Life steal heals off basic attacks only, reads the damage that got through rather than the damage you swung, and ignores healing amplification entirely. Vamp is the version that does the other thing. Here's which one you actually wanted.
League of Legends Guide
Life Steal and Vamp
Healing Off DamageLife steal reads the damage from your basic attacks and hands back a percentage as healing. That's the whole mechanic, and every complaint about the stat comes from one of the qualifiers attached to it.
The most useful of those: it's calculated on what got through, not on what you swung.
It only reads basic attacks
Ability damage doesn't feed life steal unless the engine treats that ability as an attack, so the stat is worth exactly what your auto attacks are worth. On a champion who spends fights casting, it's a dead stat no matter how much you buy.
The exception is real, though: several champions have a spell the engine counts as a basic attack, usually the ones that trigger on-hit effects, and those heal at your full percentage. That's why life steal is a serious buy on a few champions who barely auto attack and a trap on others who look like they should want it.
The heal comes off the damage that actually landed
Life steal is calculated after armor, magic resist and every reduction the target carries. It reads what got through.
This is the biggest reason the stat feels inconsistent. The same 20% heals you generously against a squishy target and barely at all against a tank, and the difference is precisely the resistances that were already giving you trouble.
Everybody starts at zero and it adds in a straight line
No champion has base life steal. All of it comes from items, runes and a handful of kits, and sources add 1:1 with no compounding.
Easy to plan, easy to over-buy. A second life steal item is rarely twice as good as the first, because the first already covers the sustained trading it was meant for.
Every life steal item, and how much it heals
Six of them on Summoner's Rift, and one is a component you'll own long before any of the others.
| Item | Heals for | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloodthirster |
15% | 3400g | The most life steal in the game, and once you're at full health the overflow turns into a shield instead of being thrown away. |
 Ravenous Hydra |
12% | 3300g | The only one whose healing isn't limited to attacks: the active's damage steals too, which is a large part of why bruisers clear waves with it. |
| Blade of the Ruined King |
10% | 3200g | Attack speed and current-health damage. Against a big health bar the heal is enormous, because the damage it's reading is enormous. |
 Mercurial Scimitar |
10% | 3200g | You're buying the cleanse. The 10% comes along for the ride. |
| Vampiric Scepter |
7% | 900g | The component all of the above are built from. It's also the cheapest way to survive a losing lane and often the correct first back. |
 Gunmetal Greaves |
5% | Free upgrade | Tier 3 attack speed boots, handed over at no cost to whoever completes the mid lane quest. |
One rune belongs on this list too. Legend: Bloodline pays out 0.45% per Legend stack up to fifteen stacks, so a fully stacked marksman is carrying about 6.75% they never spent gold on.
Most on-hit damage heals you, and some doesn't
The extra damage bolted onto your attacks by on-hit items usually feeds life steal. A handful are flagged not to, including the on-hit damage on starter items.
There's no pattern to memorize and no way to check it in the client, which is worth knowing mainly so you stop trying to reason it out mid-fight.
Vamp is the version that heals off everything
Where life steal only reads attacks, vamp reads damage more broadly, which is why the items carrying it end up on champions who cast rather than swing. If you're an ability champion holding a life steal item and wondering where the sustain went, you wanted the other stat.
They also behave differently under healing amplification. Heal and shield power raises most healing in the game and does nothing at all for life steal, which is treated as its own category. Vamp counts as drain healing and does get amplified. Two stats that read almost identically on an item description, and the moment anything boosts your healing they stop being the same thing.
Both are cut by 40% while Grievous Wounds is on you, which is the other reason a sustain build sometimes stops working for no visible reason.
Here's the vamp side of the shop, since it's where half of the "my life steal isn't working" complaints actually belong:
| Item | Heals for | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Elixir of Wrath |
12% physical vamp | 500g | Three minutes, and it only reads damage dealt to champions. Cheapest sustain on the board for a fight you know is coming. |
 Hextech Gunblade |
10% omnivamp | 3000g | Ability power and attack damage together, which is why it lands on the champions that use both. |
 Maw of Malmortius |
10% omnivamp | 3100g | Conditional. It arrives with the shield when magic damage drops you under 30%, and lasts until you leave combat. |
 Gluttonous Greaves |
4% omnivamp, up to 10% | 1000g | Every champion takedown adds 0.6%, ten times over. Boots that get better the longer the game runs. |
 Immortal Path |
4% omnivamp, up to 10% | Free upgrade | The tier 3 version of those boots, plus a damage swing that flips depending on whether you're above or below half health. |
 Endless Hunger |
5% omnivamp | 3100g | Goes up for a while whenever something you hit recently dies. |
 Doran's Blade |
2.5% omnivamp | 450g | A starting item, and the reason a lot of players never notice they have vamp at all. |
 Doran's Bow |
1.5% omnivamp | 400g | Same idea, less of it, on the marksman version. |
Frequently asked questions
Does life steal work on abilities?
Only on abilities the engine treats as basic attacks. Ordinary spell damage doesn't feed it.
Why does my life steal heal so little against tanks?
Because it reads post-mitigation damage. Their resistances shrink the heal as well as the damage.
What's the difference between life steal and omnivamp?
Life steal reads basic attacks only. Vamp reads damage broadly, and unlike life steal it benefits from heal and shield power.
Does life steal stack?
Yes, 1:1, with no compounding. The second item is usually the wrong buy anyway.
Does anti-heal stop life steal?
It reduces it by 40%, same as any other healing.
The short version
Buy life steal if you auto attack, buy vamp if you cast, and buy one of either. If the sustain has quietly stopped working, check for Grievous Wounds before you check your build.
For the debuff that turns it off, our anti-heal guide covers who should be applying it, and our resistances guide explains why the same percentage heals for so much less against a tank.
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