The word “siphon” has been everywhere in the Fortnite: Battle Royale community, especially since the season eight v8.20 update. The term is related to a game mechanic that has appeared in many shapes, and is now restricted to a few modes.
Siphon in Fortnite is a mechanic that lets you instantly heal health or shield upon eliminating an opponent. Depending on the game mode, it heals you from 25 to 50 points of health, and if you need to recover fewer health points than that, the extra health is converted into shield. If you’re already at full health, the benefit won’t stack and you won’t be healed after receiving damage. Currently, siphon mechanics exist only in the Arena and other competitive Fortnite: Battle Royale modes, such as professional competitions and the Fortnite World Cup Open Qualifiers.
This mechanic is called “siphon” after the Siphon Limited Time Mode that Epic Games introduced in Fortnite on Dec. 20 last year, as part of the special modes rotation during 14 Days of Fortnite. In Siphon, though, killing opponents was the only way of gaining shield or recovering health, which isn’t true to the latest versions of the siphon mechanic.
For a short period of time, all Fortnite players were forced to play under siphon mechanics. Epic added them in the v7.40 update in season seven to all default playlists, which made it the standard playstyle of all Battle Royale game modes for a while. The company then removed this mechanic on the v8.20 update the next season due to it leading to an unhealthy level of aggressive play but left it untouched in competitive modes. Players commonly associate an increased harvesting rate to siphon mechanics because of that period, but there wasn’t such an increase in the original Siphon game mode.
Now that you understand what siphon is in Fortnite, get ready to jump into competitive matches and get that health per elimination against your opponents.
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