Lifestealer/Guide

Generic Lifestealer
Lifestealer is mostly played in the safelane. With enough items, he becomes a terrifying carry that can challenge most heroes in a 1-vs-1 fight, especially heroes with a lot of health, increasing the damage dealt while healing Lifestealer 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 Open Wounds, 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 spell immunity can go a very long way to dodge an incoming nuke or two and secure the precious, so Rage 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 very small 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 triad 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, Lifestealer 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 health from three of his spells, and you do not suffer the health 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.

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, allowing items like or  to proc more often and reliably.
 * Rage has an instant cast time, careful casting of the ability will allow Lifestealer to dodge spells such as an incoming, and possibly faster projectiles like , wasting your opponent's mana and indirectly protecting your allies.
 * With a maximum duration of 8 seconds and a cooldown period of 16 seconds, Lifestealer has little need to invest in a since Black King Bar has its potency reduced with every subsequent cast.
 * 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, and some abilities, such as , 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 cast Rage to break out of such disables.


 * Feast deals bonus damage based on your target's current health. The lower health he has, the less Feast will help you.
 * This also affects how much health Lifestealer recovers. Be sure to target creeps with high maximum health to quickly recover your health in between skirmishes.
 * This gives a weird synergy between Lifestealer and, as Viper deals bonus damage to heroes with low health through.


 * 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 is inefficient at level 1 due to the mana cost, cast range and cooldown of the spell.
 * Though Open Wounds slow lasts for 8 seconds, the potency of the slow decreases with every passing second. This means that opponents will be able to recover their movement speed fairly quickly and will be able to escape Lifestealer's grasp without items or support from allies to keep them in place.


 * Infest can control Ancient Creeps at level 2.
 * Controlling a creep while Infested won't 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 about 50%.
 * Be aware of your opponents' skill set when attempting this, as spells like and  can instantly destroy creeps regardless of their allegiance.


 * 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. Later can be upgraded to and a future.

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 the Lifestealer to close distance on his targets early on in order to get within Open Wounds' short range. Since Lifestealer could only deal damage from a close distance, Phase Boots is his best choice.
 * is Lifestealer's core item as it greatly mitigates Lifestealer's lack of armor and attack speed. The armlet shines with the extra HP, armor and damage from the active Unholy Strength, all of which Lifestealer desperately needs. Rage, Open Wounds negates the health loss to some extent, while the rest two abilities offer 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.
 * 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:
 * 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.
 * 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 early game.
 * offers a few stats together with attack speed and HP regeneration aura. The active Dominate could give the team a certain level of variability. The item is suited if the team is heading for early-game push.
 * gives Lifestealer movement speed, attack speed, damage and a chance to maim a target. It is viable if movement speed is crucial in this game to catch up with the enemies.
 * gives Lifestealer a reliable source of stun, allows him to disable his prey long enough for him to tear down. Again Lifestealer has almost no damage output outside of melee range, so it is really crucial to 'hit a target' as a melee carry.
 * 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.
 * lets Lifestealer crit 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 your opponents apart with a bit of control.
 * could be useful if illusion happens to be a problem, as both Static Charge and Chain Lightning helps with dealing illusions. As a frontliner, Static Charge could be triggered towards its maximum effect. Meanwhile, the item helps with farming and wave-clearing.
 * is a highly situational pick under the circumstaces that it is extremely hard for Lifestealer to output damage without the help of spell immunity. Possible examples include Riki with and Anti Mage with.
 * helps Lifestealer dispel debuffs, mostly silences, to activate Rage. It also provides movement speed and attack speed as well as decent stats.
 * provide evasion against physical-attacks based enemies, as well as disabling an enemy carry from their primary source of damage for a while.
 * serves as an extra source of attack speed with enough gold in late game, or a quick add-up of attack speed in mid game with having an advantage over the other team.
 * gives Lifestealer a chance to close the gap between vulnerable heroes who like to keep their distance from fights, 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.
 * provides decent attack damage and attack speed boost, and an unreliable initiate & escape method. It gives Lifestealer solo pick-off potential if the game goes towards the direction of split pushing and requires a gank method.
 * serves as a cheap alternative of with extra evasion and armor. The active could be used to reduce enemies' armor even further.
 * gives Lifestealer both physical damage and magical damage through Burn and accelerates his farm speed. The ancients (or siege) serves as a nice vehicle with Infest.
 * gives Lifestealer immense durability and some damage, permitting permanent activation of . It is a good item pickup if Lifestealer could be completely invincible after the purchase of.
 * gives Lifestealer a new ability Infest, which serves as a niche pick with extra initiation and saving potential, as it renders the ally invulnerability through the assimilate period.

Lifestealer/Руководство 噬魂鬼/攻略