Left 4 Dead 2: A guide to all items in L4D2

So I think this goes without saying that at some point in time, you’re gonna pick up items in this game. Doesn’t matter what it is, you’ll probably pick it up. So let’s start with the 3 categories of items you can equip in Left 4 Dead 2.

1. Health and ammo upgrades.
It’s simple, First Aid kits are used to heal your self or allies and can be used to fully restore the amount of times you can be incapped. (Total of 3, third resulting in your death) Defibs are used to bring back dead survivors (so long as they haven’t fallen after hanging from a cliff, in that case they’ll ragdoll and can no longer be brought back with defibs.) and ammo packs are used to give you and your team temp ammo (Frag rounds blow up and stun infected and have a small blast radius, and fire rounds ignite zombies and insta-kill common infected)

2. Grenades
There are a total of three grenades in the game: Pipe bombs, Molotovs, and Bile Jars.

3. Temporary health items.
Pain killers are used to get a quick health boost and Adrenaline shots are used for a massive speed boost, but the health benefits they give don’t last forever.

First Aid kits are the main way you can restore your health in Left 4 Dead 2. Most commonly found in Safe Rooms and medical cabinets, Med Kits can restore 80% of your current HP by equipping it and holding down LMB (M1) Alternatively, if you equip it and hold RMB (M2) while looking at a teammate you can heal them instead!

TIPS
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1. Try to save them for as long as possible, especially on higher difficulties.
2. First aid kits can be used to go from Black and White (critical health) back to normal, which can reset the amount of times you can be incapped.
3. Bots will attempt to heal you if you get to low. To counter this, hold any healing item out and they will stop. Annoying, but useful to know.

Defibs are one of three ways dead players can come back to life. The 3 ways are being rescued from a closet, respawning after chapter completion, or being defibbed.

When using a Defibrillator, you’ll see an outline of all dead players in red. Interacting with a teammates corpse with a defib will put you into an animation and at the end your ally will return to the zombie infested hellscape!

Keep in mind returning players must pick up all of their dropped loot and will only have 50% HP, however you will be at the incapped limit, meaning you don’t have to worry about dying again for a little bit.

(Crummy example, but I’m sleep deprived and trying to hurry this up.)

There are two different kinds of ammo upgrades: Frag rounds, which give your guns a small blast upgrade and one shot common infected, while having the added effect of stunning all Special Infected (Besides Tanks.) And Fire rounds, which also one shot commons, and set Special Infected on fire for a short duration.

They can be used once per person, and will despawn after all 4 survivors have used it.

Pipe bombs are a classic, and you should know what one is if you’ve ever made the mistake of insulting a furry online (Seriously, don’t eff up like I did.) Pipe bombs will beep for around 5 seconds, luring in any common infected and exploding. Timing this right can even stun a Tank!

A classic cocktail with a lot of kick to it! It’s an easy item to use: Simple throw it and watch everything coming from that direction get caught on fire! Maybe next time they shouldn’t stand next to a flame that burns even hotter than the sun in the middle of July! Ha!

(These are the bane of Tanks. You see a Tank? LIGHT THE MOTHER******* UP)

If you’re new to Left 4 Dead then you’re probably thinking; “Onion, what in the hell is a bottle of puke gonna do to save my ass from zombies?” Well my newbie friend, allow me to explain the absolute game changing grenade that everyone loves!

Boomers are a type of enemy that vomit on the survivors which attracts the horde to single out that one survivor. Bile Jars are modified versions of that puke, redesigned to have infected go after each other, or have them run to a specific part of a map. (Yes, you can use these on Tanks to slow them down!) This effect will last for 15 seconds before wearing off, so make sure you move your butt as soon as the glass shatters. As an added bonus, if used on a player controlled infected in Versus mode, that player will be blinded as if they were a survivor! Talk about a taste of your own medicine…eww…

Pills are a good way to keep your health up if no Med Kits are around. They restore 50% of your HP with temporary health which will decay over time. When taking damage, your ACTUAL health bar will be affected first, not your temp health. (Something to note: Falling below 39 HP will cause you to slow down and going below 2 HP will slow you to a crawl. Avoid that at ALL COSTS!!!) Equipping pills and pressing RMB (M2) while looking at an ally will give them the pills instead.

So this goofy lil shot will give you 30 temp HP and increase your speed for a few seconds! Zombie hits won’t slow you down and you will have infinite shoves (No cooldown.) You’ll also perform all actions twice as fast! Picking up survivors, restarting gens, healing, and much more!The only downside being a tunnel vision effect and not being able to tell where sounds are coming from. Equipping it and pressing RMB (M2) while looking at a survivor will pass it to them instead. Always share your needles with friends!

(Tunnel vision effect around edge of screen, along with all sounds becoming muffled, making it nearly impossible to tell what sound is on your left or right.)

That’s all I have for you all! I hope my guide helps you on your journey to becoming the best zombie killing Survivor you can be! Now get out there and kick some zombie teeth in!

(Artwork by ClezylGabane on DeviantArt)