Fortnite Heavy Assault Rifle stats

How to use the Heavy Assault Rifle

The Heavy Assault Rifle came back with Fortnitemares on 1 October 2026, and it plays the opposite way to the standard Assault Rifle. It fires only 3.75 rounds a second, but each bullet hits for 36 at Common up to 44 at Legendary. Three body shots drop an unshielded player at every rarity, in 0.53 s if they all land.

Its sustained output is lower than the regular rifle's: 135 to 165 damage per second, against 165 to 198. Against full shields that shows. A Legendary Heavy needs five body hits (1.07 s) to remove 200, where a Legendary Assault Rifle needs six but fires them faster (0.91 s). The Heavy wins when you are trading single, careful shots, not holding the trigger.

That is how the Fortnite Wiki's strategy notes say to use it: wait for first-shot accuracy to reset, or fire short bursts, because full-auto bloom is large and hip-fire is poor up close. Its falloff reaches the 66% minimum at 100 metres, five metres later than the Assault Rifle's, so it is the better of the two for poking at long range.

For building fights it is a weak choice: the wiki notes its slow fire rate makes it poor at destroying structures, and the numbers agree, at 135–165 structure damage a second. In Zero Build it is a mid-to-long range rifle with nothing to shoot through; keep a shotgun for anyone who closes the gap.

Where to find it

In the Chapter 7 Season 4 Battle Royale pool since v42.30 (1 Oct 2026): returned for fortnitemares 2026. Source: Fortnitemares 2026 Curses Battle Royale, Reload & More (v42.30, 1 Oct 2026).

Epic doesn’t publish chest, floor-loot or supply-drop odds, and we haven’t found a source we can cite for them, so this page gives none. Modes: we checked Epic’s Battle Royale notes only; Reload, Blitz and OG run their own pools.