Fortnite players have discovered a genius trick with the Proximity Mine, an item new to Season 2, to make it a longer-range explosive and vastly expanding its potential uses.
Season 2 of Chapter 2 introduced a multitude of changes to Epic Games’ hit battle royale title, including the vaulting and unvaulting of several weapons alongside new cosmetics, map changes and more.
With Proximity Mines, players can throw them down in buildings or important areas to help them hold it down, giving them a warning of approaching enemies from their surrounding areas, but this trick means you can be much more aggressive with them.
Posting to Reddit, user payBTCPayment showed several examples of how they add a bit of range to the Proximity Mine, able to take down enemy builds, deal damage to opponents, and even mark their location to keep them visible.
It would appear that dealing damage to the Mine makes it move, with the first hit making it gravitate upwards (as it would when an enemy approaches), but then it can be shot or pickaxed while in mid-air to make it float off in a different direction.
As evidenced in the Reddit post, it won’t go as far as the likes of the standard Grenade, but can still shift it a few metres ahead of you.
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Even if you don’t end up dealing damage to the enemy player, the X-Ray ability of the Mine makes it a worthwhile trick to learn to master, at the very least letting you track how many enemies are around you.
This could be particularly effective if you use it in late-game situations, with enemies boxed up and in tighter confines of space, though you could be punished if you leave yourself too open while doing it.
This probably wasn’t an intended use of the Proximity Mine when Epic Games added it to Fortnite, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to this, but for now it at least makes you think twice about whether you want to hold onto those Mines or not.