Health is the most important stat in all of Terraria – sure, damage is important for taking bosses down more quickly, but without health, you'll be regularly splattered across your newly built boss arenas. Managing your HP is imperative to avoid losing your hard-earned items, which is why there are many ways to permanently increase health and raise your natural regeneration rate.
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But when natural regeneration isn't enough, healing items come in to keep you alive that much longer– some are nearly useless for restoring health, while others can be so efficient that it would be in your best interest to stock up as soon as you're able.
13 Life Fruit And Crystal
Don't be mistaken– the Life Fruit and Life Crystal are without a doubt two of the best items in Terraria. The problem is that when you try to use them as healing items, you'll find that they fail to measure up to other offerings.
The critical flaw of these items is twofold: when you've completely upgraded your maximum health, they can't heal you, and when you actually can use them, their healing is comparable to that of a mushroom. It's probably best to let these hidden hearts upgrade your health rather than restore it.
12 Bottled Water
Water is the most basic form of healing you can use– infinitely obtainable and barely useful. The amount of health restored is a mere pittance even without an upgrade to your HP, and it still gets the full Potion Sickness effect when used.
But in the worst case, if you're desperate, water can be an alright boost to your natural regeneration if you're in a pinch– you can get more at any body of water fairly easily, so there's no real cost to using it.
11 Mushroom
Mushrooms are the first healing item on this list that are worth keeping a spot in your inventory for. These are particularly good for the first hour or so of gameplay, providing low healing while being so easy to collect that it'll happen without you thinking about it.
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The thing that puts it over Bottled Water's limitless use is that it heals at a greater rate– this is because it has a lowered duration for its Potion Sickness effect, increasing how often you can use it for healing.
10 Lesser Healing Potion
Since it's rather cheap to make and restores a decent amount of health, the Lesser Healing Potion is a great option when you're first settling into your world. Without health upgrades, this potion heals half of your health pool, making it resource efficient for early boss fights.
Since it can also be found in chests, the Lesser Healing Potion is so easy to find that it won't hurt your conscience to spend it freely, making it a good health item to use outside of combat once you have access to better options.
9 Eggnog
Eggnog is a special item that you can only get from presents during the Christmas event, making it context-dependent whether this item is useful. If you're playing during the period that you can obtain it, though, it's an easy-to-get healing item that does well enough to justify searching it out.
Though its healing is eventually outclassed by an item that is easier to consistently obtain, Eggnog is the most solid of the starter healing items available. If you're not in the Christmas mood, though, you might want to stick to conventional potions.
8 Healing Potion
The Healing Potion is the go-to for any midlevel player, requiring a few more resources than its younger sibling but giving far more health as a trade-off. Being able to completely fill a non-upgraded health bar, this potion is a great one to use when your back is against the wall.
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Healing potions can also be found in Underworld pots pre-Hardmode and normal pots after you defeat the wall of flesh, making them relatively common items that might require a bit more thinking before use.
7 Strange Brew
Strange Brew can be obtained from the Skeleton Merchant for five silver, making it an item you're not likely to get too many of without having specifically sought it out. It lives up to its name by providing a variable amount of health, Potion Sickness, and invulnerability upon consuming it.
While it isn't the most consistent way of healing, the possibility of getting a shorter Potion Sickness duration and higher return on health makes the Strange Brew useful in certain cases; and since you can luck out with some occasional short-term invulnerability, you'll be keeping your health for that much longer.
6 Lifeforce Potion
The Lifeforce Potion barely squeezes its way above the Strange Brew due to its scaling health restoration, able to give you 20 percent of your maximum health as well as a temporary health buff all without causing Potion Sickness.
While the Lifeforce Potion does a great job of restoring health, the value of the potion's buffs is generally too great to use the item so flippantly. While it could be alright in a panic situation, the Lifeforce Potion should probably be saved for particularly tough bossfights.
5 Honeyfin
The Honeyfin is the most efficient pre-Hardmode healing item, obtained purely by fishing in ponds of honey. While not the fastest pre-Hardmode item to obtain, it's easy enough to get ahold of that you should always have at least a few in your inventory as your health bar grows.
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Since you can make Seafood Dinners with Honeyfin, obtaining these to use as healing items is doubly efficient– fishing wastes a lot less time than trying to get your hands on the diverse ingredients to make the inferior Healing Potion.
4 Bottled Honey
Bottled Honey is the most useful healing item in the game– while there are items that are better in regard to their sheer ability to keep you alive, Bottled Honey is so plentiful while restoring a decent amount of health that you should completely fill your inventory with it as soon as possible.
Unlike the slightly stronger Honeyfin, Bottled Honey can be crafted instantly with empty bottles while standing near a pool of honey– this process does not reduce the level of the honey pool, making this item functionally limitless.
3 Restoration Potion
While not nearly as plentiful as Honey Bottles, the Restoration Potion can heal more than the Honeyfin over a greater duration of time– this is due to it healing only slightly less health while offering a much shorter Potion Sickness duration.
If you don't heal every time your Potion Sickness ends, the Honeyfin is overall more effective for restoring your health– but when it comes to events that dispense hordes of enemies who damage you consistently, the Restoration Potion is certain to keep you alive for longer.
2 Greater Healing Potion
The Greater Healing Potion is the Hardmode equivalent of the Lesser Healing Potion, completely overshadowing it by being similarly easy to craft while healing way more than any pre-Hardmode potion. It's primarily made up of materials found in the Hallow biome, making it a dangerous commodity that is well worth the risk.
Even better, you get three Greater Healing Potions with every craft, making them easy to stock up on quickly– with dedication, you can be well-prepared for most of the bossfights that you'll see throughout Hardmode.
1 Super Healing Potion
It's no great surprise that a potion that heals for 200 HP is considered the best in the game, but it actually had to fight for its place at the top– since you can't make a Super Healing Potion without Lunar materials, it's way harder to make than the ever helpful Greater Healing Potion.
What pushes this potion over the threshold despite its hefty cost is that it's particularly useful for the hardest bossfights in the game– no, you shouldn't be using this potion to heal from regular damage, but it does come through when you're dealing with enemies that can shred through your health even when you have the strongest equipment in the game.
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