League of Legends Life Steal

What does life steal do?

Life steal is an offensive stat which grants healing equal to a percentage of the damage dealt by basic attacks, including those that are modified (such as Siphoning Strike or Sheen). It applies to abilities that trigger on-hit effects (e.g. Mystic Shot, Parrrley, Steel Tempest). It does not benefit from Heal Power (meaning that items like Redemption or Ardent Censer won't make life steal more potent). Most items that deal on-hit damage benefit from life steal.

The heal is based on the post-mitigation damage dealt, or after sources of armor, magic resistance, and damage reduction are taken into account to the damage.

All champions have 0% base life steal, but it can be increased by some items, runes, and abilities.

Some Abilities with Life Steal

SOUL EATER Nasus gains 12 / 18 / 24% (based on level) bonus life steal.

VICIOUS STRIKES Olaf empowers his axes for 6 seconds, gaining bonus attack speed, bonus life steal, and 0% − 33% (based on missing health) increased healing from all sources for the duration.

IRON WILL Lee Sin gains bonus life steal and bonus spell vamp for 4 seconds.

Items with Life Steal

VAMPIRIC SCEPTER A necessary item component to most life steal and omnivamp items in the game. Most often built on marksman champions or bruisers to sustain themselves in lane. Although not a basic item, Vampiric Scepter is the item from which the gold value for the stat life steal is deviated (approximately 37.5 per percentage of life steal).

BLOODTHIRSTER A very gold efficient and super life steal oriented item. Most often built on ranged marksmen because of the critical strike chance stat which they can further improve by also purchasing Infinity Edge. The passive shield can serve as the additional defense for the user and it can protect them from incoming threats when used correctly.

IMMORTAL SHIELDBOW One of 3 key mythic items for most marksmen. Additional max health from mythic passive, lifesteal and lifeline shield, makes Immortal Shieldbow great for survivability and defense, while still providing great offensive stats. Outside of marksmen, this item can also be bought on crit scaling assassins like Yasuo, Tryndamere or Yone.

BLADE OF THE RUINED KING A very good and effective item built by a lot of champions in League of Legends. Many bruisers like Irelia marksmen like Ashe and hypercarries like Kog'Maw find this item essential in all their builds. The item passive can serve for anti-tank purposes as way to deal with health stacking champions like Shen or Zac.

GUARDIAN's HAMMER A damage oriented starting item for most bruisers and marksmen on ARAM. Thanks to it's 173% gold efficiency, Guardian's Hammer is the 8th most gold efficient item in the game. Even though it is a starting item, it counts as a legendary item (meaning that it grants you mythic passive bonuses) and it can be sold for 70% of its cost at any time.