The Fortnite community might love its cosmetics more than any other. In Fortnite, a lot of skins fall into two categories: sweaty or casual. Casual skins include the likes of Rippley, Meowscles, and Mancake. These are also called “bot skins” by the competitive community, as they’re typically used by younger and less skilled players.
On the other hand, you have the skins that we’ll be focusing on today: the sweaty skins. These skins are almost all female or slim male skins – since these character models take up less of your screen. Top Fortnite players have adopted some of these skins, and their fans have followed them in doing so.
A sweaty cosmetic is usually something that gives a competitive advantage. For example, female skins allow players to see more of their screen because the character model is smaller. While the hitboxes remain the same, you lose out on visibility using skins like Peely and Ragnarok.
However, there have been a few cosmetics that actually gave a competitive advantage. These cosmetics became extremely popular. The end result is that the items were fixed, but popularity remained.
But before we even get to the skins, let’s take a look at some of the other sweaty cosmetics available in the game.
The Star Wand is one of the most notorious pickaxes in the Fortnite community. When this pickaxe was first released, there was a bug where it would deal 56 player damage and 80 structure damage per swing. This made this pickaxe blow up in popularity and cements itself as one of the sweatiest pickaxes available.
The Merry Mint pickaxe was a limited-time pickaxe that only became available in selected locations during Christmas time in December 2019. Players can obtain the cosmetic code by purchasing items at Gamestop. A limited edition and rare pickaxe are two key components of a sweaty cosmetic.
The Driver pickaxe is a slick-looking golf club. It is considered one of the sweatiest pickaxes due to its small size and nearly silent pickaxe sound. It is also a pickaxe that can easily be mixed and matched with different Fortnite skins to create a unique style.
The Leviathan pickaxe is a one-handed pickaxe, as you swing the pickaxe your player switches hands and the Leviathan starts freezing. This pickaxe and other one-handed pickaxes started gaining popularity because of a content creator called Sly Jack.
Sly Jack created a video showing that the one-handed pickaxes actually swung faster than the other pickaxes. The Leviathan was the stapled one-handed pickaxe and therefore became one of the sweatiest one-handed pickaxes in Fortnite’s history.
The Ice Breaker is one the oldest pickaxes in all of Fortnite. It was introduced in Chapter 1 Season 1 (that’s a long time ago, see a list of all Fortnite seasons in order here), but has been reintroduced in the Item Shop fairly frequently. Because it was released in Chapter 1 Season 1 it has become one of the most nostalgic pickaxes and a favorite for veterans.
These skins are some of the scariest that you can see in Fortnite. They don’t always mean that the player knows what he or she is doing. More often than not, though, an opponent wearing these skins will triple-edit and box you like a fish.
Catwoman, the comic book style, is a popular skin among Fortnite sweats because it is slim, dark, and simple (a recurring theme among these skins). It helps that it’s a pretty cool character and good design, but sweats have taken it over since it checks a lot of the boxes they need to use a skin.
Krisabelle is a very sweaty Fortnite skin, but primarily around the holidays. When Winterfest comes around, players love to bring this skin out and wreak havoc on their opponents. It was a free skin several years ago, which means sweats didn’t have to spend any money, and they got it long ago, two things that often make a skin sweatier.
Ironically, the skin that is literally designed after a pro player has become quite sweaty. Bugha is a really good Fortnite player himself, and that allure is projected when players wear his skin. He’s not as iconic as Ninja or others with ICON Series skins, so everyone knows this outfit is not to be messed with.
Given how rare it is to own the Travis Scott skin, this one serves as a major flex that does strike fear into the hearts of the other 99 players in the lobby. They could just be fans of the music, but they’re more likely to build a five-star hotel and one-pump their enemies.
Lara Croft is a simple skin in that it’s slim and has no major colors. That helps provide at least a perceived advantage for sweaty Fortnite players. The fact that it ties back to an iconic gaming series also lends it an air of credibility that may intimidate others.
The Reaper was the original John Wick, so it’s a bit of a flex to have it and not the actual licensed Wick skin. It’s also pretty old, which suggests an authority that players want to intimidate others with. For a long time, this skin has terrorized lobbies, and for that reason, it remains sweaty.
Image via Brani (YouTube)
Peter Griffin doesn’t fit the traditional mold of the sweatiest Fortnite skins, but anyone who’s ever encountered one (post-Chapter 5 Season 1, when everyone was wearing this skin) knows that they are a hard elimination and usually a bit of a troll.
Surf Witch is a pretty standard skin, which is often what attracts Fortnite sweats. It’s got the slim frame that everyone likes and doesn’t have any major colors that will immediately jump out. Pros started using it sometimes, which always makes a skin pretty sweaty.
Anyone who has the Black Knight skin can say two things. One, that they’ve been a legitimate player since virtually the beginning, and two, they want everyone to know it. That skin is exceptionally rare, so anyone who has it and is still wearing it certainly means business.
Aura is one of the most sweaty skins gamers can use. Pro players popularized the Aura-Star Wand combo, effectively making them both quite sweaty. If players happen to come upon an Aura skin, they are likely in for the fight of their lives.
Crystal has been a sweaty Fortnite skin for a long time. At one point, she was the sweatiest skin in the game.
The skin gained popularity as Fortnite pros gravitated to her. Bugha was one of the pros to main Crystal, which was what made her so popular.
At this point, though, she isn’t the sweatiest skin in the game. Like soccer skins before her, the market became saturated with multiple releases of the skin. Now, a Crystal skin is just as likely to be a pretender than a real sweat.
The next skin on our list was mained by Benjyfishy’s longtime duo partner, Mongraal. Mongraal is just as popular – if not more popular – than Benjy, making this skin another sweat-favorite.
Dynamo might be one of the most hated skins in Fortnite, and for good reason. This skin almost always means that a player has hundreds of hours in Creative Mode, boxfighting and honing their skill. Dynamo might not be the best-looking sweaty skin in Fortnite, but it’s one that strikes fear in the hearts of opponents.
OG Fortnite skins are always scary to see. There’s nothing more intimidating than watching an OG Skull trooper, Renegade Raider, or Black Knight ramping toward you. OG skins are so terrifying because they mean that someone has been playing the game since the beginning. They have hundreds if not thousands of hours in Fortnite
Either that, or they played back in the day and aren’t up to speed on the latest building meta. OG skins are either Gods or complete bots.
Superhero skins currently own the number-one spot for the sweatiest skins in Fortnite. Most Fortnite players remember last season when the entire competitive community was wearing this skin.
They would use the black-on-black style to make it incredibly difficult to see, leading Epic to change the skin to make this colorway impossible.
Like the superhero skins, soccer skins are a class of their own. Not only do their represent another avenue of competitive greatness, in this case pulled from some of the best and most popular soccer players around the world, their form also helps make them as effective as any other sweaty skin in the game.
The Joltara Fortnite skin, commonly known as the superhero skin, is easily the sweatiest skin in all of 2022.
This skin lets users switch the colors, fabrics, and patterns of the super suit. Because of the customizable ability of this skin, users are able to mix and match white/gray fabric to create a superhero suit that is basically all one color. This is a huge competitive advantage because it is harder to see a skin that is white, gray, black, or even green.
The Focus skin is another cosmetic item that is popularized by Reet. Reet blew up out of no where, in a top-tier tournament Reet was pushing the entire lobby, easily running through tier 1 pros. The Focus skin is Reets skin, on NA-West, if players see a Focus skin they assume it is Reet and stay away from them. If you see a Focus in your game, I’d recommend running in the opposite direction and staying far away from them.
The Renegade Raider is one of the oldest Fortnite skins that has yet to be re-released. It was last seen on October 25th, 2017.
The scarcity of this skin automatically makes it one of the sweatiest skins in the game. If you see one of these in your game, good chances this player is an absolute beast and should not be reckoned with.
Siren increased in popularity during the Mongraal, Mitr0, Benjyfishy season. It didn’t take long for this skin to be directly related to Benjyfishy.
Siren comes with a customizable style that makes the skin black and white. This style is called Noir and only enhances the sweatiest of Siren. If you see this skin in-game, expect a mechanical demon with an aimbot aim.
The ultimate sweaty skin is the Mogul Masters, this skin is constantly used by professional players in all regions and has become a staple of competitive Fortnite. However, not all of the Mogul Masters are actually sweaty; for example, the male versions of the skin are deemed not sweaty, and for some odd reason, so is the Canadian version of the skin.
There you have it! You can now mix and match your own skins to find a sweaty combination that is unique to you. Maybe you like to leave the sweating to the sweats, if that’s the case, then if you see any of the combinations above, be prepared for a fight!
Images via Epic Games
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