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Stout Shield
Quelling Blade
Tango
Power Treads
Hand of Midas
Armlet of Mordiggian
Abyssal Blade
Assault Cuirass
Mjollnir
Desolator
Heart of Tarrasque
Monkey King Bar
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First and foremost, this is going to be a very simple guide. It will not have fancy colors, videos, links, pictures...etc. What it WILL have is more in-depth detail about how to properly play him.
Hello and welcome to my jungle Lifestealer guide. I have played as my main hero of choice since 2005, the early days of DotA. I played him before he got remade a few years after his release, so I have quite a bit of games played as Lifestealer under my belt.
Lifestealer is a carry that specializes in quickly killing "tanky" targets due to his passive skill, Feast. The more HP they have, the harder you will hit. He is also quite good against casters with his built-in Black King Bar/Attack Speed steroid skill, Rage. Very VERY few heroes can stand up to a Lifestealer 1v1 and the best part is, with his skillset, you dont need alot of items to be effective. He is currently a top-pick in competitive play, and used often in public games. I think he is extremely fun to play, and a fairly good choice for new players to play, or people that want to learn jungling.
Rage-Launch into a maddened rage, becoming immune to magic spells and gaining increased attack speed. Basically a free 
Black King Bar with a built in attack speed steroid. In my opinion, one of the best non-ultimate skills in the entire game. Casters will fear you because of this skill. Rank 4 of this skill lasts a ridiculous 6 seconds and will allow you to tear through heroes in a matter of seconds. It is also very good at helping you take down structures quickly. NOTE: Skills that pierce Black King Bar such as 
Primal Roar and 
Fiend's Grip WILL work on you while raged.
Feast-Regenerates a portion of the attacked enemy's current HP and deals the same portion of damage per attack. As pretty much any Lifestealer guide says, this is the skill that makes him a Life-stealer. This is the skill that allows you to jungle right away at level 1. New players tend to get confused by how this skill works, but it is really quite simple. At rank 4 it will damage your target, AND HEAL you for 7% of the enemies CURRENT hp. The key word here is current. So if you attack a monster with 100 hp, you will deal and be healed for 7 additional damage. IT DOES NOT MEAN 7% OF THE TARGETS MAXIMUM LIFE. So basically the weaker the target gets, the less you will deal and be healed for. Tanky opponents like 
Axe or heroes with alot of hp like 
Pudge absolutely hate this skill because of the ridiculous about of damage it does.
Open Wounds-Lifestealer rends an enemy unit, slowing the victim's movespeed and allowing all allies to lifesteal on that unit. All damage dealt will steal life, including damage from spells. The victim recovers movement speed over the duration.
In my opinion, the 2nd best slow in the entire game (
Venomous Gale being first). Not only does it slow for a ridiculous amount of up to 70%, any allies and yourself will leech life off of the affected target. Cooldown decreases with rank and at rank 4 you can often cast this more than once per team fight.
Infest-Lifestealer will infest the body of the target unit, lying dormant and undetectable inside. When he reveals himself, he deals damage to all nearby enemy units. The Lifestealer can gain experience from units that die while he is Infesting a unit. If the unit is a creep, he will devour it first, gaining health equal to the unit's current HP. Does not work on enemy Heroes. One of the most unique ultimates in the game. It has many many uses. You can use it to heal yourself, do damage, escape, and best of all, hide inside a teammate for a suprise gank. Unless they see you actually use this on an ally, there is no way for them to know you are inside them. Very fun and useful skill.
-There are a few ways to build Lifestealer as far as skill builds go. Generally you will want to max Feast first as it gives you the most sustain and clearing speed in the jungle. Always take this at level 1 if you are going to jungle.
-When you reach level 2 you have a choice between skilling Rage or Open Wounds. If your jungle lane is NOT pushed, grab Open Wounds and go for a level 2 gank. 9/10 times it results in a kill because no other hero can gank as effectively out of the jungle as Lifestealer can, so players never really expect it to happen. If you want to focus on pure farming, grab Rage instead.
-1 point in Open Wounds is all you need until both other skills are maxed.
-Grab Infest at the standard levels of 6, 11, and 16.
-If you find yourself team fighting more than farming, put 2 or 3 points in Feast and proceed to max Rage instead as it will grab you kills easier.
-NEVER EVER EVER bother grabbing stat points until you cannot put points into your 4 skills. Lifestealers skills are simply too good to bother with a measly 2 stat points.
So you have bought your Stout Shield, Quelling Blade, and your Tango's, put your first skill point into Feast and you are now ready to jungle.
Basically you are going to want to clear only small and medium camps until you have 3 points into Feast as taking hard camps costs too much life without rank 3. Start with the easy camp and make SURE to back away for the next spawn to happen as sometimes clearing this camp will stop when the timer reaches 50-55 seconds. Clear it again and take out some medium camps. If you are losing alot of life feel free to use lane creeps to help you clear out the medium camp closest to the lane.
With rank 3 Feast focus on hard camps. Depending on your items you can even take Ancient camps very early as well. I like to try to gank at level 6 with your ultimate by hiding inside an ally and popping out and using Open Wounds on a non suspecting enemy.
A couple notes:
-Using Open Wounds on a creep will allow you to leech even more life. Only do this if you NEED to. Same goes for Rage.
-Do not use your ultimate to kill a creep instantly. Use it to heal or gank.
-If you are being invaded by enemy heroes, 
Observer Ward's will make all the difference and will often save your life. Easily worth the 200g cost.
Lets first talk about which pair of boots to get. Power Treads or 
Phase Boots. My general rule is if you are a new player, many tanky heroes OR facing alot of heroes with burst spells, Treads are the better choice due to the increased lifesteal sustainability and improved hit points. So why would you get Phase? I personally prefer Phase for many reasons. Without Rage or Open Wounds you WILL get kited so Phase help with escaping AND chasing. The attack speed you lose from Phase over Treads is fine because of how fast you attack with Rage. Only get Phase if you are expierienced and know exactly when and when not to use your other skills. You will kill weaker targets faster, mainly Intelligence heroes, with Phase than Treads.
Hand of Midas should be rushed if you are farming well. Yes, get it before your boots. The sooner the better. If you have died a couple times then do not bother with it. The attack speed from it is incredible. The bonus exp and gold is obviously great.
Armlet of Mordiggian. This item is so stupidly good on Lifestealer. Gives you a little bit of everything, both offensively and defensively. The toggle WILL often save your life. I never not get this item. Always get it. I start building it after Hand of Midas but before you finish your boots. Standard 
Boots of Speed are fine until your Armlet is completed.
Skull Basher In my opinion this item is very underrated especially on Lifestealer. The attack speed you get with Rage combined with other items you have make the bash proc quite often. Building it into an Abyssal Blade is good in any game. The ability to stun on command is priceless and the item gives you great damage.
Build Assault Cuirass if you are not the only carry on your team. This item is extremely valuable and benefits your team immensely in team fights. This will make you a freaking machine and your allies will love you for purchasing it.
Buy Desolator when you are fighting enemies with high armor. The reduction is very noticable. This item also wrecks casters. Always a good pick. Synergizes well with Assault Cuirass.
Heart of Tarrasque Great if you are being focused alot in team fights. The HP gain and regeneration it gives you, combined with Feast makes it very easy to stay at full life.
Monkey King Bar Only buy this when facing opponents that can evade like 
Faceless Void, 
Phantom Assassin, 
Brewmaster or heroes with a 
Butterfly.
Mjollnir This item will not only increase your DPS greatly but help you farm faster with the built-in proc of chain lightning. You can also cast it on an ally that is carrying better than you to help your team win fights better.
Lastly, Black King Bar is not a bad item for Lifestealer. Sometimes Rage just isnt enough against teams with VERY heavy crowd control abilities. Gives you damage, health, and more magic immunity. I only buy this if there are more than 5 abilities on the other team that can control you. Dont buy this if you are not familiar with every heroes skills.
Let's just get this out of the way. Some players opt to save Rage after a team fight starts and use it when they think they will need it.
I absolutely disagree with this.
The safest, and my number one rule is use Rage right after you cast Open Wounds. I feel Rage is best used for its magic immunity and not for the attack speed. Using it before you even are in range of your enemy will ENSURE you to get IN range and deal your damage.
If you wait too long to lose it, you sometimes WILL DIE. Be safe and use it straight away.
Now this is something that I argue with people about all the time. Peoples general rule in MOBA games is to focus the enemy teams carry. This makes sense obviously since a team has a hard time winning without one. But I dont agree.
IN MY OPINION, THE ENEMY HERO WITH THE MOST KILLS IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE OTHERS.. I dont care if its a carry, a roamer or a freaking support. You are telling me you would rather focus a 
Phantom Lancer who's score is 0-10 than a 
Crystal Maiden who is 10-0? You are crazy.
Some other things:
-Generally, focusing heroes with the most HP can be better than heroes with lower HP. If you shred alot of HP off the tanky target and your team finishes the weaker one, you just took out 2 heroes instead of 1.
-Good heroes to use Infest with include:
+Blinkers such as Anti Mage and 
Queen of Pain
+Invisible heroes like 
Riki 
Clinkz 
Bounty Hunter and even Phantom Assassin
+By far the best teammate you can have is 
Storm Spirit since 
Ball Lightning is fast and you can come out of nowhere with it.
Enemies to be careful of:
Bane since Fiend's Grip works through Rage and 
Enfeeble hurts your damage output.
Beastmaster with Roar also goes through Rage.
Image heroes such as Phantom Lancer 
Chaos Knight and 
Naga Siren will generally destroy you in a 1v1 situation since Lifestealer has no way to really take out the images quickly.
Leshrac his Diablic Edit is physical and will damage you when raged. Most players dont know this. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE DAMAGE OUTPUT OF THIS SKILL AT RANK 4.
Usually I laugh at and destroy 
Meepo players because of his high skill cap. Most players dont perform well on him. But beware of good Meepo players. Getting attacked by multiple Meepos will kill you before you kill a single one, especially if they can micro.
That is about all the advice I can give. Again I have easily hundreds of games played as Lifestealer and I hope that this guide will help you out.
Right now I feel Lifestealer is a VERY solid pick for both competitive and public play. He is currently a top pick and ban is professional games and is almost always picked or banned.
Few heroes can 1v1 Lifestealer and thats what makes him so much fun. I HATE playing heroes like 
Lina or 
Ogre Magi and seeing a Lifestealer coming at me. I know they will pop Rage and when they do, I know there is nothing I can really do.
I feel Rage is a little bit stronger than it should be with its buff a few patches ago. It used to last 4.5 seconds and now lasts 6. You might think the extra 1.5 seconds doesnt do much but its incredibly noticable and hard to deal with. I expect it to recieve a nerf in the future but if it doesnt, Lifestealer WILL remain a great pick with his current skillset.
Thank you for reading and I look forward for your input and feedback.
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