This is a continuation of the series of a 64 year old pops (that’s me) blogging my journey to see what level I can achieve in this season’s Fortnite Ranked Battle Royale Build (Chapter 5 Season 2). Each week, I share my progress, observations, and learnings.
This Week’s Progress
I climbed through the second half of the Elite level rank this week and made it to Champion level! According to FortniteTracker.com , only 1.6% percent of the approximately 6.5 million ranked players that they track are at Champion level. There is only one level higher than Champion, which is “Unreal.” Approximately .4% of all ranked players are at the coveted Unreal ranking which means that I’m now in the top 2% of all ranked Fortnite players. Currently, I’m 23% of the way through Champion level which means I need another 77% to reach Unreal.
Week 5 – Journey & Learnings
- It was very hard to make it thru Fortnite Ranked Elite level. Most of the players that I encountered were very highly skilled and were mostly other Elite players with a spackling of Diamond and Champion level players. As I got closer to reaching Champion level, it seemed that I ran into more Champion level players.
- A top 10 finish was no guarantee to move up in ranking. I had back-to-back games where I finished in 10th place yet made no percentage gains towards reaching Champion level.
- There are highly skilled players hiding. It’s not just campers like me. It was common for me to encounter a high level player that would hide in hopes of surviving longer.
- There are highly skilled players that are scouting the perimeter of the storm for easy kills. Until recently, most of the skilled players battled it out near the middle of the playing field. This is still the case however, I encountered many Champion and Unreal level players that were literally circling the perimeter of the playing field looking for campers or hiders.
- There are highly skilled players fishing at this level for health. Yes, FISHING! At lower levels, fishing was mostly reserved for campers (hiders). The technique is to catch a lot of fish so you can remain in the storm and out of the action for as long as possible since a player can eat the fish they catch to regain health that was lost in the storm.
- It was critical to get to know a couple of landing spots and how to safely maneuver from those points. Almost anytime I deviated from my favorite landing spots, I was quickly eliminated. I attribute that to other players knowing those landing spots better than me which is a big advantage.
- Speaking of quick eliminations, at this level, they’re devastating! Finishes outside of the top 30 players made my ranking go backwards 2-5%.
- Practice. I mentioned last week that one of my goals was to practice building. Though I didn’t practice as much as I’d hoped, I did get in 3 sessions of building practice.
- My non-ranked games performance has greatly improved. Prior to this season, when I played an unranked game, I won 6% of the time. This season, I’ve won 11% of the unranked matches that I’ve played.
What’s Next
Striving for the top Fortnite ranked level which is Unreal. Wish me luck. These kids are good!
