Talk:Bloodthirster/@comment-190.58.185.237-20120404193131

Before the lifesteal nerf, Infinity Edge was the best AD item available and Bloodthirster was second best, and taken after IE, or taken first if you could not farm an IE. IE was better because it gave decent AD, and CRIT chance; the +critDamage unique is nice too.

BT wasn't as "good" as IE because everytime you died, you were reduced to +60 AD which hurt a lot for your damage output. Now BT is almost exactly parallel with IE due to the stat-retention buff.

Infinity Edge = 3.8K gold: +80 atkDmg, +25% crit, +50% critDmg.

BT + Zeal = 4.2K gold: +60~100 atkDmg, + 12~20% lifesteal [, +10% crit, +20% atk speed, +8% movSpeed].

IE is now second item in AD core build. AD can now reliably respawn from death and re-farm the rest of BT's dmg. BT is now 100% viable first dmg item, and cheaper too, giving damage and sustain and allowing you to get a Zeal faster for more movement and attack speed