possible will give you a sizable edge.
Caught in a skirmish without any natural cover? Start rapidly building walls and ramps to gain high ground and then take the fight to your enemy. Doing this quickly and efficiently will give you the upper hand. Keybinding gives you that upper hand.
Top Three Fortnite Player's Keybinds.
For purposes of discussion, let’s say the top three best Fortnite players currently dominating in the online gaming arena are 1). Ninja 2). TSM_Myth 3). Tfue
Ninja’s Keybinds
Tapping buttons like a Ninja
Actions should be close to your natural hand position. Related or regularly used actions should be in close proximity to each other. Maximizing efficiency and comfort should be your priority. The true stress test for a gamer is how consistent their approach is and what achievements said approach yields. Judging by Ninja’s success and his transparency, it’s obvious to me that he’s found his ideal keybinding setup.
Ninja uses the Logitech G502 mouse. With its 11 programmable buttons, advanced and responsive sensor, comfort and weight, it’s a great investment for a serious gamer who wants to keybind like a pro. For his mouse settings, Ninja use Thumb Mouse Button 2 to build Walls, Thumb Mouse Button 1 for Stairs, and *L for Floor.
*I believe Ninja may have tinkered with his inputs recently. It appears he now uses the side-scrolling features on his Logitech mouse to build Floors (scroll side click left) and Roofs (scroll side click right).
For his other primary functions, Ninja keeps it pretty standard. WASD - Walking Spacebar - Jump C - Crouch Left mouse button - Fire Right mouse button - Target E - Use (pick up) 1234ZX - Weapons (ZX being the meds and explosives )
Most Fortnite players are humans with two hands and ten fingers. I believe there are some players masquerading as humans, but are in fact robots. But, for the most part, we’re a living, breathing species with a lot of common biological traits. Inherently, what is efficient for one person will likely be efficient for another? If you’re a new player who just wants to familiarize the controls used by the best players in the world, then replicating a player like Ninja is a good start.
What separates Ninja from virtually every other player in the scene is his relentless pursuit and aggression. There’s calmness in the midst of his frantic energy. While his aiming is second-to-none, it’s his ability to survive using complex building structures, and jerky, non-predictive movements that’s the real sight to behold. That ability to survive in chaos comes from his background as a professional Halo player. That’s fascinating to me.
Ninja has a storied background in console gaming. PC did not become his bread-and-butter overnight. I think the simplicity of his keybinding reinforces this point. You need not be born with a mouse and keyboard in your cradle to excel in the PC gaming scene.
TSM_Myth’s Keybinds
Uncover the mystery by exposing the Myth
Here is a link to TSM_Myth’s keybinds. What I’ve noticed is that most pros have distinct keybinds. We’ve stressed the reasons for this phenomenon earlier. Keybinding is about maximizing comfort, speed and efficiency. Not everybody’s comfort level with a keyboard is uniform.
Unlike Ninja, Myth uses Left Ctrl for Crouch, Harvesting is Q, and Weapon Slots 1-5 are keyed to 1-5. For his building inputs, Myth uses Z for Walls, X for Floors, C for Ramps and F4 for Roofs. Since these keybinds differ from my own settings, I cannot vouch for their efficacy. But Myth is an extraordinarily talented player. These settings work for him, so who am I to discount his method. I am sure there are thousands of other aspiring Fortnite pros who successfully mimic Myth’s keybinds.
Like Ninja, Myth is an incredibly fast and efficient builder. There’s no doubt his keybinding contributes to his efficiency. But his natural talents are out of this world. His micro decision-making is legendary. No matter what keybinding system you prefer, there are certain things that cannot be duplicated. Myth’s high-intellect, hyper-competitive playstyle, insane building, fluid movement and overall marksmanship are precisely why he’s one-of-a-kind.
TFue’s Keybinds
Best Fortnite player in the world. ladies and gentlemen
Tfue also has a distinct keybinds. For crouch, he uses Q. For his Harvesting Tool and Weapon Slots 1 and 2, he uses 1-3, respectively. Ninja does the same thing. But then his inputs differ from there. For his building slots, Tfue uses C for Wall, F for Floor, V for Stairs and Thumb Mouse Button 5 for Roof.
Tfue may be the most consistent hypercompetitive Fortnite pro in the scene at the moment. His placings in Keemstar’s Fortnite Friday tournaments (with his Faze duo partner, Cloakzy) confirm this belief. While there are noticeable similarities to the inputs used by Ninja, Tfue has his own method. And since it yields such awesome results, it further proves the point that keybinding is all about versatility. There’s no universal formula to follow. What works well for one pro gamer may not work well for another. You have to experiment with different inputs to find your sweet spot. Getting tips from successful gamers and incorporating them into your own process is a good start.
Sample different ideas from each of these gamers (and others not referenced) and determine your own destination. The path getting there will teach you a lot about your gaming instincts. Your journey to find the best system will lead you somewhere worthwhile. One of the most famous slogans in the last thirty years focused on the greatest basketball player in the world, Michael Jordan. Everybody knows how it went no matter what generation they came from. “Be Like Mike.” In Fortnite, be like Myth or Ninja or Tfue. As you experiment with these unique styles, you’ll eventually learn to play like you.
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