Reprieve's Lifestealer Guide

Lifestealer is one of the hardest carries in the game. His free Avatar ( Black King Bar ) with a bonus effect of free attack speed and a shorter cooldown by itself give him a huge advantage to some other right click heroes.

To start this out I will go through a general idea of what Lifestealer is and his abilities.

He is a Hard Carry as role,and when it comes to laning he is very flexible. He can be part of both 2 man lanes ( top and bottom in pubs ) Just like playing Middle , although that is only possible for him to do against some other melee heroes. His main and best situation is as a tri-lane carry , with two supports there to take care of him all the time , he can also be played as solo 1v1 in a more competitive environment. Other than his Carry potential he is a naturally very tanky hero with high escape potential.

When it comes to pubs he is a very popular jungle hero and often fills that role , even tho his jungling is pretty slow and hard at first,he quickly gets into it and becomes a hero killing machine before you know it.

Abilities

His first ability is Rage - Which gives him a free spell immunity and bonus attack speed and scales with spell levels with a duration of 3-4-5-6 and attack speed increase of 30-45-60-80 on a 17 seconds cooldown is one of the best abilities in the game,giving him high initiation potential of being able of unstoppable running into enemies and just as easely escape from them.

His second ability is a passive and called Feast it gives him a special kind of lifesteal as it does a bonus ( 4-5-6-7 ) % of the targets current HP as damage and gives it back to Lifestealer and it synchronizes nicely with his other two abilities.

His third spell is called Open Wounds,and it slows down the enemy targets movement speed and gives life leach to everyone who attacks and does damage to the target ( including spells ) the casting duration and life leech is increased with levels and it goes from 200 to 500 range and from 15 - 30 % lifesteal. It's cooldown is also reduced from 24 to 12 seconds. It's duration is 8 seconds.
The movement slow always starts at 70% and the target slowly regenerates his movement speed over the 8 seconds duration.

His ultimate is called Infest and it gives lifestealer the ability to infest a nearby unit , the unit can be a creep ( Non ancient ) or allied hero. If the unit is indeed a creep , after leaving his habitat the creep is killed , Lifestealer regenerates the amount of Health the creep had when Devoured and infest does damage to all enemy units in a 700 range radius. The damage done is depending on the current level of Infest and is 150-275-400. The Lifestealer will gain experience for units killed nearby while he is infested , also a good way of using infest is on a creep with Open Wounds on it , providing a even larger heal ( very good strategy while Jungling ).

Spell Builds

When it comes to building this hero it can and should vary from the situation he is in,as most farming and hit exchanging situations should force you to level Feast as much as you can , take one open wounds for the slow , and max rage to be able to dish out more damage in a fast time and be rather immune.

In situations where you are under high pressure and forced to engage more often you should go for one point in Open Wounds and Feast and maximize rage first.

His ultimate should always be taken on 6-11-16 as it gives you more burst potential and stronger escape mechanism.

Item Builds

Again very dependable on what his role and situation is , the ideal starting items for Lifestealer , no matter of his lane or even jungle should be Stout Shield , Quelling Blade and a set of Tangoes.

If he is laning against enemies and has a high kill potential the player might be interested into opting into a quick orb of Venom from the side shop,providing additional slow and damage over time.

If his farm is excellent whether laning or jungling,after those he can opt in for a Hand Of Midas to increase his farm and damage even more. If you are not as happy with your farm,you should build into a Armlet as soon as possible,and even possibly skip boots of speed , which should be your next item.
Complete treads can be a excellent item for Na'Ix and should be built right after his Armlet, which can be either the first item , or second ( After Hand of Midas ) as mentioned . But if the enemy team is composed of a fast Squad with high escape abilities one should go into Phase Boots and a 'Race Car' Build.



--- More in Depth on the builds themselves ---

Race Car Build:
__________

Phase boots - Midas/Armlet - Drums of Endurance - Sange and Yasha. With this build it is advised to go into even more attack speed and one should get a Maelstrom next , followed by a Basher,and then extending the Maelstrom into Mjollnir. If the Enemies are pretty intensive with right-click damage,Assault Cuirass is a great choice as weell.

Normal Build :
____________

This is the build I prefer and tend to build into on most of my matches,even in Dota 1,very nice to jungle or lane with.

Quelling Blade + Stout Shield + Tangoes of course , to start out. Followed by fast Midas into Orb of Venom and boots of speed , Armlet and then you are very ready to fight,almost a unstoppable force in the early-mid game especially once you finish your Power Threads.

After this you are free to build whatever you like,really,but you have enough attack speed to be able to opt in for a straight Basher , even tho I personally get a plain Hyperstone before that. When those two are complete you should build into a Desolator and finish Assault Cuirass,after completing that you can build a full Abyssal Blade from your basher.

Jungling Guide

Jungling as lifestealer is very easy , you start at 0:30 on the easy camp , and clear it as soon as you can , then you try running to the closest nearby Big Camp ( easier as Dire ) and stack it at xx:53. Keep in mind stacking is a huge part of this strategy and very important to it being abused to its maximum.

Now , you should focus on stacking a big camp every turn even if you lose a little bit of farm while doing that , and otherwise you want to rotate between the small and medium camps. If you think it is safe enough you should use your Rage or Open Wounds to speed of jungling/hp regen.

The reason you stack big camps is , for when you get Midas you really want to consume the big creep,to get the bonus experience as well , as Lifestealer gets stronger with levels as well.



Otherwise another benefit from that is , once you get level 6 you go to the Big Camp stack infest one of the biggest creeps and consume it , killing it and doing big damage to others around it , making it a safe and easy kill , lots of experience and gold going your way!

After you farm your midas , boots and armlet you are completely ready for action,but don't be shy,even in the meantime you are pretty strong , and don't forget to try and gank your safe lane , and maybe middle , sometimes check and protect runes for your mid , or even take it if they don't need it , and most importantly enjoy!

Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this guide and that it helps you , don't forget to rate it with a thumbs up,and most important GL & HF!



~ Reprieve

Links to Builds!

Race Car Build



Carry Lifestealer




For in-game versions of the guides,and quick Hero Builds,you should check them out here :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=163367310 - Race Car

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=163368090 - Carry

~~~ Hey guys , I officially made the Russian Version of the guide , which you can check out at : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=163561694 , and if you like it,rate it up and favorite ! :) ~~~

[Aphotic]

update and release more guides.

[Dark Hawk 30]

my like this

[Imperator Mistletoe IV]

Yo dude, good job having this up for so long, you did well! ^~^

[76561198106477103]

:)

[76561198106380323]

))

[Lexa]

0+

[76561198101332748]

Круто )

[KINDRAT]

5+

[chesey55]

this is one of my favorite characters, ganking and jungling are my two best things in dota (ganknig is only if my team tells me what's going on in the lanne though) and this build is amazing if you don't use this guide you are not playing this character right that is my opinion

[FFF]

мда