Lifestealer/Guide

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Strategy

 

Counters

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

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Sounds

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Lifestealer is a durable frontliner that can tear down even the tankiest of heroes. Dealing more damage and obtaining more lifesteal from his passive, Feast, Lifestealer thrives fighting high health enemies. Rage grants Lifestealer spell immunity, making him an even scarier threat. Although melee, Lifestealer still has some means of keeping his target in place through the use of Open Wounds, providing a significant slow to the enemy while granting lifesteal to any allied units attacking the target. With Lifestealer's kit, he is best suited in the middle of the fight so he may sustain health off his attacks and make use of his spell immunity, but that does not mean he has to be the first seen. Lifestealer's ultimate, Infest, allows him to hide inside an allied hero, or, the body of a creep, putting himself right in the action before enemies can react to his presence. While his kit has many benefits, players must be careful using Lifestealer's spells too liberally, as his small mana pool will quickly be depleted and could leave Lifestealer in an unfavorable situation.
Pros	Cons
Built-in spell immunity. Able to recover health through a multitude of abilities. Ultimate allows for creative application in a variety of situations.	No natural means of disabling and keeping opponents in place. Ultimate can be highly situational and requires tactical usage to maximize potential due to utilitarian nature. Fairly item-dependent in order to keep up with other carries. Small mana pool

Carry

Lifestealer is most often played in the safelane, and with only a few levels can be left on his own without being in significant danger. With enough levels and items, he can reliably fight most heroes 1-on-1 but struggles against multiple targets. Heroes relying on their high health pool to be relevant can seriously punish their team if they allow Lifestealer to Feast off them, as each of Lifestealer's attacks grants a percentage of health back to Lifestealer, and deals additional damage based on a percentage of the units max health. This allows Lifestealer to remain in fights as he can gain large amounts of health back and widdle down the enemies while his team cleans up the rest.

During laning, if against heroes lacking mobility or means of escape Lifestealer can easily zone enemy heroes as their harass can quickly be regenerated through means of his passive. Depending on the lane, Lifestealer can take a couple levels in Feast to sustain harassment, or if dealing with heavy magic damage and lockdown, can opt to level Rage early on. Once strong enough to man fight, Open Wounds will allow Lifestealer to get as many hits in while the enemy is slowed. Ideally, another allied hero can lock down the enemy before Lifestealer has to use Open Wounds as the cast range at early levels is very small and difficult to cast.

Ability Builds

Generic Lifestealer
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Hero Talents
+2s Rage Duration	25	+1.5% Feast Lifesteal
+50% Open Wounds Lifesteal	20	20% Evasion
+25 Movement Speed	15	+30 Damage
+30 Attack Speed	10	+200 Health

Notes:

• The health talent increases maximum health capacity, and keeps the current health percentage.

• This attack damage talent is added as raw attack damage, so it does not benefit illusions, and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.

• The evasion talent stacks multiplicatively with other sources of evasion.

Tips & Tactics

General

• There is a term called the Infest bomb among players which includes a Lifestealer infesting a high mobility hero such as Storm Spirit, Puck, Queen of Pain, Magnus, Spirit Breaker, and invisible heroes like, Riki and Nyx Assassin to initiate upon enemies by having these heroes enter the fray and unleashing all of their own spells in quick succession before Lifestealer himself comes out of them and dealing the nuke damage of Infest while following it up with his DPS using Rage.

Abilities

Rage

• Rage increases his attack speed, allowing items like Mjollnir or Skull Basher to proc more often and reliably.
• Rage has an instant cast time, a careful casting of the ability will allow Lifestealer to dodge spells such as an incoming Storm Hammer, and possibly faster projectiles like Magic Missile..
• Unlike many other carries, Lifestealer does not need to invest in Black King Bar since Rage grants spell immunity with a similar duration and significantly lower cooldown.
• While Rage renders Lifestealer entirely spell immune and grants 100% magic resistance, he is still vulnerable to being affected by passives and auras.
  • Take note that not all spells deal magical damage, such as Quill Spray, and some abilities, such as Nether Swap, pierces spell immunity.
  • Be aware of enemies that have the ability to silence, stun, or hex, as Lifestealer would be left helpless and unable to use Rage to break out of such disables.

Feast

• Feast deals bonus damage and lifesteal based on target's max health. The more health they have, the more Feast will help you, making him great at dealing with high strength heroes, but not necessarily high armor ones since Feast deals physical damage.

Open Wounds

• Open Wounds heals for a percentage of the damage dealt to that unit, regardless of the source or type of damage being dealt.
  • This means that spell and item abilities will heal a proportional amount to the damage it deals. This includes abilities that instantly destroys enemies, such as Hand of Midas's Transmute.
• Open Wounds slow's potency decreases with every passing second. So, opponents will be able to recover their movement speed and escape if Lifestealer does not have disable items or support from allies to keep them in place.

Infest

• Infest can control Ancient Creeps at level 2.
• Infesting a creep will not break the creep's cover.
• Infesting an enemy creep can be an effective way to escape from a losing battle, as the enemy will not be able to deny the creep so long as its current health is above 50%.
  • Be aware of your opponents' skill set when attempting this, as spells like Demonic Conversion can instantly destroy creeps regardless of their allegiance.

Assimilate

• Assimilate keeps toggled auras running. Lifestealer can assimilate a friendly Pudge with Rot active, or a friendly Witch Doctor with Voodoo Restoration active, and the aura will stay on without costing any health or mana.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango regenerates health early on until you can sustain yourself with lifesteal.
• Healing Salve also restores health.

Early game:

• Quelling Blade makes last hitting easier.
• Boots of Speed are needed to gank in combination with Open Wounds.
• Magic Stick sustains Lifestealer if the enemy has a certain number of spammable skills.
• Blight Stone increases Lifestealer's early game damage, and builds into Desolator later.
• Orb of Venom is a nice early game pickup if his lane has a moderate level of kill potential, as the slow helps Lifestealer to catch up with the enemy.

Mid game:

• Phase Boots allows Lifestealer to close the distance on his targets in order to get within Open Wounds' short range.
• Armlet of Mordiggian shines with the extra HP, armor, and damage from the active Unholy Strength, all of which Lifestealer wants. Feast and Open Wounds negates the health loss to some extent, while the rest of the abilities offer a chance of armlet toggling.

Late game:

• Desolator increases Lifestealer's damage output greatly as it reduces armor of the enemy, allows him to tear down supports and carries with the help of extra attack speed and Spell Immunity of Rage. The item helps with farming and pushing towers as well.
• Assault Cuirass compensates for Lifestealer's low base armor and gives more attack speed for use with Rage. The armor reduction allows for a faster tower pushing and farming presence.

Situational items:

• Hand of Midas allows Lifestealer to comeback from a bad laning stage. Note that the item would delay your mid-game power spike as better items could be purchased with the gold spent.
• Drum of Endurance offers extra movement speed and attack speed with the active Endurance. The attributes also boost Lifestealer's mana regeneration and strength. The item could be bought if a lot of teamfight is happening in the early game.
• Sange and Yasha gives Lifestealer movement speed, attack speed, and attack damage. The movement speed bonus helps Lifestealer catch up with the enemies.
• Abyssal Blade gives Lifestealer a reliable source of stun, allows him to disable an enemy long enough for him to tear down. Again Lifestealer has almost no damage output outside of melee range, so it is really crucial to stick to his target as a melee carry.
• Monkey King Bar helps with the problem of evasion. The magical damage procs also help improve damage output, but the main draw for this item is the attack damage it offers.
• Daedalus allows Lifestealer to crit with his feast damage. Against high health heroes, such as Pudge and Sven, Lifestealer can deal huge crits to his enemies.
• Bloodthorn is generally an alternative of Daedalus and Monkey King Bar as it provides extra attacks speed, mana pool, and mana regen. The active Soul Rend allows him to rip his opponents apart with silence.
• Mjollnir can be useful against illusion heroes, as both Static Charge and Chain Lightning help dealing with them. As a frontliner, Static Charge can be triggered towards its maximum effect. Meanwhile, the item helps with farming and wave-clearing.
• Heaven's Halberd provide evasion against the physical attack of enemies, as well as a disarm for the enemy carry.
• Moon Shard serves as an extra source of attack speed in the late game.
• Blink Dagger gives Lifestealer the opportunity to close the gap between heroes who like to keep their distance from fights; or can work as an escape after using Infest. This is useful if you find yourself unable to get in range for what would otherwise be free kills. Keep in mind that with the help of allies, Infest could do the same job as well.
• Shadow Blade provides decent attack damage and attack speed, and a means of initiating or escaping, allowing Lifestealer to go for solo pickoffs.
• Radiance gives Lifestealer both physical and magical damage through Burn and its additional damage, accelerating his farming speed. Also allows for Lifestealer to have more impact in the middle of fights, providing a damaging and blinding aura.
• Heart of Tarrasque gives Lifestealer immense durability and some damage. Can be a good item to pick up if Lifestealer is acting as the main initiator and/or tank for his team and needs the additional health.
• Aghanim's Scepter gives Lifestealer a new ability, Assimilate, which allows Lifestealer to consume a person, who can then escape from him when they please. This can allow two people to be hidden in a single hero creating chaotic initiations that will likely catch the enemy off guard. Assimilate can also act as a save for teammates at risk of dying as it renders the ally invulnerable while consumed by Lifestealer.