Lifestealer/Guide

Generic/Laning Lifestealer
Lifestealer is mostly played in the safelane. With enough items, he becomes a terrifying carry that can man-fight most heroes, especially strength heroes with a lot of hp that will take more damage from, healing N'aix in the process.

If you're paired with a good support, and the enemy offlaner has no abilities to shrug off slows (such as or ), you'll probably want to start off with a point in, which is your only disable. If you have no chance to get an early kill on the offlaner, you might as well level Feast and heal up a couple of hp each time you hit a creep. Finally, if you're (team-)fighting at the 00:00 rune, 3 seconds of magic immunity can go a very long way to dodge an incoming nuke or two and secure the precious, so can be the correct decision. Overall, keep your first skill point until you need it, and if you don't, take your passive.

Since all three of your abilities are so useful, you should probably be 1-1-1 at level 3. Open Wounds' cast range is catastrophic at level 1 so many players like to take at least a second point in it at level 4 to improve it. But the slow doesn't improve, and the cooldown is too long to get it off twice in an early engagement, so if your supports already have enough disables to get you close enough to your target, you can keep leave Open Wounds at a single point. Feast directly increases your damage output, whereas Rage only indirectly increases it, so some players like to take extra levels in Feast before they level Rage. However, Feast will not help you finish off an enemy once his HP is low enough (that extra 1% lifesteal will account for a measly one damage once your enemy is down to 100 HP), so Rage is eventually better to net you kills.

As for items, Lifestealer benefits greatly from the triumvirate of early game items:, and. Orb of venom should obviously be skipped if the enemies are not bothered by slows, Blight Stone should be skipped if one of your supports picked one up already (like a roaming ) or if you're against ranged opponents that you can't get close to. Wind Lace is always nice, but it can be a little pointless if you already have enough disables to get up close and personal with your target. Otherwise, Lifestealer has very good base damage which should allow you to skip the, and it can be picked up later if you're planning to go to the jungle. A can always be nice in a heavily contested lane, or if your supports are stacking and pulling to tank up some creep attacks.

Lifestealer's boots of choice are usually, as he benefits greatly from the active to chase his opponents. Though are nice as well, N'aix already has bonus attack speed from Rage. Also Lifestealer loves to build which benefits naturally from the bonus damage of Phase Boots. Lifestealer is also a natural carrier, since he will heal up the lost HP from three of his spells, and you do not suffer the HP-loss while hidden inside a creep or allied hero.

From there on, it's up to you to figure out what you need. If you're against squishy ranged heroes maybe you need extra chasing potential so a can be justified (especially if you have no other initiator to infest in your team), or an old-fashioned. If the dagger is unattractive, maybe is better suited, especially once upgraded into a  to remove those annoying passives like. But maybe you need more damage, so get that or ; or an  for raw disable. If you're facing plenty of summons and/or illusions can be your best bet; and don't forget the static charge of  also deals considerable AOE damage. N'aix usually doesn't build a but it can be necessary against annoying line-ups.

Jungling Lifestealer
Equipped with your trusty and some s, you can safely farm the medium camps from the get-go. Your passive will be your best friend so take it at level 1. If you're lucky with the spawns (no wolves), and you get some good runes every two minutes, maybe you can max out Rage first and skip Open Wounds until level 5 (for ganking at level 6) or 8. Rage WILL make you farm faster, but Open Wounds WILL keep you healthy. To maximize the heal from Open Wounds, use it on a big creep with full HP, then use Iron Talon's Chop on it.

Once you're level 6, consider ganking a lane hidden inside a creep. Either you can hide in a lane creep and try for the element of surprise; or you can Infest a jungle creep and make the most out of his abilities; and  are your best bets, but the Satyr Banisher's  can also do the trick. If your lanes are going poorly (maybe the enemy team has roamers instead of a jungler of its own), consider ganking earlier than that, probably with a.

You are not that tanky, so a can also do wonders to keep you healthy in the jungle. If things are going well, maybe you can rush a. If things are going extremely well, be my guest and get that for a  rush, but please get at least some  first. If things are not going so well, you should probably aim for some earlier items. is not wasted on Lifestealer, neither is ...

General

 * There is a term called the N'aix bomb among players which includes a N'aix player infesting a high mobility hero such as, , , , and invisible heroes like,  and  to initiate upon enemies by having these heroes enter the fray and unleashing all of their own spells in quick succession before N'aix himself comes out of them and dealing the nuke damage of Infest while following it up with his DPS using Rage.
 * It is possible to solo Roshan if you are a higher leveled Lifestealer, although it takes a very long time. To do this, you keep attacking Roshan until you reach low health, then go to the nearby Radiant Jungle, and use your abilities to heal, then go back to Roshan and repeat the process. If you plan on doing this, be careful of enemy wards anywhere nearby, as if you get ganked by the enemy team you have a low chance of surviving.


 * Rage increases his attack speed, thus chance based items like or  become safer choices, as higher attack speed it allows the items to proc more often and reliably.
 * Rage has an instant cast time, maybe try to dodge an incoming or, wasting your opponent's mana and indirectly protecting your allies.


 * Feast deals bonus damage based on your target's current HP. The lower he is, the less Feast will help you.
 * This gives a weird synergy between Lifestealer and, as the Netherdrake deals bonus damage to low HP heroes with . So in an ideal scenario, you could hit a full-HP hero first a couple of times, then let Viper finish him off while you switch target... But things usually don't go this smoothly...


 * Open Wounds Heal for a percentage of the damage they deal to that unit. Using on a Creep will also heal you.
 * Since Open Wounds' cast range is so bad at level 1 (a measly 200, barley more than your auto attack), it scales proportionately pretty well!... But neither the slow or the heal or the duration improves.


 * Infest can control Ancient Creeps at level 2.
 * Controlling a creep while Infested won't break the creep's cover.


 * Assimilate doesn't cancel toggled auras. It is possible to assimilate a friendly with  active, or a friendly  with  active, and the aura will stay active without costing any health or mana.

Items
Starting Items
 * Consumables like and  are good for covering your health issues until you can sustain yourself with lifesteal.
 * Stout Shield helps deal with harassment in lane, or block damage in jungle. Later can be upgraded to and a future.
 * makes last hitting easier.

Early Game
 * are needed to gank in combination with Open Wounds.
 * sustains you without consumables.

Core Items
 * is N'aix's core item due to his lifesteal. The player may have this item active throughout every fight, since his Feast ability negates the health loss.

Situational Items
 * increases Lifestealer's feast damage (lifesteal remains the same) and eventually critical hits (if you choose to go for or ) to hit incredibly hard against any targets.
 * compensates for N'aix's very low base armor, and also gives more attack speed for use with . It is also useful for pushing enemy towers.
 * and its upgrade are situational, though they greatly improve the Lifestealer's attack capabilities, able to disable his prey long enough for him to tear down.
 * Get a if the enemy carry has evasion or has a way of making you miss attacks such as 's  or 's, as it makes these abilities partially useless.
 * lets N'aix close the gap between vulnerable heroes who like to keep their distance from fights such as or  before casting Open Wounds and Rage. This is useful if you find yourself unable to get in range for what would otherwise be free kills. At the same time, it is excellent for escape after using Infest.
 * is a good item pickup as it allows Lifestealer to keep activated indefinitely, and gives him greater durability and damage.
 * allows the Lifestealer to close distance on his targets early on in order to get within Open Wounds' short range, and is ideal for ganking from the jungle. The lack of Attack Speed from not purchasing is negated by allowing the player to level more levels of Rage, increasing both survivability and damage.
 * works well when combined with as the combined movement speed from both allows players to catch up with faster enemy heroes. The attributes also help boost Lifestealer's lacking mana pool, and allow him to gank more often through frequent use of Open Wounds.
 * lets Lifestealer crit his feast damage. Against high health heroes, such as and, Lifestealer can deal huge crits to his enemies and heal himself for immense amounts of health.