What is a melee weapon in Fortnite?

If you’re going through the Punchcard Quests in Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 8, you’ll likely find some weird challenges that make you do things you’ve never done. A few of them have you use melee weapons, so what is a melee weapon in Fortnite?

Fortnite is, obviously, a shooter game, so most weapons you find aren’t going to be melee. We’ve had some melee weapons before, like the special Lightsabers or Kingsman Umbrellas, but this season we don’t have any melee weapons in the pool.

What is a melee weapon in Fortnite?

Except one: your pickaxe! Your trusty harvesting tool is the melee weapon you’re looking for. Hitting an enemy with the pickaxe will deal 20 damage. You won’t harvest anything from them, but you’ll surely harvest some hate if you take someone down with it.

The easiest way to land a kill with a melee weapon is to take out a chunk of your enemy’s health with normal weapons first. Against NPCs like wildlife or Cube Monsters, you can see the health bar. Enemy players on the other hand may be more difficult.

To get the elimination on an enemy player is best done at the beginning of the game, right when you land. If you grab a weapon first, you know the enemies that land with you will have 100 health. You can take a few shots and then go for the kill with the pickaxe, and it’ll be unlikely for them to have weapon of their own.

You can also get into a pickaxe fight, where you land right next to a player and begin hacking at them. If the enemy hits you back, generally who ever hits first will win the race. You’ll be left at 20 health if they fight back properly, so only do this if you’re just Questing and don’t care about your match performance.