Lifesteal

• Health
• Mana
• Health Regeneration
• Mana Regeneration
• Lifesteal
• Spell Lifesteal
• Restoration Manipulation
• Changelogs

“

▶️ Your life is mine now. — Lifestealer

”

Lifesteal heals the attacking unit while damaging an enemy. Certain attack modifiers that deal damage in a single instance as the attack damage may conditionally Lifesteal. A unit can gain Lifesteal from abilities, items or talents granting percentage-based values (e.g. Morbid Mask).

Definition

Mechanics	Aspect / Definition	Examples
Lifesteal	Heals the attacking unit while damaging an enemy with the unit's physical attack damage. Does not heal from magical attack damage. Instant attack heals the attacking unit as long as the instant attack can be affected by attack modifiers.	Lifesteal
Pseudo-Lifesteal	Heals the unit conditionally using lifesteal following all properties of the mechanics.	Bodyguard
Lifesteal Manipulation	Manipulates the healing values of lifesteal sources.	Sange
Spell Lifesteal	Heals the unit while damaging an enemy with spell damage. Heals the attacking unit while damaging an enemy with the unit's magical attack damage.	Voodoo Mask

Total Lifesteal

Percentage-based lifesteal sources from items, abilities, and talents stack independently and additively of each other after the sources' respectively creep lifesteal multiplier. All lifesteal sources are summed up, then lifesteal amplification is applied to the unit's lifesteal value as a multiplier. All lifesteal manipulation sources stack multiplicatively of each other.

The heal value from lifesteal is based on a percentage of the total physical attack damage dealt to the attacked unit from the attacking unit. Therefore, if an attack damage instance exceeds the target's current health and kills it, the heal value is based on the attack damage value the dying target would have received if it had not died. Lifesteal heals more on critical strike procs and works conditionally on certain attack modifiers.

Neither heals from magical attack damage sources (e.g. Monkey King Bar procs) nor spell damage sources of all damage types. Lifesteal only heals from physical and pure attack damage.

Instant attacks hitting secondary targets can heal from lifesteal as long as attack modifiers work with the instant attack source.

However, the heal value from lifesteal is not affected by most damage manipulation effects on the attacked target (e.g. Flesh Golem or Aeon Disk). For example, for illusions, their heal value from lifesteal is based on their outgoing damage manipulation values (i.e. total attack damage of the illusion), but the heal value from attacking illusions is not affected by the incoming damage manipulation values (i.e. attacking illusions).

There are currently no limits to how much a unit can heal from lifesteal.

Percentage-based lifesteal sources from items heals for 40% of their usual value when attacking creeps. Treats attack against clones, illusions and creep-heroes as heroes, attacks against Roshan as creeps.

Calculating the total lifesteal value of a unit involves using a few values and a multiplier and can be defined as:

• Total Lifesteal
  • ± Lifesteal Sources
    • × Creep Lifesteal Multiplier
  • + Shared Lifesteal Sources
    • × Creep Lifesteal Multiplier
    • × Source Lifesteal Amplification
  • × Wielder Lifesteal Amplification

Lifesteal Manipulation

Main Article: Lifesteal Manipulation

Lifesteal manipulation affects every source of Lifesteal. All sources of lifesteal manipulation - whether incoming or outgoing - stack diminishingly, and have a higher and lower limit of 100% and -100% respectively.

Lifesteal Manipulation neither affects Spell Lifesteal nor Spell Lifesteal Manipulation sources.

Lifesteal Manipulation Sources

• Orb of Corrosion – Corrosion
• Drow Ranger – Frost Arrows^2a
• Eye of Skadi – Cold Attack
• Kaya and Sange – Lifesteal Amp
• Pudge – Rot^2b
• Sange – Lifesteal Amp
• Sange and Yasha – Lifesteal Amp
• Shiva's Guard – Freezing Aura
• Spirit Vessel – Soul Release

¹ Requires talent.

^2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires Aghanim's Shard.

Equations

The amount of healing granted from lifesteal to the attacking unit is calculated by a percentage of the

Total Heal = Total Attack Damage Dealt × Total Lifesteal-%based

Total Lifesteal = Self Lifesteal Amplification × <math>\prod_{i=1}^{n}</math>(Lifesteal-%based × Creep Multiplier)_i + <math>\prod_{i=1}^{n}</math>(Source Lifesteal Amplification × Shared Lifesteal-%based × Creep Multiplier)_i

Conditional Attack Damage Bonus

Main Article: Conditional Attack Damage Bonus

These abilities give direct attack damage bonuses under certain circumstances, these bonuses are not displayed in the HUD and its damage type is not limited to physical damage; nonetheless, they are considered as attack damage since it is dealt in one instance together with a unit's attack damage. Only physical conditional attack damage bonuses increases the healing value from lifesteal.

Sources

Lifesteal Ability Sources

• Broodmother – Insatiable Hunger
• Chaos Knight – Chaos Strike
• Dawnbreaker – Luminosity
• Juggernaut – Blade Dance¹
• Legion Commander – Moment of Courage
• Lifestealer – Feast
• Lifestealer – Open Wounds
• Lycan – Wolf Bite
• Monkey King – Jingu Mastery³
• Satanic – Unholy Rage
• Troll Warlord – Battle Trance
• Wraith King – Vampiric Spirit

¹ Requires talent.

^2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires Aghanim's Shard.

Lifesteal Ability Sources (Does not Heal from Overkill Damage)

• Marci – Sidekick

Items

Lifesteal Item Sources

• Mask of Madness – Lifesteal
• Morbid Mask – Lifesteal
• Paladin Sword – Lifesteal
• Satanic – Lifesteal
• Vampire Fangs – Lifesteal
• Vladmir's Offering – Vladmir's Aura

Talents

Lifesteal

Ability
Passive

Affects
Self

There is no description for this ability.

Lifesteal: Varies

Illusion Notes:

Lifesteal is not functional despite particles being visible.

NOTES

 

432, 6158, 433, 6289, 785, 6078, 6111, 6121, 8011, 7896, 6721

special_bonus_lifesteal_8/10/12/15/18/20/25/30/35/40/100

• Grants the hero's attack lifesteal, healing them based on the attack damage they deal.

• Stacks additively with other lifesteal sources.

• Cannot lifesteal off of wards, buildings and allied units.

• The following lifesteal values exist:
  • 8%/10%/12%/15%/18%/20%/25%/30%/35%/40%/100%

The following heroes have a talent that grants them lifesteal.

Bonus	Level 10		Level 15		Level 20		Level 25
	Left	Right	Left	Right	Left	Right	Left	Right
Lifesteal			15%

Pseudo-Lifesteal

Some lifesteal sources work differently and conditionally, their mechanics are unique to the sources themselves. More information can be found in their ability's respective notes.

• Lifestealer - Open Wounds
  
  Heals everyone for all the damage they deal to the debuffed target, including spell damage.
• Lone Druid - Spirit Link
  
  Heals Lone Druid based on the attack damage dealt by his Spirit Bear.
  When cast on an allied hero, the Ability Upgrade heals the affected target based on the attack damage dealt by Lone Druid instead.
• Lycan - Wolf Bite
  
  The lifesteal is granted to the ally immediately upon cast. Grants regular lifesteal and shared lifesteal to both, the caster and the target.
  The shared lifesteal heals both the caster and target as long as they do not exceed the penalty distance.
• Marci - Sidekick
  
  The lifesteal is granted to the ally immediately upon cast. Grants regular lifesteal and shared lifesteal to both, the caster and the target. Applies penalty multiplier to both the lifesteal and shared lifesteal values when the distance between Marci and the affected target exceeds the penalty distance.

Spell Lifesteal

Main Article: Spell Lifesteal

Spell lifesteal allows the hero to heal from spell damage they deal. Just like attack damage lifesteal, spell lifesteal is calculated by a percentage of the actual damage done to units. However, unlike attack damage lifesteal, it does not heal for overkill damage dealt to a unit, so if a spell's damage exceeded the target's current health and killed it, the heal is based on the target's remaining health.

Gallery

• 

  Regular lifesteal particles

• 

  Spell lifesteal particles

Recent Changes

Main Article: Lifesteal/Changelogs

Version

Description

7.38
(2025-02-19)

Individual abilities no longer have special rules about how lifesteal works in different situations (heroes vs creeps vs illusions, damage types, etc.). Lifesteal mechanics are now consistent across every ability:

Lifesteal applies to physical damage from attacks and is reduced by 40% when damaging non-heroes Spell Lifesteal now applies to physical damage from spells and magical damage from spells or attacks and is reduced by 80% when damaging non-heroes Neither Lifesteal nor Spell Lifesteal applies to pure damage Holding Alt while looking at items that provide Lifesteal or Spell Lifesteal will show the lifesteal percentages for attacking and casting spells, and targeting creeps vs heroes The following sources and targets do not provide any lifesteal Attacks that do not proc Attack Modifiers Attack damage against wards, buildings, or couriers Spell damage against illusions, wards, buildings, or couriers Reflected damage Spells that remove Health instead of dealing direct damage Any damage dealt to self or allies A small number of abilities that do not use Lifesteal or Spell Lifesteal still result in healing and can benefit from Lifesteal Amp: Lifestealer's Open Wounds heals attackers for a percentage of the damage done Lifestealer's Feast heals for a percentage of the target's max health

Meepo's Ransack heals all Meepos a flat amount for each strike

7.33c
(2023-05-13)

• Increased item lifesteal against creeps from 50% to 60%.

7.32
(2022-08-24)

• Reduced item lifesteal against creeps from 100% to 50%.