Jungle lifestealer guide, with a heavy emphasis on how to jungle

Awesome guide, I'm pretty new to the game and this was all straight forward, easy to understand and very helpful.

+1!

Lifesteal items as rejected. Dude please! Sange and Yasha and Desolator rejected? That's to much, although I don't do a Desolator but there are other players who do it. Helm of the Dominator, Vladmir's Offering, Mask of Madness and Satanic. If you pick one of these or mostly Satanic, Lifestealer will have insane lifesteal and can go 1 vs 3 man.

If desolator and SnY were actually good, lifestealer would be a top candidate for using them, but currently, there isn't a single hero in the game that should buy them.

completely disagree with this
sniper pwns with this thing

Good guide. I've ended up jungling lifestealer quite a lot in pubs when randoming, because people have some kind of aversion to picking supports a lot of the time. This definitely helps!

I just disagree with a couple of the item decisions:
- Lifestealer is in my opinion a pretty sub-par carrier for medallion. He has already very little armor, so using this at the start of the fight (in order to get the most use out of the debuff) is a no-no if there is any danger of getting focused. Heroes who can't get focused easily, have already minus-armor abilities or have some kind of natural armor enhancement are much better suited (weaver, venge, visage...). For survivability and mana, I'd say drums are a much better item. They give you some hp and damage, much needed int (which does more for you than 50% you get from medallion) and movespeed which is crucial for not being kited.
- Lifestealer's biggest issue is running down his targets (esp if people get forcestaffs/ghostscepters), that's the reason most pro lifestealers go for "racecar" builds, using phaseboots, drums and sange&yasha. The reason that SnY is good on lifestealer is simply the movespeed it provides (and sange is anyway great on him, as evidenced by heaven's halberd being in your build, also remember that SnY can be disassembled if you want to go halberd lategame)
- Lifestealer gets innate damage from feast, that means attack speed is actually somewhat more important than raw damage. That's why mjollnis and assault cuirass (as more defensive option) should likely be prioritized over something like deadalus. Also, they pair wonderfully with basher which helps you even more in locking a target down and prevents people from simply TPing out from you.

I don't think your build is in any way bad. In fact, it's pretty powerful. These are just some additional considerations, maybe also inspiration for an alternative "build 2" ;) Anyway, +1 for now!

Rejecting desolator is silly. Armor reduction is better the more of it you have, and given feast is also physical damage desolator is an incredible mid-game item for lifestealer.

Also if you're the only one who isn't feeding then midas is a bad idea. Chances are you're going to have to try and fight early or the game will be over before you get online with a midas.

I think it's worth mentioning the "race car" build that is popular in pro games- SnY is core in that build, I think putting it in the rejected section could be somewhat confusing.

This is quite an awesome guide! I'm really new to the game and yet I understood pretty much everything; it's very helpful! I just have a slight problem : you put rage lvl 2 in the build then you talk about getting open wounds at lvl 2 in the rest of the guide, is it dependent on the situation?

+1! please fill out those 'later's :D

Very good guide, the 'picking targets' part is particularly useful!
Only thing I do different is buying Salve instead of Tango, since it heals more. Just by being sure to use it when you have ~400 life lost, you are good to go.

+1!

I created a dotafire profile for the sole purpose of giving your guide a positive vote. It's one of the best guides I've seen, and I found the detailed jungling section to be very concise and informative.

Thanks for your efforts.

Great guide, very descriptive, love the detailed jungle portion and which items to go with depending on the situation.

+1 for post on choke point jungles - I jungle a lot and use them in Dota1, I didn't think you could for d2, much easier to jungle with people like Bloodseeker, Ursa Dark Seer (but not so much).
+1 indeed..