Locked out of the Meta: Lifestealer

I'm interested in starting a series discussing heroes that have lost their place in the metagame. I've noticed that Lifestealer has seen very little play and even less success, both in comp and even in pubs. This was brought to my attention during "Awkward Week" when Valve tried to make Ranked All Pick into normal All Pick and I first picked Naix and got accused of being a "crazy ****".

With recent shifts towards late game agility carries and later games, Lifestealer is struggling to find a place. Necrophos is pretty much the go to anti-tank right now (and is far better at it). I think his problem is that for a front liner, he is too fragile to physical damage, kind of like Huskar but with even less utility. Other strength snowball carries such as Tiny and Chaos Knight are far more dangerous than him as well.

So, I'm thinking of two possible ways for Icefrog to make him viable. Feel free to express what you'd like to see.

Approach 1: Increase Mobility and Improve Infest
Increase movespeed from 315 to 330.
Infest Cooldown rescaled from 100 to 100/70/40
When Control is activated, the unit cannot be attacked for 2 seconds.

This would improve his snowballing potential and his survival. More infests late game means more available escapes, mud golem/centaur initiations, emergency heals, etc. More movespeed early means he can actually slow people before he gets a dagger. Control activation makes it easier to bail out LS when he's hiding.

Approach 2: Improve Rage
Rage attack speed bonus from 30/45/60/75 to 40/60/80/100
Rage now adds 2/4/6/8 armor for the duration.

This approach will make Lifestealer's mid game (and to a lesser extent late game) fighting power much stronger. Usually if I'm an enemy support, getting a Medallion and using it on LS makes him into paper (just like Huskar actually), so the bonus armor seems nice, bonus attack speed lets him actually burst out well enough to cover his low agility and make a Skull Basher purchase make more sense.

So, what do you think about Lifestealer right now?

Lifestealer has been a counter-pick to single target carry heroes for a while now.

I think as of right now, Lifestealer can only get better with some improvements like making Feast better. I find that it is a very lack luster skill, very little DPS boost and the lifesteal is barly anything. I think to make him viable, you would have to bring back the non-op parts of dota 1 LS (are there any).

dota 1 LS was so overpowered it was not even funny.

Are we talking about that 1 active 3 passive monster that people were discussing about??

My suggestion is to improve feast and infest.
Infest is one of the most underwhelming ultimates. feast needs to be static damage percentage of max hp like heart stopper aura.
So it will deal 4-7% of max hp. To countervailing the op ness, you can make it active ability, though i think it is OK as passive

What if open wounds was made into a Orb of Venom sort of thing? You hit someone, it goves them the debuff for a short time. Obviously the slow and lifesteal would need to be decreased, but a constant, powerful slow could make him less kiteable. The bonus armor seems interesting. Keep calm's active buffed feast also sounds good.

Option 2: Revert him to when rage was his ult :)

i honestly think it should be a ms buff.

open wounds gives stolen ms as bonus ms for the duration.

escape and initiation skill.

He was in the spotlught for a out 2 years. Let him "rest". Other heroes deserve the spotlight more : currently Juggernaut, I hope for Slardar.

I think you forgot a big reason why Naix isn't picked more : he can't deal with high mobility heroes.

Same problem why Lone Druid has fallen off actually, because now is the era of Imba Spirits, Anti-creeps and Slarks so pure chasing/racecar heroes aren't that good.

If you make Open Wounds be a bit like Rupture/ Mana Leak, a skill that punishes moving high distances in a short time, maybe he'll be viable again. It's OPEN WOUNDS after all, when you're bleeding you can't just blink/pounce around.

This is a really good idea! Maybe the slow and the lifesteal should increase the more the enemy moves.