Epic Games nerfed the BRUTE mechs, but the community isn’t quite ready to forgive the developers just yet.

While the nerfs to the BRUTEs are hefty, the Fortnite community (including us) are highly skeptical about forgiving their addition in the first place. The reactions to the nerfs have been mixed to say the least with a definite lean towards the negative.

Don’t get us wrong. The nerfs themselves have gotten a great response, but many players simply want the mech removed completely. Let’s get into the replies!

Community has mixed opinions of BRUTE nerfs

As we mentioned, the reactions to the nerfs have been a wild mix. The balance patch was supposed to deliver a striking blow to the ease of use that the BRUTEs have. Instead, it cut down on the “noob-friendly” mechanics while still keeping a ton of its power intact.

Liquid Chap was among the first to reply after the updates went live. In proper fashion, his single replay contains both a positive and a negative. Junk Rifts were temporarily removed from Arena due to bug and we suspect that competitive players will be angry as soon as the item returns.

Chap also mentioned the BRUTE only as the “terrible vehicle.” Its power has been chipped away at, but there’s still no way around the fact that Epic added the BRUTE to allow easy wins for newer players.

Nate Hill, another professional player, took a more tactful approach. While he slightly praised Epic on the condition of being able to counter the BRUTE with builds, he pointed a plethora of other Fortnite issues.

Many of these bugs and glitches mentioned have been lingering within the game code for all of Season X so far.

Timthetatman was among the only truly positive comments in the pack. He posted short video as a reply simply saying “Yes, yes, yes.” The difference between casual and competitive players is notable in this respect.

Dakotaz also expressed his interest in the update with a GIF. We shared his enthusiasm for such an update and had a similar look on our face when we saw the blog post.

Prominent data miner & leaker, Lucas7yoshi, chimed in on the BRUTE nerfs as well. “Too little, too late” was his conclusion after reading through the patch notes.

The nerfs do hit the mech, but we tend to agree with the hesistation to give praise to Epic. The developers, unfortunately, caused this problem themselves and you don’t get overflowing credit for cleaning up your own mess.

Cloud 9’s Keeoh pointed out the possible reason behind Epic’s sudden change of mind. They were adamant about keeping the BRUTE as is for weeks, but many streamers decided to stop streaming Fortnite all together.

This meant that other games like Minecraft and Apex Legends overtook Fortnite several times in the viewership charts on Twitch and other websites.

The Fortnite Guy made a simple and quick response that sums up the surprising nature of Epic bending to the community’s will. The nerfs aren’t the end of controversy, but Epic has realized that they can’t just do anything they want without repercussions.

With the nerfs, the casual and competitive sides of the community may once again split into opposing camps. BRUTEs may no longer be a problem in casual matches as they take a small amount more skill to use. However, competitive matches will still be plagued by the mech until the day they are removed.