Life steal

Life steal (LS) is a stat that restores health to the attacker on all basic attacks, including effects or abilities that modify the basic attack (such as Nasus' Siphoning Strike or Spellblade). On-hit effects do not apply life steal.

Life steal is calculated from the effective damage done by the attack, after modifiers and mitigation (i.e. armor).

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

Increasing life steal

The following is true life steal. It does not benefit from Heal Power.

Item	Cost	Amount	Availability
Bilgewater Cutlass Bilgewater Cutlass	1600	10 %	All maps
Blade of the Ruined King Blade of the Ruined King	3300	12 %	All maps
Doran's Blade Doran's Blade	450	3 %	Summoner's Rift, Twisted Treeline
Doran's Lost Blade Doran's Lost Blade	450	8 %	Nexus Blitz
Guardian's Hammer Guardian's Hammer	950	10 %	Howling Abyss
Mercurial Scimitar Mercurial Scimitar	3400	10 %	All maps
Might of the Ruined King Might of the Ruined King	3300	12 %	All maps
Ravenous Hydra Ravenous Hydra	3500	12 %	All maps
Stat-Stick of Stoicism Stat-Stick of Stoicism	7237	10 %	Nexus Blitz
Vampiric Scepter Vampiric Scepter	900	10 %	All maps

The following is really similar to life steal, but is not really life steal. It benefits from Heal Power.

Life steal stacks additively, and has no cap.
Spirit Visage's passive is a unique multiplicative increase, so if you had 10% life steal before, you will now have 13%, and not 40% life steal (10% × 1.3 = 13% life steal).
Life steal will heal from all damage done to minions, monsters, pets and champions.
- Life steal will not heal from damage done to towers and inhibitors.
Life steal works for abilities that apply on-hit effects such as Mystic Shot and Parrrley, and doesn't work for abilities that don't apply on-hit effects, nor with item actives like with Blade of the Ruined King.
Life steal does not work with True damage, for example Master Yi's Wuju Style.
Healing reduction effects like Ignite and Varus' Hail of Arrows reduce the health restored by life steal.
Blade of the Ruined King's bonus damage healing is considered a drain effect, so even though you would take life steal to increase its healing, it will be affected by Heal Power.

See Healing reduction for more information.

Last updated: November 21, 2017 - V7.23

The maximum achievable life steal by a playable champion is 287.43% on Sion. Take notice this is not the stat shown in game. It's just the % amount of healing you get from basic attacks.
Runes:
- Legend: Bloodline
- Revitalize
Items:
- 1 The Bloodthirster
- 1 Death's Dance
- 1 Hextech Gunblade
- 1 Spirit Visage
- A combination of two of any of the following items:
  - Blade of the Ruined King
  - Ravenous Hydra
Buffs:
- Sion's Glory in Death
- Elixir of Wrath
Life Steal Multiplier:
- Spirit Visage
- Revitalize
Relevant mathematics:
- Sion's life steal:
  - Items = 20% + 15% + 15% + 2 × 12% = 74%
  - Runes = 12% = 12%
  - Buffs = 100% + 15% = 115%
  - Heal Multiplier = 1.3 × 1.1 = 1.43
    - Sion's life steal = (74% + 12% + 115%) × 1.43 = 287.43% life steal

v · e

Offensive	Ability power · Attack damage · Attack speed · Critical strike chance · Critical strike damage · Armor penetration · Magic penetration · Life steal · Spell vamp · True damage
Defensive	Heal and shield power · Health · Health regeneration · Armor · Magic resistance · Tenacity · Slow resist
Utility	Cooldown reduction · Energy · Energy regeneration · Mana · Mana regeneration
Other	Experience · Gold generation · Movement speed · Range