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Spellvamp vs. Lifesteal

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21 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Cliff Walrus

Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (21) More Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Vlad the spell vampire
Sherrif Caitlyn has a bulge

Spells:

Heal

Garrison

Items

Ability Order

Vladimir Passive Ability

Who the hell are you?

Well I'm not anybody special. I'm a bronzie who seems to circle around B1 with lp as low as 3 and as high as 97. In short I suck at the game. My only request is as follows:

When you comment, refrain from the use of words like viable and optimal. It pains me to see them misused so much in this community.

Why should you listen to me?

You shouldn't. You should listen to math. Just because I can't capitalize on the numbers doesn't mean they aren't right. I run these charts and sheets in excel for a lot of comparisons, is it possible I made a math mistake? The same way I constantly make mistakes in game and throw? Technically yes...stop attacking my pride,that hurts. But I've checked and rechecked (feel free to triple check my numbers). I will admit I use some itemization and spec choices that some might consider "bad" and it inflates the numbers. I also tend to round down or not round at all and take the lowest benefit scenario for comparisons. Which makes it so my numbers and percentages are actually enhancing the differences between what is being compared. I use exact calculations instead of rounding to whole numbers like the game client does. Which further proves the gaps and advantages they provide.

Vlad the bloodman

For some reason you say spell vamp and everybody thinks of this guy. I understand why, he is probably the best example to prove how much spellvamp can heal an AP caster but high healing Vlad is generally low damage Vlad. The main reason being that you would have to have a spell that deals high damage(check), good scaling(check), and a low cooldown(check) however; many cdr items that have AP also include mana which is a useless stat for Vlad. Please note this is a comparison for the highest spellvamp and healing possible scenario, meaning I'm not saying you would replicate this build/rune/mastery set up with success in game. Also note that this sacrifice of damage for healing applies to all AP champions.

Caitlyn the sherrifman

I just want everybody to see what I see in that sheriff skin splash art. Seriously though, the reason I picked Cait is because she has no AS or AD steroids and that makes my job easier. Heck I didn't even factor in her passive, reinforcing my claim about least advantageous comparisons. She also has insane range and therefore safety which is one of my major gripes with most ad carries. In essence I have the epitome of both Lifesteal and Spellvamp.

Runes and Masteries for Vlad

I avoided typical defensive runes even the health ones because the conversion to AP would reduce the base number I had to work with.

Masteries for Cait

Runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Phase Rush

The choice here was mostly on the seals, because crit damage makes lifesteal scale ridiculously but crit chance of 33.78 would round to 40% in game and made my 3/10 attacks are crits calculation easier to handle. Again I inflated the attack damage and would suggest you not put this exact rune page into practice because you will be eaten alive.

Spellvamp Damage explination

Spoiler: Click to view

Vlad clears blue:
Step1: Q golem
Step2: E camp
Step3: Q goelm
Step4: E golem
dead

Total damage: 2879.26
Total healing: 1295.96
Total time: 10.2 seconds

Attack speed, Crits, and Life steal and Penetration

Spoiler: Click to view

I am assuming Cait does 2 attacks per second(she actually does more but I can't find her base attack speed I'm just assuming that with a +110% she would have a base attack around 1 so there is a 10% margin of error. Lifesteal is just a percentage of the damage dealt meaning a critical strike increases lifesteal. Critical damage is normally 200% damage with this set up from masteries there is 5% so 205% damage.
Also worth noting is there is no and I skipped the penetration masteries as well as no which would further increase the damage dealt thereby more lifesteal.

What does all that mean?

Well simply put another would add 10% LS and 10 AD. Swapping a for would increase lifesteal on crits by 67.11% in favor of IE. Which number is bigger: 20% of 100 or 10% of 255?

AD damage explination

Spoiler: Click to view

Cait clears Red
Step1: AA Elder
Step2: AA Elder
Step3: Crit Elder
Step4: AA Elder
Step5: AA Elder
Step6: Crit Elder
Dead

Regular no crit on Lizards
Step 7a: AA
Step 8a: AA
dead
Step 9a: AA
Step 10a: AA
dead

Total damage: 2210.34
Total healing: 1226.51
Total time 5.1 seconds (assuming attack move/continuous fire to the camp .1 is target switching)

Crit both Lizards
Step 7b: crit
dead
Step 8B: crit
dead

Total damage: 2632.94
Total Healing: 1622.06
Total Time: 4.1 seconds (assuming continuous fire/attack move to the camp the .1 is target switching)

Why Life steal is always better

Vlad clears blue:

Total damage:2879.26
Total healing: 1295.96
Total time: 10.2 seconds

Cait clears red no crits on little lizards:

Total damage: 2210.34
Total healing: 1226.51
Total time: 5.1 seconds (assuming attack move/continuous fire to the camp)

Cait clears red with crits on little lizards:

Total damage: 2632.94
Total Healing: 1622.06
Total Time: 4.1 seconds (assuming continuous fire/attack move to the camp)

Match up

non crits lifesteal is WORSE with spellvamp being 5.36% more healing. However lifesteal does it in 50% of the time.
Crit scenario lifesteal is 20.1% more healing in 40.20% of the time

Why is it like this Cliff?

Well mostly its because the highest ad items also grant lifesteal or crit which benefits lifesteal more than stacking lifesteal. The 33% aoe reduction on spell vamp also kills it, spellvamp gains effectiveness if targets are greater than three. If there was no reduction 66% spell vamp would actually beat 39% lifesteal it would even beat the crit scenario. I could calculate the % difference currently but I've probably bored you enough already. (I lied, here's more numbers to break your brain, non crit is 43.02% better crit scenario is %24.64 better). Just believe me when I say if it was a 20% AOE reduction 66% Spell vamp would seem about equal to 39% lifesteal in healing (only for the crit scenario) but still take twice as long to do it. Thanks for reading and stay tuned if you like theorycrafting I'm currently working on another guide(s).