Lifestealer/Guide

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 against 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 restores him a health amount 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 whittle 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 spell damage and lockdown, can opt to level Rage early on. Once strong enough to fight, Open Wounds will allow Lifestealer to get many hits in while the enemy is slowed. Ideally, another allied hero can lock down the enemy before Lifestealer uses Open Wounds as the cast range of this ability at early levels is very small.

General

 * There is a term called the Infest bomb among players which includes a Lifestealer 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 Lifestealer himself comes out of them and dealing the nuke damage of Infest while following it up with his DPS using Rage.


 * Rage has an instant cast time, a careful casting of the ability will allow Lifestealer to dodge disabling spells such as and.
 * Unlike many other carries, Lifestealer does not need to invest in since Rage grants spell immunity with similar duration and a significantly lower cooldown.
 * Although Rage renders Lifestealer spell immune, he is still vulnerable to being affected by passives and auras.
 * Take note that some abilities, such as, , and , pierce spell immunity.
 * Be aware of enemies that have the ability to silence, stun, or hex, as Lifestealer will be left helpless and unable to use Rage to break out of such disables.


 * Feast allows lifestealing based on target's max health. The larger health pool a target has, the more health Feast will restore. This ability is particularly helpful when dealing with high strength heroes.
 * Feast increases Lifestealer's attack speed so that items such as or  proc more often and reliably.


 * 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 '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 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 can instantly destroy creeps regardless of their allegiance.

Items
Starting items:
 * regenerates health early on until you can sustain yourself with lifesteal.
 * also restores health.

Early game:
 * makes last hitting easier.
 * are needed to gank in combination with Open Wounds.
 * sustains Lifestealer if the enemy has a certain number of spammable skills.
 * increases Lifestealer's early game damage, and builds into later.
 * 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:
 * allows Lifestealer to close the distance on his targets in order to get within Open Wounds' short range.
 * , as an upgrade of, greatly improves the hero's effectiveness mostly by compensating for low mana pool.
 * 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:
 * 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.


 * gives Lifestealer a reliable source of stun, allows him to disable an enemy long enough for him to tear down. Lifestealer has almost no damage output outside of melee range, so it is really crucial to stick to his target as a melee carry. Besides, this item improves the hero's survivability with damage block and bonus health.

Situational items:
 * 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.
 * gives Lifestealer movement speed, attack speed, and attack damage. The movement speed bonus helps Lifestealer catch up with the enemies.
 * compensates for Lifestealer's low base armor and gives more attack speed to use with Feast. The armor reduction allows for a faster tower pushing and stronger team fight presence.
 * 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.
 * allows Lifestealer to crit with his feast damage. Against high health heroes, such as and, Lifestealer can deal huge crits to his enemies.
 * is generally an alternative of and  as it provides extra attacks speed, mana pool, and mana regen. The active Soul Rend allows him to rip his opponents apart with silence.
 * 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.
 * provide evasion against the physical attack of enemies, as well as a disarm for the enemy carry.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.

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