Life steal builds

[CptGEBA]

Well the title pretty much says it all . Can you tell me about the best life steal builds? I mostly play with the insect glaive and the longsword but i would like to hear about other weapons too.

[Juliane_L]

health augment 1 is the only lifesteal you will ever need.

[mewlynx]

Pretty much every single melee build you'll ever use will be a lifesteal build because health augment exists.

[SuperSam]

Yeah. As guys above said, Health Augment on melee weapons provides you with life steal. You can add recovery up or nergigante set bonus (for whatever reason) for more HP regen per hit, but I'm not sure if there is anything else relevant to your request

[Endarion]

health augment is what give you life steal

if you want to increase ti the only thing to do are

1 stack more health augment
2 slot in 3 medicine jewels
3 eat for felyne medic

that's all you can do

[demon1103]

While everyone above is right about health augment on any melee is very good there are 2 that I really like. Greatsword deals very high damage, meaning high lifesteal, a lvl 3 slash will almost always fill you up to max health. My favorite( at least pre-iceborne) though was the "Pillar of Gluttony" lance build, mix HA with nerg set and just constantly hit the monster and life stealing, was before Max mights nerf so it worked pretty well too. I think that build is what made lance one of my top 3 favorite weapons of Monster Hunter.

[ChubbNutt]

It's whatever the best build you can currently make is + the health augment. There's no builds designed around lifesteal.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by OutSeal:

health augment is what give you life steal

if you want to increase ti the only thing to do are

1 stack more health augment
2 slot in 3 medicine jewels
3 eat for felyne medic

that's all you can do

Health Augment 2 and 3 is pointless, barely does anything. Recovery Up also does next to nothing with HP Augment

[Endarion]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

Originally posted by OutSeal:

health augment is what give you life steal

if you want to increase ti the only thing to do are

1 stack more health augment
2 slot in 3 medicine jewels
3 eat for felyne medic

that's all you can do

Health Augment 2 and 3 is pointless, barely does anything. Recovery Up also does next to nothing with HP Augment

still that the only things he can do to increase the lifesteal

and i wouldn't call jumping from 7,5% lifesteal to about 12,6% nothing, specially with hard hitting weapons like GS and CB
it is worth? probably not, but that's not what he asked for

[Tregrenos]

With Iceborne lowering the health augment recovery from higher end items a new combo had emerged with Insect Glaives in that Kensects can now be fed slinger ammo to increase their elemental damage. Combine that with ANY IG that features "Elemental Boost" (since no skill in the game increases Kensect damage) and it's surprisingly potent at making the Kensect a form of decent DPS as well as breaking specific parts rather effectively.

I bring all this up because 3 Health Augments on a lower level IG gives more healing per-hit than max Health Augments on a Master Rank IG. This leaves you free to play around with non-offensive skills. With how fast the IG is sheathed and you generally being in a safe position all the time a great combo is to be the Wide Range Healer. With group heals, attacking from range with a staff and a magic bug you are the literal White Mage of the group.

As far as being a "Life Steal" build I feel this is the closest you're gonna get and it's pretty easy to put together even before you're taking on MR content due to the weapon choice being HR level.

[♋Phenex]

Heavy weapons like Hammer, Greatsword and CB have big damage hits that can heal up a large amount of health with HB3 which is super useful when at low health.

[Otaconnor]

Not sure why long gunlance hasn't been mentioned yet. You can max your damage without investing in attack, critical, etc. so you can put like 3 HP regen augments on your build and easily fit in HP recovery up level 3. You can even run divine blessing secret alongside artillery secret if you want to be invincible.

[Crusader]

Originally posted by Otaconnor:

Not sure why long gunlance hasn't been mentioned yet. You can max your damage without investing in attack, critical, etc. so you can put like 3 HP regen augments on your build and easily fit in HP recovery up level 3. You can even run divine blessing secret alongside artillery secret if you want to be invincible.

It’s better to take defense after the first health regen. It gives you a hidden skill that procs seperately from divine blessing but acts like it and it increases your defense by a decent amount.

[Sin]

Aside from the obvious health augment on weapons.

2 piece Blackveil Vaal (Helm & Chest) and 2 piece Ruiner Nerg (Arms & Waist) is as good as it gets for a lifesteal (armour) build. And naturally Garuga Legs (because slots).
The two set bonuses work well together. Heal from constant attacks, and healing can go past the red damage on your health bar.
You can easily max some of the recovery / healing skills as the armour already has some of them built in, and still maintain a decent critical chance.
It's naturally not as high on the damage output as the meta setup, but it's what you're asking for.

[Warkrunner]

Originally posted by maelynx:

Pretty much every single melee build you'll ever use will be a lifesteal build because health augment exists.

Originally posted by ♋Phenex:

Heavy weapons like Hammer, Greatsword and CB have big damage hits that can heal up a large amount of health with HB3 which is super useful when at low health.

HBG, too, works well with health augment. Good ol' bullet injector.

[AnemoneMeer]

best lifesteal build atm is GS with full health augments and full Safi armor set.

Safi set causes you to lose HP on attack but health augment on GS gives you a disgustingly large amount of HP back. After a few hits, Safi set will heal you massively. Also gives a fairly chunky amount of damage (though certainly not top tier).

End result is you just kinda facetank through everything while healing massive amounts of HP. It's not the highest damage in the game, but GS already is one of the highest DPS weapons in the game anyway so you're fine on clear times while just plain not dying.