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The Fortnite traps guide is here to introduce you to this category of items that you can get in the battle royale game. Traps are a less used but still important part of the survival experience, especially for ensuring that you and your team are the last remaining members of the game.
In this Fortnite traps guide, we are going to introduce you to all of the known traps that have been released by Epic Games. Some traps are there for damaging your opponents, while others are used to benefit you and your team in moving around the map more easily. This is everything that you need to know about this category of items.
Bottom Line Up Front
Fortnite traps are exactly what they sound like: items that you can place down to surprise your opponents. For many of the traps, they will damage or hinder your enemies in a variety of ways once placed on one of your player-built structures.
In other cases, there are Fortnite traps that are not typically meant for opponents but yourself. In these cases, the traps like the bouncer or launchpad are used for movement purposes.
Fortnite Traps Explained
Fortnite traps, first and foremost, are one of the most fundamental parts when it comes to building. Building is at the cornerstone of the battle royale game, and it keeps the gameplay different from that of the other titles in the same genre space.
For the most part, building is an aspect of Fortnite that everyone knows about and can at least somewhat try if necessary. That said, traps are a layer underneath building that many players do not even try to do, and there are even some who can play the game without realizing it even exists.
That said, if you truly wish to excel at playing Fortnite and utilize its systems to the fullest, you should learn more about traps. Traps are items that you can find in the game that will allow you to place them down and either hinder your opponents or help out your team.
Traps are separate from everything else in the game, occupying their own space when it comes to your inventory. While most other items, like weapons, grenades, and medkits, might each take up space in your inventory, most of these traps will not do the same.
You are free to carry them around without worrying about the space in your inventory, much like how building materials and ammo for weapons work. So, there is no reason not to pick one up once you find it, as you may just have a great use for the trap at some point later in the match.
Where to Find Traps
Before you can use a trap in Fortnite matches, though, you are going to need to locate them. These items are not given to you directly and must be looted just like every other item in a match. Fortunately, there are a good number of places where you can find traps in Fortnite at this time.
The first of these is by simply looking anywhere that you go on the island. As you likely already know, there is floor loot in the game that includes items that are just lying around on the ground for no reason at all. Typically, these items are basic weapons and recovery items that are not great.
However, there is a chance that you will be able to find trap items that are found around the map on the floor using this method. They are pretty rare most of the time, so the chances of finding a trap on the ground are not that great, even at major named locations, making this not the most reliable option.
What is much more likely of a method is to open up any treasure chests that you come across on the map. This is something that you should always be doing in matches anyway, so that should not be a problem. Chests have the chance of containing more types of items and rarer ones at the same time.
As such, you are more likely to find a trap item that you are looking for the more chests that you unlock. Vaults are another great source of traps, too, as they are rare locations around the island that have plenty of valuable treasure in Chapter 3.
There are, of course, always useful supply drops that appear in the safe zones of the map and slowly fall. They contain some of the best loot in the game, making it a bit easier to find traps there. While NPCs have not typically sold traps in the past, we would not be surprised if Epic implemented this in the future.
And then last but not least, we have the other players in the match. Until someone sets down a trap, the item is fair game, and taking out another player holding a trap in their inventory will make them drop it alongside their other loot for you to pick up and then use.
How to Place a Trap in Battle
Once you have your hands on a trap in the game, it is finally time to start placing it down and using it in fights. This is where the real challenge of using a trap comes into play, as it works very differently compared to almost every other item that is currently in Fortnite.
With your trap now in your inventory, what you want to do is make sure to switch to build mode once you are ready. Building in Fortnite requires you to press a specific button or key depending on the platform of your choice, and then you can start creating structures to use in battle.
While in the build mode, you can see the ramps, walls, floors, and more that you can speed build in the game. What you can also find is that there is a special item slot in the building section of the game that is on the far right side of the bottom right corner of the screen.
This is the item slot that is dedicated solely to the traps in Fortnite and where you will find any that you currently have in your inventory. It has its unique button associated with it, so press that key, and you will be able to place down the trap wherever you like.
That said, there are a couple of key points that you should know about when it comes to placing traps. For one, there is the fact that you cannot place them just anywhere that you would like. This is a bit frustrating at times, but the general rule of thumb of you can place them on anything that you build.
It does not take much time at all to place down a wall or floor and then put the trap on it, so that should not be a problem most of the time, so long as you have a few materials. Once the trap is down on something, you will be able to either use it or wait until an unsuspecting player falls into your trap.
Full List of All Traps
To help with making sure that you know all about the traps that you can use in Fortnite, we are going to break down every single item in this category that has been released up until this point in Chapter 3. Oddly enough, there is only a little over a dozen in the game’s history at this time.
There are 13 traps in total that have been released throughout the 20 or so seasons in the battle royale game so far. Here is the full list:
- Armored wall
- Bouncer
- Campfire
- Ceiling zapper
- Chiller
- Damage trap
- Fire trap
- Jump pad
- Launch pad
- Mounted turret
- Poison dart trap
- Wall dynamo
- Zapper trap
Those are all of the trap items that have been released in Fortnite up until this point. Since there are not too many at this time, we are going to fully break down all 13 of them and let you know how they work, what they are used for, when they were introduced, and if they are still in the game at this time.
Armored Wall Explained
The armored wall is the newest trap in the arsenal that Epic Games has released and also one of the more unique ones at the same time. The armored wall is not the standard trap that you would think of when you hear that word. It is not necessarily a trap at all.
Instead, the armored wall is what the name implies: a wall that you can place that is quite strong and defensive, protecting you from enemies that might try and take it down. The armored wall trap can be placed on any flat structure that you can build in the game, like a wall or maybe a flat ceiling.
What the armored wall does is create a defensive metal wall that covers the structure that you already built and boosts its health in the process. The health of a single armored wall is 2500, which is insane since the average normal wall or structure in the game is only a few hundred health at times.
The armored wall is extremely useful in combat situations where you need to defend yourself from a certain area where enemies are attacking you and can buy you some valuable time.
They are found in stacks of five, allowing you to create a nice little armored fort that will withstand some serious damage. The armored wall was introduced to the game in Chapter 2, Season 8, and remains in Fortnite as of Chapter 3.
Bouncer
Next up is one of the staples in the Fortnite scene when it comes to traps and likely the most popular one of them all: the bouncer. It has a long history in the game up until this point as one of the most prolific trap items that players have been able to use in the game.
The bouncer, like the armored wall, is not necessarily meant for damaging enemies at all. Instead, the bouncer is usually meant for helping your team when it comes to moving around the map. When you place down the bouncer on any structure, both player-built and already existing ones, you can hop on it to launch into the air.
What is great about the bouncer is that it allows you to fly across a decently large area on the map, which is invaluable in certain situations. You can bounce forward in any direction you wish, which makes it great for both outrunning the storm and getting closer to opponents to take them out.
It has a lot of utility behind it, which is why it is one of the most important traps in the game. It first came out in Chapter 1, Season 4, as a modified and better version of the direction jump pad. Since then, it has been in many seasons, with its most recent appearance being Chapter 2, Season 7. It is no longer in the game at this time.
Campfire
The campfire is another long-running item in the game and one that has some interesting aspects to it. It began its life in early Chapter 1 as one of the first traps that were available in the game. Players could place down a campfire and then light it to heal your missing health for a handful of seconds.
It would then go out, and that would be it. What is interesting about the campfire is that it started as a trap but has since evolved into something else entirely. Players can now find pre-existing campfires around the world to light up to gain back health. As such, the campfire trap is vaulted and unlikely to ever come back.
Ceiling Zapper
Speaking of the original traps out there, one of the very first to ever exist in Fortnite was the ceiling zapper. It was an intricately designed trap that could be placed on any square that was in the game, be it in an existing building that Epic created or a structure that a player has made.
What made the ceiling zapper useful was that it would be above the player so someone could walk into a building and get zapped from above them instantly. It dealt a whole lot of damage and was introduced before the first season of the battle royale game even began. However, it was later replaced by better alternatives and will probably not be unvaulted in the future.
Chiller
The chiller is a trap that you can likely guess what it was used for based on the name alone. Arriving during the first Season 6 in Fortnite, the chiller trap was designed to not deal damage directly but to cause movement issues for any player who runs across it.
What the chiller would do is freeze only the feet of the player who touches this trap, which would make them slide across surfaces for some time until it melted. It is very hard to control your movement while your feet are frozen, so it can make it difficult for enemies to react.
However, the offset of this is that the frozen player can slide fast, faster than normal running, so it can be beneficial in some ways, too, if you know how to use it properly. This is why the chiller was available for use against enemies and allies alike.
The chiller left the game in Season 7, which was a bit ironic given that the seventh season was a winter-themed one with ice all around the map. But maybe it was deemed unnecessary at the time by Epic because of that. It has not returned since then, so it feels like this could be unvaulted someday.
Damage Trap
The basic damage trap is one that arrived very early in the life of Fortnite, even before the first season began. It is the most generic trap possible, being what many players likely think of when they hear the word “trap.” It deals a whopping 150 damage to anyone who is hit by it, but there is a catch.
It has a cooldown of five seconds, so it is possible to avoid it if you are not hit when it goes off. If you touch the square that this trap is on and then instantly back away, there is the tiniest delay before it goes off, letting you avoid being damaged by this trap.
It was in the game for a very long time, including most of the first chapter of Fortnite and even the first season of Chapter 2. That said, it was finally vaulted with Season 2 of Chapter 2 and has not returned since then.
Fire Trap
The fire trap is an odd one, arriving in the second chapter of the game and only sticking around for a season. It does what it sounds like in practice, setting a fire once someone touches it. It deals a little bit of damage upon first touching the device, but the real damage comes from the fire that spreads afterward.
A player will continue to be damaged by the fire trap the longer that they continue to touch the flames. However, its main use does not come just from dealing damage but burning structures that it touches, causing massive fires and potentially destroying entire forts in the process. It was released in Chapter 2, Season 4, and removed in Season 5.
Jump Pad
The jump pad or direction jump pad was another early trap in the game and one of the very first that was not built around damaging enemies. It was the precursor to other traps like the bouncer and the launch pad. Players could put the jump pad down and use it to blast off in a specific direction.
What was odd about the jump pad, though, was that it was somewhat limited since you had to pick the direction you wanted to go in. There were four directional arrows that you could choose from, but they were so close together that it made it easy to accidentally head in the wrong direction. It came out before Season 1 and was vaulted before the end of the first season.
Launch Pad
When it comes to the launch pad, this is another classic Fortnite trap that has been in the game for a long time. It is also alongside the armored wall as the only other trap that you can use now. It arrived in the very first season of the game, allowing players to launch into the air upon hitting it.
The difference here between the launch pad and the bouncer is the fact that leaping into the air with the help of this trap will cause the player to be able to pull out their glider again, which is not usually available in battle royale game modes after jumping out of the battle bus.
The launch pad has been available in most seasons of the game but was randomly dropped from Chapter 3, Season 1, and then brought back in the middle of that same season. It is unlikely that this trap will be permanently vaulted anytime soon.
Mounted Turret
One of the more fascinating traps to ever release in Fortnite is the mounted turret. Introduced in Chapter 1, Season 6, this trap is both an item that can be placed almost anywhere and a vehicle of sorts. How it works is that a player can build a flat surface and then place the mounted turret there.
They are then able to get into the mounted turret and begin shooting at the enemies that are nearby. There are unlimited bullets for the mounted turret, so there is no need to worry about that. Unfortunately, it was removed from the game in Season X (10) and has never returned in trap form.
Mounted turrets have been in the game since then but in stationary locations that you can use. The trap version that can be placed anywhere does not exist anymore, but there is always the chance that Epic Games could bring it back in the future.
Poison Dart Trap
The poison dart trap is another short-lived item that was only in the game for about a season. It came out in Chapter 1, Season 8, and worked a bit differently from other traps at the time. What is fascinating about the poison dart trap is that it does not just affect a single square like most damaging traps.
Instead, it can shoot out poisonous darts that will damage players that are, at most, three squares away. This means that it can be set up on a wall and then damage anyone within that range. The darts poison the target, which saps away their health a little bit at a time for a short duration. This trap was removed in Season 9.
Wall Dynamo
For the wall dynamo trap, this one focused on being a wall trap. It was quite similar to its counterpart, the ceiling zapper, with the main difference being that this trap centered around being a wall trap. It worked largely the same as the ceiling zapper, where players could place it on any structure, be it player-built or not.
Then if a player came across this item, they would be damaged a great amount, and a cooldown would then activate. It was introduced before the start of Fortnite’s first season and was removed in Season 2. This was likely because the damage trap and others could better consolidate and fill its role.
Zapper Trap
Finally, there is the zapper trap. This one came out in Season X, which was the final season of Chapter 1, and was removed in the following chapter. Where this trap differed from the others is that it is the only one on this list that was not a trap inventory item.
It worked as a trap and was a trap, but it was a standard item that went into your main inventory slots. Players would then throw the item like a grenade or other throwable, and it would activate. It would then damage any players in a close area around it, making it a weirdly experimental and, ultimately, a vaulted trap.
FAQs
Question: How Do You Use Fortnite Traps?
Answer: A quick breakdown of how to use a Fortnite trap in matches is to, first, find one on the map. Once you have one in your possession, what you want to do is press the appropriate button or key on your platform of choice to switch to the build mode in the game. For a controller, for example, this is done by pressing circle on PlayStation, B on Xbox, and so on.
Once you are in the build mode, this is where you can use the trap. It has its own designated button associated with it that you can see in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you are ready to place the trap, be sure to take a look at the square that you want to lay it on and then press the corresponding button or key to place that item there.
Question: Are there Still Traps in Fortnite Chapter 3?
Answer: Yes, there are still traps that are available in Fortnite Chapter 3. That said, there are not many at all that are in the battle royale game currently. Even some of the most popular and best traps like the bouncer and launch pad are not currently in the game at this time.
Epic Games has mostly limited the number of traps across all major battle royale game modes to just a few at this point. There are only traps that are available right now, and that is the launch pad and armored wall trap. The latter is the newest in the game, only released in Season 8 of Chapter 2.
With its relative newness, Epic did not remove the armored wall but kept it around for Chapter 3. In the strange case of the launch pad, it was strangely removed at the beginning of Season 1 in the third chapter but then brought back in a later update.
Question: How Do You Get Traps in Fortnite?
Answer: As for how to find traps in Fortnite, there are a couple of ways that you can do this. The first is simply finding them on the ground as floor loot in the game. They are sometimes rare this way, so it is not the most reliable form of finding the trap items in matches.
The other, more reliable at times option is to open up any treasure chests that you find around the island. Treasure chests have a higher chance of finding more rare items than just looking at the ground, so this gives you a much better chance of discovering a trap item like the armored wall for you to use in battle.
Conclusion
Traps are a valuable part of the experience that will have you already playing much smarter than most players out there. However, Fortnite traps are just one part of the battle royale survival experience.
If you are someone who is trying to learn much more about how to excel in this game, there are plenty of other guides that we have created that you should check out.
Our next suggestion after reading this is to take a look at the Fortnite ammo guide to find out more about the different ammo types that you can encounter in the game. Ammo is another part of the game that is there, but many players do not worry about it, similar to traps, but it is worth learning about if you wish to be the best player you can be.
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