Meta Analysis: Lifestealer & The Newbee Draft
Lifestealer has had a rocky relationship with the professional scene. He’s seen and been it all, from first-pick material, over to occasional combo or niche pick to no love whatsoever. It certainly doesn’t help that the hero has been nerfed and buffed wildly and that he is heavily dependent on the meta and other favorable heroes.
At the Frankfurt and Shanghai Major, Lifestealer has been picked a total of 4 times, all of which were losses. Then, the meta changed just enough to make him viable again and he was the 4th most picked hero at the Manila Major. Now in 7.xx, he’s been among the top picks at both major LANs (ESL One Genting & Dota Pit). As a result, it feels only appropriate to talk about his strengths, and why especially the Chinese teams value him so much.
What allows Lifestealer to be in the meta right now?
6.85 introduced a significant buff to 
Infest, which allows 
Lifestealer to infest ancient creeps. That change alone brought the hero back into the pool of potential picks and even after the admittedly gimmicky interaction was nerfed, Lifestealer has stayed relevant.
A further buff to Infest in 6.86 decreased the spell’s cooldown quite significantly. 50 seconds at level 3 allow Lifestealer to remain a constant threat around the map, together with a teammate of course.
The new talents certainly help Lifestealer as well. Together with the in 6.86 increased 
Rage attack speed, Lifestealer is not as reliant anymore to build items for attack speed. He can itemize more flexible and isn’t punished by for building an early 
Abyssal Blade. Alternatively, he can also choose more damage at level 15 and 15 armor at level 25 will drastically improve his tankiness.
The professional meta right now looks towards fighting a lot. Lifestealer fits perfectly well into such a meta, especially with the currently popular heroes. Heroes like 
Slardar, 
Centaur Warrunner or 
Weaver are perfect heroes to infest and gank with, and they don’t even need to be played as a core, at least not Slardar or Weaver.
This used to be an issue for old line-ups, where Lifestealer was dependant on a Storm Spirit or a Queen of Pain to move and gank around the map. Now he can choose from a variety of heroes and often teams will run line-ups with multiple, potential infest targets. 
Ember Spirit or 
Queen of Pain are popular choices as well.
There is one more reason though for Lifestealer’s popularity, and this seems to be especially favored by Chinese teams.
Solo Pressure
Lifestealer is an incredibly self-sufficient hero. His skills allow him to stay in lane without needing to build into regeneration items and ganking or killing him is pretty difficult in most scenarios, certainly not with only one hero. He wins most 1v1 match-ups and cannot be easily pressured. In fact, he himself can apply a lot of pressure onto the opposing offlaner, even if he’s by himself. Especially against currently popular offlaners, Lifestealer can keep up the pressure and is able to dominate the lane.
This independence frees up the supports to do whatever it is they wish to do. They can be aggressive around the map, both in the mid and offlane, or they can farm up themselves in the jungle.
In comparison to other popular carries/cores, like 
Luna or 
Shadow Fiend, Lifestealer has no innate flashfarm potential. While constantly looking for fights and ganks may be possible for him, it can leave him underfarmed, especially if those ganks backfire.
Leaving the Lifestealer out of early engagements allows him to be ahead in farm and when he’s ahead in farm, he can take on most opponents with ease--it makes any Infest gank that much more threatening in later stages of the game.
Of course, Dota is a game with many variables, so sometimes Lifestealer will need to be part of fights early on. But it is this flexibility that makes him such a strong pick. He, unlike traditional hardcarries, can be part of early fights and still be effective.
The Newbee Draft
The Newbee Draft refers to a specific draft that perfectly showcases the strength of Lifestealer in the current meta. His ability to be self sustainable enables other lanes to be more aggressive and effective.
In their game vs. Team NP at ESL One Genting, Newbee drafted the following line-up:
In this line-up, Lifestealer will remain solo for most of the time, while the other four apply pressure on the other two lanes. The following video shows how well the Newbee supports move around the map early. They don’t give away their positions and create a pressure situation for NP. NP is unsure of where the supports are--they could have rotated mid, they could be behind the Centaur, waiting for an opportunity to fight. As a result, both NP supports are bound to the safelane and Luna does not feel safe farming.
Because of how long NP doesn’t have vision on Mirana, but now they see Shadow Demon, the team feels confident in advancing. Unfortunately for them, Mirana had snuck behind the lines already and is sitting in the treelines, waiting for an Arrow opportunity.
The draft very much relies on early aggression like this and provides a lot of flexibility. Depending on the enemy line-up, SD+Mirana can rotate freely between all three lanes and have a huge amount of kill potential. Most of the time, it’s not even necessary for both of them to rotate, creating more pressure for the enemy. If Mirana is off the map, she could be farming her own jungle, or sit in any of the three lanes, waiting for an opportuntiy.
Now, this strategy isn’t necessarily a strategy that relies much on Lifestealer. Several other teams have already drafted the same line-up, replacing Lifestealer for other, self-sufficient heroes such as 
Ursa or 
Sven. These heroes may tick similar boxes as Lifestealer, but it doesn't quite match up. Sven lacks the aggressive solo-kill potential and Ursa has no sustain without a Morbid Mask and self-sustain is incredibly important in the current meta, as the enemy offlaner has a shrine to fall back to; the safelaner does not.
At the same time, QoP seems much more replacable. While her midgame burst and mobility are close to unmatched (aside from Ember Spirit), it is not something that is absolutely vital to this line-ups success. What is vital, is the insurance that your own safelaner doesn't need help, so that the rest of the team can unfold its strength. Teams could normally counter such early aggression by applying pressure on the safelane carry, forcing a support back to help him. A Lifestealer rarely needs such help, certainly not in the current meta.
Massive Flexibility
Lifestealer is an incredibly strong hero right now. He offers a lot of flexibility in how to approach him and the entire teamplay. China has already recognized his talent--he’s the most picked carry in all of the Chinese online qualifiers and even the CDEC Masters (inhouse league).
As the DAC qualifiers commence this week, it will be interesting to see how Lifestealer will fare and if there will be a solution against it. For now, as heroes like Lone Druid and Ember Spirit remain, there is little room in the first ban phase for Lifestealer, which means there will be a lot of Infest-bombs in the next few weeks.
Headline Image by bounchfx, Andrew_Helenek & Puffin
1st? yooohooooo
2nd, first time commenting :D
10139414828th !!! Beat that !!!
What is this
lvl 25 talents are pretty boring... oh well
Wish you had put the best skill/item build, or the build used in that game at least. Also, why he is valued w Chinese teams, but not EU,CIS,NA/SA, or SEA
^fair points
though as for skill/itembuild, there's still lots of variation there (which I def shouldve mentioned)
Get pugna and he will be useless
Can't win them all I guess
I used to counter Lifestealer with Pugna. And it really worked in most of my matches against him. Drain the health, baby!
65% of people grab the 15% evasion, but the movement speed has a statistically significant advantage. Do you have any guesses as to why movement speed would be more valuable in its current form than the evasion?
Astute, funny, to the point -- thank you for this article sir!
Brock Hall stops him being kited as much, which is very important for lifestealer, whereas evasion sounds good but we wont be able to hit his targets cause he can't catch them
I hate this hero
troll>ls :)
Bah Naix should allways be in the games he makes for ganks fights teamfights so sick and tired of afk farming phantoms, windrangers, phantom assasin and im not even going to start on the got damn Alch tinker Boots of travel split fa**ots so sick n tired of it!!!
Fuck watched TI4 yesterday got damn that meta was fine and Alch was divine to look upon Powerthreads and meka and fighting no bounty shit runes only fighting fighting fighting fighting excellent fucking plays and a few fuckups due to skill but still so entertaining i doubt this game will ever be as entertaining ever again or as fun to play but atleast 7.00-> has been a little better than before since the comeback shit mechanic is nerfed slightly and it feels slightly just slightly easier to take Tower 3 but it mgiht just be in my head Ti1 is fine Ti2 is too easy ti3 is waaaaaay toooo hard.
@Dante
I would have said the same thing if it were a lvl 10 talent, but by that point the cc he needs to catch up to enemies can be provided by his supports or by a naix bomb. An extra 15 isn't even a windlace so it just seems like on paper the evasion would prove to be more beneficial at that point in the game.
My working theory was that the numbers might mean nothing because the majority of people are picking that talent so the winrate for the talent mirrors the winrate of the hero, but there has to be more than that to it. I mean, maybe it is as simple as you postulate, but for some reason that doesn't add up in my head either.
@Brock Hall:
25 MS is actually a lot and helps with one of his larger problems. You don't really want to build SnY just for the ms, so having that talent is fairly nice.
Your sups can't chain-cc throughout fights, ls is fairly often kited even later on in the game.
lifestealer: for NECROPHOS to poop on
@Old Raven
There aren't a lot of situations these days that you really want to build SnY, with echo blade and helm being as strong as they are. But that's not really the point. You have actually shown me the error of my thinking, as I misread the talent as 15 ms instead of 25 ms, which is more than a wind lace. You can have boots and a half without deviating from your item build, so yeah I see the point.
Still, something tells me that if you can go without the ms talent you should try to. If you can solve the problem through draft instead of by yourself, you probably will be better off in the long run. Something else tells me that this is what a lot of people think and are wrong. The ms gives you a little more flexibility in your playstyle, as it is helpful both in teamfights and for post fight mobility through jungles, as ls isn't the most efficient farmer.
Thanks for the weigh in, you corrected a really important assumption in my argument and it really changes my perspective.
I see Newbee I press Like
KY KLYS KLAN
Soon ember spirit will build orchid to counter him.
this article didn't go over lifestealer at all
Lifestealer Lovers :3
maybe new meta tanker ls xD
look his talents ohh my god
LS is da Power!
pretty good information there
ollololoi