Dota 2 how to jungle with lifestealer

6.88 LifeStealer Jungle Guide/Build

Farm Based Mid/Late Jungler

DotA2 Hero: Lifestealer

Purchase Order

Starting Items

By around 15 minutes

Cores

Extensions

As of 6.88 Echo sabre pickup rather than Sange and Yasha

Hero Skills

Feast

Open Wounds

Infest

Talents

6.88 LifeStealer Jungle Guide/Build

1.	Introduction
2.	Items
3.	Farming
4.	Friends and Foes
5.	Summary

Introduction

This is just a quick build guide for lifestealer 6.87. In my opinion, Lifestealer is this meta is one if not the most overpowered hero if played correctly. LS scales well into the late game and can come online fairly early with correct farm, rune and possible ganks.

Using this build and farming correctly can easily give the opponents a big surprise as you pop out the jungle with more items than anyone in the game and start bursting them down with a couple of right clicks. LS can then transition into a pushing, pubstomping maniac.

Personally: Lifestealer in pubs jungling is more reliable than in lane as you have no guarantee of supports, wards etc. But in a more structured environment, feel free to lane LS.

Items

With the buff to armlet-of-mordiggian in 6.87, armlet is now pretty much a standard go to early game item for lifestealer. It gives him that extra strength boost for survivability and that much needed attack speed. The attack speed bonus combined with open wounds lifesteal and a possible midas attack speed bonus, means that the negative drain from armlet is virtually ignored when right clicking. (Free attack speed and DMG)

Hand of Midas : This gives you extra farm capability, you can farm faster, extra xp and gold once every 100 seconds and gives you that extra attack speed in early game confrontations.

Phase Boots prevents kiting to a degree early game and gives that lovely extra damage.

Sange and Yasha again prevents kiting and gives that much needed attack speed and DMG . (Slows every 5 seconds and 16% movement increase)

Desolator just gives cheap damage and is great for right clicks. Combined with attack speed, reduces armour even more significantly resulting in a massive amount of right click damage when focusing one target.

Assault Cuirass gives again, 35+ attack speed and grants an extra 10 armour to soften blows. Also gives a nice aura to the team which can help with pushing towers and Rax late game.
The extra attack speed aura combined with Open Wounds also means allies can gain lifesteal more frequently due to that extra speed. (Nice when focusing one tanky target for example the opponents carry etc.)

Skull Basher on Lifestealer can be a game changing item. When it procs you get a 1.4 second stun and an additional 85 damage. The bash can be crucial when chasing an enemy, stopping an enemy right clicker or preventing a hero from getting a team fight changing ability off. Basher also makes you less easy to kite (One of LS problems after open wounds is on cooldown) Definitely a great pickup to lockdown enemies by allowing you those extra right clicks. (+ it makes you look scary xD)

Mjollnir simply gives attack speed and damage, exactly what you want. And with the static charge you can protect yourself or an ally during a crowded team fight, allowing for the lighting (20% chance) to proc 4 enemies and deal 200 damage.

Blade Mail – Right clickers like ursa and burst damage dealers. (Buffed as of 6.87)

Farming

Here are a couple of tips to farming with Lifestealer quickly and efficiently.
Firstly, ABUSE IRON TALON . Iron Talon will drastically improve your farming speed and ability to get your 14-15 minute Phase Armlet Midas. Iron talon deals damage based on the amount of HP a creep has so ideally use it at the start of taking a camp to maximize efficiency. (Use on biggest creep)
A HUGE trick is to know that iron talon procs with open wounds therefore when you are jungling and you are low, cast Open Wounds on the largest creep, then use iron talon and receive a huge instant HP boost (Will test if close wounds procs with midas?).

Getting the Bounty Rune every two minutes can be vital to really maximizing your farm and getting a maximum gold for your efforts. Keep track of the time on the clock and make sure you are in the s > Bottle heroes). In most cases personally I would let the midlaner take it if they have directly left lane at the 50 second mark to get it. If not, they probably didn’t have an intention to claim it so better you have it rather than an enemy support.

Chokepoint jungling: All credits of this video to the maker. Sums choke pointing up and shows you how to do it.

Note: Cutting down trees to improve jungling speed is a viable option. Use either tangoes or purchase quelling blade

Friends and Foes

Oracle spammable heal M > False Promise is used. Lifestealer can heal himself up by right clicking enemies in a team fight by using Open Wounds and Feast . Essentially allows him to fight for longer and gives extra survivability.

The global taxi combo. Easy pickoffs on over-extending enemy heroes or lone supports.
Charge of Darkness Whilst Infest ed can result in deadly pickoffs.

Great combo for lifestealer to rotate into the safelane with meepo and get some free kills. Firstly Meepo initiates with Earthbind , Lifestealer casts Open Wounds whilst all meepos Poof resulting in the meepos being healed and the target to take a whole load of nuke damage from that and from LS’s right clicks under rage.

In general Lifestealer is friends with any blink in initiator. In 6.87 the most commonly used ones are Axe with his Beserker’s Call Blink Dagger and possible Blade Mail Combo. Also Puck s blink in, Silence, Dream coil combo whilst infested can be devastating.

BE CREATIVE WITH IT!

Bane can easily take down lifestealer using Fiends Grip as it goes through LS Rage magic immunity rendering you incapable of doing anything and a punchbag for enemy heroes. Not fun. Be very wary in the early game if playing vs a bane as the enemy may smoke up and try to hamper your farm by killing you and warding camps.

Batrider Flaming Lasso Pierces Rage . As one of the the main damage dealers on your team, makes you a nice target to initiate on in order to get you out of the way first. Try wait until Lasso is popped or on cooldown.

Same as Batrider , Primal Roar Pierces your magic immunity, stunning you and making you unable to cause chaos in team fights.

In general any heroes that can pierce his magic immunity such as those previously named and items that can pierce Rage also. Such as Abysall Blade.
To add to this Naix cannot DPS illusion heroes like Phantom Lancer and Chaos Knight . Combined with CKs illusions and stun, Naix becomes useless unless targeting the real hero. (Still takes DMG from the illusions)

Kiting is also problem so agility heroes can be a problem when not slowed and out of range.