Shield and Heath Guide 101: Everything You Need to Know

So, you’re ready to really win your first round of Fortnite?

I’m here to tell you that securing your first victory in a Solo Battle Royale isn’t easy. No matter if you’re playing solo or with friends, the most important thing is about securing your position as the winner is staying on top of your shields and health.

In Battle Royale, you have both a shield and a health bar. You can max both your health and your Shield potential to 100. Different items will boost your health and your shield. But, at the same time, different activities in the game will damage your health and your shield.

If you’re finding that you’re struggling to keep up with your health and shield levels in the game, you may not be aware of all of the different items, then you can find a match to help you fill your health and shield bars.

One thing that I think is really important for you to understand is that the items you can find in-game to boost both your health and your shields will vary. Many of the items listed in this guide may not be available during seasons in the future. However, I’ll talk about what’s currently in the game that allows you to fix your health and your shield, as well as discuss some things that were in previous seasons that were used to fix your shield and health.

Health

Health

You can find your health bar on the bottom left part of your screen. Your health bar is located underneath your shield bar and will be filled in green. There’s a lot in the game that can damage your health. Not only are you trying to protect your health from your enemies throughout the game. But, you’re also trying to protect your health from the storm, from fire, from fall damage, and from animals. Also, depending on what season and chapter you’re in, you may even have to protect your health against damage from vehicles and lightning storms.

What damages your health?

There are a lot of different things in the game that can damage your health. For example, you could get run over by a car, you could get shot by an enemy, you could get shot by an NPC, you could accidentally set yourself on fire, or you could be attacked by an animal.

There are so many different ways that you can die in the game. You will only die if your health reaches zero. If you happen to be playing with friends on a team, you will get knocked down when your health reaches zero. When you’re knocked, you can crawl around and game and interact with doors, but you can’t take out any enemies or pick up new weapons. You can be revived by a teammate when you’re knocked.

If your teammates can’t revive you before your bar reaches zero, you will die in the game. But, your teammates can collect a reboot card. When they collect a reboot card, they can go to a revive van and bring you back into the game. As long as your teammates can go to the revive van and completely reboot you, you’ll fall from the sky with your glider and enter back into the game. You’ll only be equipped with a gray pistol initially, but you’ll still be able to play and even have a chance at the victory.

On the other hand, if you’re playing solo, if your health reaches zero, you lose the game. You can’t reboot or revive yourself when you’re only playing with yourself. That’s one of the drawbacks of playing solo.

Here’s a list of things that can damage your health in Fornite, along with how much damage they do:

The Storm

The Storm

The amount of damage the storm does while you’re inside of it varies. However, it’s important to know that your shield (no matter how full it is) won’t protect you from storm damage. Here’s a little table to help break down storm damage:

Circle 1

Wait Time: 60 seconds

Shrink Time: 60 seconds

Storm Damage: 1 per second

Circle 2

Wait Time: 90 seconds

Shrink Time: 330 seconds

Storm Damage:  1 per second

Circle 3

Circle 3

Wait Time: 120 seconds

Shrink Time: 120 seconds

Storm Damage:  2 per second

Circle 4

Wait Time: 90 seconds

Shrink Time: 90 seconds

Storm Damage:  5 per second

Circle 5

Circle 5

Wait Time:  80 seconds

Shrink Time: 70 seconds

Storm Damage:  8 per second

Fall Damage

You’ll die instantly if you fall 23 meters or more in Fornite. It doesn’t matter if you have any shield; your shield won’t protect you from fall damage.

Vehicles

Getting hit by a vehicle can do a lot of damage. But, if someone shoots out of a vehicle and it explodes near you, this can also do a lot of damage. Getting hit by a car will do 150 damage (100 shields, 50 health). If you don’t have any shield, you’ll probably die if you get hit by a car.

Fire Damage

Fire Damage

If you happen to get caught in a situation where your opponent is igniting you, you can die because of this. Fire does around 15 damage per tick, which means your health will be damaged by -15 increments. You can die by fire; your shield won’t protect you from fire damage.

Weapons

There are so many different weapons in the Fortnite game, which is why it’s so difficult to list all of the weapons that could do damage. But, there is almost always some form of SMG, rifle, sniper, and pistol in the game.

The type of weapon that it is will impact how much damage it does to your health. Thankfully, your shield will help protect your health against any damage from weapons.

Wildlife

There’s a bunch of different wildlife available in Fortnite. Currently, wolves, chickens, bears, frogs, loot sharks, llamas, crows, and klombo are in the game. Some of the wildlife in the game can damage both your health and your shield. But, not all of the wildlife available in the game can damage your health.

For example, crows and llamas can’t damage your health. But, loot sharks will deal 50 damage per attack. Boars and wolves do 15 damage per attack.

Harvesting tools 

Harvesting tools 

Everybody has a harvesting tool in the game. Currently, harvesting tools do 20 damage per hit.

Healing Items

There are a ton of different healing items in Fortnite. What items are specifically available can depend on the season, the chapter, and any additional collaborations Fortnite is doing. However, there are some items that may not be available in the current chapter, they will be made available again soon in an update. So, knowing about all the different healing items available in Fortnite will help you to prepare for any possible new items that could be added soon.

These items are:

Bandages – 15+ health, with a max of 75 health
Slurp barrel – 10+ health (per barrel)
Slurp truck – 100+ health
Slurp silo – 50+ health
Campfire – 50+ health, but increases over time
Guzzle juice – 75+ health, but slowly increases health
Medkits – 100+ health
Med mist – 150+ health
Fish – Depending on the fish, there are different levels of healing. Minimum is 25+ health, maximum is 40+ health.
Pizza slices – 25+ health
Apple – 5+ health
Banana – 5+ health
Cabbage – 10+ health
Coconut – 5+ health
Corn -10+ health
Pepper – 5+ health (and also makes you run fast)
Meat – This comes from hunting wildlife. 15+ health
Chug splashes – 20+ health
Chili chug splash – 20+ health, makes you run fast

Also, you need to know that most of these items will drop at one stack per time. Unless you knock a person who has several bandages, medkits, or pieces of meat – you’ll only get one at a time. If you hunt the meat yourself, you may get up to 3 pieces of meat. And if you happen to find a pizza box while you’re out and about, you can take up to all 8 slices of pizza for yourself and carry them around with you. But, you can only carry 3 pieces of pizza per inventory slot.

Shield

Shield Keg

Above your health bar on Fortnite, you’ll also find a shield bar. When you have some shield, the bar will be filled with blue. There are some items in the game that affect your health but won’t affect your shield. The storm is a perfect example; you can die in the storm, even if you have a full shield.

However, there are a lot of items in the game that can damage your shield. Having a full shield (or close to full) is super important in the game. Your shield will help to keep your health protected; for example, if another player were to shoot at you, your shield levels would drop if you had some shield, but your health wouldn’t be affected.

What damages your shield?

I think the easiest way to answer this question is by saying this: only storm damage and fall damage won’t touch your shield. Everything else in the game will go through your shield reserves at first, then move into your health. Vehicle damage, fire damage, wildlife damage, weapon damage – it’ll all go through your shield.

Your shield is always going to be the first thing to go unless there’s something happening in your game where this rule doesn’t apply. For example, storm damage and fall damage won’t affect your shield.

However, everything else in the game will lower your shield. If you don’t have any shield left, your health will be depleted.

Shield Items

As you’re going through this list, you may notice there are some items I’m talking about below that are also included in the healing section. That’s not an accident- there are some items in Fortnite that can affect both your health and your shield.

Small shield potion – 25+ shields, with a max of 50 shield
Slurp barrel – 10+ shield (if your health is full)
Slurp truck – 100+ shield (if your health is full)
Slurp silo – 50+ shield (if your health is full)
Shield potion (AKA big chug) – 50+ shield
Jellyfish – 20+ shield
Shieldfish – 50+ shield
Slapfish – 40+ shield
Coconut – 5+ shield (if your health is full)
Mushroom – 5+ shield
Slurp mushroom – 10+ shield
Chug splash – 20+ shield (if your health is full)
Chili chug splash – 20+ shield (if your health is full, it also makes you run fast)
Keg – 150+ shield, provides a stream of shield over a 75 seconds
Pizza – 25+ shield, with a max of 50 (will heal your health at the same time)

Tips for managing health and shield in-game

Shield 1

Your health and your shield are among the most important things you can have in the game. While many people tend to focus on having the perfect weapon lineup, I notice a lot of people don’t realize that it’s also important to keep your shield and health lineup in order. If you don’t have adequate health/shield resources available in your inventory, your perfect weapon lineup won’t matter.

So, as you’re walking around the map and looking around for the perfect weapons to have in your inventory, don’t forget about your health and shield. The last thing that you want to have to happen to you is not have any healing items or shield items available to you when you’re in the middle of a fight.

Sometimes, you can build and give yourself a few seconds to heal up before you go back out to finish off the fight. Even worse, sometimes the results of a fight can be 1 with only the difference of 1 HP between you end your opponent. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that you’re staying on top of your health and your shield throughout the entire game. If you lose some help or some shield, restore it as soon as you possibly can. That way, you aren’t taking any chances of losing the match just because your opponent had for health or more shields, and you did.

Sort your inventory

My first recommendation here would be to tell you not to keep your healing items on the left side of your screen. Instead, I think that it’s important to keep them off to the right of your inventory. That way, you don’t accidentally use a healing or shield item, but you didn’t intend to. Instead, making sure that you keep your weapons organized so that all of your weapons are close by to each other. This will ensure you’re able to quickly switch back and forth between different weapons when you’re in your next fight.

So, sort through your inventory. Make sure you do you know where everything is at in your inventory. That way, you don’t have to take your eyes off of a fight while you’re trying to figure out the lineup of your weapons.

Don’t just keep an inventory of shields

Fortnite

I know when I first got started playing, I made the mistake of only keeping being a shield in my inventory. I thought that if I took any damage, I would just use some Shields to fix my damaged and be on my way. But, that’s just not a good mindset to have. Honestly, that’s why I lost so many matches when I first started playing.

Your shield isn’t always going to protect you. If you happen to manage your time poorly or you just forget where you’re at in the match, storm damage can sneak up on you pretty quickly.

The last thing that you want to have to worry about it’s trying to find some sort of healing item while you’re running out of the storm. So, if you only have one spot for anything, I always try to grab some sort of healing item. Obviously, I will choose to grab an item that heals both my health and my shield if that’s a possible option, but it isn’t always readily available. So, I try to make sure that I at least max out my inventory for medkits or bandages while I’m so early on in the match.

Always grab chug splashes

A lot of people may strongly disagree with this statement, but I think that you should always grab chug splashes when you find them. You can fix your health with them, you can fix your shield with them, and you can share them with friends.

For example, if you’re playing in squads and you managed to revive a teammate that was knocked, you can throw some chug splashes at them to repair their health and their shield until they’re able to find their own supplies. Within a matter of a second or two, you can throw the chug splash, and you’ll have a boost in your health. I don’t think that there’s really any other item in the game like this, which is why I believe it offers such a strong edge over other items in the game.

Don’t always focus on the big chugs

Surp

Another mistake that I see a lot of people make is only focusing on carrying big shields. But, big shields aren’t optimal to use when you’re towards the end of the match. Small shields all for a lot of benefits over big shields.

Using a small shield doesn’t take as much time as it does when you go to use a big shield. Using a small shield over a big shield means you’re spending less time vulnerable to your enemies as you’re working on repairing your shield.

You can carry more small shields in stock than you can fix shields. You can only carry three big shields with you in a stack. But, you can carry six small shields and a stack. This means that you’ll have more opportunities to repair your shield if it drops below a certain threshold while you’re in a fight. So, they’re quick, portable, and easier to use compared to big shields.

Hide when possible

Whenever you’re using bandages or shields, I would highly recommend that you always take the opportunity to keep yourself hidden and protected with some form of cover. Even if it means that you have to build to keep yourself safe for a few seconds, do it.

You’ll never know when someone’s watching you, waiting for you to take a second to be vulnerable while you’re shielding up. If you want to be extra safe, you can always hide away in a room and build around yourself. This will give you an additional layer of security to make sure that no one’s going to interrupt your consumption time and kill you off while you are repairing your shield.

Forage and hunt as much as you can

Forage

The thing that I love about Fortnite the most is that you can really change the way a game is going just by being aware of your surroundings. If you keep a harpoon gun on you, you’ll have ten chances the pull up fish that will either help your health, your shield, or both. If you have a gun and some ammo, you can hunt wildlife that’ll drop both meat and sometimes mushrooms to help your shield.

If you’re just walking around in a wooded area, you can look around for mushrooms. The mushrooms can be consumed to help your shield, and they often grow in patches, so you can consume enough to fill your shield up entirely.

If you aren’t interested in consuming anything off the bat, you can always grab these items and put them into your inventory list. Forging and hunting are awesome ways to keep easy health and shield items in your inventory, so you aren’t stressed to find a healing item or a shield item at the end of the game.

Take a peek at storm progress

If you’re trying to figure out whether you should choose a healing item over a shield, I would highly recommend that you take a quick look to see where your storm progress is at. I wouldn’t recommend that you grab a stack of small shields over a stack of bandages if you’re really far away from where the new Inner Circle is. Instead, I would recommend that you grab the bandages. This way, you can make sure that you keep yourself alive as you were taking damage from the storm.

FAQs

Question: What is the best shield item in Fornite? 

Answer: Honestly, it depends on the season and on the person. Personally, I really love the pizza slices and the chug splashes. I love how I can fix both my health and my shield with these items in just a few quick seconds. They’re pretty easy to use, I love that they’re stackable, and there have been many times when these items have narrowly saved me from losing a game. But, I know that some people have different opinions, so it really just depends on the individual you’re talking to.

Question: What is the best healing item in Fortnite?

Answer: Honestly, for a long time, I would have argued that the medkits are the best healing item in Fortnite. However, I think the chug splash and meat are the top healing items in Fortnite.
I think that using me to heal up is great because it’s so easy to access, and it doesn’t take a lot of time for you to fix your health. But I really do like the chug splashes because if your help is nearly full and you’re just looking to top off, the chug splashes will fix your shield. But, the biggest downside to the chug flashes is that they aren’t As easy to find as meat is.

Question: Where can I find bandages in Fortnite?

Answer: You can find bandages all over the place. You can find them dropped from players you’ve eliminated, supply drops, chests, and just as random spawns and they game. Sometimes, you only find one stack of bandages. Other times, you might find a stack of 5.

Question: How much health does meat give you in Fortnite? 

Answer: Each piece of meat that you eat will give you 15 health. However, it’s important for you to know that each piece of meat do you want to eat will take you about 2 seconds to consume. So, if you want to eat three pieces of meat, which is normally the amount that comes in a stack, you should be prepared to spend 6 seconds in total eating the meat.

Conclusion 

There’s so much to learn about when it comes to understanding all of the help and shield items offered in Fortnite. There are always changes being mean to the game, so sometimes, it can be difficult to keep up with what’s currently in the game and what is no longer in the chapter we are in.

But, changes are always being made, which means that if you don’t like one type of healing item that is in the game, you think so they won’t have to wait very long for it to possibly leave the game.

One final tip I want to leave with you before you go is to not be afraid of playing around with different health and shield items in the game – see what works best for you. There was a time when I really hated the pizza slices because I didn’t think they could hold a candle to all that the chug splashes had offered me. But, my husband changed my mind on that by encouraging me to wait until I was in the top four to use my pizza instead of the Chug splashes – using pizza vs. chugs in a different part of the game really changed my perspective.

So, it’s really about finding what works best for you, you’re playing style, and what your goals are while you’re playing. Don’t forget to always try out new things, because you may find a new system that works for you that you weren’t expecting to.

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