Roam lifestealer

Introduction

Lifestealer is a strength carry with an awesome jungling capability, thanks to Feast one free BKB, courtesy of Rage, a Slow/heal ( Open Wounds) and one of the most Anticlimatic but useful ultimates ever... Infest. The bad part is his very low armor, the very low early lane presence and any support can escape if you don�t kill them fast enough ... you are pretty much like Ursa.

As a roamer you need to get the Blink Dagger really fast, and need to pay a lot of atention to the 3 lines (you are in the jungle ,so this is pretty easy), always carry a TP to go to any line with trouble (priorize the dagger but if is really necessary,GO), And unlike every roamer your strong point is the Counter-gank YOU AREN´T A BEAST, YOU ARE THE HERO.

Why i should pick Lifestealer

• The enemy don´t have a Bounty Hunter(He punishes the jungler heros really bad) or a lot of Evasive heroes( Storm Spirit, Puck).
• The enemy team have a Tank offlaner(Centaur warruner) or carry ( Spectre)
• Your team has a Support offlaner( Dark Seer)
• Nobody expects a Roaming Lifestealer
• You scale really well into the Late-game

Common scenarios

Early Game (before 10 min)

Things are OK: You should farm until you get the Blink Dagger, Medallion of Courage, Boots of Speed and Orb of Venom. The moment you get those you start roaming You get killed:10 min is your limit, so the Blink Dagger, Boots of Speed and Orb of Venom are fine, you start roaming at that time.You could ignore the boots for the first gank, but you need to get them real quick Your team is getting destroyed:the moment you see a 0-4, you buy Boots of Speed, Orb of Venom and a Town Portal Scroll to get fast into any fight you see, and you should jungle closer to the hard carry line ( if you are dire farm closer to the top lane or bottom if you are radiant)

Roaming (10 - 25 min)

Things are ok : After the first gank get a tp and start getting your first core( Armlet of Mordiggian, Skull Basher or Maelstrom). You probably are level 6 or more, so when you go to the mid lane always make a detour(if your ultimate is off CD) to the ancient camp to get gold(bottom>mid go to the dire ancients, top>mid go to the radiant). The Town Portal Scroll is reserved for Helping only (observer wards are really important in this stage) so before they start the gank, use the TP to go to that lane and be ready for the action. Lines are losing horribly:Get a Town Portal Scroll And start ganking the Safe lane(if your team Hard carry is a priority) or shutdown the enemy team Hard carry(if yours lose in the Lategame).They are probably trying to get kills without a gank so be ready to punish them. ]They know how to gank: If they are the ones ganking, then you are your Hard carry´s knight in a disgusting armor,so keep close to him(keep farming) and be ready to tp if they are ganking another line (WARDS ARE IMPORTANT).Never tp if you cant see the gank before, it´s useless. After helping the other line get back to your Hard carry.

Late game(25 to end)

Things are OK: Always start the fight by infesting your initiator or start the fight yourself with Rage and then Infest to get away if thing go wrong.Any kill your team gets PUSH A LINE or kill roshan. You can Infest other people(like the support) to play mind games with the enemy team. Always keep the pressure and make space if your team Hard carry is Insane in the Late game( Medusa) but finish it fast if you can(if you lose the opportunity to win, you are going to have a hard time) You are losing: Secure your Hard carry farm, sacrifice yourself if that secures his life,because you lose to every agility hard carry. if the conditions are fulfilled get The "i´m losing,but my hard carry wins later" build, if they don´t then get the normal carry build

Skills

How it works:This is your Free Black King Bar and comes with a decent AS boost, so use it like you would use a Black King Bar on fights, Only when the enemy have a disable, because you can purge almost any negative effect with it (slows, damage reduction, miss debuff) you can use it for killing an enemy a little bit faster. If the enemy team has a Riki or Silencer you can be a little more trigger happy with it. In any case never overuse it, Lifestealer has a very low mana pool and you don´t want to go back to the base that often.

How it works: The Jungle Skill(pasive) and later on it turns you into a Tank killer machine,because it does extra damage based on the current health of the target on any attack you do(and you heal yourself by that amount), it stacks really well with a Daedalus because that damage can critic.

How it works: The slow/heal skill. In the Early/Mid you can use it to save any allies if you pay enough atention since ANY damage done to the objective Heals. that includes magic damage. Example: your teammate Lion is low and you Open Wounds the enemy and he casts Finger of Death, Lion gets healed enough to make a turn around, or to run away safe. In the Jungle stage you can use it to kill The red hellbear(Tomato for friends) just use it on him and hit it to death, the heal compensates for high damage it does. And When ganking just Blink Dagger to the enemy and Open Wounds

How it works: This allows you to Enter inside an ally hero or a creep(even ancients and enemy ones) in the time you are inside you are invulnerable and you can use Explode to deal damage in a short area(the creeps heal you and die) and is the Main farm skill in the early/mid, use it any time you can to clear an ancient camp when roaming since it give you 300-400 gold in 15 seconds( Infest the big ancient , explode and kill the rest).In the late game, it can Help you to get inside the fights quick and dealing damage in the process, or to get away in an enemy creep

How it works: This is a part of your ultimate. when you are inside a creep (non-hero) you can control it. this is pretty useful to escape when you are out of options

Items(early and mid)

Why: Your main reason to get the phase is the 24 damage boost, if you think convenient you can make Treads instead(You can initiate with the treads on intelligence and then switch them to strenght to make you more stable in the roaming stage).

Why: Is an awesome item on Lifestealer, it gives you 7 armor in the early game (you need it really bad), and in the ganks you can use it to decrease the armor of the enemy by 7(you lose the armor boost temporaly) and finally it gives you 50% mana regeneration and that gives you a little bit more stability in the roaming stage

Why:This is a really good item for the price (275 gold) it gives you a 12% slow, and is a lot better than it sounds, since 340 is the average MS you reduce it to 299 , you practically remove the boots, so he spends 450 in a item you ignore for 275. and it does a little bit of damage too.

Why:One of the 2 alternatives in this build. This is a little cheaper than the Shadow Blade and is an instant initiation(blink) and an obvious item if you need to get out off the jungle quick. The bad part, this item don´t give you anything more. and is a little tricky to escape with this since any attack disables this for 3 seconds but Infest can help you with that( Infest>wait 3 seconds>explode>blink)

Why:if they don´t have a detection hero( Slardar , Bounty Hunter) this is a good alternative to the Blink Dagger,but the main reason you should consider getting a Shadow Blade is to make a Silver Edge(an upgrade) since that disables the enemy hero pasives for a few seconds.to make full use of its active skill(invisibility) you need to hit someone(while invisible) for an extra 150 damage. If the enemy has Dust, sentry wards or a Gem of True Sight this is almost useless to initiate or escape

Why: This is a useful item. It grants you the chance to stun an enemy on every hit. You should consider ignore this item if you want to build a Monkey King Bar.If the enemy has a lot of Escape heroes this item is more important than a Monkey king bar, because the upgrade gives you the ability to stun an enemy for 2 seconds(enough to kill Escape heroes)

Why: the most common item for Lifestealer, it gives you 2 important things (damage and HP), and the drawback (Hp drain while active) is countered by Feast(feast heals you as quick). You should try to learn the "Armlet toggle".The first item to get in the "I´m losing but my carry wins later" build

Why: This is the first item to get if the enemy team has a illusion based hero.The Maelstrom gives you the chance to release a magical lighting and it hits 8 targets

Carry build items

Why: This is a really important item, it helps you to kill tanks faster(The Feast damage can critic) and it helps you to kill Escape heroes quickly enough(since they don´t have high HP Feast is a almost useless, but the critics Help you with that)

Why:This is a useful item because of its active(stuns the target for 2 seconds) and it Ignores the magic immunity( Black King Bar). just be careful with LINKEN´s SPHERE(linken can negate a target skill every 16 seconds) and your abbysal would be wasted so wait until the linken is gone and then use it. When ganking you can use Open Wounds and then Abbysal,because Linken negates the open wounds but not the abbysal´s active

Why: This item is another no-brainer. It gives 55 AS and 15 armor(20 AS and 5 armor to your nearby allies) and a 5 armor reduction to your enemies, Lifestealer needs the armor. The only reason you should not get this is because a teammate got it before(the auras don´t stack and its wasted).

Why:This gives you a gigantic AS boost and the chance to release a chain lighting on every hit, The Lifestealer needs the Attack speed more than the damage because more hits means more Feast(and that means more damage).Also you can use its active to give someone(you , preferably) a Lighting shield.It also helps you to destroy illusion based heroes, because the lightings help you getting rid of the illusions fast.

Replacements

Why: The Shadow Blade upgrade, it gives you a chance to slow on every hit but the important part is its active, is an invisibilty that works the same way Shadow Blade does but it gives you 2 bonus effects : -silence the pasives(good bye Phantom assasin´s Blur or Faceless Void´s backtrack ) -reduce the damage they do by 40% you need to hit them before the invisibility wears off to applie the debuffs Replace the Blink Dagger.

Why: gives you a pasive lifesteal(stacks with yours), Damage and HP. This gives you more Tankiness and a insane active ability, you boost the lifesteal of this item from 25% to 200% per hit for a few seconds. Use it when you are really low to go to full life in 2 hits. Replace the Assault Cuirass.

Why: The only real reason to get this is because you couldn´t afford a Shadow Blade in the early game.because all the miss efects( Brewmaster beer, Tinker´s Laser) you can purge that with Rage , and the pasive Evasion you can disable with a [[Silver edge]. The other reason is because they have a obvious Butterfly carrier(Drow, Anti-mage). Replace the Abbysal blade.

I´m losing but my carry wins later

Items:
First of all don´t sell the Medallion of Courage you need it to make a Solar Crest, to help your team carry if the situation arises(it gives them 10 armor and 20% evasion) and
you need to get Armlet of Mordiggian to get tankier in the fights and to boost your damage, since you can´t gank you don´t need the basher(the stun chance is more useful when they are escaping) and the Maelstrom is useless in this situation, The next item should be a Heaven´s halberd if they got a physical carry (always) or a Vladimir´s offering if your team Hard carry is meele , if you didn´t get the Vladimir´s offering get a Helm of dominator and lastly you need a Assault Cuirass to boost your team armor and AS.
Playstyle:
Before the 12 min mark you should think if this situation can happen, They have a Bloodseeker and your team carry is Anti-Mage or they have a Gyrocopter and your team carry is Spectre, this situation is incredibly probable so you need to get a Armlet of Mordiggian first to be prepared for the worst.
At this point you just need to adjust your playstyle, try to take it easy and focus on your carry and in his survivality, forget the other people, make sure they get the most important item(Linken´s sphere,Battlefury, Radiance) then start to move to the other people.
If you couldn´t make it then don´t be mad , you expected, at this point make sure the "We need to keep fighting" guy don´t drag the other people in his suicide missions and boost the morale on "GG guys finish it" guy somehow. In other words AVOID ANY OBVIOUSLY LOST TEAMFIGHT like: Let´s chase the support into the enemy jungle, or We won a teamfight in our base, that means we can go into the tier 3 tower an won again.
Tell the support you need wards in the jungle and give the carry all the farm you can get you need to focus on buying the most affordable items on the list.
In the Teamfights:
Always in the tier 3 NEVER FIGHT IN THE JUNGLE OR IN THE TIER 2, at the start activate Armlet of Mordiggian blink and use Rage and try to be always hitting someone to drag attention to you,When you see the ocation use Open Wounds to indicate the autoclick objective (never start the fight with Open Wounds you are going to need it for the team Lifesteal) if they start to run you do it too, unless you are in a 3v5 situation but if you do this and they buyback RETREAT INMEDIATLY, that would be the best case, you force a buyback, kill 1 or 2 and get away alive , and then start defending again

Team and synergies

The lifestealer has 2 weakness as a roamer, he can´t build support items and his lack of disables. so this is my advice:

• You need a Support offlaner, or a really good support.
• You should priorize protecting more than killing, and that´s why you need a Hard carry
• And You are the best at disrupting tanks(offlaners)
• The first gank is the easiest, nobody is going to expect it so choose well the objective

• Dark Seer-A support offlaner, and the Ion Shell has a good synergy with Open Wounds
• Medusa- Any gank attempted at her could easily turned into 1 - 2 kills with a combination of gaze and Feast and if the enemy tries to run away just use open wounds to kill them.
• Storm Spirit- the ganking machine, just Infest and use lighting ball to go to the target position

How to gank 101

First you need observer wards to be sure the enemy isn´t expecting the gank, and a Smoke of Deceit is useful if the enemy team knows how to play and got wards in a good place, but ... the 3 lanes are never warded at the same time, always assume the 2 runes have a ward and the hard carry has 1 defensive too, and they almost never ward the Offlane, this is one of the best chance, you could also get a Smoke of Deceit to kill the enemy hard carry.
To gank you TELL the people you are going to gank to archieve better results, when they are in position, you blink to the objective and use the Medallion of Courage, the Open Wounds is used better after the support stuns or use it before to make time until the get there. Only use Rage if that secures the kill.