Fortnite healing - banana, coconut, and pepper locations, healing item tips and strategies
It's tough to get your five a day when roaming around the map in Fortnite. While this isn't really a substitute for getting the real vitamins and minerals that fruit and veg provide, they do keep you a little more healthy in-game. Their inclusion in Season 8 gives players even more options to heal, perhaps hinting at a possible challenge requirement.
With the game being the global sensation that it is, there's a lot to learn about not only getting that all-important "Victory Royale", but also the changes to the map as the seasons progress, and the challenges you can seek to complete. Head over to our Fortnite guide hub for every single thing you need to get started.
Fortnite healing guide
In this guide, we will be going over the locations of some of the more unique healing items, as well as give you a list of all the healing items and what they do.
Banana, Coconut, and Pepper locations in Fortnite
New to the patch update v8.20 (which you can read up on in our Fortnite Patch Notes guide) are three new pieces of fruit and veg to perk you up during a match. Each one has their own properties, which are listed in the item table at the end of this article, but they all heal you up in some way. Here is where you find them.
- Banana - On the ground in the tropical biome.
- Pepper - On the ground in the desert biome.
- Coconut - Damage palm trees in the tropical or desert biomes.
Apple locations
For those just wanting to get an easy Apple location, the most out-of-the-way one is close to the tower in Lucky Landing. If nobody is around, knock down some trees and build up three stair blocks. Jump off of it and you should take around 40 damage or so. Once damaged, you'll be able to snaffle up those apples, which heal 25 damage a piece. There are plenty of apple trees scattered around, but this one and the one to the north of Lonely Lodge are the most reliable.
Campfire locations
You only really need to take one campfire's worth of healing to complete the challenge in Week 2 of Season 8, so my suggestions are the ones close to the south-eastern point of the map near the lodges, on top of the mountain to the south-west of Paradise Palms, and the one that's next to the lake. Again, you'll need to damage yourself or be damaged for the campfire to have any effect.
Healing items in Fortnite
Knowing what to look for is one thing, but you'll find them by scavenging chests and the environment itself. Rarer items from Medkits to the Chug-jugs are likely to be located inside of chests, meaning you'll You’ll find all of these items scattered around the environment and within chests. More potent items like Med-kits, Large Shield potions, Slurp Juice and Chug-jugs are likely to be found in chests.
When you do find one of these items, you'll assign it to one of the five slots. These are the same slots that weapons take, so make sure you switch to said slot before holding down the left mouse button. You'll need to wait the entire duration to use the item; letting go of it will stop and reset the time it takes to use it.
One thing to keep in mind at all times is that your items each have a stack size. Some are deceptively more useful than they may seem. While Small Shield Potions can restore your shield only to around 50 points, they are incredibly quick to consume and you can carry a fair number of them. As of a recent patch, they also protect against vehicle impact and plane explosions.
This makes shields the more important thing to keep an eye on, since you'll pick up many Small Shield Potions in the course of the game. Chugging one of these provides a small amount of protection for not a massive amount of downtime, getting you right back into the action. Therefore, if you should be focusing on one more than the other, prioritise shields over health when you can. Of course if your shields are full and you only have a slither of health, you should be patching yourself up.
Lastly, make sure that during the course of the game that you are collecting materials. This will allow you to build some emergency fortifications should the need arise to heal and you're currently out in the open. More on how to build stuff in our Fortnite building and editing guide. This won't be a guarantee that you'll be able to knock back items until you're at full health, but it may stave off some of the damage to get you back into the action.
Healing and Shield items
With the basics out of the way, here’s a list of all the healing and shield items you can find in the game. I've separated them into ones that just restore health, just restore shields, and restore both. Keep a close eye on the number of items you can stack in each one as this is more important for competitive play than it may first seem.
| Healing item | Effect | Maximum item stack | Time to use | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandages | Heals for 15 health | 15 | 4 seconds | Healing capped at 75 health. |
| Medkit | Heals to full health | 3 | 10 seconds | |
| Apple | Heals 5 health | N/A | 1 second | Found on the ground. |
| Banana | Heals 5 health | N/A | 1 second | Found in the tropical biome on the ground. |
| Coconut | Heals 5 health or shields if at max health. | N/A | 1 second | Foraged by damaging palm trees in tropical or desert biomes. |
| Pepper | Heals 5 health and increases movement speed by 20% for 10 seconds. | N/A | 1 second | Found in the desert biome on the ground. |
| Cosy Campfire | Gradual health restoration (heals maximum of 50 health) | N/A | Effect lasts 25 seconds before burning out. | Used like a trap item, requires a floor to place it on. |
| Environmental Campfires | Gradual health restoration (heals maximum of 50 health) | N/A | Effect lasts 25 seconds before burning out. | If you find a campfire in the map that still has wood in it, you can light it. It behaves exactly like the Cosy Campfire. |
| Small Shield Potion | Heals 25 shield points | 6 | 2 seconds | Shield healing capped at 50 shield points. |
| Shield Potion | Heals 50 shield points | 3 | 5 seconds | |
| Mushroom | Heals 5 shield points | N/A | 1 second | Found on the ground. |
| Slurp Juice | Heals health and/or shields by 75 points. Restore rate of 2 points per second. | 2 | 2 seconds | It heals health before healing shields. |
| Chug-Jug | Heals all health and shields | 1 | 15 seconds |
Tips for healing in Fortnite
Before we go, here are some more tips for how and when to use your healing items:
- Items such as the bandage or small shield potion will only heal you up to a certain threshold.
- If you're trying to tank it through the Storm, note that your shield will not go down, but your health will.
- Even if you're not on low health, should you find a campfire, the best thing for you is to light it anyway. After all, if it expires, nobody else can use it.
- You can double up on Campfires by placing two next to each other, then standing on the edge between the two tiles. This way the health-per-second is doubled and you spend less time healing damage.
- When using a Medkit or Chug-jug, build some fortifications around you to protect yourself from incoming attacks.
- If all else fails, you can try to retreat from the heat of battle in order to find a secluded spot to patch yourself up. Terrain isn't destructible but buildings are, so choose your spot carefully.
That'll about do it for our Fortnite healing guide, but there's plenty more guides in our collection. For more on the weapons themselves, check out our Fortnite weapons guide, while our tips for the current season's weekly challenges and more can be found in our Fortnite week 6 challenges guide.