General Discussion"Your life, is mine now!" Lifestealer Guide

THIS IS A 0 EDIT VERSION. IT'S JUST A WALL OF TEXT WITHOUT ANY FANCY THINGS.

As requested by Melody-san here it is, my N'aix guide. I don't know why exactly this hero was requested as I don't think I'm that good with him and feel like there are some other heroes I have higher success rate with, but whatever. Let's get in to the guide.

Introduction:

N'aix aka Lifestealer is a melee STR hero that plays the role of a carry. He is one of the best heroes in the game and is a very high tier competitive pick. He is very good at the early, mid and even late stages of the game, making him one of the best heroes out there. He is also relatively easy to play as there are not many advanced mechanics about the hero itself.

Pros and Cons:

+ Very good base damage and STR
+ Over average move speed of 315
+ Can play both very aggresive and defensive
+ Can play any roles other than a support
- Very low base armor
- Bad STR gain for a STR hero
- Easily kiteable because of being a melee hero

Skill Build:

There are mainly 3 skill builds for Lifestealer. One for aggresive play, one for defensive play and one for jungle. Although since both Open Wounds and Rage serve both defensive and offensive purposes, on paper aggro skill build means maxing Wounds while defensive means maxing Rage. Hotkeys are NOT legacy.

1) Aggro Skill Build:
E-W-Q-E-E-R-E-Q-Q-Q-R-W.....

You should go for this build when you are on the safe lane and want to get lots of kills on the enemy offlaner. Since you will almost always be safe from death, you don't need to level up rage that much and instead max wounds to get more range and reduce the cooldown to increase your kill potential.

2) Defensive Skill Build:
E-Q-W-Q-E-R-Q-Q-E-E-W.....

Even on defensive build you need open wounds first for first blood possibilities. Also even though this build is supposed to maxe rage first, at least 2 levels of wounds is needed on all builds as 200 range is just terrible. Generally is more viable in trilane vs trilane situations or if you are soloing hardlane.

3) Jungle Skill Build:
W-E-Q-W-E-R-E-E-Q-Q-R-Q-W....

This build is of course for jungle but let me explain some stuff. Jungle ≠ max feast. That's one of the most common pub player mistake. That %1 extra lifesteal won't change anything, but the possibility to gank with wounds is actually a pretty big deal. Also personally I don't recommend jungling him as his laning is too strong to be sacrificed. You should only do it if you have another hard carry in your team.

These builds are only general but the main thing is getting at least 2 levels in wounds, at most 2 levels in feast and changing these builds if need be. For example you can get an extra level of feast in lane if you are getting harassed a lot in lane.

Roles:

As I said above, the hero can play anything from 1 to 3. This is possible because he has high MS and base HP to survive in the hardlane while having a lot of base damage and natural 1v1 material means he can solo against most heroes.

Items:

This hero is so versatile that there are almost no items that go wrong with him so this list will be long.
For starting items you should get a stout shield, 2 branches, a salve and a tango if you are laning. For jungling you need a quelling blade, a stout shield and a tango. If you feel like you will need a lot of regen you can switch 2 branches for a tango/salve as well. Better if you are going solo offlane or going solo against a ranged hero like NP or QoP that can harass you very hard.
You should more often than not get phase boots as combined with your insanely high MS, they may let you get kills even without wounds. Orb of Venom is very good for the same reason as well. For it's cheap price it can get you a lot of kills which is obviously worth it. Treads are sometimes good as well as they give AS and STR but you already have enough AS from rage and STR doesn't really pay off (generally).
Armlet is so good on any STR hero and especially on Lifestealer because he is a lifesteal based hero which means he can negate the effects of degeneration easily. It gives you very good DPS compared to other DPS items also makes you more survivable. Also it's easy to build because of cheap components and all 3 parts can be bought from the side shop.
Next if you went Phase Boots you should get Drums/S&Y for racecar build as it makes you SO fast that it's almost impossible for them to kill you if you can manage to rage in time. Also they give good AS to go with the +24 damage from your boots.
If you went for Treads however, you could go for the old school Basher into Mjollnir build and focus on lightning damage over physical damage. This may not be the best idea as it gets easily countered by a BKB.
No matter what boots you went for, both Basher and AC are terrific items on him. Basher takes away one of the few counters the hero has (which is TP'ing away) while AC gives very good AS and makes your crap armor a decent armor.
For late game you should obviously look to upgrade your Basher into an Abyssal Blade as it is pretty much the best item in the game for melee carries. That BKB-piercing disable can let you get a lot of kills while letting you manfight even heroes like Ursa and Void. It also gives 100 damage which is highest among all items expect Divine Rapier.

Situational Items:

Lifestealer is one of those heroes can that do great both with or without a Hand of Midas. Since he is good at all stages of the game, getting or not getting it only depends on the game. If you want to be aggresive very early or they have a very heavy push line-up, you should instead focus on boots into drums. If they have many carries and you are the only carry in your team you may wanna get a midas as you may need to outcarry 3 guys at the same time. Another thing you should know is jungle Lifestealer ≠ midas Lifestealer. This is also one of the most common mistakes pub players make. No matter how slow the jungle farm is, you may not wanna get a midas if you can be more useful without it.

Other situational items include Orchid, Deso, Halberd, Heart, MKB, Hex, Dagger and SB (for lower level games). I'm not gonna go in detail about these items as it would make the guide very long.

Playstyle:

As a carry you should be focusing on last hits on lane as your first priority. This shouldn't be that hard as your base damage is very high and you are a melee hero means your animation is instant. Still if you feel like it you can get a quelling blade to make your last hits easier. Always try to play aggresive on lane because this hero has a huge snowball potential. Be careful about creep harass as your armor is very low early on.

During the mid game try to balance farming and N'aix bombing with your blink hero. The best way to do this is to kill the enemy carry and farming during his respawn time. Then you should try to gank him again. Always go in first. Remember to pop rage. Even though it's insta-cast, some insta-cast disables like orchid can ruin your day. So be manly but be careful at the same time.

Late game try to go balls deep against their carry. If it's a hero who can't really manfight, that's even easier for you. If you had a good early game, you should have enough farm to kill them during the rage time. As the game goes later and later, more people will have force staffs and ghost scepters to counter you. So don't try to take it to ultra late game. If they have an absurd amount of disables consider getting a BKB.

Counters:

Lifestealer doesn't have many counters but he still has some. Mainly BKB-piercing disables like Fiend's Grip and Primal Roar or a simple TP scroll. Other things that counter him are force staffs, ghost scepters, orchids and hexes. He is easly kitable which makes force staff so good against him. His only source of damage is physical (expect Infest) means he can't do anything against etheral targets. Also heroes who don't care about his slow or win a manfight versus him are not good for him. This list includes Weaver, Meepo, Batrider and Veno for very easily kiting him and Troll who rapes him in a 1v1. Ursa gets a special mention as he eats Lifestealer alive which isn't what you want. You want it to be the other way around.

Tips:

There aren't many advanced mechanics about the hero as I already said but there are still some things to remember:
* Unlike rage, wounds and infest has a 0.2 seconds cast time. Although this may not seem huge, it can sometimes be a big deal.
* You can infest mud golems and you will still get HP from them.
* You won't get HP from infesting friendly creeps.

Players to watch:

I would recommend watching XBOCT and EE. They have been quite successful with the hero and I guess they are pretty good with the hero. EE plays a more greedy one with midas while XBOCT sometimes gets a midas but sometimes goes full aggro with phase into drums. Era used to play a very good lifestealer as well. But he didn't play him for a very long time. You still could watch his replays though.