Published , by Timo Reinecke
Published , by Timo Reinecke
Healing in Escape from Tarkov is one of the most stressful things in the game. Fumbling through your inventory under heavy fire while making sure you don’t run out of health points (HP) can be quite a challenge, so we’ve compiled a little guide to help you learn the basics.
Unlike other games, Escape from Tarkov distributes your character's HP to every limb. Each limb has to be patched up individually and can get into various states of distress depending on the injury. If your head or thorax reaches 0 health you’ll drop dead instantly while your arms and legs can be “blacked out”. A blacked-out limb loses all function and will affect the way you walk, run, and aim until it's addressed. You can heal a lost limb by using a surgical kit which will put it back to 1 HP but only once you’ve addressed all its injuries.
To fix your injuries you’ll need the right tools for the job. Bandages and bandaids can heal light bleedings while Esmarch’s and CALOK-B’s heal heavy bleedings. For a broken limb, you’ll need to bring or find a splint but there are also a bunch of other conditions you’ll have to deal with. These are the most common ones.
To keep light on equipment, most players carry medkits with them that can heal both types of bleeding by just spending some of that medkit's HP pool. Salewa’s and AFAK/IFAK’s tend to be the most accessible ones early on and many players carry at least one of them in their secure container at all times. Healing up isn’t free, though, and it will slowly start straining your hydration and energy meters so you’ll have to eat food and drink to avoid blacking out.
You’ll also have to deal with pain and tremors which will affect your character's senses and abilities. That’s why it's recommended to always carry painkillers, ibuprofen, or morphine with you. Taking these will get rid of the status effect for a while at the cost of hydration. You can also pre-med by taking painkillers or otherwise before going into a firefight to tank the incoming debuff.
To use them, put your healing items in your hotbar (you can’t put items from your secure container into your hotbar), use the item via the shortcut, select a limb, and watch the animation play out. Alternatively, you can bring up your inventory and pull the healing item onto an injured limb or use right click, select use, and the game will do it for you.
Just like all things in Escape from Tarkov, your character's abilities are tied to a skill. First Aid, Field Medicine, Surgery, and so on are all skills raised by using various healing items. One of the easiest ways to level them is to heal after a raid. Instead of using Therapist’s healing services, just skip those and use or buy items to heal yourself from your stash. It is way cheaper and also helps you gain experience points. You can even do this if you’ve died.
Having these skills leveled will significantly speed up your healing in raids where every second counts, and they’re also needed for later hideout upgrades.
If you’re just starting, here are a few items you should bring into every raid. Bring a Salewa or Car First Aid Kit, an Esmarch, and Painkillers. Carry the Salewa and Car First Aid Kit in your secure container since they’re pretty valuable at the start and carry the rest in your pockets. When you’re injured, don’t just lie down and try to heal mid-combat, people will try and rush you the moment they hear a package being ripped. Either finish the fight and run away or try to buy enough time to get out.
For more on Escape from Tarkov, check out our other guides such as our guided tour through the Ground Zero map or what you should know before starting out.