Lifestealer is an extremely effective hero when it comes to destroying beefy heroes in the game. Due to his high sustain using rage and lifesteal, he can stay alive for a long time. Hence, radiance makes a lot of sense because not only you do passive damage during all the time you are alive – you also get miss chance making you more viable in the game.
So learn today on how you can improve your life stealer gameplay and destroy pubs with it.
Get your free MMR while it is hot. 😉
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Dota 2 Lifestealer Hero Guide:
Let me take you through this amazing journey: Dota 2 offers many amazing heroes to choose from. And if you want to know which hero is your “comfort hero” just try to think which hero you would pick in the most important game of your life and you will see the answer! 😉
Lifestealer becomes a beast after early phase boots with radiance and afterward, you can just solo carry the whole game if you play your cards right. And this is the thing I love the most about Lifestealer. He gives me a free BKB with his first skill and hence I can dodge a ton of spells with it. I can slow running enemies with my third and crush high hp offers offlaners in the lane with my second.
So, all in all, it is a complete package for me. But my favourite skill has to be infest. I love killing enemies with flashy infest bombs!
How Lifestealer became my favourite Dota 2 Hero:
The very reason that Lifestealer became my favorite hero is because of his ultimate. So, it was a typical day of playing Dota. I picked life stealer because it seemed to counter their whole line up. I was up against an axe. The lane was going great. I was wrecking him. I hit level 6 and decided to go for him.
I started to lay it on him. He was literally 2 hits away from death but went into the fog and began to tp after his Berserker’s Call which gives tons of armor and I knew I couldn’t kill him with right clicks. And then suddenly I saw an enemy creep which aggroed me because I was hitting him and it suddenly hit me – I instantly infest bombed the creep and barely got the kill, and after that moment I knew this hero is my all-time favorite now! 😉
Let me show you my playstyle with Lifestealer and which lane I choose.
My Play-Style with Lifestealer:
The way I play Lifestealer is a bit risky but yields a fantastic result after its price is paid. So, first of all, I try and rush Hand of Midas as fast as possible. Once it is completed, you just increase your farm speed by a lot for the rest of the match. Then, the next step for me is to go for phase boots and radiance asap. If I think I can get away with only brown boots or no boots at all, I just build radiance first. After radiance, you just need to go ham on the enemy team.
Situational Items:
If I feel like enemies have tons of lockdown, I build Sange and Yasha next because it helps me to tank up a bit and also gives me that precious status resistance. If the enemy lacks stuns I just go for Desolator first if they have no escapes, otherwise, Basher is my priority. When I get these items, I feel like I am unkillable, and I just dive heroes left and right.
My last slot is mostly filled with Assault Cuirass or Eye of Skadi depending upon the matchup I am up against. The most important thing for me is to get the Midas as early as possible because it controls the entire tempo of the game for me, so it is my number one priority at the start. An early Midas = An easy win. For the sixth slot, Midas can be sold later and replaced with an extra late-game item.
Here is a screenshot of a typical lategame build from me:
My Lane Choice for Lifestealer:
I almost every time go for the safe lane because you tend to lane against high hp offlane heroes. That means you are able to trade really good against them because of your second skill feast. I rarely switch to offlane, because of some broken hero pairs – such as the Axe and Omni combo. They destroy you in the lane and believe me when I say this. 😀
If there are no weird broken heroes for me to lane against, I always prefer safe lane because you can easily farm there with support and rush that important Midas more effectively because I can just clear the wave and go to the jungle for a happy (stacked) medium creep camp. And it’s just a repeat of this till 12-15 mins. After my radiance, I just leave the laning phase altogether and fight with my enemies. You absolutely DO NOT want to the jungle after your radiance it’s the worst possible thing you can do!
How to play in Early-, Mid- and Lategame and which Items to choose from:
Your early game items can vary a tiny bit depending upon the lane, but my usual are these. If you are up against a spell spammer like Bristleback, you might wanna swap the quelling with a Magic Stick and then, later on, buy it from the secret shop on the safe lane. You can also swap the branches for another set of tangoes or even a salve depending upon the lane. 
How you wanna play the early game is by harassing the offlaner as much as you can with the help of your support while not missing CS. It seems really hard but you can do this by only hitting the enemy with your support when he comes to hit your creeps. You need to keep the creeps closer to your tower by aggro or by pulling.
Mid Game Items:
You need to rush Midas if you think you can get away with it. Like not needing to make boots first because your team is owning somewhere else on the map. After finishing Midas, you can go for Phase Boots and Radiance and so your mid-game items will look like this: 
To secure these items, you need to improve your farming patterns. After getting Midas clear waves as soon as possible then go into the jungle: Clear as many camps as you can before the next creep wave arrives and then afterward it’s just rinsed and repeat. You buy Phase Boots, and then you buy Radiance or vice versa.
After getting Radiance you need to gather your team to make moves on the map, you can no longer waste time. Because this is a major spike for Lifestealer, the power curve is up to you now: You need to find enemies and kill them. If you play with friends, make sure that they understand the gameplan before you choose Lifestealer.
Late Game Items:
Your late game items can vary depending upon the enemies and the stage of the game you are at. You can think of it as if you need to push and do more DMG, desolator is good. If you need to lock down enemies, Basher is good. Or if you need some survivability Sange and Yasha is good, but you need it after Radiance, because it’s not that effective later on.
If you are pushing, you can just rage and kill buildings. You can also opt for a Mjollnir for attack speed. But whatever you do, you need to end the game before it goes to the ultra late game because you cap out and other carries can just wreck your team and kill you afterward, so that is the scenario you need to avoid.
How to act in the Late Game:
In the late game, infest allies and initiate with that because otherwise you can just get kitted or waste rage for a just closing gap. So, infesting your best-allied initiator and the party can start.
Afterward, you wanna rage and kill the supports because you can just burst to kill them really quickly with all that damage. If your team is far ahead also the enemy carry can be ganged, but killing supports is the main objective after infest bombing you need to use that rage time really seriously.
Skill Order to go for with Lifestealer:
You wanna start with a feast at level 1 because it will help you harass the enemy better and make trades more favorable for you, especially if you are facing high hp heroes which you will usually be doing. Then you need feast to slow and kill enemies or at least zone them out with your support. The skill build for early levels can be 1 3 1 or 0 3 2 depending upon your situation. 
Then you wanna skill infest at 6. And what I like to do is to run in the jungle and clear a big camp with it as it instantly kills the big creep this can increase your farm speed a bit. So, if push comes to shove, you can even go to the jungle and farm creeps with it. If you get low, you can open wounds creeps to heal. You can farm fast with rage. And infest to clear camps quickly.
Level 10 Talent Tree Choice:
After hitting 10, you need to take the attack speed talent because you pretty much don’t have enough attack speed at this point. Phase Boots does not give attack speed, but Hand of Midas does, but afterward, you will be saving for radiance which doesn’t provide attack speed either, so it is better to just invest in this point early on. And after this, you need to max your rage because you will be getting to the radiance point and you need to fight afterward so rage will help a lot you can max open wounds at last.
Level 15 and 20 Talent Tree Choice:
For your level 15 talent, the choice is yours if you are getting kited a lot, movement speed is better; otherwise, you can take the damage. You need to infest, gank and kill people at this point and rack up those items and levels along with it. At level 20, evasion is better because it makes you tanky and makes the enemy carries life hard because if they decide to go on you, they will be missing attacks and might need even to make an MKB just to deal with you. So, its a plus you occupied their slot with just this talent.
Level 25 Talent Tree Choice:
Lastly, you ABSOLUTELY need the +2 sec rage talent. In no way shape or form do you go for the other talent because it actually doesn’t do enough to be viable? Your DPS increases way too much with the +2 sec rage. That’s an 8-sec BKB with 10-sec cooldown! Enemy carries won’t even have that much duration with their BKB purchased. And you get this for free.
Tips and Tricks to Finally Win the Game with Lifestealer:
Playing lifestealer is not recommended for Dota 2 beginner players.
So, in order to win the game the things you need to keep in mind is that Dota 2 is a really complicated game and evolves patch by patch, and every game is also not the same, so you need to learn from your experiences and change your playstyle and items from game to game and this is what separates the pro’s from average players.
Aside from that, you need to know your spikes (at which point of the game you are superstrong) and need to use them well. For example, getting early Radiance is a spike for Lifestealer, getting ultimate is also a spike. The farm won’t always win you the game, if you ignore fights and keep on farming, the enemies will eventually catch up to you, and you will lose. To succeed with Lifestealer you need to increase the gap between the enemy and you as much as you can, and this is done by getting the item you need and then just by pressing the issue, winning fights, suffocating the heroes in their base and then eventually winning the game.
Not by going AFK in the jungle and by leaving it up to the team if they can fend off the enemies on their own. This strategy might work when you are playing anti mage but not for Lifestealer.
Synergies and Counters for Lifestealer:
Supports:
If you are looking for a support hero together with Lifestealer, Dazzle works really well because with his first skill he slows the enemies and also refreshes the spell duration upon hitting the enemy on top of that he also has a heal, and a save. You can pretty much destroy any lane with this combo. Some other supports together wit Lifestealer can be Omni, Dark Willow, Bane, Ogre, Oracle, etc.
Mid Heroes:
Heroes other than supports can be Queen of Pain. Because Qop is an extraordinarily aggressive and mobile mid laner and you can destroy the whole enemy line up with her. You infest her and then she blinks in screams and ulties. You can follow with an infest bomb then destroying remaining enemies with rage and open wounds. Storm Spirit, Dragon Knight, Death Prophet can offer a similar advantage.
Dangerous Counters:
A hero that you absolutely need to avoid is Enigma. He can destroy you in the lane and also later on. In the lane, the Eidolons can hit you for tons of damage, and they are ranged, and if the player is right, he can just kite you with them. Later on, the Midnight Pulse + Blackhole can simply destroy your whole kit. You are high hp hero, so the pure percentage damage from Midnight Pulse hurts a lot on top of that you cannot evade Blackhole neither can you counter it. Moreover, your job is to run at people, and the fear of Black Hole can destroy your whole tempo of the game. Other counters can be Razor, Morphling, Slardar, Riki, etc. So, you need to avoid picking Lifestealer when these heroes are in the game. At the start just go for the ban of one of them.
Conclusion, Advice and Tips
No hero in Dota would be a perfect or sure win – if there were – everyone would be picking it. 😉 So, you need to understand your hero and your enemies’ heroes as well to be able to win and gain that juicy MMR rank. Find all Dota 2 ranks here:
You need to cash in on your spikes and decided when to farm and when to fight. Itemize according to the situation and decide beforehand whom you will be initiating on in the fights. All of this combined is guaranteed to win you 100’s if not 1000’s of MMR.
So, all in all, GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN because this is what Dota is all about. GLHF.
Leave a comment below for any feedback, your Solo_Leveling.
